Hurrying back home, the pair of siblings each carried a luxurious bag. Provided by the Guild’s store along with their purchase, the padded cases securely protected the eggs inside.

Even now, Henry couldn’t believe he was holding a mid and high class monster egg and was casually strolling towards his home without a care in the world.

Nisha on the other hand smiled from ear to ear, one of her dreams had always been to possess her own race of followers, which had been one of the reasons for her to leave the [Dragon’s Den]. The two low class eggs in her hands represented the first step towards that.

“I still don’t understand why we didn’t borrow the hatching room at the store. Wouldn’t it be better to have the eggs mature faster?”

Her step brother didn’t lose out a single bit in his desire to meet his new companions, especially since there was a chance one of the two eggs turned out to be a mount.

Similar to adventurers, companions had their own roles, and could even stand in for the slots of party members in certain circumstances. Whether a human or a beast casted a healing spell, the tank in front of the group would not be able to tell the difference while a giant was beating on his shield.

“Wouldn’t you rather not risk it to miss out on the maximum loyalty of your pet? Even if it isn’t an absolute certainty, why take a chance? Furthermore, if I’m not wrong, the egg shouldn’t take that long to hatch anyway, maybe not even a day. It’s a first rank after being born, you’re at the peak of the third rank, that’s a piece of cake. And for my own, they’re only low class, I can manage that much.

Rather than that, now that I think about it, wouldn’t it make more sense to bond with as many monsters as possible? They would all help with cultivating if their rank is higher than the owner after all.”

 

“I think that’s something the Guild has tried in the past. I’ve read about it when I studied the general process to prepare for a future mount. The concept in itself works, you can contract multiple partners and the highest ranked among them will influence your personal cultivation.

However, there are two main problems. Firstly, with the rising number of bonds, the individual effect lessens. The book wasn’t too clear why exactly this occurs, my personal guess is that each pact needs a certain amount of energy, of whatever kind, and if there isn’t enough of it, the effectiveness decreases.”

Speeding up his steps even more, he showed his eagerness to get home faster as much as possible, whether he was conscious of the decision or not.

“The second problem lies in the nature of the contract. When you are ahead in cultivation of any partner, your own cultivation speed will naturally slow down to bring the other part up. As a conclusion, with a large number of contractees, you could only reap the benefit of all connections if you are the lowest ranked among all of them. And if a power has enough resources to prepare that many high ranked monster eggs, it’s probably easier and cheaper for them to procure cultivation resources instead.

In the end, there are some professions like Monster Tamers that lead a large group into the Dungeon or focus on breeding high potential species, but purely for the sake of cultivation, a single high ranked partner is better than many for the sake of efficiency.”

Smiling wryly at the last part, Henry didn’t notice the elf at his side laughing until he finished his speech, after which he immediately glared at her.

 

“What’s so funny? This is all stuff I learned in the library, you think it’s wrong?”

Bringing her giggling under control, she promptly pacified him.

“That’s not it. I simply thought you know an awful lot about it, and wondered if you want to be a teacher regarding monsters and beasts in the future. Teacher Henry was too much for me and I lost it.”

Henry’s ears turned scarlet, the imagination of himself holding a lecture at the academy while students fooled around was too much for him as well.

“I don’t want to hear that from a certain someone who buried herself in the library every day recently! Your eyes will go bad if you read in the dark, you know?”

“That’s just a myth I think. And didn’t you bury yourself in the library as well when you had looked for information on mounts? I can see you doing that.”

“This and that are two different things! … I mean, I definitely didn’t do that, no way.”

Flaring up first and then covering up afterwards, Henry couldn’t help avoiding his step-sister’s teasing, he personally revealed she hit the mark after all.

Bantering in this way, the two of them made their way back to the Dharnas’ estate, leisurely carrying a small fortune.

 

“Welcome back, young master and young mistress. Did you have a fruitful trip?”

Greeting them at the door, the old servant Galan already awaited their return, he was naturally informed about their plans and had a place prepared to welcome new beasts into their stables. The personal troops of the duke, although not many in numbers, each had an exquisite war horse stationed at the manor.

“Grandpa Galan, we’re back! Although there were some minor alterations, we still got what we were going for. Is the garden prepared already? We bought our monster eggs, take a look.”

Excited to have a companion like his peers, Henry rushed forward and presented the expensive bag to the old man, a proud look on his face.

“Ah, indeed, the patterns display quite the nice picture. How come you are carrying them both? Which of them is yours and which belongs to the young mistress?”

Galan had seen quite a few of the knights belonging to the house grow up, who had all been bestowed with a partner while they were in training. As a recently established dukedom, the Dharnas’ family heavily relied on their closest subordinate families and knights, sparing no effort and money to raise them as their formation. None of them would let their egg leave their hand in case they decided to hatch it personally. Having Henry carry two was definitely not the norm.

“Don’t be surprised, grandpa, this is why I said there were some changes. Nisha, show him your bag!”

Excitedly pushing her forward and motioning to the same bag the elf carried, Henry caused the servant to raise his thin grey brows.

 

“Don’t tell me …”

Guessing what her bag held, Galan stepped forward and was able to take a peek inside, and true enough, another pair of white shells peaked through between the lascivious padding.

“Didn’t Master Luthais give you enough money for only one exemplar each? What happened?”

