Family

//*[A/N: Edited 7/7/2021]

~Inside a makeshift shelter, Main World: Morning~ {POV Aruhik}

The next day, I woke up feeling refreshed, under the leafy roof of the temporary shelter I built yesterday; after all, last night I wasn't disturbed even once, maybe due to my high luck or the beasts in this forest are really scarce as that overgrown monkey is the only beast I have encountered till now.

Also, last night, although I wasn't tired physically and it would be strange if I got tired so easily with my bloodline, mentally I was really strained due to all the unique and new experiences I went through for the whole day.

At first, I had to leave both of my little brothers back there in my original world; I know they can now take care of themselves, as they aren't those little kids anymore that used to depend on me for everything after that tragedy; they will be sad over my death for sure but I know they will overcome it.

Although a little different, the same goes for me too because even though we never managed to rebuild the familial bond between us like it once was before that incident, it would a lie if I say I didn't have any attachment to them

Therefore, I also had to overcome the emotion of separation as I can't really do anything about it; at least at this moment.

Then second, I had to literally fight for my life just a few hours after arriving here; as I still had the mentality of a relatively normal human previously, in a very short time I had to force myself to change it to 'Fight and kill or you will be killed and eaten and no one will even shed a single tear for you in this new world' and now I can say with experience that it definitely isn't as easy as it sounds.

Well, there was one more part to this for me as it would have been outright shameful to die on the first day after getting wishes fulfilled by someone, who many people will easily accept as God.

Anyway, now that I remember, I haven't eaten anything for a whole day but I still don't feel any hunger or weakness; I believe it should be due to my vampire physique, which I am really thankful for, otherwise it would have been a real pain for a rookie forest traveler like me to prepare daily necessities.

Therefore, upon checking and finding myself in the top condition, I decided to go over the short fight I went through the previous day against that overgrown monkey; after all, I may be a noob to combat but I still know that experience matters in the fight.

Few things I understood are that lightning attack is really fast, as the moment I willed, it instantly reached the target; and next, I can use warping even without summoning my weapons, though mana consumption is greater but still negligible.

However, the important thing is that even with a really massive mana reserve, my output rate of mana is limited due to which my attack power got limited.

Just to check this out, I came out of my shelter and used lightning elemancy to check my mana expenditure rate.

*****

And ... the heck is this messed up condition?

If I ignore self-damage, I can use lightning elemancy continuously at full power for hours and probably even days due to me being an immortal vampire with theoretically unlimited vitality; however, my attack might not even do anything to those with higher defense because there is a limit to the rate at which I can extract out my mana.

At least, I also found something good during my testing; my mana output rate along with my total mana pool is a little larger compared to the last night, although the increase in the latter is so small I can barely identify it.

According to my hypothesis, it should be due to the Lucian part of my bloodline making me stronger after all I did choose its starting point to be that of a normal human; as for my Vampire Bloodline, I choose a much higher starting point so it shouldn't improve so easily.

Even though I currently have a completely new and unique bloodline, the Lucian Vampire Bloodline, which complements each other and also increased my net starting point from what I mentioned in the wishes, I know that unique traits of both are still there.

Therefore, although both are working as a single bloodline, some of their traits are working and progressing separately.

After understanding this, for now, I set two main objectives for myself.

First, fight and improve my strength by getting familiar with using my abilities and experiencing life and death combat along with getting minor improvements just like last time.

And second, find a human settlement otherwise my title will upgrade from 'Forest Traveller' to 'Forest Dweller'.

The reason behind the first one is both a necessity and my wish to become stronger; while the reason for the second one is to understand the society here faster and get blood for the awakening of my beast vassal.

So I decided to start with my first objective and dispelled my equipped rock weapon which I kept a few hundred meters away from here last night.

And, after checking the position of the Sun, I began moving towards the east and decided to set it as my fixed direction for going out of the forest; also, this time I traveled with more cautiousness and my senses constantly scanned for traces of any danger or prey I might encounter in my path.

*****

~15 minutes later~

I finally found my first prey, a black overgrown dog two times the size of a Dobermann and quite ugly at that, if must say.

It was currently resting, though I don't know if it is sleeping, at least its eyes are closed.

Without making any noise I slowly went to a distance of around 50 meters from the black dog and hid behind a tree; also on a side note, I just found out I am quite good at sneaking like I naturally know what to do to avoid getting detected.

Then after confirming that the dog still hasn't sensed me, I summoned my rock and threw it, aiming for its neck; because now I have a pretty good aim for just this much of a distance, due to my enhanced senses.

However, as the stone was halfway through the path, the dog instantly opened its eyes and moved sideways; and missing the target, the stone hit the ground, throwing soil and broken grass up in the air.

As I was already prepared for something like this, I directed my mana, which is already channeling at full force, to use the Lightning Elemancy and willed for the generated bolts of lightning to attack the big dog.

"Wuuwuuuwu..."

My attack instantly reached the dog and upon receiving it, the dog let out a comparatively high-pitched voice. But it also located me within a few moments after that and began running towards me at a much greater speed than that monkey.

When the black overgrown dog reached the mark of five meters away from me, I instantly warped above the stone which was at its previous resting place; then again began directing lightning towards it.

Within seconds it located me again and began running towards me, but this time the stone was already near me as I missed the chance to throw it away due to this dog being much faster than that monkey so I can't warp away to a longer distance.

Therefore, I determined for having melee combat against the dog.

As the dog leaped at me with its jaw wide open, I readied myself for instant warping.

And when its jaw was just about to touch me, I instantly warped above and near its head; then punched the top of its head with my lightning-covered right fist which resulted in causing short dizziness to the dog.

After scoring the hit, I instantly warped to its left side and gave a lightning-covered kick on its neck.

"Wuu...wuuuuu..."

Once again it let out a relatively same high-pitched sound but ignoring it, I again warped above its head and attacked the top of its head with my lightning-covered left fist.

However, this time, it didn't go well; maybe learning from the previous lesson, the dog lowered itself while opening its jaw toward my left hand and bit on my wrist; its sharp teeth sinking into my skin and muscles while my nerves sending me the strong signals of intense pain.

"Aaaah....."

A cry of pain escaped from my mouth but I know that I can't panic at this moment, otherwise next time it will be my throat in place of my wrist; therefore, I concentrated my mind while suppressing my pain and panic, then warped at its back.

Due to warping, my left hand also got freed from its jaw; it is still bleeding but my self-healing has already started working.

Ignoring the pain in my left hand, I again covered my right fist with lightning and attacked its waist.

When it turned towards me, I again warped towards its backside and hit its waist with a lightning-covered fist. Then I repeated the same process again and again while avoiding staying near its head for more than a few moments, in order to avoid getting bitten again.

And after my left hand healed, I began using both of my fists along with kicks in the same process.

After around long two to three minutes of continuous battle, the dog died.

And at the end, the corpse of the dog and both of my hands were covered in blood but I also noticed that I still don't feel any tiredness.

Even though this dog was smaller in size than that monkey, this one was stronger and faster than that monkey; in other words, a more dangerous prey.

That's why my first thought after the battle is 'I really need to find a way to identify the strength of these beasts, otherwise sooner or later it will prove to be fatal.'

After again confirming the death of this dog, I unsummoned the stone into small red-black crystals and began checking my present condition; and unsurprisingly, I again found myself to be in the top condition, with my injuries already healed and my mana reserve almost unchanged.

Then as I was about to leave, I remembered that in most of the fantasy worlds items like beast cores exist; therefore, I decided to at least check it out once, who knows it might be useful in the future.

Then a new problem came up, how am I supposed to dissect the body of this dog?

For the time being, keeping the facts aside that dissection of an animal that has just died is definitely not the most pleasant task I have done till now and the smell of the skin burned due to my thunder is really unbearable, especially with my enhanced senses.

There is no way in the hell I am willing to tear its skin and muscles with my bare hands.

However, after thinking about it for a short while, I thought of a possible solution and just need to test it out.

So I began using Ice Elemancy but without channeling my own mana.

Then I manipulated the ice element, slowly but with more preciseness, to form a dagger of around 30 cm blade length; and I further decreased its temperature to make it even harder.

I then used this ice-dagger to cut the skin on this dogs' neck and with some effort, I did manage to cut a small section of it but the sharp side of the blade also got chipped; and upon noticing it, I had to stop.

Obviously, I can repair the edge in a short time but if I need to do this again and again, dismantling this body will be too time-consuming.

Then I got another idea to at least make the process of repairing much faster; therefore, after removing blood from the dagger, I repaired it and again used Ice Elemancy to make it reach the lowest temperature that I can bring it to, without disturbing its shape and sharpness.

Then I held it in my hand and willed to equip it in one of my blank normal weapon slots; with the appearance of red-black crystals in the surrounding, the ice blue dagger began turning into the red-black transparent crystal dagger, and finally, it broke into the same colored smaller crystals and disappeared.

