Amelia once heard the voice of her speaker, stood up even before the ten exited the forest. She knew who they were, and once saw her, the one in front moved with a big smile over his face.
"Long time no see and you have gone much colder than before," the swordsman, who had two swords sheathed behind his back, with the two tilts forming two curves around his head, said.
"C'mon, I know you traveled a long journey, but let me introduce our new leader to you," she said, as she waved to him and the group behind. They were all having the same weapons, two swords with curvy tilts. Arthur felt their strength, and he knew they were like Amelia, very strong.
"Is he the one you spoke of?" the man asked, as he pointed to Arthur. He seemed not to believe what Amelia said about this youngster in front of him, especially when he assessed his power, and strangely there was no monster aura coming from his body. "He didn't even obtain a single monster, not even a mage," he added, with much doubt.
His attitude irritated everyone here, but before anything could go out of control, Arthur suddenly disappeared, to reappear just behind that man.
"This little trick is nice, but you can't possib…"
He didn't continue his words, as he felt a huge hit into his body. before he or anyone else knew it, Don appeared out of nowhere to stand just in front of that man. Don didn't hit him hard, just a gentle pat like Arthur ordered.
"What the hell…"
The man was about to get serious, but suddenly that one horned bear moved towards Arthur, and leaned to let Arthur pat it on the head. This was unbelievable scene, even to the leader of this men, who looked in shock towards Amelia who explained:
"This is called a pet, which is a special ability our leader has. He could turn any monster into a pet, to be sealed in your body and fight with you, and that's not all, he just defeated five horned monsters, the one we were talking about when you showed up."
The face of the swordsman changed, as he looked, in silent solemn look, towards Amelia who nodded her head answering his unspoken question. He came here for the token, and when he saw Arthur he thought of attacking him, and taking the token for himself. what he heard and saw just now made him speechless, abandoning any prior intention he had in mind.
"Where is the body of that monster then?" one of the men behind him asked, as he couldn't believe what Amelia said.
"It's hidden, well and safe, with me," Arthur finally spoke, as he looked to each one of the group, including their leader, "Join me, not only for mere token and chance to join the academy, join me and I will open your eyes to a total different world, a world you never knew it existed."
His words were simple, but all nine men looked at their leader, asking for his decision and permission. This group of mercenaries acted as one group a long time ago. they passed through many hard times, and the bond between them was way stronger than any bond of blood.
"I say we shall give it a try and see what you can do to us," he said, before adding, "but heed my words, if you toyed with us, threw us into death situations, asked us to babysit you, then we will abandon our promise and severe our relation with a retaliation."
Arthur didn't mind that condition, as he never planned to treat them ill like this. "I have no objection to that," he said, declaring the joining process of the whole group. The leader, or the ex leader bowed his head to him as he said:
"I'm Omar, and I'll be in your care from now on."
"I'm Arthur, and it's nice to have you all."
After everyone introduced himself, bowing his head in a ceremony, Arthur welcomed them and then made Amelia introduce the others to them. He also whispered to Madly to make each one summon his or her pet when they were formally introduced.
The little trick he pulled had a great effect on everyone, as they thought Arthur was an exception, or quite lucky, but now they couldn't believe their eyes.
What shocked them, though, wasn't the monsters, but the way they appeared, and the obedient nature of them, which was something so contradictory with the famous attitude of monsters here.
After the round of introduction finished, Amelia left the group back with the older ones, as she and Omar went to speak with Arthur.
"May I ask about these pets?" Omar asked, directly, about his purpose to speak with Arthur.
"That's something you will witness when others will join us," Arthur said, but then Amelia's face changed slightly as she hesitated for a moment. "No others will come, right?" he sighed as he said that. the fact that a group of ten veteran mages came to join him had exceeded his expectations, as the highest he thought of was five!
"You can't blame them, after all if not for the long friendship with Amelia, I wouldn't have believed her," Omar said, giving some excuse to the guys who didn't show up, so Arthur wouldn't be so upset about it.
"No problem," Arthur said, as he didn't care about this now, "they are the losers, not me," he added, before looking up to Amelia while asking:
"I think your main abilities are strength, and vitality, right?"
Arthur, so far, couldn't fully understand Amelia, and he didn't dare to ask her about all her potential, not yet. He knew, as a former strong cultivator, asking someone about his abilities, was so rude and might instigate that person's wrath.
Amelia didn't find anything offensive in his question, as she honestly replied:
"I don't know what you are talking about, but my assessment was barely level three when I was nine."
Arthur looked at her for a moment, as he totally forgot his way of assessing talent here was different, way different than the way talent was assessed in this world.
"Great, gather up Gregory, Clovert, and the others, I want to explain something to all of you."
Arthur's words were vague, but the two in front of him suddenly felt the weight of them, it was like a higher master was about to give pointers. So, they went ahead and gathered everyone, as the rest of the group came to hear what Arthur was about to say.