In his enthusiastic mood, the young man forgot how he received a favor from his little sister and turned red immediately, unsure of how to answer. Stepping up to fill the gap, Nisha calmly explained.

“I’ve been passed down some money from grandpa Eldrin and figured I shouldn’t just spend it on me alone, so I’ve split it with Henry this time, that way we can both still enjoy a gift from grandpa even now. We can even raise the monsters together, surely grandpa would have wished for the gold to be spent in this way as well.”

Surprised yet again by the adopted child of the family, Galan staggered internally for a moment. How many young nobles would split their inheritance, not to mention from a beloved family member, to help another one of the same generation? As far as he knew, none of the current age group would be capable of such an empathic action. In his heart, Nisha had definitely earned his approval many times over now, serving the Dharnas’ family would now include the young mistress as well.

“Didn’t I say it’s just a loan? I will definitely pay you back in the future, when the time comes you absolutely can’t turn me down. Grandpa Galan also heard it, he’ll be the witness. I can’t just take such a huge gift from my own family.”

Turning her head away, the elf pretended she couldn’t hear him. Experiencing the harmonious atmosphere between the young masters, Galan smiled again and cleared his throat.

 

“I’m pleased to see your trip was a success. Would the young master and the mistress prefer to go to the backyard and the stables now? I’ve already made the preparations for new monsters joining the household, expanding the space a bit is no problem. Of course you could also wait for Master to come back from the palace, he wanted to be here as well but had a small matter to attend to that couldn’t wait. He ordered me to relay a message to you, he will hurry back later but said that you can already try hatching the eggs. It is his bad fortune if he misses it, but he can at least see the newborn monsters then.”

Acting perfectly as the head butler, Nisha and Henry were fully aware there was no way Luthais would order him around and the servant simply acted in this fashion out of professionalism. Nonetheless, as future nobles of the kingdom, they were used to this treatment by now and could represent their house even when visiting other noble families, accepting his tone of speech helped with training their manners.

“That’s right, we have to hurry and hatch our new companions! Come on, let’s go Nisha.”

Pulling her along, the young man rushed her through the corridors, not bothering with looking left and right. He grew up in this house, naturally there wasn’t a place he wasn’t familiar with. He even discovered some of the secret passages his grandparents had been getting installed, a must for every great house in the capital.

Opening a final door, they arrived in the garden, where a table was already prepared with all necessary things for a newborn monster and the hatching process.

 

Walking up to the table in a fast pace whilst dragging Nisha along, he gazed at the ceremonial knife used to finalize the primary contract between the master and the egg lying on a silken blanket, a treasure passed down in the Dharnas’ family.

Regaining his usual bearing, Henry calmed down a bit and took a deep breath. Only a small amount of time was left until he could greet his new companions.

In the background, several servants prepared a place in the stables already as well, most of the monsters fell in the scope of medium body sizes. Giant or miniature variants were rather rare, their species needed a special trait to survive in the harsh environment.

Standing right before the dream that had haunted him for a long time while looking at his peers raising their companions, he unexpectedly took a step back.

“You go first Nisha, it’s only proper that you take a look first. One or two candles don’t make a difference at this point.”

Handing her the ceremony knife without much parade, he brought out his usual countenance.

“How can that be alright? Look at you, how much you rushed. What’s waiting a bit, you can take the first turn as well, it doesn’t matter.”

Reading her step brother like an open book, she too noticed his desires and how much importance it held for him.

“As the older brother, it’s only natural for me to let you go first. And more importantly, these eggs were purchased with your money. Whatever you say, I won’t budge on this. Do me a favor and let me have my will this time around.”

Urging her on, Nisha had no choice but to take out her purchases first and prepare to hatch the eggs.

 

Seeing the shiny surface of the gentle sanden egg, the dragon brought the knife to her palm, applying gentle pressure for a small cut. To her surprise, the metal seemed to be of a high quality, she didn’t even need to supply aura to the tool in order to pierce her skin. Ordinary iron or steel no longer had this ability, at least not with a substantial force behind it!

Observing the crimson drop slowly collecting at the incision and fall on the exposed seal on top of the shell, everyone present quietly waited, if any changes happened.

Nisha on the other hand was still astonished, but for a different reason this time. Unseen to a normal eye, as soon as the blood made contact with the seal a huge amount of aura and mana left her body, it was no longer in her control. Curling around the egg, like a huge cloud pouring down, the energy seeped through the yellow shell from all directions.

The seal symbolizing the contract, a true masterwork with complicated signs and foreign symbols, started moving, rearranging itself while rotating around the center.

When the employee at the guild took out a scroll to imprint the seal, the elf already marveled at the complex design beyond her expertise, only a few scarce of runes made sense to her, who had studied all kinds of languages in the Grand Library.

Now, even those few characters disappeared, replaced by shining letters, far more ancient and written purely in mana and aura on the shell. Spreading from the original location, even where Nisha couldn’t see them, they covered the whole egg, pulsating while it refined the remaining energy in the air.

At the moment, a pin dropping to the ground would resound like heavenly thunder. Henry and Galan were waiting for a result while Nisha was spellbound by the show of lights and the ancient language dancing over her future partner.

Finally, the shell broke, starting from the place of the original seal which had since disappeared.

With a loud cry, the inhabitant of the egg made its first step in the outside world.