"You're exaggerating… right?" Nelliel asked nervously.
"No." Azriel replied without a trace of humor."Familiars are among the most valuable things in the world."
"It's no coincidence that, on the solstice, the day is called the Day of Dead Dreams.The dreams of many aspirants, almost all, die on this day. Because of a poor familiar… or none at all."
Azriel suddenly stood and walked to an ordinary shelf, the others following his movements with tense eyes.
He then returned with a book, which he placed on the table.
A thick tome bound in goatskin, written in red ink: KingsRoad: The Journey to Become a King.
He quickly flipped through the book, murmured to himself a few times, and then looked back at them.
"Do you know how cultivation works? How someone becomes a mage?"He asked tonelessly, stoking their curiosity.
"Well…" Nelliel answered. "You read books and absorb mana from the environment, and that mana makes you stronger and smarter."
He coughed violently and shook his head.
"Energy, not mana. Mana is… a crude name, I'd say." Azriel sighed, recalling an inconvenient past.
"Mages call it mana, but the world holds more than just mages. Energy is the more accurate word."
He coughed again, returning to the main topic.
"Those who wish to cultivate must absorb energy to purge impurities and strengthen their body or mind."
"But of course, nothing is that simple." Azriel exhaled. "Some goals are simply unreachable for humans."
"You need immense time, energy, and money to advance through the realms and by consequence to extend your lifespan."
"It's a race against time: to advance, or to die trying." His voice grew heavy. "And eventually, you will die trying."
"Because you will always need more time. "
"No matter your talent, no matter your resources, your brief human life will not help you, and in the end, you will fail."
"Human lifespan is far too short, and that's the problem," Lena concluded his thought.
"Yes. And that's why many mages sought methods either to extend life further, or to make better use of the time they had."
"The Pathway of the Familiars is one such method, successful in both respects, though… inconvenient in many ways."
"However, many of those inconveniences are mostly solved by the goddess Solaris."
"The only real difficulty lies in attracting the attention of spirits to seal a contract."
"A problem that has caused conflict with the spiritual world for the last two hundred years."
"Conflict?" Nelliel asked in surprise.
"There's a conflict? I thought they were just crazy." Azriel scoffed at the mention.
"Many contracts were forced. Thousands of them."
"That enraged the spirit realm, leading them to close its doors and grow hostile toward humans."
"In the past, there were more than just two days when contracts could be sealed."
"In any case, sealing a contract meant three things: a considerable increase in longevity, improvements in energy reserves and absorption, and ease in learning."
He ticked off the points on his fingers.
"When you seal a contract, you connect both minds and bodies."
"There are no secrets between the two parties. Two beings become one, and together they attract more energy."
"Beyond that, vitality is split equally between them."
"Meaning spirits, who live longer than us, end up living shorter lives, while we live longer thanks to them."
"Finally, we also learn faster. "
"After all, now we're two thinking beings sharing the same memory and able to process information independently. "
"You can literally have your familiar study for an exam while you sleep."
"So in other words, there are only benefits," Lena concluded.
"But why is it such an important factor, then?"
"Patience, I'll get there." Azriel coughed, then continued.
"For the spirits, it's an unfair exchange most of the time, especially considering that they fall to the same cultivation realm as their contractor."
"Except for one single thing."
"The fact that it's also possible to share magical affinities and help less-evolved spirits, like yours, to achieve awareness and sapience."
"Not only that. Most of those spirits usually die young, because they are too weak, too dim, or simply sickly. Humans increase their potential as a whole."
"To lesser spirits, we are a light in the darkness."
"To the greater ones… a nightmare."
"It's a matter of perspective," Lena concluded once again.
"One lifts the other up, while at the same time being dragged down."
"Yes, but the end result is powerful. More powerful than both parties."
Azriel narrowed his eyes as he spoke, the old flames flickering along with his voice.
"The potential of both is elevated to new heights, the spirit will have the chance to become more powerful than it could ever dream of."
"And the same goes for humans with limited potential, this method can turn a human being with no aptitude for magic into a great mage."
"All that is needed is the right contract, now which one is the right one is an even more difficult question that many try to answer."
"But at the end of the day, you will hardly regret choosing a more powerful spirit or letting yours become more powerful."
He then coughed before looking at Nelliel and Lena for a few moments.
"Having a smarter or stronger spirit is a good thing, but you can still make yours even stronger and smarter."
"Don't see them as extensions of yourselves, but as companions with their own qualities, and do everything you can to awaken those qualities in them."
"You certainly don't want to have a spirit with the mind of a child in the body of an adult, which is what will happen if you don't work on their mind."
"W-what?" Nelliel stood up from the table, startled. "I thought they would rank up with me and become adults naturally."
"No, the basis is the same. Ranking up will only multiply what you already have, which in this case is nothing. This creature's head is full of air."
"Hey!" Nelliel backed away with him in her hands. "Just because he's not the smartest of the litter doesn't mean he has air instead of brains."
"Sure, sure." Azriel didn't try to argue and just laughed.