To be honest, just from the visual effect alone it appears like, I corrupted a holy weapon and broke it; no matter how entrancing the process looked.

Removing stray thoughts out of my mind, I summoned back the dagger in my hand.

Along with the appearance of red-black crystals in the surrounding, an ice blue dragger appeared in my hand and it is still very cold; so much so that just holding it a little longer began making my hand feel numb.

Now, its time to test this out; I once again began cutting the thick skin of the dog and as expected, the edge dulled after just a short use; but this time, instead of using ice elemancy again, I channeled my mana into the equipped ice dagger and the shape of blade got restored also as a side bonus even temperature dropped to the same point as what it was when I equipped it

Then, I began dismantling the body of the dog again and whenever the edge of the blade got chipped, I channeled my mana into it and the dagger got repaired in no time.

But even with this, it really wasn't easy or anywhere near pleasant experience to dismantle this dog and search for a possible mana core 'somewhere' in this body.

Thankfully, due to me unintentionally being very slow in... 'opening up' this corpse, my senses picked up some sort of energy escaping from all over the dead body except for one place; its head, where I can still sense the similar energy which hasn't completely dissipated.

And after some 'messy' hard work, I finally found an irregular-shaped dirty yellow crystal of around the size of that of a walnut, from the back of its head near the spine.

However, instead of checking it out here, I stored it in my pocket while making a note in my mind to check it out later on in a safe place; then I continued my travel in the same direction while once again keeping an eye on possible dangers as well as preys.

But before moving away, looking once again at the now 'opened up' corpse of the dog with blood, muscles, and bones scattered around, I noticed a peculiar thing.

I don't feel disgusted looking at this dismantled body that most normal people from my original world should have felt, especially with all the blood that is splattered around due to, I suppose, my inexperienced dismantling.

Obviously, it isn't like I am now loving this scene, it is just that instead of disgust and revulsion, my feeling is more the side of distaste due to how ugly this looks because of being very disorganized and messy.

My best guess is that my Vampire Bloodline is affecting me and as long as this influence doesn't go any further, I don't have any problem with it; because this effect is indeed proving to be helpful in my current condition.

I also thought of using this ugly overgrown half-cooked dog's blood as a catalyst for the awakening of my Beast Vassal, but every time I look at this ugly scene, I can't really muster up any courage to do it; furthermore, my subconsciousness or my instincts are also telling me that consuming this blood would be useless due the blood being of ... "very low quality".

*****

I am currently more than 2 Km away from the dead body of the dog to not get the attention of any other beast that might have been attracted by the smell of blood or because of the fight that happened.

And now I am making preparations for my next hunt, that's to get new equipment in the same way as I made the ice dagger.

Therefore, after some thinking, I decided to choose a sharp one-handed sword, a relatively heavy two-handed greatsword, and a sharp spear as weapons for my other 3 slots.

Then, in the same way, as the dagger was made, I made the three decided weapons; and after unequipping the stone, I equipped them in my remaining three normal weapons slots.

Once my preparations for the next hunt were complete, I began checking nearby areas for the presence of any beast that might have come close while I making ice weapons.

After not find any other living creature nearby, except for some insects, I took out the beast core and began checking it out; starting with my senses.

And as I sensed last time, it has a very small amount of energy stored in it; well, 'very small amount' is indeed in comparison to my mana pool.

Furthermore, this energy is somewhat similar to my mana but it is also a little different.

And if I must put it in words, then impurity and density aside, this energy is...very rough and wild, hence quite difficult to manipulate as I have to spend more mana than the amount of this impure energy manipulated, and even then it is very slow; while my mana is quite docile and can be manipulated rather easily.

Then I noticed that the color of the Beast Core dimmed after I spent some of the energy inside the core while attempting to manipulate energy in it.

Therefore, in order to recover the lost energy, I tried inserting my mana into it but there was no change in color because my mana didn't get stored inside it; I guess, my mana and this energy are much more different than I initially thought them to be.

Then I thought since that dog used to live in this environment, then the energy inside this core should be the same as that of the surrounding; after all that dog should be using the surrounding energy to absorb and restore the consumed energy, and sensing the atmospherical energy further confirmed my guess; as I found them to be quite similar just with a lesser density.

And I just have a way to manipulate the surrounding energy, Elemancy. So I used lightning Elemancy to converge surrounding energy into the core and not so surprisingly, this time the energy didn't escape on its own; but when I noticed that the core began slightly glowing, I immediately stopped.

Why use the lightning attribute? Well, mostly to be on the safe side, as who knows this might have blown up on my face and the only resistance I have is of the lightning attribute.

Anyway, back to the beast core, I can feel that although I replenished the energy or even over replenished it, the energy inside the core is...quite unstable; like it just need a small trigger and the violent energy inside it would be let loose, and definitely not in a gentle way.

Then the problem came, how should I trigger the energy inside this core remotely? But it wasn't too hard to find a solution.

'Forming a remote connection with an object'; doesn't this sound like my equipped weapons? So, I unequipped the ice-spear, that I had just laboriously created but had to regrettably discard it, then equipped the charged beast core.

And...I believe now I can trigger this core remotely, just need to test it out once.

Who knows, this might work in a similar manner to spells shown in the game, though its power is still to be tested; however, even if this is proved to be weak but at least worked like a spell then I can always find a stronger beast core.

*****

~10 minutes later~

I am standing in front of a burnt black body of a bear that initially had light brown fur but now doesn't have a single piece of fur on its body.

Yes, it is the result of using charged beast core, or now Beast Core Spell.

And the used core also survived, though it has some cracks on it along with a reduction in its storage capacity for energy.

However, due to me equipping it beforehand, repairing it was as simple as injecting some mana into it though I had to use elemancy again for recharging the beast core.

Furthermore, I also found a new beast core from the half-cooked bear, this time dark brown in color.

However, even then, I decided to not use these beast core spells unless necessary otherwise I won't be able to improve myself.

Then, after charging the brown core with lightning and the equipped yellow core with ice, I continued my hunt while moving towards the east; just this time, except for improving my strength, I had another goal of collecting different beast cores.

Because I am pretty sure these can be sold upon reaching the civilization nearby to at least give me some initial capital and not be a complete pauper.

*****

~8 days later~

I haven't rested again since I woke up after a nice long sleep on the first day and have been traveling in the same east direction; not because of any special reason, it is just that I didn't feel the need of doing so.

Just like now, although it is nighttime, my vision isn't affected even a little bit and I am still traveling while hunting, whenever I find good prey. Well, it isn't like it would have mattered if it was daytime; after all, due to how dense this forest is, not much light manages to reach down here; at most it feels like a full moon night in the afternoon.

Furthermore, once I began accepting the new environment, I didn't have to deal with mental strain anymore; and due to my vampire bloodline, I didn't have to deal with physical exhaustion.

Anyway, during these days, I have hunted many types of beasts; from the overgrown chimpanzee to the rabbit almost as big as me. Yeah, I did manage to find a carnivorous rabbit, although it was the weakest among all the beasts I have faced till now.

And quite obviously, not all of my hunts went smoothly; like the time when I fighting a big goat, also not a herbivore, and a leopard also joined the fight; furthermore, both of them much stronger than my second hunt, that big black dog.

Eventually, I was forced to use the beast core spell; not because I found myself being incapable of facing those two beasts together, rather I was pretty sure that I can kill those even if those two would have stopped attacking each other.

I used the beast core spell because I was able to conclude with my limited combat experience that it would have taken me too long to end the fight; and even with my speedily recovering stamina and mana, I don't think my strength would have been enough in case a third beast joined the fray upon being attracted by the extended fight.

But even with all this, that fight made me aware of the most important thing I am lacking right now, a decisive strike.

The more I became familiar and proficient in using my powers, the more I understood that compared to the vast amount of mana and what seems to be fast recovering near-infinite stamina I possess my means of attacking are quite limited and weak.

The solution for this also quite a straightforward one, I just need to wake up my beast vassal; after all, vampire's beast vassals aren't referred to as walking natural disasters for nothing.

So it all comes down to me finding the civilization and people living there, which will hopefully have at least one person containing the blood which can act as a catalyst for beast vassal awakening.

And for finding the civilization, I need to continue traveling and get out of this forest, which I am doing right now.

However, this time I kept in mind to not actively hunt beasts in the group because I have to accept that three beasts together is still a little out of my league, at least until I became proficient in using my strength and abilities.

As I was speeding through the forest using short distance warping without using equipped weapons while wondering when I will get to leave the forest, I suddenly noticed a yellow light coming from a distance of what should be more than a kilometer away.

I instantly thought that this must be a campfire of humans, after all, how can there be a light source inside a dense forest where even sunlight doesn't easily reach the ground.

And, therefore, I decided to check it out; after all, they should know the direction of at least one of the civilizations nearby.

