1 Chapter 1

He opened his eyes and he looked around and saw that he was in a cave with a hole in the ceiling where light shined through and reflecting in slow falling snow. Suddenly he felt a rushing pain coursing through his body from his leg. He looked down and saw his horse laying over his leg. There were bloody snow everywhere. He pulled his leg out as it seemed the horse bag had lessen the fall and made it easier to pull out his leg. He crawled out from the snow until he leaned against a wall. He just leaned there until he started to fall asleep and remember what happened.

"Son I thought it would not happen during my reign, but our kingdom is going to fall."

The king pulled his son up and walked out to the courtyard. It was full of cavalrymen in black armor. The king looked around and said.

"Soldiers I ask you to follow my last order and get my son out of the kingdom"

"thump" the men banged there chests.

The king went down on his knee and looked in his son eyes.

"I am sorry I did not prepare more and places such a burden on you. But you are a Sursian you have to protect our name and take revenge."

The king lead a horse to his son and slapped on the bags.

"Here is our family treasures protect them and use them well."

He picked up his son and helped him up on the horse.

"Trust Rob and bear" just as he said so you could hear tappings coming nearer and suddenly a small griffin came around the corner. It was less than half meter and really cute. The son looked down with a smile and said "bear".

"Goodbye my son. Rob take care of my son"

One of the cavelrist answered "yes my king".

Then they set out and traveled for days. Their were sign of war everywhere burning villages, skirmishes and drowes of dead people. They avoided enemies and fought those they could not. They changed horses so they could continue and hardly got any rest. They constantly lost soldiers and when they arrived in the mountain in the north. Rob fell of his horse with a large wound on his chest. Thus the son was alone and had been tied to the horse which kept going in to the mountain with only a small creature walking beside them. He would wake up and see people in the distance or hear them and make the horse keep going. This continued into the mountain and into the snow. Time mersed together as he traveled and only ate bread and water that he had on him. When suddenly the snow caved in and they fell down.

He opened his eyes. He saw that bear was beside him sleeping. He looked around it was dark but the cave had five small embers burning. He walked over with a little limp as his leg still hurt and had small wounds after riding so long. When he saw what it was he sucked in air.

"They are nests!"

Nests are crystal balls with fire in them. They create different kind of beings that is like any other being but created by magic and loyal to the one who is blood bound to the crystal ball. Nobody knows how they are made or who makes them but people just sometimes find them. And they are immensely valuable. His kingdom or more like former kingdom had five of them and except the griffin nest with EB grade the rest have anly D or E grade. And in this room there are five nests. And not only that they are BD graded. Where B signifies how fast the beings are made and D what rank the being is. This can be seen by the clarity of the crystal the darker the faster the being is made and what color the fire has decides the beings rank.

He quickly took out his dagger and cut his finger and put it on the ball. And a message showed in his head.

"Statue snake

-creates a snake every second day.

-The snake can turn itself into iron statues that is hard to discern from a statue but is also hard to destroy. It takes hours for it to transform into a statue but it come back instantly. Has paralyzing poison fast acting in a limited area and time, non lethal.

He kept going around and doing blood bound with the rest. And they were all statue snakes but were D grade so they create one every 200 hundred days. And soon they had all created there first creature and started there recharge. He felt a connection or more a sense of absolute loyalty. But he could not really command them as they needed more training.

In his excitement he went to the horse started to take of the bags but only succeeded with one of the bags as the other one was pind down under the horse. But he emptied it. So soon he had his newly acquired nests, a coat, a couple of breeds, water, a couple small bags with gems, warrior and magicians seals and another nest. It was crystal clear with a silver flame inside. But he was struck with sadness as this represented his home in every way. His kingdom had griffins as symbol and his family had them as there pet. And it did not have the small red veins like his newly acquired nest now had which represented it was his nests. Thus this meant his father was dead.

He felt tears coming so he put his bloody finger on it and picked up the coat, the food and the water and walked to a corner. While he heard in his head.

"Griffons

-Creates a creature every 100 years(next in 5 years){note author: do not reset after someone bonds}

-Griffon a creature with a body and back legs of a lion and the rest of an eagle. It is a fearsome creature that can fly.

He lied in the corner hugging bear while munching on the bread while crying.

