Kyrion sat in a circle in deep meditation as his mind was projected out of his body into a form that mirrored his own.

Standing in a savanna in front of him was a cart that had been turned over. The brown grass was stained with blood as an arrow had pierced the horse’s head. Outside the cart, a woman clutched a small child in her arms as 2 bandits approached, both frozen in time.

Lok appeared next to him with a solemn expression.

“This place exists nowhere but the scene is a common one in some places. The world won’t be kind, I’m sure you know that. Your job is to save the woman and child. Good luck.” Lok faded from view.

“What, nothing else?” Kyrion asked as time resumed, and the bandits were alerted. But unfortunately, both civilians were killed before he could act, and he felt the world reset and pause.

“What in the abyss was that?” Kyrion’s eyes widened as the scene began again. The bandits were the same, but the civilians were slightly different. New faces, new clothes but the same screams. Kyrion was too frozen to act and watched as both were killed again. The realism of the whole scene caught him off guard.

The third reset began, and Kyrion was ready.

“Stop! Or I’ll….” An arrow pierced Kyrion’s skull from somewhere out of sight.

The fourth reset began.

Kyrion covered himself in a wall of wind before yelling. “Stop now, or I’ll be forced to kill you!”

The two bandits turned. Rusty swords were raised to engage the intruder.

An arrow bounced off Kyrion’s wall, and Kyrion ran forward.

He punched through the first bandit’s stomach and began to kill the second when he saw two arrows pierce the people he was working to save.

The eighth reset began, and Kyrion opened by cutting off the head of the first bandit with a blade of wind before brutally ripping the heart out of the second. A wind wall intercepted the arrows as Kyrion eyed the location where the arrows came.

“Rend.” He whispered as the bandit archer was tuned into ribbons of flesh.

“Monster!” The woman clutched her child and backed away, pointing the blade at him before she did something unexpected.

He had saved them, so why did they resort to extreme measures.

Kyrion froze as blood pooled around him, and he found that he needed to recenter.

On the 21st reset, Kyrion acted by freezing the blood in bandit 1’s brain, causing them to collapse as a wind wall covered the bandits.

Bandit two turned as a palm strike discreetly removed their heart and sent it to his domain. The wind wall stayed up, blocking arrows as Kyrion motioned to strain himself.

“Find cover! I need to get close to the archer!”

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter, just go!” Kyrion ordered as he expanded the wall and rapidly approached. Slipping behind the bandit and snapping their neck unperturbed.

The world froze, and Kyrion was floating in an empty white space. There were no walls and no visible floor or ceiling. There was no source of light.

“The ruthless approach tends to make people fear you. Some will choose death over being in the hands of someone who chose to kill with such brutality. You’ve been in a similar situation before with Bastion. Only you didn’t have to deal with archers. The bandits also cared more about their target than they did about you.”

“What about that arrow? It shouldn’t have worked.”

“Magic arrows exist. Not that it matters. Your endurance is limited for this calibrating trial. You succeeded at a decent pace, not the fastest but also not the slowest.”

“Others had to do this?”

“Yes, most break after their first failure. Others break after the 3rd, many give up before making it to nine. You froze but never asked to stop the test. You took a while thinking but that was after a near success failed. I never saw hope leave and I didn’t feel much hesitation in killing. The warning proved useless as they were never going to talk.”

“Do they not talk here?”

“Not for this test. They have a simple set of orders.”

“Orders?”

“Yup. Only the civilians had a semblance of free will. The next runs through here, will have enemies with increasing levels of autonomy until they are at the level of a human. This is why you only get one day of training for a week.”

“Ah, break my mind and give me six days to recover?”

“No. Break your mind then let you go train on your own. But you aren’t as effected as you’d like me to think.”

“Anything else? Any more torture?” Kyrion didn’t seem as bothered by the accusation.

“No, but you should start looking for your wind core this week in the forest to the south west of the tower. If you see Max don’t interfere with his training, you can heal him if he’s asleep but don’t get caught by him.” Lok said.

“Fine.” Kyrion left the tower and brought his house out of his domain.

He opened the door and went to his room to get some rest. He needed the nap, his mind was too drained. After that, he’d go check on his friends.

“What was that?” Hel asked her teacher.

“Training. Along with a psychological test.” The shrouded figure replied.

“Why would you test that?”

“To gauge how realistic the next few stages of his training would be. He isn’t squeamish, but there was a little hesitation. He didn’t start dry heaving so it’s clear he isn’t exactly disturbed by death. Most don’t actually try, most give up and say that it’s hopeless.”

“So he’s stubborn.”

“That isn’t quite it.”

“Well he is a healer, I don’t think this is the first time he’d seen a human die in his time here.”