So, I began approaching the light source; however, maybe due to the experience of the past few days, I subconsciously hid my presence while being cautious to be not discovered by them, as if I was treating that group of people as the preys I have hunted down in the last week.

However, even after noticing my subconscious behavior, I proceeded the same way; after all, who knows, they might not be the most friendly ones; and even in my original world, it won't wrong for people to be careful of each other while meeting outside the civilization, let alone this is a power-based fantasy world.

And it was soon proved that my decision was correct.

When I was 100 meters away from the campfire, I felt a sudden deep attraction and a strong thirst for blood rising inside me for the first time; furthermore, even the soul of the Beast Vassal inside me was getting excited and vaguely conveyed its desire to get whatever is attracting me from there.

I immediately understood that whatever is present there might help me with the awakening of my Beast Vassal; and, by whatever I mean it can't be anything other than someone with special blood.

For the next few seconds, I concentrated on suppressing my thirst and the excited Beast Vassal soul to not give away my position.

Then, slowly and cautiously, I began moving closer and hid behind a tree when I was less than 50 meters away from the campfire; because at this distance, I can easily and clearly sense as well as hear pretty much everything from the whole camp.

I focused on my senses to determine the status of the camp while simultaneously listening to the conversation of three people I sensed sitting beside the campfire.

And upon scanning the whole camp with my senses, I found that there are only four people in the camp with three of them sitting near the campfire and the fourth one ... is the one actually attracting me and is at some distance from the other three.

Then, once I confirmed that they still haven't found me, I observed them cautiously from behind the tree I am finding; two of them are human males, I presume.

Why presume? Because the third one definitely isn't, as he has wolf or fox-like ears and tails, I think; as I don't know the exact difference between the two.

As for their strength...well, because I found that different species have different quantities of energy in them, the only way I have the right row for gauging someone's strength is by using my instincts to take a guess; yeah, not the best and most reliable way out there but the only one I have right now.

Anyway, the two human look-alikes have around the same strength as that of the black dog I encountered on my second day while the beastkin is a little weaker than the other two but not by much.

And the fourth person as well as the reason for my thirst is a real surprise for me; it is a girl 'sleeping' inside a cage quite small to hold an adult human, also her hands and feet tied with the rope and even her eyes and mouth are covered.

I was able to identify her as a girl primarily due to her chest size along with her wearing a thigh-length skirt and keeping long hair.

Then, even though I have mostly guessed what is happening here, I still decided to listen to their conversation in case I get to hear something important.

".... believe me, it will be worth our hard work."

"But Mr. Perkins has already told us, he won't pay for a half-elf."

"That is what I have been telling you dumbass, she is a pure-blood elf; look at ears kid, you know how to identify."

"But she has been living on the outskirts of elf forest, only half-elf live there. Also the color of her hair and her eyes also different from elves I have seen."

"You don't understand, that is why we got lucky and her hair and eyes only make her a rarer good, we might even get a higher price."

"Let me ask that bitch again, this time I will make her open the mouth."

"Stop, you idiot wolf, you will damage the good. And you, mockery of wolf-kin, stop acting like dumb bear-kins and learn to use your f**king brain for once..."

I didn't know that even a fantasy world would have racism; well, not like it was completely unexpected, after all even my original world had some... let's say some idiots that loved racism; let alone this is a fantasy world containing power-based societies added to fact that there is actually more than one intelligent race living in this world.

Anyway, I stopped paying attention to their conversation as I don't need to hear any further to understand the situation at that camp.

Now I have two options...

First, simple and straightforward, eliminate the kidnapers and then take the blood.

Or second, a more tactful approach, have a conversation with kidnapers and somehow 'convince' them to give me the blood; and then if 'convincing' fails, run away with the victim then get the blood.

However, as much as I personally prefer the second option more, it isn't really feasible for this case; after all, I just heard them cursing at each other for potentially hurting the elf, so convincing them to give me the blood won't be easy, especially when I don't really have anything valuable to exchange for the blood.

Furthermore, I really need to find the civilization, and having another intelligent species to introduce and help me understand this new society would be much better;

Therefore, between a group of criminals guarding against me and a kidnaped victim who is at least a little grateful towards me for saving her, I don't really need to think about who I should choose as the companion.

Moreover, whether I like it or not, it is a fact that saving someone from a crisis is indeed one of the fastest ways to gain their trust and gratitude.

Still, even with all these facts, I don't really want to fight an intelligent race head-on, at least for now. After all, at the end of the day, I am someone who has never killed a human before, so I might really flinch at the last moment of delivering a killing blow and that might prove to be fatal for me.

So I thought of another way and while suppressing the glow of red-black crystals appearing in the surroundings, to not get their attention, I summoned the equipped dirty blue Beast Core already charged with ice elemancy and around twice the size of the first dirty yellow beast core I got.

Then I threw the equipped and charged core, aiming at the center of them.

However, even before the core reached them all three kidnapers stood up. The two humans instantly picked up the weapons kept beside them and began observing the surroundings, while the wolf or fox-kin, whatever he is, began running in the direction opposite to me while shouting.

"Both of you get away from there, I can feel it, it is really dangerous."

Really, similar to the beasts I encountered, even people of this world have something similar to sixth sense or instincts; however, at least the instincts of those two humans are nowhere near mine, otherwise they would have already been running away and not check out the surrounding.

And I have to say, the third one does have better instincts and he made the right decision of running away, but it is already late; the core reached between the humans and I activated the spell.

Both humans instantly become ice statues covered in a thick layer of ice.

The beast-kin is also covered with some ice but still alive and capable enough to continue running away; he turned back to observe the other two only for a moment then continued running at an even faster speed; unfortunately, for me obviously, only his back and one of the hand was frozen and not even one of his legs.

He made the correct decision but I can't let him go now.

Therefore, I immediately unsummoned the now slightly cracked beast core and summoned my ice dagger, and then threw it at his back.

When the dagger was about to reach him, he jumped away from its flight path and fell down on the ground while shielding the head using both of his hands covered in dark-green energy extracted from his body.

Maybe even this beast-kin's instincts aren't that sharp; after all, his actions are showing he is expecting even my ice dagger to blow up; or, maybe, he just got that frightened by the previous 'ice explosion'? Well, not like it matters at the moment.

When the dagger reached closest to him, I warped above him while simultaneously unsummoning the ice dagger and summoning my heavy greatsword with its tip pointing downwards at the backside of the beastkin lying on the ground.

Then gravity did the rest of the job of bringing me down along with the small red-black crystals around me that still haven't disappeared.

The moment my greatsword pierced his chest from the back, he moved his energy-covered hands away from his head; maybe in order to try getting up?

But this only exposed his head and neck for me, and I am not the one to miss such a great chance.

So, while still standing on his backside, I unsummoned the ice greatsword and summoned my one-handed ice-sword.

And the moment ice-sword materialized in my right hand along with more red-black crystals in the surrounding, I pierced the ice-sword through his now exposed neck; once again from the back.

After doing all this, I left the one-handed sword there, a part of it inside the ground while piercing through the beast-kin's neck, and did a short distance warping to appear a little away from what I suppose is now corpses of the three kidnapers; then I began observing them in order to confirm that they have indeed become corpses.

But still, my hand went to my right pocket to take out a brown beast core charged with lightning elemancy; so that if either of the kidnapers is still alive, I will set off this beast core spell at point-blank range while simultaneously trying to warp away from the blast range.

And even if I got caught in the spell range, I am confident in my lightning resistance to at the very least keep me alive, though I don't think I will get anything more than minor skin burns.

Thankfully, none of the three were still alive.

So after confirming their death, I warped near the body of beast-kin and unsummoned my one-handed ice-sword; then used ice-elemancy to freeze all the blood that has flown out of his body along with his corpse.

I did this in order to avoid any nearby beasts getting attracted by the smell of blood and it is due to the same reason I used the beast core charged with ice-element.

Well, one naturally learns some strange rules after living in a forest for quite some time as well as previously bearing the consequences of being careless.

Therefore, only after a moment of thought, I decided to proceed with the tradition of looting the eliminated enemies.

Except for their armors that got damaged, I collected a few weapons, three rings, some coins, and two letters along with a key; and I think I know where this key might be used.

Still, first I moved the bodies to around two kilometers away from the camp and left them there on the ground.

Then after returning to the camp, I finally decided to check on the fourth person whose blood is still attracting me.

Looking at the cage on top of a very small wooden kart, which I think should have been used for moving the cage, I found that this lady is still asleep after all this commotion or they might have drugged her that's why she is unconscious.

I opened the lock on the cage with the key I 'got' from those kidnappers and brought her out but decided to not wake her up at the moment and also not remove ropes from her hand and feet as well as the cloth covering her eyes.

Because in just the short time I stayed near her, my thirst for her blood has been constantly increasing so much so that I am just barely suppressing it.

Moreover, not waking her up is also because I doubt that I will be able to receive any plus points in her trust if I drink her blood just after saving her, and not removing the ropes from her is just a precaution; in case she wakes up when I am feeding on her blood and start attacking me.

