We flew for what felt like a couple hours and the last hour or so was lots of forest below us. In the near distance was a lake in the shape of a crescent moon and in the middle of the crescent was a large castle with multiple buildings within the castle walls. As we approached you could see lots of different beast masters wandering the grounds, most in garments equating to what they were. There were servants in robes going to and fro, soldier beast masters that were decked out in obsidian armor gleaming with the elemental color of their beast. Then the realization hit me that we were now a part of the royal guard in some fashion.
Landing in the courtyard multiple servants bowed and hurried up to us to help us off of the large royal gryphons. Abby and Maddy were at one of their homes and they knew everything that was going on. I could tell Adam looked as uncomfortable as much as I felt. The gryphons took off right after we got off them, startling at minimum myself. Abby and Maddy hurried off towards the largest building turning around to get us to follow.
"Come on, let's get some food, I am sure you guys are starving." Abby excitedly proclaimed. They led up inside of the main castle where the doors were opened by servants. Then we were about to go through a double door and it suddenly opened as a set of servants opened it from inside as if they knew we were about to walk through.
All I kept thinking while walking through this castle was 'Opulence, I has it' which of course is the case for all kingdoms' royalty. There were golden statues, golden weapons, golden busts of previous kings and queens. The walls were covered in paintings of all the different royal family members doing all sorts of different things with their various beasts. The lighting, which were crystals that I had never seen before, ran along the ceiling giving the whole atmosphere a calming effect.
The large dining table had a massive throne on one end that Abby and Maddy walked away from. They sat down in the middle while Adam and I just followed suit. A moment later without even realizing it Maddy and then Abby was served a plate of freshly cooked fish and vegetables. Their cups were filled and then Adam received his with mine being the last. I looked at the food and could feel a strange connection coming from it.
"Do you feel that?" I asked Adam hoping he was feeling the same thing I was from the food.
"I think I know what you might be asking, is it common to be pulled into your food like a magnetic attraction?" Adam asked the girls sitting across from us.
They both looked at us like we were crazy when a voice spoke up from the corner. "I was told you two have an arcane affinity beast so the fish is an arcane piranha. They are a rare delicacy that I hope you enjoy the taste!" A round bellied man with a plant beast that I recognized as an acacia plant but looked weird. I wanted to ask him what rank his acacia beast was, then I remembered that is considered a rude thing to do.
'It is an iron rank, he needs to eat more candleberries.' Wispy spoke up to me answering the question I wanted to ask. I then realized that Wispy has been listening in on my thoughts the entire time I should have been utilizing a second set of eyes on so many things.
"My father has an acacia plant for a beast and he told me that the worst part of having the plant is eating the candelberries. That being said, my elemental wisp informed me that if you were to eat more candleberries you could hit the silver rank, just need to keep eating them till it happens." I offered it to the cook.
"Such a gracious offer but if you tasted a candleberry and understood how bad they taste, it's just simply unbearable!" The cook protested my suggestion which if it was that bad then there wasn't anything else I could do.
'Tell him to add cinnamon and nutmeg in an 8 ounce vanilla shake.' Wispy insisted with a forceful voice to me that I hadn't really experienced but it seemed like Wispy wanted me to make sure we thanked him by informing him of this.
"Er, Wispy says cinnamon and nutmeg in an 8 ounce vanilla shake will counter the terrible taste and make it taste like a chocolate shake." I informed the cook who didn't argue the point but seemed to make a mental note of the suggestion. I also don't think he wanted to interrupt his princess as Maddy started speaking to me.
"See this is why you two are the best. Adam I include you because both of you are best friends and have the same spirit about you. Jordan I can't believe how much you just offer up information that is life changing to people as if it's nothing when you could make a fortune with that information. Yet you offered it up out of the kindness of your heart, it's just awesome!" Maddy was beaming and I glanced at Abby who didn't look as happy.
"There are things though that you can't tell the world!" Abby interjected, which is what I figured was bothering her. "You have met dual beast masters and triple beast masters and their existence can't be a normal known fact as we can't allow the country to know."
"Wait, why can't we let the country know about dual and triple beast masters and who was triple?" I was now quite curious not having even taken a bite as I saw Adam burp out a sign of gratitude as he had devoured his fish. I took my first bite and wow it was heaven, I started to get the same feeling of the potions that expand my mana pool.
'You can now use a support spell called pyranha's teeth which will increase the weapon rank up one rank for the next 5 minutes. Gold ranked weapons will have their damage increased by 10%' Wispy suddenly spoke up to me while Abby was explaining why I had to keep it a secret about dual and triple beast masters.