"Ok, what I'm going to tell you isn't traditional here, in this world, but it's applicable and real, so try to embrace it as a fact, and don't question it," he said, as he started addressing everyone here, "the way assessing talents works here isn't fair. In my humble opinion it's just a superficial way to assess talents.
In my opinion, there are ways to assess talents, as it's not only based on a nine years old assessment, as basically our bodies can grow, and I mastered a way to make each and single body of ours grow its potentiality, and be stronger with time.
Just look around you, all of them were just mere normal youths, with barely level one talent, in your known standards. After staying with me for less than a week, I believe their growth in talent would be least described as being monstrous, as each one of them would now be ranked in level three to four at the least."
He paused, letting others marvel and be astonished from this fact. even Amelia and the two beside her never knew about this before. The others, however, just nodded, as they confirmed the words Arthur just said.
"Is this related to that meat?" Amelia asked, as she was intelligent, very smart to guess it on her own.
"Yes, it's the way I used to raise my and others talents to the degree we have now. Besides that," he added as he summoned Don," I will boast your talents by two other ways you never heard of before, pet contract and absorbing pure energy in the form of vital organs of monsters.
However," he paused, as his face became serious, "doing so must be according to rules, and the most important one is to figure out your main attribute. Generally there are basic attributes, and advanced ones. Basic attributes are the ones I'm going to discuss now, as advanced attributes are just rare, extremely rare."
He then moved to Don as he said:
"the pet can be any monster you like, and there is no limit to the grade of the monster, but we need to make it submit to you, and this might be the only limitation we might have."
"Does that mean that five horned monster can be a pet too?"Amelia asked, with much expectation and thrill in her tone.
"Yes, sure, and not only it, as the other monster we are going to fight later might be also a pet candidate," Arthur instantly, and casually replied.
"What monster?" Madly asked, as she and the others looked around themselves in questioning manner, searching for this hidden monster.
"This," Arthur paused, as he didn't know how to describe it, "this place isn't a normal valley. It has a very significant value, very important in our future growth, but," he paused, as he looked at Amelia and added, "the rumors regarding this place are, unfortunately, true. There is a monster living here, we can say it's the guardian of this treasure.
If we wanted to really boost our strength by bounds we never imagined, in a very short time span, then we needed to fight this monster and at least conquer it."
His words were weird, as they exchanged silent glances full of doubt between each other. "Don't question me, what I'm stating is a fact. another fact is this monster grade, at least, is slightly higher than that scorpion I just fought, and this is also another fact," he said.
His confident tone made them start to believe what he just said.
"How can we do this impossible task you are speaking about?" Omar said, shocking his head, as he knew the task of fighting a five horned monster was already too much for him and his team, not a higher grade monster.
"I will boast your strength, all of your strength in the next week, and by the end of it we will be ready to face this monster," Arthur, calmly, said, as if what fear and doubt Omar just expressed were groundless.
"Are you sure?" Omar asked, in great doubt, that Arthur never cared about. "Yup, pretty sure, and now," Arthur spoke in a tone that ended the current discussion, "what we need to discuss isn't the possibility of killing that monster or not, what we can do now is to look for the answer of this question, what's the attribute of each one of you?"
He said, as he looked to each one in the eye. He knew determining attributes wasn't that hard, but what was harder, though, was to find a suitable perfect match for each one of them. He knew there was another thing he couldn't tell them now, which colors he noticed when each one used his abilities in fight.
Arthur knew he had a long road ahead of him if he wanted to, systemically, transfer the deep knowledge he had to be applicable in this world. so, he just opened his mouth and explained the most basic form of attributes.
"The most essential attributes are strength, agility, defense, vitality, and intelligence. According to each attribute, I will look for a monster suited best for you to absorb their vital energy."
"Is this necessary?" Gregory asked, in doubt, "I think our strength is decent, just adding pets would be awesome," he added.
"No," Arthur shook his head, "You need to understand that growing your strength is more important than raising your fight abilities. If you are at level three and stuck there, then you will face limited choices in front of you, like the maximum number of pets you can have.
If you focused on raising your talent, and growing your own strength, then even if you started low, like level two mage for example, in less than a year you can be at level four or even five. That would boost your strength, make you be able to couple with much powerful monsters, and obtain much more pets."
"Can we have more than one pet?" Omar asked, as he pointed to Don, who was sitting, obediently, behind Arthur like a bodyguard.
"Sure, but now let's wrap this up and each one has to think, very hard, about his attributes. By the way, I know you came here to join us, and you are now following my lead, but I won't help anyone just joining me without really showing me their worth," Arthur suddenly said, attracting everyone's attention, as this was a brand new rule.
"For example, Amelia, Gregory, and Clovert had already participated in two major wars with us. So, I will help them get stronger now.. if you want to watch, then fine, but to receive the same treatment as them, you all need to show me your worth,�� Arthur added, in a complete serious and dominant tone.
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