So after I laid her on the ground, I immediately brought my mouth towards the side of her neck and instinctually my fangs got elongated; and if I had been able to see my eyes, I would have found both my irises glowing blood red.

"Mnnnn....."

As my fangs pierced her neck and a moan escaped from her mouth; which I later found out is a passive ability of vampires to make their counterpart feel euphoric that makes the process of drinking blood much easier for the vampire and a rather pleasurable experience for the victim.

But at this moment, I wasn't able to pay any attention to any of this or even register the taste of blood in my mouth for which I have been thrusting for quite a while now. Because my mind was distracted with the changes happening in my body and the strengthening of my connection with the Beast Vassal.

I removed my mouth from her neck, though, with some difficulty; as my thirst for her blood hasn't disappeared yet and her blood is still really attractive for me, but I subconsciously know that this much is more than enough for me.

So I distracted myself with the changes in my body and the information my Beast Vassal has provided me just now.

I can feel that my mana reserve has now increased by around 10% along with a minor increase in my physical parameters and self-healing.

But the most important part is that now I know the name of my beast vassal and it has finally completely awakened. And along with the awakening of my beast vassal came information related to its abilities.

Such as it won't die as long as I am alive because as long as I have enough mana it can infinitely reconstruct its body and even if its soul got severely wounded, it can just come back recover inside me.

Then I also got to know that with just a thought, I can borrow my beast vassal's abilities for my own use, although this borrowed power would be weaker than beast vassal itself; but still, its awakening gave me a remarkable increase in my resistance and affinity towards the lightning element.

Then comes the way of summoning the best vassal outside my body; well, there is nothing too special about this, just that I can momentarily summon my beast vassal by calling out its name which manifests its soul outside my body while using my mana to construct a body for it; however, a part of its soul still remains inside my body.

As for the other details along with its strength, I need to test it out because even though I can feel that my beast vassal is quite an intelligent one, when I asked about more details, the answer I got was something like...not so clear?

Because my interaction with the proceeded something like...

As I already know the name of my beast vassals, I proceed with introducing myself by conversing mentally with my familiar.

'Hi Sitasia, I am Aruhik and it is delightful that I finally manage to wake you up, though I do apologize that I didn't manage to do it any sooner; still, I am really, really happy to get a companion in my supposedly long adventures and I wish that the journey ahead will be fun for both of us.'

'And since we will be living, working, and fighting together from now on to what I believe is a long, long time, don't hesitate in asking anything you want to know about me.'

When I didn't get a reply even in the next few seconds, at first I thought that maybe my familiar isn't as intelligent as a human and I might have perceived it wrong; however, when I finally got a reply in a feminine voice along with our connection conveying her thoughts, I immediately understood why...

'I am Sitasia Valden ... and ... I am lightning spirit...and...and, I hate water...'

Well, my beast vassal, Sitasia isn't really good at talking; not because she isn't intelligent enough, rather she just isn't used to talking.

As, along with the surprisingly feminine voice, I also sensed her vague thoughts, and through that, I understood she is struggling with what else should be said after stating her name, which was already known to me.

It isn't like I haven't met shy or reticent people before, or don't know how to interact with them; rather, I believe myself to be capable enough of engaging a random person picked up from the street in at least half an hour-long conversation.

However, Sitasia's case is quite different after all she isn't really an introvert; rather, just from the short glimpse in her thoughts, I can conclude that she is a bold and proud one.

From her passing thoughts, I got to know the problem with Sitasia is that, for whatever reason it is, the number of she has spoken to others is low enough to be countable; therefore, she doesn't have much experience in a relatively longer two-way conversation hence she doesn't know how to proceed with it.

And it is to such an extent that if not for me being able to feel her thoughts, I might have concluded that Sitasia isn't intelligent enough to even have a proper conversation.

But now that I know the reason behind this, I just need to be one to lead the conversation which is something I have made the habit of doing unconsciously in every conversation.

So I continued with asking more about her while telling about myself in return, after all, knowing more about each other is one of the best ways to built our companionship and increase our affinity towards each other; even if what we share are just some trivial things.

It is just that, at this time I didn't know that Sitasia knows more about me than I had expected, and this was the reason she was willing to have such a long conversation with me; furthermore, she has already decided to become my companion, or at least try to be one, otherwise with her personality she wouldn't even have bothered replying to me.

Anyway, my conversation proceeded quite smoothly; obviously, being myself, I also asked many important things in between, like...

"Where did you live before?"

"...Clouds?"

I also sensed slight doubt along with loneliness in her thoughts; well, it is not that difficult to guess she must have been alone for most of her life.

But then, I soon sensed the loneliness disappearing in her thoughts only to be replaced by determination, a determination to become my companion.

Well, this is strange, we have begun communicating for the first time just a few minutes ago; is Sitasia really naive and innocent enough to favor the first person that expressed desire of becoming companion with her and has at least indirectly forced her to become his 'companion'?

Not that I mind, at least for now, because it will make the bond between us grow much faster; however, I will need to discuss this with her later on; after all, whether I like it or not, this is a complete opposite of my personality.

Still, I proceeded with the conversation as I won't be getting any plus points for criticizing her thought process in our first conversation.

"Clouds? You mean rain and thunder clouds up in the sky?"

After getting the mental affirmation from her I continued.

"Well, that is one place I would really love to visit; unfortunately, I have never ever seen the place by myself."

Sensing her confusion, I further explained to her.

"I have seen clouds closely only in images; yes, you might not know about images, as their name implies, think of them as a way of storing any picture or scenery."

I got an immediate reply for this along with sensing eagerness in her thoughts.

"I can fly...will bring you up to clouds...Let's go, now!"

This really surprised me, because intelligence is one thing but being intelligent enough to immediately think how to console someone? It is not something that can be done by anyone without having enough intelligence along with corresponding experience; after all, I know for a fact that not even many adult humans can immediately think of a way of consoling someone.

But still, Sitasia needs to learn about the level of seriousness behind human words and expression, because there is no way I needed consolation just for not being able to see clouds closely; though, if possible, I do desire to see it in the future.

"We can do it now, but first I have to deal with other important things, so let's keep it on hold for now."

And I am indeed doing other things while talking, like freeing the elf girl from her restraints as well as sorting out the items I got from the kidnappers.

"By the way, how does your strength compare to me?"

This is an important thing I must learn about as soon as possible in order to wisely choose my future preys as well as opponents.

This time Sitasia replied after a slight pause and I even sensed confusion from her.

"...Strong...like...really strong?..."

Okay, I admit, that was a stupid way of asking it; after all, I am not aware of even a single measuring unit that can measure living beings' strength, and apparently, Sitasia also isn't aware of anything like that.

"Okay...we can test it out in a while, as it will be a good way for us to know more about each other."

While continuing to sort out the more beast core I got from the kidnapers, I continued with the conversation.

"On the topic of knowing each other better, since you told me about your species being Spirits, I should also tell you about mine; actually, not long I was a normal human but currently I have become a vampire."

Well, I sensed that she doesn't know what a vampire is and I should have expected this, just like I don't know what a spirit is; after all, before this, we both belonged to the worlds that would have never intersected.

So I began telling her about vampires, obviously my version of vampires; after all, there are many types of vampires out there and some of them are nothing more than mindless undead.

"Just like humans and spirits, vampires are also intelligent species; and for their special trait, lets put it this way that although most vampires don't possess a clear superiority in brute strength, agility, or innate special powers, they are almost unmatched in the vast mana pool possessed by them."

"Furthermore, vampires have very strong companions in the form of beast vassals that can even compare to walking natural disasters; on this note, you are my beast vassal, a familiar that will live and fight beside me."

"Oh! One more thing, vampires possess near-infinite vitality hence they don't die due to old age and the same is the reason behind their vast mana pool and high mana recovery."

Although Sitasia is near abyssal in expressing herself through words, she easily understood my long explanation and I even sensed her being pleased upon hearing that I possess a near-infinite life span.

But still, she really focuses on strange things because of all things I said, long life span was the only thing that got me any major reaction from her.

"Anyway, since I told you about vampires, why don't you also tell me about your race, Spirits?"

Sitasia took so long in answering that if not for me being able to sense her thoughts, I would have concluded that she isn't even going to reply.

"...Spirits are elements...living elements ... born from nature, and have unlimited life span..."

Now I understood why she was happy upon hearing me having an infinite life span, initially she thought that like the rest of the creatures I might die after some time and leave her alone.

That is actually not possible though, because our life is connected and her will also end with mine but this also means that no matter what type or level of an injury she might get, she won't die as long as I live.

Also, on a side note, I need to keep in mind for the future that it is difficult for Sitasia to say something in more than a couple of words, so I should avoid asking her for long explanations; at least till I teach her to express herself in words by speaking fluently.

