My spirit animal is a F–Rank gecko-Chapter 4: Drama on a train (1)

"A prologue quest..." It’s a beginner quest where every player has to take it in the game.

This raised a question for Jaster: does Troy have this system thing?

Because in the world of Boundara, only the player has this quest and can see their own spirit animal’s stats.

"Oh well." Jaster took something out of his backpack. The gecko grew curious and tried to see what it was.

"Don’t worry, it’s for you." Jaster winked as he pulled out a bug. The gecko saw this and hissed at the creature.

"Chak!... Chak, chak, chak!"

"Don’t worry, it won’t bite." He calmed his animal while the bug twitched, still alive.

To first establish a bond with your spirit animal, you need to name it first. The bug Jaster is holding is called a Name Ladybug. This creature was a common item people used in Soulbound to name their first spirit animal.

To use it is simple. You just needed to write a name on the ladybug’s back. After that, your spirit animal would eat the bug, and it would automatically know its own name.

Jaster bought it with the ten Bosan his mom gave him back at the market.

He took out a pen and wrote a name on its back.

He thought about naming his spirit animal Pip, since that’s what he called all his animals in Soulbound, but he hesitated.

Since the gecko would turn into a wyrmling and then into one of the dragon types, a dragon named Pip felt kind of off-putting.

So instead, he wrote something else.

After finishing, he put the pen away and showed the gecko the ladybug.

"Here, eat this. I promise it’ll taste good." The vendor had glazed the ladybug with a sauce every spirit animal loved.

"Chak!" The gecko hissed at it, slapped the bug, and it fell onto the table. It jumped off Jaster’s shoulder and slapped the bug again.

"Hey, you’re hurting it!" He pulled the ladybug closer. The gecko stared at it intensely, then, with a quick motion—

It shot out its tongue and pulled the bug into its mouth.

The crunching sound echoed inside the train booth.

"Sooo... how is it?"

It chewed for a bit, then its eyes lit up.

"Ah, I knew you’d love it. So what do you think... Purpleberry?"

The gecko nodded aggressively and jumped onto Jaster’s body, camouflaging itself against his white polo shirt.

The reason Jaster named his spirit animal Purpleberry was simple. The "purple" came from its skin color, and the "berry" came from its favorite food.

Jaster knew Purpleberry favorite food from the prologue rewards, because in the game, The prolouge rewards always gives out the spirit animal favorite food.

It was a sneak peek the game never explained, but Jaster discovered it himself, and it became a known fact in the Soulbound community.

"Haha, you’re so cute. Since your name is kinda long... I’ll call you Purple for short!"

All of a sudden, the screen appeared again.

[ Bond Level Increased! ]

"Oh, nice! Now I want to see the bond level!"

Instead, Janster just sat there in silence. Now that he thought about it, in-game, to check an animal’s stats, you just had to click on the creature.

"But what if I’m IN the game?" Jaster wanted to try something out. He pulled the gecko away from his shirt.

The gecko was small, smaller than his palm. Purpleberry closed its eyes while snoring, probably full after eating the bug.

Jaster pressed on Purpleberry belly, making it squeak. Just like he guessed, the system appeared—but it wasn’t the bond level that showed up.

——————•●•———————

Spirit Animal: Gecko

Spirit given name: Purpleberry

Affinity: Shade

Tier: Common

Overall Power: F-Rank (8/35)

"Active Skills"

◇ Wall Climb – Lv. 1

◇ Quick Escape – Lv. 1

"Passive Skills"

◇ Minor Regeneration – Lv. 1

◇ Heat Tolerance – LOCKED

"Origin aspects"

???

???

???

——————•●•———————

Instead, it was the gecko’s skill window.

"Ahh, so this is what you have, Purple?" Jaster raised an eyebrow at the unbothered gecko.

He noticed the passive skills, especially the locked Heat Tolerance. "We’ll need to work on that later."

Overall, Purple had a very generic skills for a gecko. Most of these are useless for Janster except for the heat Tolerance one.

"I wonder what your origin aspects are."

You could replace your spirit animal’s active and passive skills once they evolved and gained new ones.

