2nd Pet

Thoughts raced as James tried to think about what to do in this situation. Wilbur was definitely way to smart for his own good. There were too many problems with what he seemed to be asking. First it was impossible to contract a grown adult. Second, James' mana sphere had not had time to grow enough to accept a second contract. The third point was entirely an emotional rejection, this mangy old mouse was not the next pet that James wanted to contract. 

He had set his hopes on contracting a battle ready pet next. If he saved up he could afford one at the elite rank. Something that would allow him more options. 

However, Wilbur refused to calm down and continued to insist.

Currently James was squatting within the mouse dungeon and was looking eye to closed and sleeping eye of the matriarch mouse. He could see the elder mouse was female now that he was holding her. She smelled even worse and while carefully inspecting her she pooped into his hand and then peed on him when he had just cleaned the poop off by smearing it on the wall.

Sighing, Wilbur knew there was a way. Pet store owners formed contracts with all their pets, but it wasn't the normal contract, it was a special contract that didn't allow powers or the shared ability. All it did was allow the pet store owner to pacify, if needed, and to a certain extent track a pet's condition. These kinds of contracts were frowned upon for general use and were not taught in school. There were extremely tight regulations for using them. Because the contract was basically one way it was easy for masters to abuse the contract. Horror stories about enslaved pets and underground fighting rings were common. In every case these types of stories always revolved around one way pet contracts.

James was very familiar with these contracts because his family used them. In their ratting business they needed more than just the main contracted pets to hunt rodents. A pack was needed. For example his grandfather had three main contracted pets only one of which was the terrier with the ratting bloodline. He also contracted another twenty terriers with the one way bond. This allowed his business to grow and do well. If ratting was left to just his contracted terrier he would be working his pet to death. So his family had a thriving pack, most of which were bonded using these one-way contracts. 

In James' family they were treated just as good as the main contracted pets. They lived and were taken care of. In fact the puppies from these pets often became the main contracted pets of other family members. It was a win win situation and there was much love showered on these animals.

There wasn't much point to forming a one way contract with this mouse though, James figured that Wilbur wanted the matriarch to survive. It was true, if he used the normal contract on this mouse she would receive the same sort of inheritance as Wilbur. Powers, the ability, and even the mental gifts all humans gave to their pets.

"It just isn't possible, my little buddy, I know you can't understand. I just don't have a large enough mana sphere to accept another bond for at least another year..."

Wilbur completely ignored all of his words and just continued to point and cheep.

[Cheep, cheep!]

Tired of this pointless exchange James realized that the only way to communicate would be through action. There actually wouldn't be any problem with trying to form a bond. The worst that could happen would be a slight backlash for a day or two. Thinking more about it he could put as little mana in as possible and probably save himself from the backlash to a large degree.

Sighing James put the matriarch down and ignoring Wilbur's even more intense cheeps began to draw an array in the dirt of the mouse dungeon. Taking his time James made sure to carefully set everything up right. Since he knew this was going to be a backlash he wanted to make sure that the mana flowed correctly. Making a mistake here could cause any number of problems that he didn't want to think about.

After about an hour of painstaking work James once more lifted the sleeping elder. This time he only held her for a long enough to gently place her in the middle of the array. 

This was going to be the most difficult part. When James had tried to form a contract with the Bluebell songbird egg he had tried to use as much mana as possible. This time he was trying to use a little as possible. It sounded easy, but it was not. To get just the right amount of mana was not something that James had ever tried before. 

False start after false start occurred, but only James knew that there was any problem. The mice of course had no idea what was happening and Wilbur for all his youthful energy had never seen a contracting ceremony before. So after innumerable failures James finally performed the ritual as simple as it was with just the right amount of mana. The array glowed so faintly that it was impossible to see. James only knew it was working because he could feel the mana finally flow from his fingers, through the array, and brush up against the matriarch.

Nothing happened.

A drop of sweat rolled down James' forehead and dripped off his chin. He sighed and sat back looking over at Wilbur and shook his head.

Wilbur ignored James and just stared intently at the matriarch.

'Speaking of which shouldn't I feel the backlash already?'

James began to look at the matriarch intently as well. 

Something was wrong, or more likely something was extremely right. It could not have worked. So many rules were being broken.

'No, no, no!'

Inside his head James was pleading with whatever Gods there were that this would not work. Instead suddenly the array lit. Waves of mana were gushing along the path of the array. It was far brighter than before and far brighter than the array had been when James had contracted Wilbur.

"What? Why?"

The last thing James saw was the matriarch waking up and standing on her back legs. Their eyes met and a bond formed between them. And then the whole three meter cube worth of dungeon lit up as hundreds of bonds formed with every single other mouse.