Still, information sharing did help me understand what spirits are, although only the surface of it; furthermore, it is very much possible that even Sitasia herself doesn't know more about the spirit race.

"Born from nature? Then as I expected, you were a part of the supernatural world even before meeting me; however, unlike you, as I have said before, I was a normal human living in a normal world without any superpower. On this note, you did say you used to live in clouds before, right?"

Along with once again sensing the same loneliness in her thoughts, I got a mental affirmation from her.

A being made of lightning itself living in the clouds? Well, on second thought, this doesn't sound too strange after all; for a fantasy world setting that is.

"Then, how about we share about what we love to do or are good at?"

I could have proceeded with the talk without waiting for affirmation, but I need her to be more interactive so I waited for her consent; furthermore, this is also a way of showing that instead of being one-way, this is a two-way conversation; which is necessary for both of us to make our bond stronger.

Therefore, upon once again getting a mental affirmation from Sitasia, I continued.

"I personally believe myself to be good at interacting and dealing with other people, and it doesn't matter much to me whether it is political discussion or business dealing."

"As for my fighting capabilities, like I have told you before, just a week ago I was nothing more than a normal human so even if I have a talent in any field pertaining to the combat, as of now, I am unaware of it."

"Then, my hobbies? ...I have been searching for it after coming to this new world as I don't really have one at moment, but still...if I must pick one, then it would be tasting different types of ice-creams."

*[A/N: Yeah, I really, really love ice cream; so much so that I wouldn't mind declaring it as my staple food; so everyone who also loves ice cream is my friend.]

"Anyway, it is your turn now, what do you believe yourself to be good at and what type of activities do you enjoy engaging in?"

I got an instant reply, a brief and to the point reply just like her previous statements; no, actually even shorter than her previous replies.

"Fight."

Yes indeed, fighting is what Sitasia excels in as well as finds pleasure in indulging herself with; and it isn't like she is answering halfheartedly because I did sense clear happiness and excitement at the thought of fighting strong opponents.

Well, I think, I got myself a battle maniac companion; though not really aligned with my personality, I don't hate it, either; rather, I would say, I like the bold and straightforward people like Sitasia.

Anyway, now is the turn for me to ask an important and rather sensitive question; although my interaction with Sitasia for the last few minutes has already given me the answer, I still need to confirm it once.

Because at the end of the day, although indirectly, it was due to me that Sitasia was brought to me from wherever and whatever life she used to live and is further forced into a contract that even connected her lifeline with me; although, from what I have sensed till now, Sitasia herself doesn't seem to care about it.

"So... Is there anyone in your family?"

Yes, I know that Sitasia is born from nature and has been practically a loner for most of her life, I still need to confirm if she had someone close enough to be called a family, maybe a fellow spirit, a beast, or some other species.

And although I won't regret my decision of asking her to come with me, I will definitely try to help her in the future as I personally know how it feels to be separated from family; even if the relationship between us brothers weren't the best, it still doesn't feel pleasant in any way.

However, when Sitasia actually answered with an instant reply not carrying even a shred of hesitation in her thoughts, all my thoughts, preparations, and carefully chosen comforting words were either rendered useless or forgotten, I even paused my work of sorting out the items.

But, I knew that I had a genuine smile on my face, because, what she spoke was...

"Master Aruhik."

And I sensed, Sitasia completely believed in her words declaring me as her family; and along with this belief, her thoughts also contained hope and longing for my affirmation.

This is why I like bold and straightforward people.

Although, I do have to work with the way Sitasia is addressing me currently.

I have no reason to deny her wish, so I answered by reciprocating with as much honesty I can muster and all of my determination to at least make the rest of my words true in the future.

"Yes, we will be family for eternity"

I wasn't aware at this time that although unintentionally, most of my caution towards Sitasia disappeared; just because of that one honest belief and desire from her, that I know from her thoughts that it doesn't contain even a shred of any lie, deception, or even uncertainty in it.

And due to me unconsciously accepting Sia, the connection between us rapidly strengthened; now I can sense her thoughts much more clearly and my thoughts also became perceivable to her through our connection, it took a few minutes to discover the latter one, though.

Due to this reason, she immediately understood what I was trying to convey but was unable to put it in words.

Then I also sensed and even got affected with the genuine happiness that Sitasia is feeling, at this moment, in response to my thoughts.

For the whole time, it took me to sort out the rest of the items, I was continuously hearing the excited cries of a girl in my mind and I let it be because I didn't want some stupid conversation to spoil this moment for her; and...partly also for me.

Once Sitasia calmed down, I again brought my attention to the lady lying unconscious on the ground.

As the kidnappers mentioned before she indeed has long pointed ears like that of elves I have read about; she also has light milky skin tone, light gray colored hair reaching to her waist and is currently loose, a slender body with medium-sized breasts and a slim waist.

However, she is taller than me, around 165 cm; well, currently I am indeed shorter than what I used to be.

She is wearing something like a warrior or hurter's costume, which includes brown leather armor over a green sleeveless shirt, two leather handguards, and long boots along with a leafy green skirt, tight-fitting pants, and a hood, which is currently down revealing her really beautiful face. (A/N: For the costume of elf: https://pin.it/1gyiZiE)

After removing the bindings from her hands and legs, I moved her to the only tent of three which survived my beast core ice spell.

After laying her down to a bed already present there, I summoned my dagger, which appeared in my hand along with small floating red-black crystals, and then placed it at a corner of the tent while continuously supplying mana into it through my connection with the equipped weapon so it doesn't melt.

This dagger will help me continuously sense the area around this tent and in case something unexpected happens, with the help of this dagger I can immediately warp back to here.

Then I left the tent and began moving away from the camp, or whatever is left of it, because I need to get a better understanding of my Beast Vassal Sitasia's powers and strength; furthermore, even without knowing the true extent of Sitasia's abilities, I know that testing the powers of something called as walking natural disasters so close to an unconscious person won't be a good idea.

I stopped upon reaching the distance of at least 1.5 Km from the tent and began to test my improved combat capability.

First, I tried out the method of indirectly using Beast Vassal's power; for this, I had to just mentally ask my companion to lend me her power and I did so, then I immediately began channeling my mana at full force to actually try it out.

I was instantly covered in dense purple-black lightning rising up to tens of meters and I can instinctually feel this to be much stronger than the one generated using Elemancy.

Furthermore, my mana output rate for this one is hundreds of times higher than in the case of using just elemancy, though still insignificant compared to my vast mana pool and high recovery rate.

As for its power, I am pretty sure the current me can instantly defeat any beast among all I have encountered till now; furthermore, even if I did encounter a much stronger beast I would be able to perform much better because the last important discovery is that this lightning doesn't hurt me.

Once I confirmed the basic capabilities of my upgraded power, I stopped channeling my mana and looking at the surrounding, I am thankful to my luck for not starting a forest fire again.

Still, I made a mental note for finding the conditions leading to a forest fire as well as ways of preventing it; otherwise, it would be a hassle to deal with, especially when my ice elemancy freezes me more than my target, upon not being used with full concentration.

Anyway, now is the time for the second test.

Since I doing it for the first time and only subconsciously know the method, I let my instincts take over for summoning my beast vassal for the first time.

So, after raising my right fist upwards, I called out my companion's name for it to appear before me.

"Come forth, Sitasia-Valden"

Blood-colored fog is beginning to rise up my right fist which has now turned pitch-black covered with red stripes like an electronic chip.

Although it is nighttime and dense trees are covering the sky, through the gaps between leaves my eyesight can see that the black cloud is gradually covering the whole sky in the range of kilometers; then my ears picked up the deep rumbling of thunder and I felt a slight increase in the speed of the wind.

While all these changes were happening around me, my mana was getting consumed at a very fast rate; within moments around 20% of my mana left my body.

And a wolf materialized in front of me.

She is more than 15 meters in height and has midnight black fur, blood-red eyes, dark purple mane surrounding her head, a deep purple shining horn on her forehead, and purple-black lightning sparks covering her whole body.

As I was looking at Sitasia for the first time, along with the flash of lightning she flew upward, breaking through the canopy of trees and into the dark clouds.

"Woooooo....."

Then a howling cry of the wolf reacher my ears, which according to my estimation should have reached at least a dozen kilometers.

Also, as the canopy was destroyed, I saw that the dense dark clouds have spread to the range of more than five kilometers. And, I might have just guessed the reason for Sitasia saying that her home was in clouds.

Disregarding the side thoughts, for the time being, I decided to first test out Sitasia's powers and mentally asked her to attack a giant tree now visible through the destroyed canopy and at a distance of more than two kilometers from me in the opposite direction of the camp.

Then I also added to keep her strength at nearly 50% upon her telling me, to my surprise, that I am also in her strike range as according to Sitasia, a giant tree more than two kilometers away is just too close to be treated as a safe practice target.

And the moment I conveyed my final instruction, Sitasia flew down while stimulating her lightning and slammed on that tree.

