The aftermath of a brief battle inside City Lord's manor had just settled as golden quiet that belongs only to the hours of evening arrived.
Ramon led Leylin through a side corridor of the manor, his broad shoulders slightly angled downward in the unconscious posture of a man who is both guide and attendant.
He said nothing as he walked. He had learned, in the short time since this young man's arrival, that his only way of survival way was to unconditionally accept all terms.
The corridor opened onto a side veranda.
It was a modest space, but well chosen. The railing looked out over a private garden that had clearly been tended with genuine care, rows of cultivated herbs and flowering shrubs arranged in clean, deliberate patterns, broken here and there by older trees whose roots had long since made themselves permanent.
A stone path curved through the centre of it and disappeared beneath a canopy of broad-leafed branches. The air that came off it was cool and faintly fragrant.
At the centre of the veranda sat a low coffee table of dark lacquered wood, flanked by two cushioned chairs.
Ramon moved to the nearest chair and pulled it back with both hands, turning slightly and gesturing toward it with a quiet, unhurried deference.
Leylin regarded the seat for a brief moment, then moved to it and sat. He did so without ceremony naturally, as a man sits in a chair that was always going to be his.
Ramon straightened and stepped back. He did not take the second chair instead he stood.
Hands loosely clasped behind his back, posture correct, gaze directed toward the garden rather than at his guest, the stance of a man who understood, without being told, where the line was.
A beat of silence passed between them, filled only by the soft movement of air through the garden below and the distant sound of the manor continuing its chaotic rhythms after Leylin's brief showcase of strength behind them.
Then Ramon glanced toward the corridor and lifted his chin slightly.
A butler appeared at the veranda entrance with the quiet efficiency of someone who had been hovering nearby in anticipation.
"Bring beverages," Ramon said, "And my khas herb. The pipe as well."
The butler dipped his head and withdrew without a word.
He returned in short order, and he did not return alone. A second servant accompanied him, both of them moving with the careful attentive precision.
The table was set with practised efficiency: a pot of dark coffee, a ceramic teapot trailing pale steam, a tall glass of pressed juice the colour of pale amber, and two or three other beverages arranged in quiet order alongside them.
Accompanying these came a spread of biscuits and small snacks arranged on a long wooden board some sweet, some savoury, the variety suggesting that they had not known which to choose and had simply elected to bring all of them.
And beside all of this, placed with a particular delicacy that distinguished it from the rest, a long smoking pipe of polished dark wood. Beside it, a small cloth pouch, drawn shut with a cord.
The butlers withdrew to a respectful distance.
Ramon reached forward himself, not delegating, and took the pouch in his own hands.
The scent that rose from it was immediate and distinct. Earthy. Resinous. With a cool, faintly sweet undertone that seemed to carry in it something of high altitude of thin air and cold stone and distance from ordinary things.
"This is from my personal collection," Ramon said. There was a tone of pride in his voice, the kind a man cannot quite help when speaking of something he considers truly fine. "Khas ganja, from the mountain ranges of the Vizag plains. The highest elevations. Hand-picked by FentaBears during the peak season, only the best clusters, selected by the bears themselves."
He paused a moment, "The bears have a sense for it that no man can replicate. What they pass over, you leave behind. What they select is simply the best there is." He looked across at Leylin. "I would be honoured if you gave it a taste, my lord."
Ramon packed it himself carefully, with the fingers of a man who had done this many times, pressing the herb with just the right density, drawing the cord closed again once he was done. He produced a small flame, touched it to the bowl, and held the pipe toward Leylin with both hands and a slight incline of his head.
Leylin looked at it for a moment and then he took it.
He brought it to his lips, drew a slow breath, and held the smoke briefly before releasing it in a long, even exhale that drifted out over the veranda railing and dissolved into the garden air below.
A moment of quiet.
"Quite a unique taste," he said. His voice was unhurried. He turned the pipe slightly in his fingers, "Very addicting. And yet there is a calming effect beneath it."
He set the pipe lightly on the edge of the table. "It must be expensive."
"It is nothing, my lord."
He turned briefly toward the servants and dismissed them with a look. The butler, as he retreated through the corridor entrance, cast one brief glance back at his lord at the straight-backed, composed Ramon Greg, who stood attendant beside a young man's chair as though it were the most natural arrangement in the world.
There was something in the butler's eyes that might have been confusion, or might have been the particular unease of a man who has glimpsed something he does not quite have the framework to understand.
Then he was gone, and the veranda was quiet again.
The smoke from the pipe curled faintly upward in the still air.
'Who exactly are you? Such overwhelming strength it's belongs to a Captian or even higher, what's someone like him doing here.' Ramon thought, though he would sooner bite off his own tongue than let the question leave his lips.
Leylin set the pipe down and turned his attention to the man standing quietly beside him.
"Sit down, Ramon," he said.
It was said without particular weight. Simply.
Ramon blinked and after a brief moment, moved to the second chair and sat.
Leylin looked at him with those still, dark eyes, and the afternoon light fell across the veranda in long, unhurried lines.
