Chapter 14

"So, they're called mystical wolves. That's a fitting name," the wolves' ears perked up and they dropped their toys to bark joyfully while wagging their tails, causing Erik to smile and continue, "but I'm not sure what you mean by a contract, master. And as for taming them, I didn't do anything special. I just treated them as if they were dogs, although I now regret it a bit because they bark just like one."

"You're not aware that you made a contract with them, Erik?" Sigrún looked at Erik with a mix of confusion and surprise as she asked.

"Not really. They've been with me for several years, but I'm not sure what you mean by 'contract'," Erik replied, looking even more perplexed.

"Let me first explain what a contract is. A contract is a sort of ritual in which a magical animal and a human engage, where the magical animal accepts the human as its master. The contract carries some interesting properties, like the animal and the master always being aware of each other's position. Moreover, the master can share their mana with their contracted animal to enhance their abilities, and the animal benefits by drawing upon the master's mana to bolster its strength."

"So, that's a contract?... Then I guess I have a contract with them, as I can sense their location and give them chi, or rather mana. But I always believed those were properties of mana; I never imagined it being some sort of contract," Erik commented thoughtfully.

"Properties of mana? How did you come to that conclusion?"

"Well, from the moment I first felt mana, I immediately discovered one of its properties was to amplify my strength, endurance, and toughness by at least five times, although that has improved over time. Another property I found was that this hardening could be applied to other things, like my tools. This led me to discover yet another property: when I did that, it felt as if the tool became part of my body, and I could sense everything happening to the tool, down to the tiniest scratch. It's similar to how you know where your hands or feet are at any given moment without looking. That's where the idea of Ethereal Projection came from, although, well, I named it the chi sphere.

The point is, when I picked up the puppies, they were newly born, and I had no way to feed them with maternal milk or something similar. I remembered a property of natural energy Ha..." Erik raised his hand and pointed to the air before continuing, "By natural energy, I mean these little energy balls that are in the air. The property I discovered was that when I mixed it with mana, it staved off hunger and fatigue. So, I tried giving them this mix, and it worked. However, I quickly realized it was pointless since they were able to eat meat with no problems just a few days after being born. But they liked it, so occasionally I still do it for them as a treat."

(DAMN MONSTER! What properties, fool?! You just spoke of damn intermediate and advanced techniques, not to mention the fucking communion with myst, a damn master-level technique!)

Sigrún was dumbfounded by what she had heard, her gaze fixed on where Erik had pointed. She could indeed perfectly see an 'energy ball' as Erik described. However, she quickly took a deep breath in secret to calm herself and continued in a composed voice.

"So, that's how you created the contract. What you mentioned about combining your mana with myst, or natural energy as you called it, is a very ancient and basic way of forming contracts with magical animals. Though it's highly inefficient, and the amount of mana the contracted animals can utilize is very low. They also can't communicate telepathically or perform combined spells. If you want, I can teach you how to properly make a contract, and you can perform it with your wolves."

"Oh, that sounds good," Erik replied, smiling brightly and nodding.

"Alright, we'll do that later. But there's something else I want to know. You told me that you felt mana after mimicking the movements of an old man you worked for. Did you sense the myst in the same way?"

"Oh yes, after feeling the mana, I circulated it throughout my body while performing those movements, and after a while, I began to sense the energy points or myst around me."

"How long did it take you to sense mana and myst?"

"Mmmm..." Erik placed his right hand on his chin, reflecting before continuing, "For the mana, it took about 30 minutes, and for the myst, I'm not exactly sure, but it must have been a few hours."

(30 minutes and a few hours?! SON OF A BITCH!!! Stop rubbing your damn genius in my face. It took me a month to feel the mana and a whole year to sense the myst. I hate you, damn prodigy!)

Sigrún almost started hyperventilating from suppressed feelings. After all, she had always been the best at everything, surpassing even the most outstanding previous records, which gave her great pride.

But seeing before her a genius even more prodigious than herself made her feel very strange. Even though she was annoyed that there was someone with talent far superior to hers, she was also incredibly excited.

After all, this is what she always wanted. It had always been lonely being the best, the genius of an era, always receiving envy and admiration from others. And even though she had some friends and acquaintances, it wasn't the same.

But that finally changed. She now met someone even more talented than herself, and he was her disciple. So, he would be with her for a long, long time, and she wouldn't have to feel alone at the top ever again, which filled her with incredible anticipation and joy.

"I see... by the way, could you show me the movements you copied from the old man?"

"Of course."

Erik stood up and began performing the basic tai chi movements he knew. Although the story of the old man might seem like a lie, it wasn't. The main reason he decided to try tai chi movements was that there was indeed an old blacksmith Erik worked for, who really talked about chi and performed tai chi movements, although they were slightly different from what he knew.

At first, he never thought he wasn't on Earth. After all, even though it was a very different place from what he knew, where he lived in this life, people and even the technology wasn't much different from the Middle Ages he remembered from history books of his past life. So, even seeing giant magical animals, he never doubted that he was still on Earth, perhaps far in the past or in a post-apocalyptic future, but never anywhere else. After all, even though they were huge and magical, they looked like the animals he knew.

But now he wasn't so sure, as the first thing he noticed when he saw his planet from space was that it looked nothing like Earth. Although he hadn't traveled to space in his past life, he had seen, like everyone else, photos from space stations, and what he saw looked nothing like that.

Starting with the shape of the continents, although he could only see two, their shape was entirely different from what he remembered. So, either it's far, far in the future, and that planet is really Earth, and the tectonic plates re-organized the continents, or it's a completely different place. Plus, the most prominent color of the planet in space was greenish, even though the oceans were blue on the planet's surface.

On the other hand, Sigrún was doubting her existence. She couldn't understand how such simple and basic exercises, which had nothing to do with mana, myst, or any body refinement technique, somehow helped him feel the mana.

At first, it seemed very suspicious to her that someone would decide to practice initiation exercises in front of an orphan, as Erik claimed he was. On a planet as primitive as Erik's home planet, such a thing would be incredibly valuable and tightly controlled.

However, as she didn't detect any lies from Erik and to deceive her would require a legend-level power and not just any ordinary one, she began to think that perhaps there was something in the boy's story that he didn't even know. But the answer to her doubts had a response she didn't expect: nobody showed the boy initiation exercises. The exercise he practiced had nothing to do with it. Running would have a better effect than what he was doing.