My spirit animal is a F–Rank gecko-Chapter 18: The first special bond exam (4)
Marcus smacked some sense into the two girls, and they both sat on the sofa, far away from each other.
"Ok... So."
Marcus looked at Jade.
"Any report about the first years? Is there any student that you noticed has potential?"
Jade rubbed her chin while staring at the ceiling.
"I don’t really know.... But there is Adrien; he’s a part of the Flameheart Clan—"
Marcus cut her off by using his light-bend hand to shush Jade.
"No. Not him. I’m talking about students who you think have the potential to be Rank C and up. Not those people who are destined to be strong."
Jade shook her head as she looked back at Marcus.
"I don’t understand you. Why focus on those kinds of people when we should be focusing on the people who are guaranteed to be strong for society!"
Coral perked her eyebrows.
"For once, I agree with Jade. It’ll take too many resources and is a gamble to find people who are weak but have the potential to be strong!"
Coral gave her statement as Marcus just closed his eyes.
"I understand what you’re saying, but..."
He looked down while he could feel his head getting dizzy.
Coral noticed Marcus’s fatigue.
"Look, you made a promise not to be biased as a council president. And also, when did you last take a nap?"
Marcus blinked for a bit, then answered Coral.
"Maybe... 3 days ago? I don’t know, honestly."
"3 DAYS?"
Jade was flabbergasted at what Marcus said.
She got up and pushed him onto the sofa, where he dropped like a ragdoll.
"You need to rest, blondie!"
"No, I can’t—Bondspire needs me!"
Marcus was about to get up, but Coral held him back.
"We’ll take care of things while you rest for a while. How about this?"
Coral looked at Jade; her eyes hinted at something.
Jade was confused but understood it after a while.
"Oh yeah, since you wanted to know which first year has the most potential, how about watching their first special bond exam?"
Jade flicked her finger, and a bunch of hummingbirds came out from the broken window.
The hummingbirds formed a line and their eyes glowed, letting out a hologram screen showing many students doing different things.
There was one that was climbing a mountain, while one rode their spirit animal, and the other was resting on a tree.
Marcus’s eyes lit up.
"Oh. You put your hummingbirds as spies to watch over the kids!"
Marcus was intrigued as he watched the screen carefully, analyzing every student.
"See, let’s just sit back and watch the first years go through their first bond exam!"
Coral grabbed some popcorn and sat at Marcus’s side,
while Jade also sat beside Marcus.
The three of them watched the students, one of whom was Jaster, showing him navigating through the forest with his purple gecko.
---
(JASTER POV)
After being stung by many bugs and mosquitoes in the forest, Jaster started to not feel good.
He hadn’t seen anyone ever since entering the forest.
"I’m probably in last place.." Jaster huffed, his voice coming out ragged.
The sun shining down on the forest wasn’t helping much either.
"In the game, I barely explored Silver Mountain, so I don’t really know any shortcuts."
After walking a little more, Jaster bumped into a stone wall.
He looked up and saw that he’d already reached the end of the forest, and he had to climb up now.
"Just great... Well, good thing I have my Wall Climb skill!"
Jaster looked at his palm.
"Krrk!"
Jaster’s chest began to glow indigo again, and it spread throughout his body and into his palms.
[ Skill activated ]
Wall Climb — Lv. 1
He began climbing the mountain, with Purple in his pocket to make sure it didn’t fall off.
Jaster climbed more and more. The skill really helped him, as he was able to climb easily.
But the sun was so hot that Jaster felt like he was gonna melt.
"I need to rest.." He looked at his gecko and saw Purple breathing heavily.
"Chaa~~"
"PURPLE!" 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
Seeing the exhausted gecko, Jaster decided to take a break in a cave he’d found.
Finally away from the sun, Jaster took Purple out of his pocket.
"Purple...."
He felt tears forming in his eyes, as he couldn’t do anything to quench his animal’s thirst.
"Wait here. I’ll try to find some water for you to drink."
He opened his jacket and put it on the ground.
