When I entered the arena for the first time, I didn't expect to leave with the champion's prize.
My intention was simple — participate in the Infernals' event, get the Griffin blood, leave. The rest was excess. But the chain of events that followed was too strange and complex for simple to be an acceptable variable. In the end, luck tied to forces I still didn't completely understand had offered me more than I had asked for — and despite all the particulars, I learned quickly that refusing was stupidity.
As a reward, there it was — a few meters from me, an Owlbear looking at me.
Owlbears were creatures that many knew more by reputation than personally — and the reputation didn't exaggerate. The bear part brought overwhelming strength, the kind that tears flesh like paper and breaks bones like twigs, and that kept growing throughout its entire life without stopping, transforming over time into something that an underprepared kingdom simply wouldn't survive. The owl part brought the rest: vision at distances that made escape pointless, extrasensory perception that functioned as a permanent sixth sense, and an intelligence that equaled creatures that had cognition as their primary advantage.
Sentient. Completely self-aware and world-aware. Capable of using magic more flexibly than Griffins — learning low-rank magic while ignoring limitations that affected other creatures.
It was a fabulous creature in every possible sense.
And one of those creatures was looking at me, waiting for me to say something.
"Hello, little friend. I think we need to introduce ourselves. My name is Leonidas."
Pause.
"Do you have a name?"
It was clearly a cub but I didn't know whether it had had a father or mother long enough to have received one. Asking was a risk. But not asking was wasting the only form of connection I had available at that moment.
It happened anyway.
A feeling of fulfillment struck me without warning — as though something inside me were seeking a distant memory, a memory that didn't belong to me, until it finally became clear in my mind. As though it had always been there, waiting to be found.
"I understand. FireWood."
I paused.
"That's a very good name. Welcome to the kingdom of Sparta."
✦ ✦ ✦
Creatures that received names were interesting for a specific reason.
In the vast majority of cases, the name came from the parents — and was always related to the creature's primary magical capabilities, which only those who generated it could perceive from the beginning. I hadn't had that opportunity with Arachne or with Pegasus. Both had arrived still in the egg, without history, without a name, without anyone who knew what they carried.
With FireWood it was different.
And what the name revealed was, frankly, the most improbable thing I had encountered since entering the Oasis.
Fire magic was considered the most destructive among high-power creatures — the specialists par excellence were the dragons, and for good reasons. It was a magic that consumed, that destroyed, that left nothing in the place it passed through.
Wood magic was the absolute opposite. It was the magic closest to life that existed — not just basic healing, but something deeper, more structural. Growth. Regeneration. The capacity to return what had been taken.
Having both was an incongruence I couldn't explain by common logic. Even among dragons — creatures that spent centuries developing their capabilities — contradictory magics were extremely rare.
FireWood carried this contradiction.
And for what I needed, the affinity with wood magic alone already changed everything — it wouldn't leave him limited to basic healing spells, but would make him capable of going much further, operating as a specialist in an area that very few creatures in the Oasis mastered with depth.
"Do you understand why you're here?"
The small creature stopped.
It looked at me with those enormous owl eyes — the kind of gaze that doesn't read faces, it reads intentions. I felt it was searching for something. Not words. Something deeper.
When it found it, it stayed quiet for a moment that lasted longer than it should have.
"I apologize, but I need you for something specific. With your life magic, it will be no more than an inconvenience — and in exchange, it would make you an indispensable piece in the kingdom. And above all it would spare you from battle."
I felt the reaction when I said the word.
Fear. Not of me — of something before me. The kind of fear that doesn't come from a present threat, but from a memory the body carries even when the mind tries to release it. This creature had lost someone to battles that had no meaning beyond the pain they left behind.
I knew that feeling. Being taken to a cold and inhospitable place because someone had decided that was how it should be.
"Honestly, you are my best option. But I'll understand if you don't want to."
FireWood kept looking at me for a moment.
Then it left.
It passed by me and Livina without hurry, with the deliberation of someone with a clear objective. It went from trough to trough — stopping, observing, processing. Each animal. Each space. Each detail I had built or hadn't built.
"What is he doing, my Lord?"
