The queen's feet trembled on the shaky shell, but she still managed to stand up on her own.
"It's… it's really happening!" she spoke out loud in disbelief as for the first time in many years, she saw herself stand up.
"Mist— Your highness, are you sure? You can walk?" Joann was surprised.
"Mother?" the princess didn't understand what was going on, so she started to worry a little.
"I can walk, honey," she told her daughter. Suddenly, she felt something break inside her.
'The bond,' she thought. The bond she had made with this strong beast was now broken.
From the Queen to the beast, the condition was to forever provide the beast with Spiritual energy until it would go up in rank. The queen had made such a vicious bond knowing that it would take her years considering the beast was already at Rank 7 when she bonded it.
But she had to do it for the sake of healing her leg.
From the beast to the queen, the condition of the bond was that it would heal her legs.
Now that Ning had done the job for the beast, there was no more condition remaining and the bond collapsed on itself.
The queen felt a backlash, a hit to her spirit that only happened when you broke the condition of your bond. However, the queen didn't even care that she got a little backlash as she felt the Spiritual energy all around her slowly enter her and not disappear somewhere else.
She could finally gather spiritual energy on her own.
"How did you… how did you heal me?" the queen asked Ning. The queen was quite good at handling her emotion, so she moved aside her feeling for what she thought was more important.
"Its just another summon of mine, don't worry," Ning said. Even he was starting to realize a problem with saying everything was a summon. People would start to get suspicious soon. He needed to change the topic.
"Since you are fine, your highness, let us start moving."
Ning ordered the turtle and suddenly it started moving forward. The battleships moved aside as the giant turtle makes its way through them.
The captains couldn't help but look in awe at the size of the beast.
Ning didn't show any expression on his face, but deep inside he couldn't help but laugh at the people's reaction. Especially because he knew just how useless this turtle was.
The turtle was strong when it came to defense thanks to its thick skin and thicker shell, but it wasn't a fighter at all.
All it could do if something attacked it was endure it. As for the people on top of it, it couldn't care less about protecting them. Not that it could even if it did care.
Ning hadn't summoned it because of its fighting capabilities so that wasn't a problem for him.
The turtle was surprisingly fast in the water as it roamed the sea.
The little princess shouted excitedly and pointed at any fish or sea beast that came to the surface.
Ning couldn't help but smile every time. After a few minute, he started teaching her again.
The queen watched curiously as she wondered what he taught her and nodded to herself when she realized he was teaching her to feel the spiritual energy and summon something.
Over two hours passed in such a way. The queen was happy to be out of her small cave and freely enjoy the outside world for the first time in a long time.
She was so happy that she didn't even care that there was someone around. She tried walking a few times, but her legs didn't work like they used to before.
Just then she heard a commotion from the group. She turned around to look at Ning and the others and saw them celebrating.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Mother, mother! I can feel it. I can feel the Spiritual energy," the little princess shouted.
"Really? Come here my child." The queen gave a deep hug to her daughter that left the princess surprised. Her mother never showed her love this way.
"I'm really proud of you," the queen said.
The smile on the princess' face could not be any wider.
The queen heard a splash and turned her head to see that Ning was no longer there. "What happened? Where did he go?" she asked Joann.
"Most likely to get a beast for the princess," Joann answered.
Ning returned not long after with a small octopus that was blue and green in color, but was actively changing into orange to match the light of the setting sun.
"Come on, let's try bonding with Occy's friend okay?" Ning said as he placed the octopus on one of the crevice in the turtle's shell where water flowed through constantly.
"What do I do now?" the princess asked.
"Now, you make a bond," Ning explained. "Feel your spiritual energy and try to push it towards the octopus. Then, say the words of your bond. Your remember the words right?"
"Yes." The princess crouched in front of the octopus and tried to do as she was told. For a while, she didn't feel anything, but then she felt the Spiritual energy again and sent it out of her body towards the Octopus.
"Be controlled by me and in exchange you can have all the spiritual energy in my body," she said.
The tiny octopus couldn't understand the words of course, but the intent was apparent to it. It would get so much spiritual energy at once that would go towards its rank.
It happily accepted the condition of the bond.
The princess felt something change in her. At the same time, something else changed externally.
The black hair the princess had slowly started fading as if it were being influenced by the surrounding.
Slowly, it went from mild, to deep red. The princess watched in shock at her own hair changing.
"I did it?" she asked.
"Yes, congratulations Janice." Ning pat her head. "You're now a summoner."