I only saw a big bolt of lightning moving down, and I am surprised I can actually see the path of moving lightning, but then...

"BANG"

Along with an extremely loud noise, a shockwave reached me just moments behind it and I instinctually raised my right hand in front of me while simultaneously releasing blood-red color mana to cover me.

I also just found out that the color of my mana is blood-red in color, but it is not the time for thoughts like this as my instinctual actions are doing little against the shockwave but I don't know what else I should do; still, I prepared myself to warp back to my dagger in the camp if the situation called for it.

Thankfully, the shockwave only made me slide a few meters back; then, after sensing through the dagger that the elf is still unconscious, I went forward to check the condition of the 'target', well, the area around the target as by now not much should be left of that big tree.

I now confirmed by myself why Beast Vassals have earned the title of Walking Natural Disasters.

The whole forest in front of me has disappeared, only some pieces of black charcoal remains are left here and there inside of what I can only describe as a large crater with a depth of at least a hundred meters and a crater radius of more than two kilometers.

Then with a flash of lightning, Sitasia appeared in front of me but this time I saw her flight path much more clearly; maybe because she is moving quite slowly compared to when she was attacking?

And I sensed that through our connection she also perceived my shock at the display of her shear destructive capabilities which led to her feeling quite happy and a little prideful; and through the same connection, I also sensed her yearning for something; a feeling I found myself to be quite familiar with.

Indeed, I am quite surprised after all this wasn't even the display of her full strength, so I gave her what she desired.

"Really amazing and spectacular; you are indeed very strong."

I had spoken these words with complete sincerity after all Sia is the strongest being I have ever seen in life, so much so the others can't even be compared to her.

Therefore, since I already knew that she can also perceive my thoughts, I further desired to open myself to the connection between us so that she can also clearly sense that I really meant it to every word.

And upon sensing my thoughts, although the wolf in front of me didn't move except for the increase in the bolts of lightning surrounding her, I sensed her happiness growing at my at rather sincere and straightforward praise and acknowledgment of her strength.

While mentally discussing with Sitasia about her other abilities such as her capability of recovering almost instantly from any of the wounds received to her body just by using mana to reconstruct her wounded body parts, I also checked my own condition at the same time.

First and foremost, my net mana pool has reduced in size by nearly 20%; that is as long as I have Sitasia in the summoned state, no matter how much time passes, my mana will always be short of last nearly 20% compared to my original capacity as that is the mana storing capacity of Sitasia.

Though this temporary reduction in my mana quantity surprised me, it won't really affect me, at least for now, because even the more than 80% of mana still left inside me is just too vast compared to my relatively quite small mana extraction capacity.

And this is where my second discovery comes into play because I found that there is no mana transfer rate limit between me and Sitasia.

Therefore, Sitasia can always remain in top condition as long as I haven't completely exhausted my mana, which is virtually impossible to happen; as I can always convert my near-infinite vitality into mana, which combined with my inherent high mana recovery rate won't easily let my mana dry.

Next comes my mana consumption for the last devastating attack performed by Sitasia, which to my surprise, even after being so destructive hasn't reached anywhere near the mark of even one percent.

//*[A/N: What is going to happen below might look completely random but there is a reason explaining why it actually happened, including the existence of mutual thought sharing; and it is mentioned in the later chapters.]

And that wasn't the only pleasant discovery for me, as I also found that unless Sitasia is involved in a fight, the mana consumption rate for keeping her materialized outside my body is smaller than my mana recovery rate; furthermore, even Sitasia can recover mana herself, although not as fast as me.

What does this mean? This means, practically I can keep Sitasia almost indefinitely in her summoned state.

However, as much as I love the idea of following through it, regretfully, I would have to eventually call her back inside me.

As I don't think, traveling through towns and cities accompanied by a 15m high lightning-covered wolf would be appreciated by its residents, even though, I find that scene to be rather visually appealing so much so that given a chance I might follow through it.

However, what I didn't know was, while I was appreciating the visual impact Sitasia might bring just by her presence, she sensed my disappointment as well as the reason behind it.

And very soon our ongoing conversation stopped and I began sensing many mixed emotions from her such as sadness, panic, determination, and other similar ones; however, they were changing too fast for me to recognize the exact cause behind it.

Therefore, I decided it is time to return and talk to Sitasia about this on our way back to the camp.

But as I was about to call her back inside me, she sensed what I was about to say even before I managed to actually put it in words, and this just amplified the swirl of emotions going through her mind.

However, before I managed to ask anything about the reason behind this she asked me to supply more mana to her; and when I asked her 'why', she told me that it is to alter her size.

I instantly understood that she heard my thoughts but still decided to go along with her, so I allowed Sitasia to freely extract mana from me as per her requirement.

After all, if Sitasia did manage to succeed in this by whatever means she might have thought of, it would only be beneficial for both of us.

After sucking nearly another 10% of my mana in her body, just when I sensed her body made of lightning reaching the limit and was about to stop her, Sitasia's wolf body began shrinking.

However, very soon, I also noticed that while shrinking her body is also getting deformed to take the shape of something other than just a smaller wolf.

And looking into her thoughts I found that rather than becoming smaller, Sitasia is using the same procedure through which she first took shape of the one-horned wolf and is reconstructing a new body for her.

And upon knowing this, even without looking any further in her thoughts, I could have guessed what type of new body she is constructing for herself.

Still, by the time Sitasia turned into a humanoid at least capable of standing on 2 legs and still more than five meters in height but continuously becoming smaller, I can't help but let my thoughts wander.

Won't her body be still made of lightning even after having the shape of a human? And even though I don't know much about the type of fantasy world I am in, I can boldly assume that living humanoid lightning won't be included in normal sight.

However, I am also well aware that I shouldn't demand too much.

After all, Sitasia has gone through such a length of reconstructing the body she has been familiar with a long time, just because she wants to accompany me physically as my companion rather than just coming outside only when needed.

Therefore, I should also show my sincerity and appropriately deal with whatever trouble her appearance might cause in the future.

Furthermore, in the first place, the major reason behind my decision that she can't walk in towns and cities was her massive size, something she has already taken care of.

However, I was in for a pleasant surprise, because Sitasia once again sensed my thoughts, and as much as she was delighted with my decision of completely accepting whatever she will finally turn into, she herself won't be satisfied with anything less than becoming same as me.

And in front of my surprised eyes, Sitasia actually managed to accomplish it.

Because what finally appeared in front of me is a beautiful and cute human girl; furthermore, not even a spark of lightning can be seen on her body that I am pretty sure is made of flesh and blood; or at least that is what it looks like even with my improved eyesight.

Sitasia is now of the same height as me with waist-length black hair, azure blue eyes, fair skin, a beautiful face comparable to the elf I just rescued, and a slender body with no visible extra fat.

And I was wrong, she isn't completely human-like as her ears are clearly pointed but still smaller than the elf I have found a little while ago.

Also, her breasts with light pink nipples are a little smaller in size compared with the elf resting at the camp, and at her nether region, I can see a small slit but without any pubic hairs. As for why I can see all these? Because Sitasia currently doesn't even have a piece of single cloth covering her; well, to be fair, even in wolf form she was completely naked.

After a few seconds, I snapped out of the trance I was in due to seeing her naked and decided to give her my clothes for now and then search a new one for me in those kidnapers' camp.

But as if sensing my thoughts, a black dress appeared on her body very similar to mine, black tight-fitting jeans with black long boots but instead of a T-shirt, she wore a black high low gown with long sleeves.

Well, this is convenient, still, I had some doubts about its origin so I asked her.

"How did you get these clothes?"

"... Don't know."

After a slight pause, she replied in a confused voice but from her thought process, I understood that she just wanted to have clothes like me, because I wanted her to wear one, and it appeared by itself.

Considering all the similarities between our clothes it should have the same origin, maybe the old man that I met before coming here? But doesn't this also means he already knew that Sitasia can transform into a human form? Well, not much of a surprise here, as he is the one who gave Sitasia to me.

Then I asked Sitasia about my next minor doubt, which I think isn't anything important but still asked because I am curious about it.

"How did you did get this body and facial features?"

Because I know from her thoughts that she must have a clear picture of her new body to successfully create one.

"From Master."

Sitasia answered with a smile, clearly delighted with her choice, but for me, it won't be an understatement to say that I found those words horrifying; because what she meant by those two words is that she decided to copy my body, organs, and even my facial features and she is really happy for being able to accomplish that.

But this fact made me panic a little as even though I haven't paid much attention to facial features, I really don't want to have a feminine face; therefore, I immediately used ice Elemancy to create an ice mirror of my height and checked my face for the first time after coming here.

Actually, I didn't need to do any of this, it was just I was so shocked by her words that I completely overlooked a fact that Sitasia has clearly formed the body of a female while I am a male, even after she reconstructed her body by trying to create a perfect copy of mine; therefore, there must be something more at play here than just her wanting to create a body that is a replica of mine.