"Tell me about yourself," Leylin said. "Your background. Don't leave anything out."
Ramon's fingers rested on his knees. He was quiet for exactly one breath before he spoke.
"Well you already know my name sir, I am Ramon Greg," he began, his voice measured. "Son of the late Elder Harvis Greg of the Main Branch of the Greg Family. My father was once one of the foremost candidates in the race to become Family Head."
A shadow passed briefly across his weathered face. "He did not succeed. A scuffle during that period left him gravely injured. He passed not long after."
"But not before he set something aside for his line right?" Leylin said.
It was not a question.
Ramon's eyes flickered. "...No. Not before that. He had amassed a considerable inheritance for his sons despite everything. There were two of us — myself and my younger brother, Luke. Only one could inherit and take the position of Elder in the family."
"And that one was not you."
The words landed without cruelty. Leylin stated them the way one might state that the sky was grey, a simple observation, devoid of any desire to wound. Somehow, that made them land harder.
"No," Ramon said after a moment. "It was not."
"You lost to Luke."
"Luke bested me." There was a subtle but distinct difference in the way Ramon said it, "Fairly."
Leylin's gaze did not waver. "And so you came here. To Linthin."
"I had no place remaining in the Main Branch." Ramon's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "It seemed the appropriate thing to do. Establish myself independently and start anew from scratch. Build something of my own."
"Meanwhile my brother, Luke Greg stayed at the main branch. He's at Master Sergeant Stage. Bordering on Lieutenant. A future candidate for Family Head, with better odds than my father ever had."
Leylin glanced at Ramon and asked, "You two are close."
The older man stiffened almost imperceptibly.
"...We are," Ramon said carefully. "We have always been."
"Most men would not describe losing an inheritance competition and being driven from the Main Branch as the foundation of a close relationship."
"Most men have not known what Luke and I have known." Ramon's voice, for the first time, carried something warmer beneath its measured surface. "The Main Branch is not a gentle environment, Sir. It takes from you constantly. Your time, your ambitions, your trust. It turns brothers into rivals before they are old enough to understand what is being done to them." He was quiet for a moment. "It either breaks that bond entirely, or it forges something that cannot be broken. For us... it was the latter."
Leylin studied him. "And yet the competition for your father's inheritance—"
"Did not change what we were to each other." Ramon said it simply. Firmly. As though stating a law of nature. "We competed because circumstances demanded it. We remained brothers because we chose to."
'Interesting,' Leylin thought, though his expression gave nothing away.
"You rejected your portion of the inheritance," he said. "By right, even after losing, you should be owed a share right?"
"I had my reasons...Luke has always had more talent than I do," he said at last, his voice quieter now.
"I knew it when we were boys. I knew it better than he knew it himself, perhaps." A faint shadow of a smile crossed his lips. "Every resource divided between us was a resource halved. Every inheritance split was a ceiling lowered over his head." He paused. "Concentrating everything in his hands was the correct decision. Strategically and personally."
"And the shame of defeat?"
"A more dignified explanation for the people around us." Ramon's smile faded back into composure. "People are more comfortable with a story they recognise. A man fleeing defeat is a story they know. The truth is rather harder to explain."
'He let his brother win,' Leylin noted internally. 'Refused the inheritance so Luke could take everything. Ran so no one would question it.'
"I doubt your brother abandoned you," Leylin continued. "The breakthrough you achieved that was not entirely your own doing."
"No," Ramon admitted, without hesitation or embarrassment. "Luke provided what he could within the limits allowed to him. The hierarchy in the Great Families regarding resources for Beast Tamers is strict, he could not do as much as he wished. But he did everything within his reach. And then some."
"What is a True Beast Tamer?" Leylin said, "You address me as one before."
The room shifted, Ramon eyes moved to the young man across the table with a surprised expression as if he's asking a very obvious question.
'He's clearly a powerhouse, so why is he asking such a basic question? Although difference between a Beast Tamer and True Beast Tamer is not known to common people but to Great nobles it's a basic knowledge and an open secret.' Ramon thought, his mind moving quickly beneath his controlled expression.
'If he's not a noble then who? Is he a young master from one of those hidden ancient families? I heard there is a rumoured Kharka tribe who practice a different power system than us, have the ability to devour beasts and alter their own bodies. But aren't they a bunch of lunitics, he's too calm. Or Is he from another family, still he shouldn't be ignorant of Beast Tamers at his current power level.'
"Your Eminence," he said carefully, his voice steady through effort alone. "You speak as though..."
"Answer my question."
"Your brother's position is strong," he continued, his voice conversational once more. "But not yet complete. He requires a force of his own. A proper foundation of support before the next move can be made. You understand what is at stake in the coming years. With my support you can easily regain everything you lost and more. You just need to quietly follow me."
Ramon was still, he was a man who had survived the inner politics of one of the empire's great clans. He had watched men play at power his entire life. He recognised the particular quality of a statement that was not merely an observation but a horizon, the outline of something approaching that had not yet been named.
"Most people in this empire," he said, "do not know that there is a difference."
