"Let's go. Time to find a spirit for you," Ning told Tessa as soon as he returned.
"What about me?" the princess asked with a sour look on her face. "You didn't even let me speak last time."
"Oh yeah, don't just shout. Okay? The spirit will run away if it gets scared," Ning explained.
"I wasn't going to shout. I even had the perfect thing I was going to say," the princess said.
"Oh, what was it?" Ning asked.
"I'm not telling you, hmph!" The princess got angry and walked away from Ning.
"Sigh, let's leave. System, where's the closest spirit?" Ning asked.
<3 kilometers north-northwest>
"Alright grab each other's hands," Ning said, and the next moment they disappeared.
When they reappeared, Ning and the others were about 20 meters away from 5 different people that were standing still around a spirit.
Ning wondered if they were trying to bond, but then he saw a summoning circle form below the spirit, and the young woman smiled.
She had done it.
'Not bad,' Ning thought. In the last hundred years, the forbidden island had only opened for 3 times, not counting this one.
Each time, 3 people had ended up bonding with spirits, so it wasn't an impossible event to see other people bond with spirits. Still, it was quite a surprise nonetheless.
"Well, someone got here before us," Ning said and asked for the next location where the spirit was. Not only that, he asked for one with fewer people around.
"Oh, looks like you guys will have to wear some warm clo—" Ning's body shifted suddenly as a barrier appeared in front of him.
Something struck the barrier quite hard and shook it as it would break it. However, it would take more than just a wind blade to do so.
"Why are you attacking us? There is a little girl here," Ning asked the girl who had just bonded with the spirit.
The other students beside her seemed to be quite confused as well. Despite being from the same academy as her, they didn't understand why anyone would target another person so suddenly.
"Oh, I was merely testing the powers I just received. You simply happened to be in the way," the girl snickered.
Ning got a little confused as to why the girl was so confident and only then noticed that they were still wearing desert clothes.
Which meant that Saphandra still had the scarf around her head and face to protect her from the heat.
"Let's kill her," Saphandra said all of a sudden.
"It's fine. Let's just go," Ning said. However, suddenly another wind blade flew towards him.
This time, he punched the blade so hard that the blade dissipated to nothing but wind. His eyes turned dark as he stared at the young woman.
"Ooh, not bad," she said. "Can you be my training puppet? I want to see how strong I can go."
Without warning, the girl created a tornado that sucked in everything from the surrounding, uprooting even nearby trees.
Saphandra pulled on Tessa and the slime stopped the princess from being blown away.
Ning, however, simply walked through the tornado, appearing on the other side.
The girl was surprised and sent all the wind in the area at him to push him back. However, Ning simply teleported behind her and grabbed her by the nape.
"You just had your wish fulfilled and you want to die already?" Ning asked.
"What? Let go of me," the girl cried out.
"No, you don't tell me what to do," Ning said. "Instead, you will do as I say. Erase your bond with the spirit, and I will let you go."
"You bastard!" the girl shouted and suddenly started pulling all the air around her to herself. That included the air inside of Ning.
The air in his lungs was violently pulled towards him, and even the air bubbles that were dissolved in his body were pulled by the girl.
However, in the lack of air, his lungs simply created more air. When his body was hurt, it simply reverted back to how it was beforehand.
Not a single thing the girl did could hurt Ning at all.
"Erase your bond, or I will free the spirit from your dead body," Ning spoke in her ears.
"No! No!" The girl cried out, but Ning didn't care.
The little princess's eyes were already closed, so he brought out a knife and placed it on the girl's throat.
"Your choice. Will you erase your bond while you are alive, or should I let it happen by killing you?" he asked.
"I will count to 3."
"No!" the girl cried.
"1."
"Please, no. I'm sorry. Please don't make me—"
"2." The knife landed on her throat, the mere sharpness of it that was capable of cutting even Ning's flesh, tore the girl's skin like a hot rod piercing a bubble.
"I promise not to hurt you again. Please don't make me do it. I need—"
"3."
"I'll do it!" Before Ning could do anything, a summoning circle appeared beneath the spirit again as it was unbonded.
The spirit was confused and slightly offended that the girl would unbond with it after bonding just now.
The spirit made some rather harsh bell noises and flew off.
"Good. That's what you get for trying to kill us," Ning said and pushed the girl away before walking back to the group.
Ning left the girl on the floor and walked back to the group.
"You're scary," Tessa said. She was slightly shaken by the fact that Ning was so close to killing the girl.
"Let's forget about that," he said and looked to the side. "Let's go, that spirit is running away."
He grabbed onto Tessa who tried to grab onto the others but missed.
As a result, only Ning and Tessa arrived in front of the spirit. Ning realized the mistake immediately and returned to get the rest of them.
Just then, Tessa looked at the spirit in front of her and started speaking the words of her bonding.