He looked back to when he got bear. He was just around ten and his father took him to the griffin nest. They only had thirty of them and most were young or eggs. That day one of them had laid an egg and it was bear. He spent a couple hours a week for the next two years talking and hugging that egg until it hatched. It was so small then it could fit in his hand. He played with it, feed it and trained it for six years until today. And now it is the size of a dog and 2 years away from when the growth spurts start until it is at least 3 meters tall.

He got on his feet and showed some improvement after hours of crying and sleeping. And started to look around. Especially because he had found 5 nest of the same type in this cave. This is more or less impossible to happen naturally which means the nest have been brought together by humans , so maybe this was an ancient place which could contain more treasures.

When he was looking around he felt his heart jump out of his chest when he saw a snake statue but calmed down fast when he realised what they were. He walked slowly feeling himself around as he saw nothing and suddenly came upon a door. He tried to jerk the door open when the door fell of it is hinches and slammed down on the floor. While he had jumped to the side. The sound echoed in the cave and in to the darkness. Which was even darker and he felt his back go cold with sweat. He stepped backwards but then cursed himself for being a coward. He picked a statue snake in his hand, a nest for light and a bag on his back and walked forward. Thinking at least the snake would react if something is ahead.

"No one is here. No one is here" he kept telling himself until he reached some stairs. He walked upward slowly he could barely see anything with the nest so he had one hand to the wall and one foot feeling ahead before he took the next step. Thus he got up higher and higher while the stairs kept circling around. Finally he saw some light and soon he found himself in front a door. And after a disturbing sound while opening the door he found himself outside. He was in a cave like structure without a roof. It looked it had been a garden but now it only had dead trees and bushes. But it was all buried under snow and what caught his eyes was small fires.

"A nest garden" He took in deep breath and smiled.

He started go around and picking the nests and putting them in his bag. They were easy to find as they repelled the snow around them with a gentle warmth. He found seven in total and one was even B ranked. Just as he was about to cut his finger, he stopped himself. To have trees sprout out would be kinda of a hassle as he could not stay here forever. So he looked around one last time, put the nests in his bag and started to go upwards again. Soon he reached a indent in the wall. He felt around and found flat ground beside the stairs. In this small indent there were three doors but it was just some small rooms behind two doors with nothing in them and some rubble in the last like the roof had caved in. So he just continued onwards. He started regretting not having a better light source, but what could he do about that. He could not make a torch itself let alone start a fire. The soldiers were the ones with the tents and the survival gear and the skills for it. He had been royalty so he had learned culture, manners, history and so on. Soon he had gone by two doors with 7 nests inside. Behind the doors there had been a cave with a part of it without roof and another part with. And he found 3 CC nests behind one of the doors and 4 with at most D ranked beings in the other. He did not bound with these either as it looked like these caves had been pastures and again walking around with a horse in these stairs seemed like a hassle too. And as there had been two doors beside both of the doors with a gaping darkness. He assumed they were elevators for bringing the beings down to exit which had caved in.

He kept going and found a library. But even do all the books had been well preserved and the knowledge was probably extremely valuable it was in a variant of ancient leese which he could not read. So after a quick glance he continued onward. He soon reached the end it was a big room with windows on one side and a lot of cages on the other side. He looked outside and saw a stunning site of snow mountains that never ended. He could see the garden and pastures if he looked down. The tower must look part of the mountain with only these windows at the top to say otherwise. The garden and pastures must only look like cliffs from the outside. He turned around looked around and found two nests. One had a bronze flame and a little hard to see threw and must be CC graded nest while the other one looked like a DD graded. It seemed to be birds when he thought about the cages and the windows. It probably was a communication center for bird carriers.

He walked downwards in disbelief. He had found 21 nests which was incredible. That was the amount of nests a large kingdom would have. It was insane. But the now his well nourished greed felt something was missing. 21 nests and only one B ranked and that was a plant. So when he reached the library he looked around even more and on a table in innermost of the room he found another nest. He was about to say just a D creature as this had all gone to his head. But his breath had increased and he stared in disbelief. He could swear the yellow flame that is supposed to symbolise D grade looked golden. That would mean A grade not only that CA graded nest. He cut his finger right away and placed it on the nest. It was an A grade something only heard about in the myths he did not really care if it was an elephant that would crush everything around. But when he heard the sound he got a stupid smile on his face.

"Reptilian eyed elf

-Creates an elf every half a year

-An elf with reptilian eyes. Talented in magic. As it is A grade nest it continuously store magic and the longer the wait the greater the elf. Though the increase in the elf is incredibly slow. As an example if you want a twice as strong elf it would take a hundred years of storing."