"He's verifying whether I'm telling the truth."
Morgana and Livina fell silent.
I understood without needing to explain. The best truth is the one that can be seen. Words are easy — anyone with enough intelligence can choose them well. But the stable doesn't lie. The state of a kingdom doesn't lie. FireWood was reading the place the way someone reads a text, and the text said more about me than anything I could say.
He stopped at Pegasus's trough.
He stayed there for a moment longer than at the others. The surprise was visible — a Cockatrice was rare in itself, and the presence of one in a kingdom of this size wasn't something he had expected to find.
Then he advanced to the last trough.
Empty.
I filled the void before he turned.
"This is the prince's trough. He's a Griffin. Have you ever seen one?"
It was the first time I saw something childlike in that creature.
Hope. Desire. The kind of reaction that doesn't pass through the filter of reason — it simply appears.
Owlbears were creatures that slept in the treetops. They climbed with their enormous bear paws and bird claws, reached the heights, and from there observed the world with eyes that saw further than any other creature I had encountered. They carried within themselves the desire to do something they would never manage — fly. Like chimeras that had traded what they loved most for strength, but without being able to forget what they had traded.
Seeing the trough of something that flew had touched that place.
"I know you doubt me. And what I'm asking is a lot."
I paused.
"But if it's you — I know it will be possible."
✦ ✦ ✦
I wasn't lying.
The Bloodsuckers most likely didn't care about the creatures they used as hosts for the Asanbosam. That was visible in the way they seemed not to care about anything that wasn't their own race. Many attributed that to longevity — they said that living much longer than other creatures gave a point of view that humans would never have, a perspective that made attachment to passing things simply unnecessary.
Perhaps. But honestly, to me, they were just a bunch of selfish and cruel bastards.
I didn't doubt for a second that they constantly swapped hosts — discarding those that weakened, seeking substitutes when the previous one couldn't hold out anymore. It was functional. It was efficient. And it was completely unsustainable for anyone who wanted to build something beyond a short-term operation, at least not without infinite capital.
Perhaps that was exactly why only the most prominent Bloodsucker families had Yokai mounts. Many thought it was a hierarchical restriction — a privilege reserved for the elite by tradition or status. But it was probably simpler than that.
It was a monetary restriction.
I wanted something different.
The Oasis's creatures tried to survive. They had fear. They had dreams. They had desires as real as mine — and I had learned that in a way that left no room for doubt, fighting Arachne's mother and meeting her grandmother. They sought to live. The Oasis was a place of pain and despair, yes — but it was also rich in life, and complex in feeling in ways I was still learning to recognize.
I wanted to grow strong. But if I could choose the path, I didn't want to climb over corpses to get there.
"If you want to think more, feel free."
The coin had been tossed.
Intelligent creatures were proud — and what I was asking FireWood was to become an enormous fast food restaurant for creatures that were, in almost every respect, inferior to him. He knew that.
I left the stable.
Behind me, FireWood stayed — his large owl eyes sweeping the space with interest and with that calm curiosity that very intelligent creatures have when they're still deciding something.
"Lord, if he doesn't accept, will we force him?"
I took a moment before answering Livina.
"Honestly, I don't know if I'd have the courage. It would be easier to buy less intelligent creatures and set up a blood farm — which is what I believe the Bloodsuckers do. But if I can, I'll do everything to avoid that path."
I needed FireWood. It was the only way the plan could scale at the speed I needed with the viability I could afford. But there was a difference between needing something and taking something — and that difference was exactly the kind of line I was trying not to cross without awareness.
Being a Lord meant making definitive decisions. I was still learning to do that without postponing what was difficult.
"I'm going to the iron and steel house. Let me know if anything changes."
✦ ✦ ✦
FireWood's domestication rate, according to Zeus, was at 51%.
The minimum possible before the creature would be classified as wild and I would need to act differently. It could increase. It might not increase. I didn't want to waste time waiting for something outside my direct control.
There were other pieces to move.
"Zeus, I want to calculate the construction of an item. Is that possible?"
