"He is the chosen one!"*Klunk* that was the noise that came from Susan"s head when Kyle brought his fist down on top of it. Susan crouched down and looked at him with an aggrieved expression while Kyle was thinking to himself "these j.a.panese mc"s may have a point".
"Well getting back to business the way I"ve tamed this beast is a bit different from usual, the seal placed is connected to the blood so it will pa.s.s to the next generation if the one making the contract knows the correct way to activate it."
"Wait, wait, wait you mean the taming bond will last beyond the currently tamed generation?"
"Yup so as long as these guys breed successfully we"ll have a supply of flying mounts. Cool ain"t it."
One of the reasons predatory beasts aren"t used as tamed mounts is due to the inability to control them past the first captured generation so subsequent generations would be trained from birth but the predatory instincts of those more aggressive beasts precluded this, but with this new means of taming them they could have a mounted army.
"Let"s get this done I want all of these guys contracted, we have enough people to contract all these present. Susan what"s the gender split on these guys?"
"We"ve got 3 males and 8 females, hey makes your blood pump aye Kyle they may end up with a larger harem than you."
*Klunk* this one came from Maria who was looking at her master with fiery eyes. Susan saw the way Maria was looking at her and decided caution is the greater part of valour and for once shut her mouth. Kyle began projecting the arrays to contract these beasts before he had everyone complete the contract tying them to their mounts.
"Kyle can we have more than one mount?" Clara asked, she always loved animals and now she was having dreams of being surrounded by animals like a princess in some "magical kingdom" ruled by some giant faceless evil ent.i.ty with a squeaky voice.
"Yes you can support more contracts as long as your soul is strong enough. These are different than slave seals or "other" seals as once you complete the contract you are using your soul to power it and override the instincts of the beasts."
"So this is like a slave seal but that it requires the strength of the holder to power it." Landon asked as he was interested in the way this functioned.
"Yes and no, it"s similar in that it overrides some freewill but rather it redirects the beasts protective instincts to the holder and establishes a two way connection between the contractor and the beast so it can do its best to interpret the contractors wishes. Does that make sense to everyone; I"ve left a lot out like the control methods used and other details."
"I think we"ve all got the jist of it." Landon responded as everyone nodded or were speaking quietly to each other.
"Okay good Susan I"m not familiar with this species, what"s their breeding cycle like?"
"They usually breed in the spring and lay clutches of between 10-20 eggs but most of these get killed or destroyed due to the presence of other beats and other competing falcons. In a safe environment like this and with ready sources of food they should have a high survivability rate." While she was talking she was jumping up trying to pat her new mount on its head, but it appeared it had already picked up her teasing and while it was slightly hunched towards her it wasn"t low enough that she could pat it.
"Good what about their strength?"
"They are about equivalent to a second stage cultivator at around a year but they have various weaknesses hence why they only tend to attack human settlements during beast hordes *huff*." Giving up on trying to pat her falcon Susan slumped down and rested her back against its legs, seemingly taking pity on her the falcon finally lowered its head low enough that she could stroke it while she was sprawled out. As she stroked it, the beast closed its eyes and let out a low sound like a growl.
"Kyle you seem to be thinking of something." Miranda who was always watching Kyle said making everyone look away from their mounts that they were playing with to look at him.
"It"s nothing much just had a thought, why do demon beasts have such a high reproductive rate when they"re so powerful. Surely they should be like humans who lose their reproductive capacity as they become stronger?" Kyle said this with a thoughtful expression before looking at the others.
Everyone who heard Kyle"s question began to think for themselves and couldn"t come up with an answer as to why this was. There were obvious differences between humans and beasts but there were also differences between beast species but the loss of reproduction seemed to be an exclusively human problem.
Kyle could see the confusion in their faces as they had never thought about this before but now it was in front of them it was a confusing question. Kyle"s sight stopped on his mother she was hugging the neck of her falcon while quietly crying.