"...which is why you can't tell them, it's simply impossible for everyone no matter how wishful thinking our youthful minds can be." Abby finished up her speech to my question that I completely didn't hear and was not going to ask again. I simply replied with a "Huh, I didn't know that, thanks!" and gave her a quick smile.
'Wait, how did we learn a spell from a piece of food?' I inquired of Wispy in my head.
'I am elemental wisp, I keep telling you how we can increase, you ignored me so I have just been doing it on my own when I can.' Wispy had a bit of an attitude while speaking to me as if I had been ignoring him for the last year, which I basically had been. The difficult part was that the voice in your head that is your own sounded just like Wispy making it tricky.
'For instance you have never once fired an arcane barrage but you have known it since reading Adam's book. I don't know why you don't even want to test it but it is a powerful arcane spell. I am interested to see how it will translate through the bow more than anything.' Wispy said with a hint of intrigue at the end.
"Jordan, hello? Anyone home?" Maddy was waving her hand at me and hearing my name broke me out of my trance of internal conversation with my beast. I gave my best smile and "Hey, sorry beast convo, what's up?".
Maddy gave me a warm smile, "You have full on conversations?" she inquired with curiosity.
"I have not till now, but Wispy sounds like my inner voice so I guess I have had many conversations before but not realizing it as such." I replied trying to explain my absence from the conversation at the table.
"You probably didn't hear a word Abby said about the reasons for keeping it a secret." Maddy pointed out, making me realize how much she could read me like a book already at this point in my life. I just gave a sheepish smile and cleared my throat then asked "Well what does one do at a castle in Furnhil?"
"You will be training these next two weeks with me and Mr Jackson." A tall man from a different corner of the room suddenly spoke up. He had been leaning calmly against the wall and I hadn't really paid him much attention but then realized he hadn't moved like all the other servants yet he was dressed in casual wear similar to the servants.
"Ghaston!" Maddy exclaimed as she just saw who spoke up. I would later find out that my new personal tutor for the next two weeks was Maddy's older cousin. In this moment it was more of the same in terms of Maddy just being happy to see those she grew up with so I didn't think anything of it at the moment.
The man had a glow about him and it seemed to radiate from his eyes. 'He has a light wisp, tell him to show you his wisp!' Wispy spoke in my head as I was looking the man up and down.
"Ghaston, I am Jordan Kane, Wispy tells me that you have a light wisp and would like to meet it if you could summon it please?" I asked him as his eyes suddenly glowed an even brighter light. The next thing to happen was a bright white to soft yellow light emitted out of his chest and a ball of energy the size of Wispy appeared.
Wispy shot out of my chest and quickly did the same pattern as before chasing the light wisp in a playful manner. They did their flip and turns and then collided mid air and instead of pain in my head I could feel a sudden enlightenment of information about light spells. Wispy broke it down for me as best he could but I essentially just learned a grown beast master's life's work on spells in a moment's time.
"What did your wisp just do! I just learned a support spell of knowledge and an attack spell of light missile. I thought you had an arcane wisp?" Ghaston spoke up in amazement staring intently into my eyes waiting for my response.
"I have an elemental wisp, I actually know spells in seven elements. Wispy here seems to meld for a lack of a better description with other beasts to trade information. Everyone that Wispy has melded with has benefited both beast masters. Not sure what it is that they are doing but I keep getting stronger the more elemental beasts that Wispy can interact with." I explained to Ghaston who was bewildered with what just happened.
Ghaston then left the room while scratching the back of his head and all of us just looked at each other wondering what just happened with him. 'You were wondering why it didn't hurt that time, it was because I cast my own spell called inception which allows me to learn off the beast but it appears that I learn more and it hurts less when that beast is a wisp like me.'
'Can you do that to any and all beasts? Or do they have to be a certain level or type?' I was truly intrigued at this point as it now seemed like we should be doing this inception on everyone at the school just one time to increase everyone's abilities.
'I can only cast it on a friendly beast which has only been the beast masters on our team as everyone had looked down on us. The moment the beast master believes in me and you two also get along I can cast the spell.' Wispy informed me of the current limitations to my idea.
'So I guess I will just have to win over everyone!' I joked with Wispy for the first time. A part of me thought I might be going crazy at that moment but that was when Wispy and I truly created our friendship. We ate the rest of the meal enjoying each other's company talking about what we can do for the next two weeks.