VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 100: Are you afraid of the dark?

"Can you please sit down? I promise he’s not going to do anything? Isn’t that right Beans?" Belladonna said, stroking Beans head gently as she kept him in her lap. She had decided to sit on the examination table, and keep Beans close to her, while leaving the chair to the examiner.

After a full minute of the two of them having a staring contest, she was starting to get sick of it.

Beans responded with a slightly louder, and almost smug sounding, purr that Belladonna translated as him agreeing with her words. So, reluctantly and moving slowly, the examiner finally sat down in the vacant chair, even if he kept himself right on the edge of it and was ready to leap to his feet at any moment.

But it was an improvement, she supposed.

Letting out another sight, Belladonna kept her hands on Beans, as she asked about the very thing this man was supposed to be here for.

"So he’s a Shadow Demon, that’s cool I guess, and it’s nice to hear that no one else is going to have a familiar as cool as mine. So that’s something, but what can I do to make him grow? What sort of benefits will I get from the bond?"

The examiner gave her an incredulous look as he simply couldn’t believe how utterly insane the woman in front of him was acting. He had told her that she was holding a Shadow Demon. A Shadow Demon. The wretched beings that had literally clawed their way into existence from the shade cast by the Moon Mistress’ corpse.

And yet this woman was treating it like it was actually the harmless kitten that it disguised itself as. If she was not utterly insane, then he could not imagine what other possible answer there could be to this kind of behaviour. But then again... Mystica seemed to attract the insane, or the eccentric as they preferred to be called.

Only those who spat in the face of logic, reason and reality could truly make it bend to their will and discover new ways to truly break it with the most powerful mage-craft. Although not many of them made it, since insanity didn’t always mean intelligence. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Someone could easily be crazy enough to question why they wore protection while dealing with potion brewing, only for them to unsurprisingly die from the noxious fumes shortly after. Sometimes, some rules were in place for a reason, and bending them meant death.

But that was probably why the insane were needed to constantly bend them.

Letting out a deep, and heavy sigh filled with plenty of stress that Belladonna could not begin to imagine the origin of, the examiner finally regained some level of calm as he answered Belladonna’s question.

"Honestly... I have no idea. Like I said, no one has ever successfully bonded with one. I’m still not sure how you even achieved it in the first place. So what benefits the bond could give is entirely untouched territory.

The only way to know, is for you to find out. Hopefully you live long enough to document it too, so others can learn from your experiences."

"Gee, Thanks for the vote of confidence," She replied with a roll of the eyes and a sigh of her own.

"So basically you’re telling me this was a waste of time. That you don’t know what he will do or how to make him stronger."

"Well... I might not know what he will do, but I can find out how to make him stronger. That is no problem at all." He picked up his clip board, sorting through the papers before plucking one off the board.

He moved to place it on Beans, before pulling his hand back and staring at the cat warily and decided to hand it to Belladonna instead.

"Place the Talisman on his chest and inject mana into it. It will reveal some information to you about appropriate cultivation materials. Thankfully for you, this is covered under your membership fees."

Belladonna nodded, taking the piece of paper and examining it briefly. It had an intricate magic circle drawn onto it with a purple ink that shimmered beautifully in the light. It kind of reminded her of writing with a glitter gel pen.

She followed his instructions, placing the Talisman on Beans’ chest - which he was puffing out with pride - and activated it a second later.

A flood of new sensations poured into her mind as their bond deepened for a brief moment. For a few seconds, she could feel Beans’ heart beating in her chest as if it were her own. She could feel every breathe he took, and even her fingers brushing against his fur.

It was as if, for the moments the Talisman was active, that they were one single being. A second later the Talisman burst into black flames, the ashes drifting down harmlessly as their bond returned to normal.

She had thought that it would simply transmit the information in a convenient list of collectables. Instead, she had experienced what it was like to be Beans’ for a split second, and in that time she had felt his dormant power calling to him.

She could feel the pull of the darkness, and a taste still lingered in her mouth as she craved certain foods that she had never heard of, nor did she know what they tasted like. And yet she knew that she wanted them.

"That was... intense." She said with a heavy breath, taking a few moments to regain herself after the whole experience, while Beans’ looked up at her curiously.

"Yes, unfortunately there isn’t a better way to know the materials for new familiars, but it is better than the trial and error before the founder developed such a spell.

I suggest that you go to the library, search through tomes dedicated to common materials while the feeling is still fresh in your mind. You will know when you see them. If that doesn’t work... then you’ll have to hope for it to be in the rare ingredient tomes otherwise it’s back to trial and error.

There is one thing I will say though... I might not know what he will give you through the bond. But I know for certain that he is a very young Shadow Demon, barely grown. When he is bigger and if you can develop his strength, he will be a truly fearsome beast to contend with.

You’ll be thankful to have him by your side. If he doesn’t eat you by then, that is."

The smile faded from Belladonna’s face and she couldn’t help but sigh.

"Seriously? You really should have just stopped before the last sentence."