"Why are the monsters not united though?" Azaroth asked. Shouldn’t they even be more united against the humans than the humans against them?

"From what we have studied about the monsters they are very territorial and the more powerful they are, the more they more territorial they become," Kael said. "Apart from that they... don’t relate well with each other. Those of different species tend to fight each other."

Kael shrugged. "It’s not like we have a lot of monsters to study from. Alive that is. Also, no Awakener will put their bonded beast down for experiment."

"Bonded beast?" Alex asked.

"Yes, some Awakeners have bonded to monsters. We call those monsters bonded beasts and they are very loyal to their masters. It is where to kind of bond with monster that only listen to you? I think that sums it up." Kael said.

It could be of help, Azaroth thought. Having a monster of your own. "How do you bond one?"

"I don’t know. Bonded beasts are extremely rare and it’s not common knowledge about how it’s done but I know that you will rely on each other’s essence once bonded. The beast will feed more of your essence." Kael explained.

Azaroth slowly shook his head. So bonded beasts were leeches? Azaroth wasn’t interested in anything like that. He thought it would be a monster he could use. A weapon.

Azaroth paused, a weapon just like his sword he was always feeding essence. "How powerful would the bonded beast be?"

"It depends. On the monster or the Awakener and how powerful they are." Kael looked at Azaroth before continuing. "If the Awakener is weak then he would have to depend heavily on the bonded beast to fight as almost all his essence would be with the beast."

Azaroth frowned and looked away, already losing interest but Kael continued his explanation.

"But a very powerful Awakener can manage to pull it off as the Awakener advances as they advance together," Kael said.

Azaroth weighted it on his mind and sighed softly, to him it wasn’t worth the trouble at all. From what he had heard Kael said, the beast would be drawing his essence. Azaroth wanted none of it.

"I would like something like that," Stallus said, her voice low, she was looking down at her hand.

Kael Hound looked at her. "If I see any information on how the bonded thing works I’ll let you know." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Stallus nodded and gave Kael a small smile.

Kael froze, jerked back, and coughed before clearing his throat to speak. "Em... that’s all about monster for today."

If Azaroth didn’t know better he would have thought Kael Hound was flustered, but that was impossible. He was a Hound Captain.

"I want one too! A huge tiger with lightning for strips!" Alex shouted.

Stallus rolled her eyes, and Catena grunted from where he sat sprawled.

Kael sighed. "Yes, Alex. If I see a tiger like that I will let you know."

"Now, to the main reason for today’s lesson," Kael said, his voice taking the hard edge of an instructor.

"Let me introduce you to the very basic of skills. These skills are what every Awakener, no matter the rank should be able to do. First, we have the Essence Forge." Kael said.

"You are already familiar with this," Kael raised his hands, and essence coated them, spreading rapidly over his shoulders and then chest until he was covered in a thin layer of red glowing energy. "We call this essence forging. It makes you stronger, faster and when we reach that stage, you can enhance your sight and hearing with it."

Azaroth looked at his hand, so what he had been doing all this while was essence forging. Seems fitting.

Kael released his essence and it drifted from him like red smoke. "When you enhance any part of your body with essence, we call it essence forging."

"Now to the next one. We have weapon Infusion. Just like the changed version where you feed your weapons essence periodically. Once you start fighting with it and reinforced the weapon with essence we call it, weapon Infusion." Kael said.

Kael removed a small thin knife from his robe and layered it with red energy. He flickered his hand and energy arched through the air in a thin stream, it collided with the metal dummy with a dull ringing sound leaving a long scratch behind.

"That is enough to cut off the heads of a normal human." Kael said and returned his knife just as smoothly as he took it.

How many weapons did he have on him? Azaroth thought. He hadn’t seen a weapon on Kael before.

The only thing on his was always those small weapons, Azaroth’s lips twitched, proper assassin.

"That is weapon Infusion which is quite the same as your own but the concept is just a little different but still doing the same thing of letting out blast of essence. You are turning your weapons into something else by feeding it essence but still its weapon Infusion." Kael explained.

"We will be able to do more then?" Alex asked.

"Yes. You are creating soul weapons which is a new thing in Inferno Legion. Your attacks will be more powerful and... you will have to find out yourself since I’ve not seen it done before." Kael shrugged.

"Oh! Something to look forward to! And even if it ended up killing us too, no problem!" Alex rolled his eyes.

"Shut up Alex. They won’t give us something that would harm us." Stallus said sweetly.

Azaroth raised his brows, this must be sarcasm.

Alex gave her a suspicious look as if he couldn’t tell if she was joking or not but Stallus just continued smiling. Even Catena chucked, his voice rumbling.

Kael cleared his throat. "I don’t think there’s any harm in the soul weapon."

He didn’t seem like he believed his own words though.

"See that, Alex? There’s no harm in it. The Inferno Legion loves us and gave us an untested skill." Stallus said, her sweetness mixed with broken glass.

Kael sighed as Alex shot Stallus a glare pointing his fingers at her. "I knew you were joking!"

"So smart," Catena muttered.

Kael began talking before Alex started on Catena too. "Let’s go to the next basic skill....."