Druid

"Why are you crying, little monster?" asked a smiling Charles from behind her.

Ava got scared and screamed, then finally seeing it was Sparky, she patted her chest and calm down and looked at him happily.

"I am sorry, Ava. I was a bit late. I had to take care of a few things. Aren't you hungry? Come have dinner!"

With a wave of his hand, a tray carrying two meals and cutleries materialised in the room. Overwhelmed by the emotions and the feeling that someone she liked and thought to have left forever, return with food, was a first for her.

Seeing the crying Ava, Charles hugged the girl, whose height was close to his chest level. He did what he could to console her, by hugging her and letting her cry, to vent her stifled feelings. After a few minutes, her crying stopped and he wiped her tears and snot off using his sleeves. He made her sit on a chair and moved the tray in front of her.

"I am sorry, Sparky. I made your clothes dirty!" she apologized with her head bent down.

Charles just laughed it off and chided her:

"Are you blind, little monster? My clothes reek of the fight earlier and all the blood from it. Just relax and eat now!"

He opened the plate covers and the smell of the delicious food wafted into her face. Her stomach growled, but she still held back and looked at Charles for confirmation. Seeing that he was about to get mad from her over-politeness, she dug into the food.

After a while,

"I could not believe that much food could fit in your little stomach. It was good that I took enough." said Charles looking at the red-faced Ava with a smile.

Charles took back the tray, and asked Ava about her origins.

Earlier, the villages told him that she was a monster or demon of sorts and she speaks to beasts as well. An old lady by the name of Beth had taken Ava in, when she fled to this village. After which, the villagers starting from the kids noticed her 'weirdness' as they put it. A few weeks after Beth took Ava in her care, she died due to her age. But for the villagers, it was more than enough to come with theories and rumours that Ava had a hand in it. Ava was isolated from the village, and had to forage for food for the last two days in the forest south of the village.

Ava didn't say anything, but she closed her eyes and then suddenly a huge transformation occurred. Charles saw that her skin was turning sky-blue with ultramarine coloured patterns appearing at certain places of her body and face, which gave anyone gazing at her an aesthetic pleasure. Her eyes remained the same, but her blue hair colour changed to ultramarine too. Her ears extended a bit outwards at the edge too, a synergy of human and beast.

"You are really beautiful!" Charles blurted out in a trance.

"Thanks" Ava blushed on receiving a compliment about her appearance from the fourth person in her life.

She didn't keep the transformation and changed back, which caused Charles to feel the same as in his previous life, when his mom pulled the TV plug off, while he was watching his favourite show.

"Hey! How about this? Whenever we are alone, you can turn into your original form if you are comfortable with it. And if you want to look that way while going outside, you can do that too. I will protect you from those who wish to harm you."

"If that's what you want!" replied Ava happily.

"No! No! I meant you should not consider my preference or anyone else's for that matter." Charles nervously tried to explain.

Ava didn't say anything but just transformed and she was happy seeing Charles smiling in a trance again.

Charles felt like he stared for too long and was long past the point of being rude, so he coughed to hide his embarrassment and got back to topic.

"So what are you?"

"I don't know either. I can also talk to beasts." Ava said in a pondering manner.

'Is she a druid?' thought Charles.

Charles read the data floating above her head.

[Lv 4 Druid]

For faster processing, Charles phases out the floating data of most people like civilians and kids, but now he felt that he should pay close attention to them as he may discover something unexpected.

After asking a bit about Beth, he told her to sleep. But he was forced to sleep together with her in the end, since she is afraid that he will run away. The little girl soon fell asleep, while Charles who had changed his clothes and was pretending to sleep, had his focus on the improved cultivation technique.

He couldn't realize what was the 'seriously wrong thing ' that he had felt earlier. Realizing that thinking for the past one hour did not let him gain any new insight, he felt that he could easily find the reason, if the entire cultivation path of knights was studied, synthesised and the final product analysed.

To realize this, he first required the complete cultivation technique. The strongest person of the Novark family was his father, Baron Chadwick Novark , who was a Class 1 Grand Knight. The technique in his possession was complete, but was meant for his inheritor, his eldest child and Charles's elder brother, Clark. To even look at the technique, was a difficult problem.

'I don't want to create bitter feelings and resentment with my family over a technique! There is one more way! Trial by fire!'

It was known that the 15 year olds have to face the rank 0 beasts and will be rewarded with cultivation technique and acknowledged as 'Squire' on victory. It is also possible that higher ranked knights, would fancy taking a talented sub-ordinate and impart their cultivation technique.

Whereas the empire provides its prodigies a complete cultivation technique along with other things, as the highest reward. To get this, there was only two ways. First, one has to be a knight who can win against a rank 1 magic beast and the last, win against a rank 1 magic beast.

The last condition was more of an acknowledgement. Charles had poor talent, and if he could defeat a Rank 1 magic beast while being a squire, it could still be considered as being a 'genius'. He was banking on this. Now, with the system, he no longer had to fear the worst case against the Rank 1 magic beast.

After forming a resolution in his mind, he fell asleep. The day was too exhausting. A lot of events happened and his brain was 'fried' from all the analyzing.

...

In the absence of Sun, the desert was cold, and the winds made it worse.

There was a camp setup in a relatively plain area, with fire-torches around it forming a barrier of light that chased away all crawlers and creepy creatures of the arid night. The monstrous rides were parked outside, which can be used to scare away annoying creatures and act as an early warning system.

There were many tents in the camp. In one of the average ones, resided a shrewd teenager. It was none other than, Dexter, the recently promoted teen. He was holding a topaz like yellow crystal, that seemed to contain a strong condensed energy. With the crystal in hand, he was meditating and it could be seen that the intensity of the energy and brightness of the crystal was reducing with time. After half an hour, he stopped.

"Just a little more..." He whispered as his eyes turned a bit sinister.

Dexter glanced at the spatial pouch left by the loudmouth and sneered.

...

In a well decorated elegant room, a beautiful red haired young lady was stroking a wooden sword tenderly, when an identical person came into the room. She stared at her mirror image engrossed in the sword as she herself, thought of the owner.

Thinking of that person falling on her breasts accidently and how she reacted, she blushed. She woke from her shame and called her sister: "Rebecca"

Rebecca didn't expect someone to be watching her as she hurriedly tried to hide the sword under the pillow in nervousness and acted like nothing happened.

Veronica sighed as she asked: "Do you like him?"

Rebecca was if as she was a lit fuse as she shouted:" Who says I like him? I hate that rascal. He never treats me like other boy, not even address me properly and he does not obey my commands. Hmph... I will beat him up when I get stronger."

Veronica was not that easily fooled and she knew her sister, better than even their mother. She said in frustration:"You two are of different status and in future the gap will always grow larger due to his poor talent. Rebecca, you might not see him again. Its better to help him with something and end your 'feuds'."

Rebecca asked as she felt lost: "Won't he come for the trial by fire?"

"You were also there when the doctor gave the evaluation, silly sister." Replied Veronica as she patted her sister's head and hugged her.

"He is not a quitter... He will... will... come..." said Rebecca in between her sobs as she hugged her sister tightly.

"You need to forget him, little sister! Mother is always watching us!" whispered Veronica as she consoled her sister.

The warning given by her sister seemed to have hit Rebecca, as she seemed to have formed a resolution.