“You would be correct. A small amount of students die in training, some of those die from natural causes, others organ failures caused by poisons or magical injuries. He’s probably lost 1 for every fifty he could save.”

“Wait what?”

“Yeah, students your age have died. This clearly isn’t the first time he watched someone he was trying to save die. He was too calm. Did you catch anything else?”

“He was too brutal during the eight round.”

“Yeah, that was out of character but explainable. He over compensated and killed like a tool meant to do nothing else. Hopefully you understand the implication.”

“He can be dangerous when he wants to be. Tomorrow you shadow Ander, now go get some rest.” The hooded man collapsed and vanished as an empty robe hit the ground.

“Sleep sounds pretty good actually.” Upon leaving the tower, Hel noticed a large house that hadn’t been there before. Unfortunately, she wasn’t curious, so soon after finding the building, she scampered off.

Max had just finished drying off his clothes near a fire when he heard some rumbling behind him.

Upon turning, a small blue raccoon-like creature approached from the brush, looking for something to eat.

Max eyed it suspiciously as the creature circled around him. He knew that look. Kyrion wore that look on his face when he was up to something, and his intuition was rarely wrong.

More rustling sounded behind Max, and he turned only to see something fuzzy quickly duck back into the brush.

That was when the attack came.

Claws scraped across Max’s back as the raccoon tackled him to the ground.

Using his meager training, Max knocked the raccoon off of him.

The raccoon scrambled to its feet and charged toward him again.

Max countered with a kick to the creature’s maw that did some damage, but it was nowhere near enough to put it down.

The raccoon rolled to its feet. Next, it began to quickly circle around Max, aiming to disorient the human.

Max sadly fell for it as blood flowed down his back. The boy tripped over his own feet, and the creature pounced.

Biting and claw strikes aimed at the boy’s throat fell short as adrenaline gave him access to strength he didn’t have.

The raccoon eased closer and closer as Max struggled to keep it away. They wouldn’t let him die here, would they? Had he been anyone else in his group, he could have easily beaten something like this alone. Unfortunately, he wasn’t strong like Kyrion, tough like Brion, or capable like Ander. He had no combat abilities of his own. Which was quite odd for a spirit master. Most tamers had an ability or two they could use to defend themselves, but he didn’t. Max was like his sister in that regard. He didn’t properly know how to best use his abilities.

Suffice it to say Max had accepted that if he died here, then he had lived an ok life up until now. But he wasn’t giving up without a fight.

A chain of mana snaked around Max’s right arm as he pushed the raccoon towards his left shoulder, letting the creature get out a bite. As he let it loose.

Pain shot through him as he grabbed a sharp stick from his campfire and plunged it through the creature’s neck, causing it to rapidly cook before becoming a cooked corpse.

Max pulled out a potion that Kyrion had given him before the trip and drank it, his wounds repairing themselves rapidly. However, a scar would probably remain until Kyrion could heal it properly.

As another blue raccoon was flung at him, more rustling came from the brush behind him. However, this raccoon was clearly dead.

The rustling continued as an orange owl waddled out of the brush. It looked left and right before looking at Max.

“I really don’t want to fight you.” Max said with a mix of fear and sincerity.

The owl didn’t attack. Instead, it looked at the cooked corpse of the other raccoon with respect before looking at Max expectantly.

Max motioned for the owl to take the raccoon and watched as the creature was rapidly consumed. The owl then looked at the raccoon it had brought before looking back at Max.

Max took a knife from a sheath and began skinning and dressing. He wasn’t an expert at the process, but it was raccoon meat, so it probably didn’t matter.

“Fine, I’ll cook it.” Max began roasting the strange raccoon as the owl looked on in curiosity.

The two kept quiet until Max seemed to grow more curious than wary.

“So. Owl. Do you have a name?”

The owl turned its head, looking away from the young human.

“I take that as a no. So you have no name. Would you like one?”

The owl gazed at Max with a calculating look.

Max took the meat off the fire and examined it. It smelt like cooked meat, not delicious whatsoever. He wasn’t a chef, but he was sure the owl actually cared.

After the meat cooled enough to be eaten, the owl seemed to open its beak considerably before sucking the large mammal up and consuming it whole. The law of conservation of mass was, in fact, broken. Although it wasn’t enough to surprise him.

“So… Was it good?”

The owl hooted in satisfaction before looking at the human with curiosity.

“What? Do you want to follow me around or something?”

The owl nodded.

“Well then. If you’re going to follow me, then you’ll need a name. How does Arthur sound? As a friend of mine would say, you look like an Arthur. That whole dignified air.”

