Sitting crosslegged in a rather modest room, in a tall building that stood firmly on the deck of a gigantic colossus that was cruising through the clouds, was a rather average looking joe.
He looked very ordinary, the type that one would miss in a crowd.
Of course who was it if not our dear protagonist.
"I'm not even halfway there." Damon scowled.
But then he shrugged.
"Well, trying to breakthrough into the next rank was asking for too much in the first place." He muttered.
He had just attempted to breakthrough into the next rank, which was the Eta rank. But having just attained Eta- not even a month ago, he still had a long way to go.
In the world of Nahaar, the path of ascension was through Channeling. After awakening, each aetherial has these sets of nine major metaphysical barriers, and sixteen minor metaphysical barriers in their body. These barriers act as the lock keeping an aetherial from advancing to the next rank.
Channeling meanwhile, is the key to those locks. It embodies the art of molding one's aether to chip away at these barriers bit by bit, until it breaks them. Breaking those barriers enables the aetherial to rank up.
Of course just like other techniques, the higher grade channeling techniques, are monopolized by the powerful.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Damon 'used to' be part of the powerful even though he himself was weak. Though, he had been disowned, at least he still had those powerful techniques in his head.
"Dark lotus method." Damon muttered. This was the Channeling technique used by the House Darkfell, or the Darkfell royal family.
'But I wonder though,' his brows furrowed. "Does everything in this family have to have the word 'dark' in it?"
But he soon shook his head.
"Not my problem though, all I know is that it's a powerful technique, anything else doesn't matter."
Currently Damon was on an airship. After realizing he had only five days till the entrance exam of the number one institution in the entire human domain, he didn't waste any more time.
He had wanted to get on an airship that instant, but unfortunately, Nirvana city was a small city, and it didn't have an airship dock. The most it had was a train. But not like the regular trains on earth.
This one ran on aether stones for energy, and the controls were bizarre to say the least. Even the former Damon didn't understand them, not to talk of the current one.
Anyway, he still left Nirvana city that very same day, and took a six hour train ride, to one of the nearby big cities that were eligible to man airships.
After that, he secured himself a room on the next airship set to depart for the gulf of Astral mystic island, which was the following day.
So Damon had to wait one more day which frustrated him to no end, but at the end, he still preserved.
He sighed and stared out the window, the clouds were stationary as the massive bat-like wings of the airship cut through them.
He was bored out of his mind, and he didn't even have any active reflections, so he had nothing to entertain him. Not to mention, the boring flight would last another six hours.
"Thunk!"
Just as Damon was lost in thoughts, the sound of something hitting the floor made his head snap to the source.
There beside his bed lied a basket, but it was toppled over, and a cerulean blue egg rolled out of it.
Mild annoyance crossed his face.
"Oh, so it's you?" He stood up from his position, and went to pick up the egg.
For the past one week, the egg had been leeching off his aether, but has showed no changes whatsoever.
"Perhaps I was being too hasty, or maybe it isn't really a familiar in the first place." Damon said observing the egg, after all familiars were summoned from the familiar dimension through a specific ritual.
"whoooom!"
"What the hell?!!" He cursed- the egg almost slipping from his hand.
The egg had suddenly started siphoning a lot of aether from him. In just a second, it drained around five percent of his reserves.
But it didn't stop there, it kept draining more and more, and Damon let it.
"Maybe it's actually up to something." he muttered in anticipation.
But when it drained about seventy percent of his reserves and still didn't stop, Damon's anticipation soon turned into a frown.
Just when he was having thoughts of dropping it, the egg suddenly glowed, and the glow soon coalesced to form a silver ring above the pointed end of the egg.
It wasn't until his reserves dropped to about fifteen percent, that the egg stopped.
Damon heaved a sigh of relief.
"Finally, you bloodsucker, I was planning to drop you once my reserves dropped to about ten percent."
Just as he said that, the egg flew out of his hands and floated mid air. But before he could have a chance to protest, changes began appearing on the shell of the egg.
"It's...hatching?" He muttered in awe.
Uneven cracks were appearing on the egg's shell, and the cracks were increasing, that too, fast.
Damon watched in anticipation as what took a minute felt like several hours to him.
Finally, the pieces of cracked shell turned into motes of light and unraveled themselves revealing a small creature floating mid air, with a glowing silver ring above it's head.
"You've got to be kidding me." Damon muttered as he saw it.
The creature was some strangely adorable winged cerulean blue furred cat.
He observed the creature with a skeptical gaze.
"All this while, I've been thinking a dragon, a phoenix, or maybe even some creature with an ancient bloodline, but all I get is a strange looking cat?"
As he was looking at the cat, the cat opened it's eyes. They were the same color as it's fur.
As the cat's mouth opened, Damon was expecting a baby sounding meow, but what came out of the cat's mouth was,
"Who dared to call this ancient emperor venerable a strange looking cat?!" The cat's features turned fierce, but all it did was make it look cuter.
"I must be losing it!" Damon muttered– almost in disbelief.
"Ah, so you were the puny brat who insulted this ancient emperor!" The cat snarled.
Damon's brain offed.
"W...w..wait, are you really some ancient creature with some ancient bloodline?" Damon asked with hope.
A wide grin split the cat's face.
"Of course not baka."
Damon's eyes twitched.
"This little shit...." he began, but then paused as something occured to him.
He looked the cat in the eye.
"How do you know the word baka?"
"Hmmm, let's see." The cat licked it's paw. "I have all your memories." The cat replied nonchalantly.
"What?!" Damon's entire thought process stopped for a few moments, but when his thoughts resumed, the first thought that occured to him was,
'This thing must die.' It was the only logical conclusion he could think to. He couldn't allow anyone else to posses memories about this world, who knows the chaos that would ensue.
"Hey, you're not thinking of killing me are you?" The cat's nonchalant voice sounded.
Damon stiffened.
'How did it know that? Can it read my mind?' he thoughts fired one after the other.
The cat yawned which was pretty adorable, but all Damon could see at that moment was that the moment it did the wrong thing, it's head would fly off.
"Like I said, I have your memories, in fact they're the only ones I have since I'm a newborn and don't have any memories of my own. Knowing your personality made me able to guess what would go through your mind."
"And no," the cat threw him a glance. "I can't read your mind, baaaka." it drawled.
"How did you....? Tch, nevermind." Damon clicked his tongue. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now." he threatened. Hearing the bastard admit it was a newborn had softened him more than he'd care to admit.
"Puny brat, from your memories I realized I'm an unusual familiar, and I can feel the bond between us, my life is linked to yours, I can't betray you even if I wanted to."
"Hah." Damon sighed. "I'll postpone your demise, and for the time being you're on probation."
"Great then." the cat drawled. "Go get this lord some food."
Damon's brow twitched.
"Not before I know what to call you."
The cat floated closer to him.
"Didn't you hear what I called myself earlier? You can call me the ancient emperor venerable." it said with pride.
Damon frowned.
"I'm not calling you that stupid name, but I have one just for you." Damon said with a knowing smile. "From today you shall be known as Bubbles."
"What?!" Bubbles exclaimed. "This one will not be reduced to...."
"Unless you don't want the food of course." Damon added.
"Fine, I shall be called Bubbles." Bubbles agreed without hesitation.
*******
A/N: Here's the chapter for today. Hey y'all, you guys aren't writing me reviews. I need some feedback to know where I'm going wrong, so I can fix it.