"Mom are you okay what"s wrong?" Kyle was very concerned as he didn"t know why she was crying, generally she was a strong woman but to see her like this with no reason made him start to panic.
"Kyle can you come with me? Can you see about situating our mounts, probably on the upper walls will be the best location?" Landon began issuing instructions unusually as within this bastion it was an unspoken agreement that it was Kyle"s territory.
Walking away with Landon Kyle was still worried about Maria and wanted to know what his father wanted to talk to him about. Eventually they found them on the third floor looking out from one of the tower windows overlooking the city.
"Kyle don"t worry about your mother it"s just that she always wanted a large family and we never stopped trying but well as you can see you"re an only child. It"s always been a sore point for her but there is nothing that we can do about it?" Landon gave a tired shrug of his shoulders given the situation they found themselves in.
Kyle pondered the situation for a few minutes. While the people here may have an understanding of life and cultivation it wasn"t totally correct or complete hence the progress Kyle had made in a few short years was greater than had been made in the last 500 possibly longer.
This fertility problem must stem from mana as this was the only foreign thing that would affect the body. Due to his soul sight Kyle knew that the mana wasn"t radioactive and was also helpful to the human body so how could this affect the fertility of people like this?
"I need to look into something, will you accompany me for a while dad?"
"Of course but what are we doing?" Landon asked in shock due to Kyle"s sudden energy.
"I won"t say anything until I know what the situation is." With this he tore out of the room followed closely by Landon.
They headed through the bastion and eventually reached one of the lounges on the first floor. This was where Nettie usually stayed when she wasn"t working and she was usually accompanied by some of the older members of the household.
The years of training had drastically changed Nettie and also Isaiah who were the oldest members of their group. Nettie now looked to be in her late 30"s or early 40"s luckily she had been sequestered within Kyle"s bastion for a while so no one a.s.sociated this middle aged woman with the grandmotherly Nettie from before.
Isaiah was a larger problem, as he appeared to get younger people began to notice. He put it up to a better diet and training but before it became a problem he announced his retirement. This was only for 6 months but that was a terrible 6 months for Landon as he had to deal with the duties Isaiah covered for him. It would be best to say Landon was good at the bigger picture and left the small details to others.
"Hi Nettie strange question I know but do we have any members who are pregnant or are trying?"
Kyle bluntly asked this question getting raised eyebrows all around before Nettie thought for a moment. Lots of people came to Nettie with personal problems so she would be the best to know the gossip within the household.
"Yes I know a few what do you need them for?" Nettie responded with questions visible within her eyes.
"I don"t want to say yet, just in case but could you gather them and their partners in my audience chamber within the next hour?"
"Okay I think they"re all around somewhere. All right you lot of your rears the boss wants some buns in his rooms let"s get moving."
With that the knitting circle began moving with a purpose and n.o.body had better stand in their way. Kyle and Landon headed to his audience chamber to await the arrivals. Kyle was nervous as what he was doing was different than just advancing cultivation or messing with alchemy and arrays. This may improve people"s lives at a fundamental level.
He had spoken to his father before about how high level cultivators seem nihilistic or at best uncaring. Susan was an exception as she had such a l.u.s.t for life it overrode any despondency. Landon had merely said that as you become more powerful you find yourself removed from other people. Now he thought about it this was probably due to these people either not having children due to training when they were young or they outlived them.
Kyle was also thinking about the girls who surrounded him. They trained to be able to protect their family and he also knew they trained to be close to him. This wasn"t narcissism it was purely fact, however if they wouldn"t be able to have children due to training would it be better for them to cease training or in the worst case find someone else.
Kyle curled his hands into fists as he thought of this, seeing his girls with someone else. He couldn"t even stand the thought of this, the pure and innocent Miranda who had been with him for so long now and was always watching him, the slightly older Clara who was growing more sultry as the days went by and finally Elena who was, well she"s a good "person" but she was fun to be around. Kyle needed to vent his feelings so he could only shout out.
"NO NTR!"