After the fight with Arachne's mother, I had understood something about the Mark of Zaridan that I hadn't yet fully explored. The capacity to create weapons — not through the technical process of smithing, but through imagination directly converted into form — was an ace I had used once and hadn't yet systematized.
I wasn't a blacksmith. I didn't have the accumulated technical knowledge of someone who had spent years developing the craft. But I had something no blacksmith had — the capacity to elaborate an item in the mind and make it real in moments. This allowed me to verify immediately whether the item I was making would or wouldn't be permitted by the Oasis, all without needing to go through the enormous and exhausting process of manufacturing it first.
The process that frustrated everyone was exactly what gave me the advantage.
The Oasis didn't communicate its restrictions in advance. You manufactured the item. Reached the end. And only then received the verdict. For any Lord who depended on labor and production time, that was a constant source of waste — weeks of work discarded by a restriction that could have been identified on the first day.
For me, the process was different. I elaborated in imagination, verified eligibility, and discarded in seconds what wouldn't pass. What would take months for anyone else, I did in a few hours.
The strategy I was building depended on technology, not numbers.
The Griffins would give the archers the sky — aerial mobility, distance, the capacity to attack without being attacked. For the ground, the Yokai mounts would offer speed and damage power in attack and retreat tactics. What was missing to connect the two pieces was armament capable of pulling out victories even against numerical superiority.
I had ideas. Several.
The first had been too obvious not to try.
"Zeus, compute this item and verify eligibility."
"Understood. Attaching item and verifying eligibility for replica. Give it a name."
"Modern trebuchet."
I waited.
✦ ✦ ✦
"What do you think, Liv?"
Livina was outside.
The training routine with Morgana always ended the same way — the two of them stopped in front of the iron and steel house, waiting. Just as they had done the day before and the one before that. Waiting for the Lord to emerge with some new surprise that would make them question everything they thought they knew about what was possible within the Oasis. But once again they were frustrated by the closed door and the dull sound of metal being worked on the other side.
Livina knew there was no point in trying to enter. When the Lord put something in his head, no interruption was welcome. But staying completely still wasn't natural for her either. So she stayed there — divided between the strictly necessary training and the growing curiosity about what would be presented when he finally came out.
The last time he had gone into one of the constructions, he had emerged with something that had reorganized everything she thought she knew about what was possible within the Oasis. She had seen the result. Had tried to fit what she saw with what she knew about Lords, about kingdoms, about what the Oasis races were capable of doing.
She hadn't managed.
And now he was in there again. Days inside. The same silence outside. The same feeling that something was being built that she couldn't know what it was but was eager to know.
"How long do you think he'll stay in there?"
The question came out loud without her having planned it.
Morgana was quieter than normal, lost in feelings and memories that Livina didn't quite understand.
Something was happening with her — something she insisted on saying wasn't important every time Livina raised the subject. Livina had learned not to insist. There were things people needed to carry alone for a while before being able to talk about them.
In the stable, FireWood ate incessantly.
He had grown visibly in the last few days — the kind of growth that only happens when a creature is comfortable enough to invest energy in its own body rather than saving it for flight or defense. The pride was still there, of course. It was written in every posture, in every gaze. But there was something different too — a calm that hadn't been present when he arrived.
Livina observed the creature for a moment as it wandered through the kingdom — still trying to understand the dimensions of the territory, or simply finding pleasure in leaving the limited space of the trough. In the last two or three days, FireWood had even gone to the other stable and entered the territory — where Arachne was.
What had been discussed between the two was still an unknown. But Livina had a theory. And the theory involved what the Lord needed.
"This time I just hope he doesn't stay as long as he did last time."
A pause.
"I think he'll be glad to know about Arachne and FireWood."
Before Livina lost herself in her own thoughts again, the iron and steel house door opened.
She turned before the sound finished.
He was dirty. Tired. With the posture of someone who had slept little and thought too much. But there was a smile on his face — the specific kind of smile she had learned to recognize.
It wasn't the smile of someone who had rested.
It was the smile of someone who had succeeded.
"My Lord. You're back."
"Sorry for the delay, girls."
He looked at both of them.
"I was trying to create some things."
A short pause.
"One of them worked."