But origin aspects could never be replaced, so picking a useful one in the future is crucial for jaster.

"Oh well." He pressed Purple’s belly again. It burped, and the gecko skill window disappeared.

It was replaced by the bond level window.

———•●•———

Bond Level: 3%

———•●•———

"So it went up by 2%... nice." Jaster placed the gecko back into his polo shirt where it could rest comfortably.

He rested his head, looking outside at the beautiful forest and the city in the background.

In the future, earth green has decreased by 80% since 2025. It’s because many company and businesses cut down multiple trees and forest, to build a high rise building, resulting to more people being depressed.

Study shows that the number of human that’s depressed become significant ever since the massive deforestation.

He hadn’t seen many trees since he was born. He learned in school that there was once an area called a rainforest, where nature thrived.

But he had never seen this many in real life.

"This world is so peaceful..."

"HOW DARE YOU CALL ME THAT!"

As if the gods wanted to prove him wrong, a girl voice shouted from outside the booth.

It was so loud that it woke Purple.

This also startled jaster and he goes up from his seat to looked where it’s from.

"Just hide in my shirt, okay?" he reassured his spirit animal.

Opening the booth, he looked down the hallway. A girl is screaming at what looked like an old man while a train attendant tried to calm them down.

The man seemed to be in his fifties. He had a thick mustache and wore worn-out clothes. His eyes didn’t look quite right.

The girl had black hair tied in a bun and beautiful green eyes. Jaster noticed she was wearing an academy shirt.

"She’s from Bondspire!"

"How dare you harass me and then try to blame it on me!" She grabbed the man by the collar.

"Ma’am, please. Fighting is prohibited on the train," the attendant pleaded, but she showed no sign of backing down.

"You! You’re also a girl. Aren’t you supposed to have my back? This guy touched me and thinks he can get away with it!"

The man scoffed. "Hah. What are you gonna do? Fight me with your E-Rank animal, sweetheart?"

That comment triggered her. Her chest glowed cyan.

"Ma’am, please don’t use your animal skills here!"

Jaster’s eyes widened. "She has a Storm Affinity!"

There were two ways to use spirit animal skills.

The first is summoning them to fight. The second is lending their essence so you could use the power without them present.

Since her animal isn’t present, she’s using the second method.

Jaster planned to ignore it—but an idea clicked.

"I’LL show you what I’m capable of!" The girl’s hands glowed.

Instead of being frightened, he seemed to be enjoying this. Being held by the pretty girl, he was even smiling, savoring the moment.

Before she could strike at the man, Jaster stepped in and touched her shoulder.

"Who’s that?!" She turned and saw him winking, confusing her.

He stepped forward with a smug smile.

"Everyone, why make this complicated?"

Jaster gently held the girl’s arm. Both her and the man looked confused.

"Sir, please don’t get involved. I’ll handle this," the attendant said.

"Oh really? It doesn’t look like you’ve got it handled."

"What are you even doing?" the girl demanded.

"I’m trying to calm things down. You can’t just fight in the booth section. Most people are probably resting after a long day."

Jaster gestured at the angry looking passengers.

"Oh..." She released the man. The glow faded.

The attendant sighed in relief. "Thank you. We’ll take this somewhere private and settle it."

Before leaving, the girl muttered, "I can’t believe you couldn’t check the cameras."

That caught Jaster’s attention.

What does she mean by that?

As they left, the strange man smiled creepily.

I don’t feel good about this...

Everyone returned to their booths. So did Jaster.

After sitting down, guilt stirred in his chest.

"Maybe I shouldn’t have interfered... I wanted to help her."

He planned to make a good first impression on a Bondspire student. He didn’t recognize her, so she must not have been a major character.

She said they couldn’t check the cameras... why?

"Krrk, krrk!"

Purple returned to its original color and jumped onto his shoulder.

"What is it, Purple?"

The gecko burped.

But somehow, Jaster understood what it was trying to say.

"You’re right! I should interfere again and have a chance to make things more worse than it already has!"

Purple nodded.

Jaster offered a high-five, then stepped out of his booth to find them.

Unbeknownst to him, a window appeared behind him.

[ Bond Level Increased! ]