"The elf has been created with an extra amount of magic after storing for 2853 years. State the skills, knowledge or special body features you want it to have."

After a long silence.

"What can I choose?"

After another long silence and no answer. He just shrugged and decided to choose the most functional for the moment.

"Survival skills!"

"Confirmed 400 years deducted"

"Oh… um then this can you make it able to use this variant of the ancient leese" he said and picked out a book and pointed on the text in a book.

"confirmed 200 years deducted"

He stood still and thought for a while. If he would take revenge he needed someone with magic. He knew he had two C grade magician seals which amplifies magic as they were a part of his families treasure. So he said.

"Tier 1 magician."

"confirmed 100 years deducted"

Warriors and mages could grow in strength and reach higher tiers. Where a warrior tier 1 is twice as strong as an normal human, tier 2 thrice as strong as a normal human and tier 3 four times as strong and so on. So it was not like a normal human can not beat them especially in groups as it was not like there skin ever got harder than iron so they just have to hit them. Magic is the same but the increase at every tier is the same as the difference between normal humans and tier 1. Maximum someone has ever reached is tier 5 in both. And magic is not even deadly at that level. You mostly make formations and tinckets that take hours but are very valuable and useful. You need magic seals to be a deadly magician which increase your strength and longevity and casting time. While warrior seals increase your strength and longevity. Seals is extremely valuable and no one know anything about them but that they can be found in nature. But the C grade magic seal only doubles your strength so to be a little deadly you have to be at least a tier 3 magician when you use it. So he continued.

"Tier 2 magician"

"confirmed 500 years deducted"

"Tier 3 ma….." But he stopped himself. He remembered what he had learned. A magician is nothing without his techniques. Like meditation which increases your strength. He had not either stated a body talented in magic. The elf would maybe be stuck at tier 3 forever if he chose that.

"Body talented in magic."

"Confirmed body magic constitution increased to B grade 1500 years deducted"

He almost fell and screamed inside himself. Did it just go from D grade to B grade without asking. As it was talented in magic it must have been D grade as most normal humans are E grade. And then D to C cost 500 and C to B 1000. He started cursing this nest as it was lacking functionality. He only had 153 years left so he sighed and said.

"Magic knowledge"

"Confirmed incomplete knowledge of magic 153 years deducted."

Before he could curse that much an elf aperead. He looked handsome but a little creepy with his reptilian eyes especially so when he blinked as his eyes closed from the sides. He slightly bowed and said.

"Hello I am Eyrie"

He felt himself get cold sweat when he realised there had been a change that he had just created a being that only talked ancient leese which would have sucked. But the elf seemed to have some required knowledge like how to speak the tongue of the nest owner and how to use his body to move around.

"Hey I am Rodger. Come with me" Rodger said and walked down the stairs.

When they reached the cave where bear was sleeping Rodger said.

"Make a fire, there is a garden above us and make a meal of the horse."

"Yes" the elf answered and got right on it.

Rodger sat in a corner with bear on his knee and looking while Eyrie built a fire, and skinned the horse and sliced out nice pieces of meat. Rodger could not help himself to curse when he saw how good Eyrie was. Even he could tell with Eyrie swift cuts that he was an master. He could have been half as good and that would have been enough and then the rest of the years could have been better used.

Rodger took some pieces of meat and fead bear. Whom happily ate it all. In the meanwhile Eyrie begun grilling the meat on sticks. Soon the cave was full of an incredible smell. While they were eating Eyrie suddenly spoke up.

"When I was picking wood. I found these." He said and laid out some sticks. There were one large stick and a dozens of smaller ones with small leafs at one end. It was quiet weird that all the small ones look the same.

"I found this large one inside a tree. I think it is bow that just need a string. And these small ones are arrows that need a iron point. Sadly these were all I found."

It all made sense when he looked closer. The large one had indention were the hand would be and were you would tie the string. The arrows had a strange kind of leaf as feather to keep the arrow steady. One of the plant nest must create a tree which makes bows and arrows.

"Can you make a string with something from the horse?"

"Of course"

After Eyrie had processed a tendon, Rodger had an bow in front of him. He picked it and put an arrow on which fit perfectly as it even had a place for the string. He suddenly got a feeling like it would help him hit his target. Like it would alter it course if needed, at least a little bit.