The owl stomped a taloned foot in agreement. Arthur then took up a regal-looking pose before a Chain shot out from Max and connected to the owl before fading.

Max then let out a yawn before passing out soon after.

“The power of a ruler. Such a shame the headmaster didn’t notice sooner.” An older woman said, perched above Max.

“The power of a ruler, you say? What is that?” Asked a curious red-haired boy.

“When the!” The old woman looked as though she was going to have a heart attack.

“Shhh. You’ll wake him up. I’m pretty sure that this is meant to be some high stakes survival training.”

“I swear, something isn’t right about you. No normal human should be able to hide their presence from detection so naturally.”

“Huh, I just assumed everyone here could tell that I’ve arrived. Since Bastion’s never had a problem spotting me.”

“What sort of Abyssal daycare did the headmaster dig through to find little hellion’s like you all.”

“Most of it is nepotism. Pretty sure my mom was friends with the headmaster.”

“Oh. I retract my question. Kid. Are you the grandson of Alexander the Red?”

“Does it matter?”

“That man has angered quite a few people in his relatively short time here. Me included.”

“Are you going to try to kill me if so?”

“No. Anger doesn’t mean hate in this case. You can’t choose your family after all.”

Kyrion squinted, “So, what is this power of kings?”

“You’re dangerous. Aren’t you? Didn’t even get distracted.”

“Got it. It’s something I’m not supposed to know. So long as you’re looking after him I shouldn’t have to worry. Should I plant some healing berries nearby so that he can forage and prepare?”

“A good friend aren’t you. But how will he learn if you just give them away?”

“I could splice them with something else or spread poisonous bushes.”

“Maybe you aren’t as nice as you let on.”

“This is training. The poison won’t be lethal. Just inconvenient at most. Burning tongue puffy lips. Green spots on his shin. Light itching. That sort of thing. If I’m helping with his training I’ll keep things balanced. The real question is why this hasn’t come up sooner? He has used his powers as a tamer for a while.”

“The first beast is known as the foundational beast, one must form a bond with a wild spirit, it can’t be domesticated or tamed by magical means. They also can’t be properly passed down until the foundational beast has been obtained.”

“Why didn’t he do that sooner then?” Kyrion shrugged.

“There are different kinds of powers out there, his type is rare, one of the most recent to have a similar power was known as the Demon Lord.”

“And the headmaster wanted to make sure that he was at least mentaly stable enough before bringing out his full potential.”

“No, he just couldn’t figure out why someone who trains a reasonable amount was stagnating in the power department while only glimpses of his ability have been shown. He isn’t limited to animals, but his first should be one. His real ability is amplification. Anything under his control can be used to its full potential and beyond. That includes people to a much lesser extent. He won’t be slinging fireballs anytime soon so don’t worry.”

“Good. That will keep him from becoming like his sister.” Kyrion stood up from his position on the tree branch and held out a handful of seeds. With an exertion of wind mana, they flowed all over the forest before planting themselves, and with some mana sent to nurture them, the fruits would be ready for consumption in six hours.

Almost as quickly as Kyrion had appeared, he vanished without a trace. No trace of his presence being left behind. Not even a creak in the branches as he moved about.

“Where in the abyss did something like that crawl out of? Thats an assassination skill. Erase your mind, erase your breath, erase your presence, erase yourself.”

Ander was covered in blade wounds from various stabs and slices. One could say that he was a walking corpse.

Maldain thrust his green-eyed blade through Ander’s chest near his heart and watched as a small crack formed on the shaft of the boy’s spear. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Too bad that things ended here today.

Ander collapsed as all his wounds were rapidly healed, the sword returning to its sheath.

“That’s one powerful training tool.”

“Isn’t it amazing? I can fight as long as I want with something like this.”

“Huh?”

“If I heal my opponent then we can fight indefinitely or at least until they get a lucky strike and kill me.” Maldain said stoically.

“I. See. Well then let’s continue.”

“No. You’re done for today.”

“If I push you anymore you may break.”

“I’m not weak willed.”

“No. I mean, I may actually break your spirit and then you’ll be injured in a way I can’t heal. Your next lesson is in five days. Do the meditation exercises and get some rest while you can. I know your limits now and I will push you towards them,” Maldain pointed to the crack in Ander’s spear.

“It’s been two days already?”

“That it has. You can hardly stand in the state you’re in. Now go. I was promised a fight with someone half a world away and would like to get that over with. People like me are always busy.” The gold-eyed swordsman flew upwards and away at a speed that distorted the clouds.

“If he can fly then maybe I shouldn’t be fighting on the ground.Then again, I barely survived on the ground. There are more variables in the air and it’s not like I’ll be fighting in the air often enough.”