Jaster then proceeded to put Purple slowly onto the soft fabric.
"At least this’ll cover you from the hard surface."
Jaster got up and went deeper into the cave.
It was really dark; he could barely see anything. The only thing Jaster could hear was the thick air, and he could smell the humidity in the cave.
The ground was weirdly slimy; every time Jaster took a step, he’d need to use force to take another step.
"It’s so dark in here..."
That’s when Jaster hit the end of the cave.
He felt all around him, desperate to find another way.
"SHIT. IS THERE REALLY NOTHING IN THIS STUPID CAVE!"
Jaster started crawling on the floor; that’s when he spotted a small crack in the wall.
He peeked to see what was inside, and what was inside made him flabbergasted.
Inside, there was a huge pool filled with bioluminescent water. In the middle of the pool, there was a statue of a woman, hands out, like she was praying.
The roof of the rock dropped a droplet of water. And it created a rhythmic sound, like the woman statue was singing.
"WAIT... DON’T TELL ME IT’S THE MAIDEN POOL!"
Jaster punched his way inside the sacred cavern.
After a while, he managed to break the rock and crawl inside.
The inside of the cavern was even more beautiful.
The statue of the maiden was crying while each droplet from the cave roof dropped onto her hands and gracefully fell into the pool.
"I HIT A JACKPOT."
Jaster was practically jumping up and down.
The Maiden Pools are one of the urban legend places that player can encounter throughout their journey.
There’s only one of them in each nation; Adam had only encountered it two times in his countless playthroughs.
And even then, he never received any of the rewards the Maiden Pools gave, because their requirements were insanely hard.
Jaster got close to the maiden statue; he inspected it.
The woman had a long robe and beautiful wavy hair that touched the water.
The maiden seemed to be crying while begging for something with her hand gesture.
"I wonder what’s the story about all the maidens, since Soulbound never mentioned them."
He ducked down to see the glowing water, and the water started forming into words.
Jaster squinted his eyes to read the bubbly text.
"Congratulations on your finding of the sacred sanctuary of the Tide Maiden. The Maiden has acknowledged you. Therefore, you will be rewarded with a reward if you bring the Maiden a gift."
Jaster read the things that were needed to get the gift of the Maiden, but what he read made him raise his eyebrows.
"Gift the Maiden 10 Tide Runes, and a tear of your loved one."
The 10 Tide Runes were reasonable, but "the tear of your loved one?" made Jaster confused.
"Loved one... But I don’t have anyone I care about in this world. Nor on Earth, anyway.."
Jaster got up and searched for a rock that could store the water in the pool.
He spotted a rock that looked like a bowl and grabbed it.
"There’s no time to think about it. I’m still early on in the game. I’ll come back to this later."
He scooped some of the water and went outside the pool, but before he went to Purple, he looked back at the Maiden Cavern.
"It’ll be a waste if someone other than me discovers it. I’ll need to cover this up."
Jaster covered the hole he made with many stacks of rocks until it looked like the end of the cave.
But before he left, Jaster carved a marking on one of the rocks so he didn’t forget where the Maiden Pool was.
After finishing, he finally returned to Purple and saw it breathing heavily while sweating.
"Oh, Purple... Here, take a sip."
He bent down and slowly raised its head.
Then the water poured into the gecko’s small mouth; some fell off to the ground.
After chugging all the water in the bowl, the gecko coughed and opened its eyes.
"Oh, Purpleberry..." Jaster hugged his spirit animal hard.
"I’m so sorry that you had to experience this!"
Before continuing his climb to the top, Jaster savored the hug as much as possible,
because he knew that nothing would last in this world.
[ Bond level increased! ]
---
Special character stat:
JADE
——————•●•———————
"Spirit animal: Hummingbird"
◇ Power: ■■□□□□□
◇ Regeneration: ■■■■□□□
◇ Intelligence: ■■■■□□□
◇ Agility: ■■■■■■■
◇ Defense: ■■□□□□□
◇ Power stat: 19
◇ Rank: D
——————•●•———————