Still, I was unaware of it or too panicked to clearly think about it at this time.

Therefore, after observing my face and other features in the ice mirror, which is quite similar to my original one, I released a sigh of relief.

And to be honest, we both do look quite similar so much so that we can be instantly recognized as brother and sister or even twins by anyone unaware of our actual origin.

But there is a major difference between us as Sitasia looks fairly beautiful and cute while I can be considered fairly handsome and slightly cute due to me looking more than five years younger than my original age; and to my relief, no clear feminine feature can found on my face.

As for how exactly I look; I have a Eurasian face, the same as my original one, spiky black medium-sized hair, azure blue eyes, slightly pointed ears, and fair skin similar to Sitasia.

Furthermore, both Sitasia and I look like teenagers around the age of 15-16 years.

When I again looked toward the ice mirror, I found Sitasia already in front of it and is observing herself from different angles with a satisfied smile on her face; looking at which and influenced by her thoughts, unconsciously, a smile also appeared on my face.

Maybe sensing me looking at her, she turned towards me and said while chuckling with delight.

"Same."

Understanding her meaning, with a slight smile on my face, I spoke the words in her thoughts.

"Of course we look similar, after all, we are a family."

Clearly sensing my agreement to her thoughts, she started laughing and instantly hugged me, in what can be clearly classified as a bone-breaking hug even for my physique.

But I let it be for now and hugged her back; because just like her, I am also delighted with the current development and don't want to spoil this moment because of something so trivial.

After settling down our hyped emotions, we decided to slightly postpone our return to the camp as it would be a good idea to again test Sitasia's power level in her newly constructed human form.

Therefore, I asked Sitasia to attack one of the few remaining standing trees beside the crater but again I told her to not use more than 50% of her current strength and while choosing the tree, I also kept in mind to not affect the camp.

Instantly after receiving my words, her eyes began glowing red and with a sonic boom, she appeared in front of the targeted tree.

By this moment, Sitasia was already covered in dense purple-black lightning and with her similarly lightning-covered fist, she punched the tree.

"Boom."

Along with a loud noise, a fan-shaped area of more than one and a half kilometers became flat, no, not flat, rather the land has gone down by tens of meters; furthermore, I can still see the shockwave traveling further ahead while destroying many trees.

Even though weaker than before, Sitasia is still much stronger than me and I am quite satisfied by it; however, Sitasia isn't.

"Became weak."

I sensed clear frustration in both her feelings and voice, and the lightning covering her became denser and stronger; then she got ready to punch again with even greater power.

But I can't let her do this, especially after sensing the thoughts going through her mind.

Therefore, I immediately warped to her front and began speaking urgently to make her recognize the difference between our thought process

"Wait, you don't need to do this again. I know and already believe you to be very strong; furthermore, in the future, we will continue becoming stronger because I believe that neither of us will stop working hard and be easily satisfied with it."

While saying this I opened all my thoughts toward our bond so Sitasia can understand this complex statement. Because our thought processes and moral values are somewhat different from each other so I really need her to understand the difference in values between us as well as which one we are going to follow among us.

Once Sitasia understood what I am trying and the lightning covering her became a little thinner, I continued in a less urgent but persuasive tone.

"So, you must remember, we will never leave each other; someday, even if one of us became weak, we will still be family and work hard together to get back whatever we have lost. I already said it before and will say it again, we will be family for eternity."

When I was sure Sitasia understood what I wanted to convey, I moved closer, ignoring the harmless lightning surrounding her, and noticed that her right hand was bleeding, but keeping it aside, for now, I hugged her for the second time but this time on my own initiative.

After a few seconds, I got an even stronger bone-crushing hug than the last time, but I can only let it go, again, for now; while keeping a mental note to talk with Sitasia about this later on.

*****

Then we began walking back towards the camp while having small conversations about each other; still, I can't help but think about her bleeding hand, which has already healed.

As bleeding means that Sitasia isn't an accumulation of mana anymore which had just taken a certain shape; and now, she has an actual body, made of flesh and blood.

Furthermore, we have already checked that I can still un-summon and summon her back even in her new body, which I still believe isn't just mana taking a shape.

And it was during these tests we found out Sitasia still has her beast form and she can momentarily turn into a one-horned wolf made of lightning to return to her peak state.

Though all these turned out quite well, I can't avoid a lingering thought that isn't this just too convenient?

Yeah! I know that all these can indeed be just a coincidence but this is me being myself, I can't help but doubt that from the convenient awakening of Sitasia to her getting a momentarily interchangeable new form in such a short time isn't just a set lucky accidents.

Especially when I have already learned that the technique Sitasia used to reconstruct her body can't be used again after taking a form once and it certainly can't form flesh and blood, as it is only supposed to give a shape to the unmoulded mana.

Still, I don't need to spoil the current pleasant mood because of this; therefore, we continued with our walk towards the camp while sharing things about each other; although, the one driving the conversation as well as speaking most of the time is only me while Sitasia is trying her best to keep up with it.

I also used this conversation as a chance to tell her about some of the important things she needs to take care of in front of others, along with one important thing that we need to change between us.

"I will call you Sia from now on, is it okay with you?"

During our conversation till now, I have already sensed this part of her name holds a very important place in her heart so I also decided to use this as a more intimate way of calling her.

And after a momentarily pause, I indeed got her consent.

"...Yes, Master."

After getting her confirmation I continued to the important part.

"So, in return, you should call me Aruhik from now on, alright?"

Because just like I have said before, we are a family, or at the very least are trying to become one, and as a family, we must not have a master-servant type of relationship between us; therefore, I can't let Sia address me as Master otherwise it will act as a hidden subconscious suggestion for both of us that we aren't equal.

"Aruhik."

And Sia replied with a cheerful smile on her face, though, she is more pleased by my thoughts or getting to directly call my name is still to be found out; still I continued to speak the remaining part of what I wanted to convey.

"From now on you are Sitasia Valden Nox Chalenet, a family of Aruhik Nox Chalenet."

And while saying this I extended my hand towards her, which Sia instantly took hold of, then we continued moving towards camp while holding each other's hand...

Though, we were soon forced to release the hold of each other's hand, as it isn't easy or convenient to travel through a dense forest while holding hands...although, neither of us was really happy with the dense forest destroying the pleasant sharing of thoughts between us.

*****

After reaching the camp, I again confirmed that the elf is still unconscious and unsummoned the dragger before moving toward the items I collected from the kidnappers.

It is time to upgrade my equipment.

As I had already sorted out the items, it became easier for me to check and find what I wanted; and while I did this, Sia was watching me work from the side as even this is a relatively new and interesting experience for her.

After all, even though she has seen other humanoid creatures use a variety of equipment before, she herself hasn't used even one of human equipment till now.

Well, in her words, these are 'strange but convenient devices' that can only be used by those humanoid bodies, and now that she has got a humanoid body herself, she does want to try using these.

Still, she is waiting for me to choose one for her.

Accepting her idea, I first checked the three rings hoping these are the equipment that every fantasy world reader has dreamed of, spatial rings.

First I checked the black ring, on its front, a golden yellow clover was inscribed but I am not able to find anything special in it.

Then I began checking the second one, it is dark brown in color but without any special marking or even a simple design.

But when I focused my senses on it to find anything special in it while half-expecting it to another disappointment, my senses picked up a cubic space, of dimensions around 5 meters, with different items stored in it such as clothes, coins, food, bottles, beast cores, and other trivial things, but no weapons.

However, it isn't the items inside that I care for, rather it is the ring itself and I am indeed delighted to stumble upon a spatial ring just from the 'roadside bandits'.

Then I checked the third one, the dark yellow ring similarly without any decoration or markings, and to my surprise, this is also a spatial ring, that too double in capacity compared to the brown one.

Furthermore, this one has a one-handed sword in it, in which I can sense a small amount of energy, so definitely not a normal sword.

Then, I took out the sword, nothing special to look at, if not for my mana sensing, and did the obvious thing to test it out, by channeling a small amount of mana in it.

Within seconds, the blade of the sword began glowing red due to heat, that I can feel even on my face, and as I slowly increased the mana output, a small wisp of flames appeared on it but I am still able to hold the handle without actually burning myself, although, the handle is gradually rising in temperature along with the increase in my mana output.

I actually got my first magical equipment by 'accident', no, not the first magical equipment at it is the spatial ring, this sword is the first magical weapon.

I am definitely equipping this 'Fire Sword'.

Although my desire for this weapon surely affected me to make this decision, it isn't like I didn't think it out; after all, this sword would indeed be more useful with me rather than with Sia, because even though I can also use lightning, mine is much weaker than Sia herself even after her lending her powers to me.

Furthermore, it is fact that considering Sia's strong capabilities I have just seen, this 'weak' of a sword would hardly be of any practical use to her.

Therefore, I summoned my one-handed ice sword before unequipping and discarding it. Then I took hold of the one-handed magical fire sword and willed to equip it in my normal weapon slot.