He paused. "Between a Beast Tamer and a True Beast Tamer."
"It is not knowledge that circulates freely. The Royals keep it close. The Great Families and the major Clans guard it the way a man guards the thing that keeps him standing above everyone else." A faint, dry note entered his voice.
"Common Beast Tamers live their entire lives without ever knowing that what they have achieved is, in the truest sense, incomplete."
Leylin said, "It seems there is a stark distinction between those who breakthrough by conventional means and those who do so through something more fundamental."
Ramon looked at him. "...Yes. Precisely, my lord." He steadied himself and pressed on.
"A False Beast Tamers advances and are recognised at same level but the foundation beneath them is flawed, forced in a sense. They carry the complications of incomplete binding with beasts the rest of their path."
"And those who advance through the proper method?" Leylin asked.
"Are something else entirely." Ramon's voice took on a quiet gravity. "The technique ,the true technique builds from within. It is slower. It demands more. But what it produces cannot be compared to the other, the strength is greater. The foundation is clean. The ceiling..." He paused. "The ceiling is simply higher, by a considerable measure."
Leylin said nothing and his expression remained the same. 'Its quite similar to difference between a magus who advance through Grine Water burning through life force or one who advances through advanced meditation technique, same title but vastly different realm of existence.'
Ramon continued, "A True Beast Tamer is not merely someone who has tamed beasts and fought alongside them," Ramon said. "The distinction runs deeper than that, a True Beast Tamer can merge a beast into their own soul."
He let that settle for a moment before going on. "Not command it from a distance. Not bond with it through a surface level contract but merge."
"The beast's innate abilities, its instincts, its physical gifts, the things that make it what it is become accessible to the Tamer directly as their own. Sometimes it's also a curse when volatile beasts with less synergy are bonded to weak beast tamer, that could be catastrophic. A Beast Tamer could easily consumed by the desire of brutality."
Leylin thought was immediately drawn to his spiritualist ideas for Knights future path, a True Beast Tamer seems uncannily similar to that.
'A Beast Tamer consumed by their own beast's instinctual desires, quite similar to my Warlock bloodline.' Leylin has never fallen prey to the innate bloodthirsty desires of Great Kemoyin Serpent because of his superior control over soul energy thanks to his soul attribute.
"And what's the benefits of such a path to a Tamers physical body?"
"Significant." Ramon nodded. "A True Beast Tamer receives a stronger physique as a consequence of the merger and greater overall strength, resilience, speed, in many cases."
"The beast's nature reinforces the Tamer's body in ways that a conventional practitioner simply cannot replicate." He paused. "A wandering Beast Tamer and a True Beast Tamer may hold the same rank on paper but in practice, they are not the same creature."
"This is the foundation of Royal family and Great Clans." Leylin said quietly.
"Yes," Ramon said. "This is why the Great Clans have never been shaken. Why the Supreme Powerhouses remain where they are, generation after generation, regardless of how many talented wandering practitioners emerge. The gap is not merely one of resources or politics. It is structural. Built into the very nature of how they advance."
A brief silence fell as the evening breeze moved through the garden below, slow and unhurried.
"The difference becomes undeniable at the Sergeant Stage," Ramon continued. "Before that, the gap exists but can be obscured. At Sergeant Stage at that threshold it becomes impossible to hide. A True Sergeant and a common Sergeant are not comparable. The gulf between them is..." He searched for a moment. "Definitive."
Leylin picked up the pipe from the edge of the table, turned it once in his fingers, and set it back down.
Ramon watched it and felt the thread of where this conversation was going pull taut in his chest.
"You saw something," Leylin said. "During our battle, when your Slayer Lynx ambushed me."
Ramon met his gaze directly for the first time in several minutes. "Yes, my lord. The Slayer Lynx is not a simple beast. It is known specifically for two things, ambush and speed."
"It does not fight openly. It waits, conceals, and strikes at the precise moment when its target has no space to react. Against a common practitioner of equivalent rank, the outcome is rarely in question." He paused. "You evaded it. Not with force but with a method that was..." He chose his next word slowly. "Unique."
"A common Beast Tamer should not have been able to read that movement," Ramon said. "Should not have had the physical response to answer it the way you did. The speed of your perception, the quality of your evasion, it was not the movement of someone who saw the Lynx and reacted." He looked at Leylin steadily. "It was the movement of someone who already knew."
Leylin regarded him without expression.
"And from that," Ramon said, his voice dropping to something quieter and more careful, "I drew my conclusion."
He straightened slightly, "Only nobles, royals and ancient hidden familes have access to the true path, my lord. And even among them, only direct descendants receive the technique. The exceptions exist but they are... rare enough to be nearly theoretical."
"Which means," Ramon said, "you are someone whose origins and standing are considerably beyond what the surface of things would suggest.".
Leylin reached for his cup and drank from it slowly.
"You are more perceptive than most, Ramon. It seems we can have a great cooperation going forward."
"I'll look forward to his eminence guidance. Your will is the order of Greg family from today onwards."