76 Inherited Ability

Once Baono was gone, Ashesi began to show Savyrran around the garden. Savyrran took in everything with childlike curiosity, completely amazed by all the different soul beasts in the garden. The thing was that back in Coast Town, all she ever saw were ordinary animals. There were only few soul beasts in Coast Town, however, they usually hid from humans since they were so weak and fearful of people.

Thus, she had looked forward to the first phase of her trials because she had hoped to see some soul beasts. Unfortunately, she found only one; the bull serpent. Now that she thought about it, she realised that she had been quite stupid. Of course, there were soul beasts here in School of Beast Studies. How had she never thought of that? If she wanted to see soul beasts, she should have just come to the School of Beast Studies.

After Captain Ashesi showed her to several harmless looking creatures, they finally came to a short tree.

"And this one is a Dream Nightingale. His name is Akora." Ashesi said, pointing to bright yellow bird with gray eyes and wings larger than its small body. The bird gave a loud screech. Lady Ashesi chuckled and then said, "Akora says hello and welcome."

Before Savyrran could ask the captain what she meant by that, the dream nightingale began flapping its yellow wings excitedly. As it flapped its wings, the wings change from yellow to a band of several bright colours. It was like the wings of the bird had transformed into a rainbow.

"You need to close your eyes." Ashesi said to Savyrran in urgency, however it was too late. She saw that Savyrran's gaze was transfixed on the wings, completely frozen to her spot. Ashesi smiled, knowing exactly what was happening. It was the wings of the dream nightingale. Whenever dream nightingales became excited or furious, their wings changed into multiple colours. Since they had blue soul energy, if a person whose essence was weaker than blue looked at their wings for more than five seconds, they would be held hostage into a dreamlike state until their wings returned to normal. It seemed Savyrran had become a victim to this.

"Akora, calm down. You need to bring your wings back to normal." Ashesi coaxed the bird as she shielded her eyes away from the bird. Dream nightingales were rather harmless creatures, however, been held in a dreamlike and vegetative state could render a person vulnerable to their surroundings. It was no wonder some bounty hunters used these soul beasts in hunting their prey. But of course, the hypnosis of the dream nightingales only worked on people below the blue essence.

"What, no. Why will you ask him to hide something so beautiful? Those are the most beautiful wings I have ever seen." Savyrran said, turning to look at Captain Ashesi. She cocked her head to the side, wondering why the captain was shielding her eyes. "Are you okay? Is something wrong with your eyes."

Ashesi's jaws almost dropped to the ground. She gave a slight peek at Akora and she saw that the wings of the dream nightingale was still exuding iridescent rays of light. Wasn't Savyrran affected by the bird?

"I- I'm alright. Are you though? You were… frozen for a while."

"Oh… well, I was a little taken aback by how beautiful Akora's wings are. I have never seen anything like it before." Then Savyrran looked back at the yellow bird. "Unfortunately, the colours are gone. Can he bring them back?"

Ashesi finally removed her hand from her eyes. Then she slowly stared at the the younger girl next to her. It seemed Savyrran was genuinely sad that Akora's colourful wings had gone back to normal. But how come she was unaffected by his hypnosis? Unless she had an essence more powerful than the green. But that was impossible. Kakami had told her that this girl had no essence or soul armos.

Moreover, she had witnessed it for a herself back in the Royal Arena. During the battle royale, Savyrran never revealed her essence. Was it possible that the girl was hiding her essence then? But even if she was, it should have been very difficult to fight a green user with an evolved soul armos without revealing her own essence. What exactly was going on?

"The wings of dream nightingales only change colour when they are very emotional. Akora was very excited to see you. You know, we don't get a lot of visitors here."

"I see. Well, It's so nice to meet you too, Akora. This is my first time seeing a dream nightingale."

Ashesi laughed heartily. "I can tell. Most people shield their eyes when their wings change colours. But you were just staring."

"Oh… so that's why you looked away. But I still don't understand why." Why exactly will someone look away from something so beautiful, unless there was a serious reason for that.

"Looking at their wings can put you in a trance. Also, they have some songs that can put you in a deep sleep and then imprison you in a dreamy world. It's actually why they are called dream nightingales."

"That's a very powerful ability. Amazing."

Ashesi smiled. Usually, people got intimidated by the abilities of the dream nightingales. But Savyrran was rather impressed by it.

"Come. I'll introduce you to someone."

Ashesi led Savyrran to the lake. The surface of the water was crystal clear and very still. Ashesi knelt by the bank of the lake and Savyrran followed suit. Then the captain gave a high pitched whistle. Suddenly the still water began rumbling, sending ripples throughout the surface of the water. Then a large blue fish shot out of the water, flipped in the air, and then splashed back into the lake.

The scales of the giant fish were like shiny blue crystals. The fish came close to Ashesi and then nudged its head into her lap.

"This adorable one is Rama." Ashesi said, gently patting the head of the fish. "She is a Sonar Whale."

"A sonar whale? I've never heard of that and I grew up in a fishing town close to the sea."

"Sonar whales live in fresh water. Besides, they are very rare creatures, just like every soul beast here."

Seeing how knowledgeable Captain Ashesi was of soul beasts, and the fact that she was even here in this garden, told Savyrran that the girl was probably a student in the school. Still, she asked anyway. "Do you do Beast Studies?"

Ashesi nodded. "I love learning about all kinds of beasts. But I major in soul beasts."

Feeling left out of the conversation, Rama screeched in a high pitched voice.

"Oh… sorry, Rama. Her name is Savyrran." Ashesi said, patting Rama on the head.

The sonar whale screeched again and Ashesi laughed coyly, a slight blush on her fair cheeks. "She's a friend, okay."

"Wait… are two communicating?" Savyrran asked. She had been looking at the back and forth exchange between the girl and the fish, and it looked like they were having a meaningful conversation though Savyrran did not understand anything the sonar whale was saying.

"Well, yes."

"Amazing. I didn't know they teach you how to communicate with soul beasts. Now I get why you said Akora said hello."

What Savyrran knew was that students of beast studies learned to tame beasts. The stronger the beast, the harder it was to tame it. However, she had no idea people could communicate with soul beasts. All she knew was that people could communicate with their own beast-type soul armos. But beast-type soul armos was not the same as a soul beast.

"It isn't something we are taught." Ashesi said, not knowing exactly how to explain it. In fact, she had never told anyone about this before. Usually, people thought she was good with the beasts and they did not think she actually understood what the soul beasts were saying. "This is a personal gift. Well, more accurately, an inherited ability."

Ashesi bit her lip slowly. She had no idea why she was telling a complete stranger all this. Only a few people knew about her ability to talk to soul beasts. But her instincts told her that she could trust this stranger, and when it came to her instincts, her father always said that they were as sharp as her mother's. Thus, she decided to trust her own instincts, and to her that was like trusting her mother.

"I inherited it from my mother's bloodline." Ashesi explained, smiling bitterly.

"Actually, my mother is from the Handini Clan in Iruiya. They are the greatest beast tamers in the entire world. Well, at least that's what my father says."

"Iruiya?" Savyrran asked. She had heard about this place before, but she had no idea where it was.

"It's an empire in Djarga."

Savyrran smiled, nodding in understanding. She knew Djarga was one of the five continents in the Second Dimension. But this continent was very far from Arafas. If Captain Ashesi's mother was from Djarga, then that explained why she was so light skinned. If the Handini Clan had special gifts that aided them in taming beasts, then it made sense that she could talk to them. No wonder Captain Ashesi was so passionate about all the soul beasts. It was because she understood them and talked to them like they were people. To her, these soul beasts were not just beasts. They were her friends.