After a few seconds, the sword completely transformed into the red-black transparent crystal sword before breaking into smaller floating crystals and slowly disappearing.

Sensing movement from my side and excitement in Sia's feelings, I turned to look at her. Only to find that she is holding a couple of red-black crystals in one of her hand while using her other hand to catch the others with a serious expression, which only make her look cuter.

As if sensing my eyes on her, she turned towards me and smiled, while showing the crystals she has collected in her hands. Well, this is really the cutest creature I have ever seen.

And now that I think about it, my companion Sia is indeed a cute girl curious about things around, as all the trivial things around me are something Sia has at most only seen and never actually used.

So I lightly stroked the top of her head, just like I used to do to my brothers long ago, due to which she closed both of her eyes and still a smile on her face, and from our bond, I know that she is enjoying this.

Then I gave her the yellow spatial ring, as I don't need to store weapons in the ring so a smaller space will work out for me, and at the same time also taught her how to use it.

"Use this store whatever you like or find useful enough to carry it with yourself."

After this, Sia began taking out items from the ring one by one and throwing them away after checking them once or asking me about the use of items if she is unaware of it herself; well, none of them are good enough for her liking.

Finding Sia busy with herself, except for occasional mental inquiries about different items, I continued with my work of selecting the weapons for my other three temporary slots.

There are four types of weapons here a single-handed sword, two shields, five daggers, and a pair of vambrace; in other words forearm guard.

As I have already equipped a single-handed sword and such weak shields and armors are practically useless for me due to warping and strong vampiric self-healing, I decided to equip the only useful new weapon, a metal dagger in place of the ice-dagger.

After storing other useful items in the spatial ring and I went to pick up coin bags previously stored in the other ring, that Sia has thrown away after deeming them useless.

Then, I finally reach for the 2 letters and began reading them.

After a few minutes, I put the two short letters in my ring and I released a slightly weary sigh, as now I understood how did this unlucky elf reach here in the middle of a dense and that too 'accompanied' by a group of kidnappers.

And, although it sounds ungrateful, I was lucky that she got kidnaped otherwise I don't know how long it would have taken me to find suitable blood for the awakening of Sia.

Furthermore, now because of these letters, I have something better to lead the conversation with the elf when she wakes up and if she didn't wake up by tomorrow morning, I will wake her up.

And for now, I decided to get some rest with Sia; after all, due to my high stamina and recovery rate because of the vampire bloodline, I haven't rested after the first day and today is the tenth day; therefore, even though my body might not demand it, I think resting would be a good idea to clear my mind.

However, as I was about to call Sia over, I sensed a continuously increasing fluctuation of mana from the tent where the unconscious elf is resting and Sia is also there with her feelings showing clear frustration.

I immediately went inside the tent only to find that Sia has her hand over the elf's belly and she is channeling mana into the spatial ring I just gave her, which she is wearing on the middle finger of her right hand.

I instantly had an absurd guess about what Sia is trying to do, but still asked while looking into her thoughts.

"Sia, what are you doing?"

"Storing food."

Along with the words, corresponding thoughts also went through her mind and I also easily understood it through our connection.

It was the act of me drinking this elf's blood that resulted in Sia's awakening, completion of the bond between us, and Sia is able to come out move freely with an actual body quite similar to mine.

Therefore, Sia reached a rather strange but also somewhat logical conclusion that this elf is an important food for me which made all of this possible, which resulted in her deciding to store this elf in her ring.

As it was me only, who told Sia that she should use this ring to store items that she likes or want to carry with her.

There are so many things 'wrong' here, well, wrong in the sense of ethics and principles I follow... but...let's start working with one at a time, and simpler issues first.

"But I don't think these rings should be capable of storing anything alive and looking at this, I am indeed not wrong."

In response to these words, Sia stopped channeling mana into the ring and as I was about to release a 'sigh of success', she raised her hand in the punching position aimed at the unconscious elf.

Well, she really came up with a 'simple' solution, if a living elf can't be stored then store it after making it a dead elf.

However, this elf still has its uses in helping us get out of this forest and in giving more information about this world's society; furthermore, I don't want Sia to perform indiscriminate killing.

"Wait!"

Sia stopped and turned towards me while mentally asking me for the reason, so I continued.

"I already drank this elf's blood and it would useless to me even if I drink it more, so you don't need to store or even kill her."

Hearing this, Sia nodded, and I took her with me to rest at another place.

Why did I not tell her about something like principles of not killing innocents? Well, first and foremost, even I am not the one who completely follows this principle, it depends on the situation at that time.

And second, the criteria for choosing who to kill and who not to kill is quite complex in itself and cannot be explained in just a few sentences, so I don't want her to build a wrong idea that may prove to be unfavorable or even hurt her in the future.

While exiting the tent I was thinking about setting up another tent for us from the items left in the ring, but I had to stop my plans as a much more important thing has just come up so I immediately turned to Sia and said.

"Sia, come back inside me, now; we will be going somewhere far in a short while."

Sia turned into particles of red mana then it went back inside me, and my mana pool again reached its full capacity; after all, while she is outside I can't refill the last 20% of my mana reserve.

After picking up the ring Sia was wearing but fell on the ground when she went back inside me, I sat near the extinguished campfire and shared the message I have just received with Sia.

As I can see an illusionary-looking old and tattered scroll hovering in front of my eyes, and a message for me written on it in a rather stylish old English font.

~-----~

~To,

~Number 17: Aruhik Nox Chalenet

~In the next 5 minutes, your first 10 days in the new world will be over.

~After 5 minutes you will be teleported out of this world.

~Time in this world will remain frozen till your return.

~So make your preparations accordingly.

~-----~

Well, for a formal letter, they forgot to add a subject and closing salutations.

Jokes aside, I am sure this will lead to what that old man mentioned about me traveling to more than one world.

And it is due to this reason I unsummoned Sia because even though I don't think Sia will be left behind, it is good to be on the safe side by calling her back inside me.

Moments after my mental countdown of 5 minutes ended, I found myself inside a rectangular white room.

After confirming that Sia is still with me, I looked around and found that, including me, there are 20 total figures in the room and we have all formed a 5x4 matrix at one side of the room.

I then discovered that I am not able to move more than a few steps away from my position so I began observing others; however, they all are covered in some strange and magical blue fog, through which let alone identifying them to be male or female, it was impossible to even conclude whether they are humanoids or not.

As my eyes or my senses proved to be useless, I asked Sia to check if she can feel anything as she has a higher sensing ability than me but she is also unable to feel anything.

Then I concluded that this fog must be intentionally made to block our senses and for others, maybe I am also in a similar condition.

And as I reached this conclusion, a voice came from the opposite side of the room.

"~Welcome to all the participants~"

"~Now you all will be transferred to the world of your choice~"

"~You all can stay in your chosen world for at the most 25 years. You can choose to return at any moment 5 years after entering that world. Also, you will be automatically sent back to the main world after 25 years pass in your chosen world.~"

"~You all already know time will be frozen in the main world till your return.~"

"~And as you all left the main world at the same moment, you all will return at the same moment, irrespective of how much time you spend in your chosen world~"

"~And of course, you all be rewarded for your achievements in your chosen worlds.~"

"~You all can choose your rewards, but your achievements will be decided by me. And remember, only for this time, your achievements will be more rewarding~"

"~You can choose from any of the Tier-1 or Tier-0 worlds from movies, novels, animes, or TV-series from your previous world.~"

"~You can also choose your starting point in the chosen world like family, age, timeline, and other trivial things.~"

"~This time, in one world only one participant can enter, so choose fast, as the one who chooses first will be allotted to that world~"

"~After 30 seconds you all can start choosing.~"

Then the voice disappeared, but my thoughts were...

'How in the world, no, how in the 'fake heaven' am I supposed to know which world belongs to which Tier?'

But I didn't have any time to spend on stray thoughts, so, from the limited knowledge I have regarding this topic, I began preparing an ordered list of the 'worlds' according to my preference.

And exactly after 30 seconds, I was separated from all others and this time brought to a black room then a white translucent window appeared in front of me, containing blue words.

*Choose your world.*

Immediately, I stated the name at the top of my mentally created list.

"Type-Moon worlds."

*Error: Higher-Tier world.*

Alight, let go with rapid-fire.

"Arifureta."

//*[A/N] Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekaisaikyou

*Error: Higher-Tier world.*

"Bladedance of Elementalers."

//*[A/N] Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance

*Error: Higher-Tier world.*

"DanMachi."

//*[A/N] Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

*Error: Higher-Tier world.*

I have already wasted too much time so I skipped a couple of names.

"Damn it, then Harry Potter."

*Two worlds found.*

*Harry Potter (Movie): Chosen, can't be selected.*

*Harry Potter (Novel): Available.*

And I immediately made my choice.

"Choose Harry Potter Novel."