The fifth year on the island brought with it a change that was subtle yet profound. Arka's routine—Aura training in the morning, hunting in the afternoon, and studying the language at night—had become the foundation of his life. However, he realized he wasn't the only one who was growing.
The most astonishing change was visible in his three companions. One morning, as they were preening their fur under the sunlight, Arka saw it. Beside their first lush tail, a second, smaller tail had grown, moving in sync with the first. It wasn't merely a physical change; it was a visual sign of their awakening power.
The bond he had always felt with them—a stream of emotions like hunger, danger, or joy—had now deepened. After five years of living together, he could understand their every gesture and glance as if they were speaking. A tilt of the head from Selen meant there were medicinal plants nearby. A twitch of an ear from Hanzo meant prey was approaching. They were a unit that moved with near-perfect understanding, a silent communication forged by time and shared struggle.
Driven by their incredible physical development, Arka returned to the pile of books he had borrowed from the cave. He searched for a thick, monster-hide-bound tome titled "The Book of Legendary Beasts". With a pounding heart, he found the chapter he was looking for. There, beautifully illustrated, was a description of the Nine-Tailed Silver Fox (Kitsune) lineage. The book confirmed his suspicions: they belonged to the category of legendary beasts, on par with leviathans, pegasi, krakens, dragons, and phoenixes. He also skimmed through sections about the other sentient races of Hexa—the graceful Elves in their forests, the mighty Dwarves beneath the mountains, and the mysterious Demons—expanding his understanding that the world beyond this island was far more complex than he had imagined.
The book also explained that the magic and abilities of legendary beasts were typically passed down from parent to child. A pang of sorrow tightened Arka's chest. Bullyu, Hanzo, and Selen had no mother to teach them. That responsibility now rested entirely on his shoulders.
Arka tried to teach them magic from the books he read. The process was incredibly difficult. Spells designed for humans, with their complex words and gestures, meant nothing to them. But Arka didn't give up. He stopped trying to teach them incantations and instead began reading the fundamental principles of magic aloud to them. And strangely, the foxes seemed to understand. As legendary beasts, their intellect was exceptionally high, and they absorbed the concepts instinctively.
And so began a new challenge, one he faced through a series of small, amazing moments over the following months.
One afternoon, while Arka was practicing his sword swings, he saw Bullyu standing before a thick, dead tree. The white fox seemed to be concentrating, its front paws raised. Suddenly, a thin, shimmering energy enveloped its claws. With a powerful swipe, Bullyu shredded the thick wood as if it were paper, sending large splinters flying. Arka stopped his training, his mouth slightly agape. Bullyu's physical strength, amplified by Aura, was on a completely different level.
Another time, while they were hunting a nimble fowl that kept escaping, Arka gave Hanzo a signal. The quiet black fox nodded, and its body began to shimmer and fade, turning transparent before vanishing completely from sight. Arka held his breath. A few seconds later, the fowl suddenly burst from a thicket on the other side, flying directly into the path of Arka's arrow. Moments later, Hanzo reappeared out of thin air, panting from the mana exertion. His invisibility was the perfect hunting tool.
But the most enchanting development came from Selen. She was the most gifted in their innate magic: illusion. Often, when Arka was resting, Selen would approach and place what looked like a ripe, delicious berry before him. But just as he reached for it, the berry would flicker and revert to a plain gray pebble. Selen would let out a soft giggle, seemingly proud of her little prank.
That night, Arka sat silently before the bonfire, his gaze fixed on his three companions. The dancing flames made the shadows of their new second tails sway gently on the ground. A profound new awareness washed over him. They were no longer just animals he had rescued. They were legendary beasts, comrades-in-arms, and individuals of incredible power. They were his true family.
The thought brought a bittersweet pang. Family. A word that felt so distant, evoking faint shadows of a silent house and a note on a dining table. A tightness constricted his chest, a longing for the world that had been stolen from him, for the simple things he had once taken for granted.
But as he turned his head and saw the stack of books from the cave, now neatly arranged in the corner of his stilt house, that ache was slowly replaced by something else. A spark of excitement. Within those books were stories of graceful Elves in ancient forests, mighty Dwarves in their mountain forges, and mysterious Demons from other realms.
The world beyond this island wasn't a void; it was a giant stage, filled with wonder and danger. He looked back at the mighty Bullyu, the silent Hanzo, and the clever Selen. With them by his side, that world no longer felt so frightening. His curiosity was now far greater than his fear. His resolve to leave this island was no longer just about escaping the past, but about stepping forward into a true adventure—the kind he had once only read about in the pages of a comic.