After checking out, Bridge decided to head back towards the orphanage, excited to release his first contract and begin bonding. However, Kain decided to explore the breeding grounds a little longer.
‘Supposedly, when people with an affinity are around a suitable contract they will feel a faint pull similar to the one during the affinity ceremony. Maybe I can get some clues about what my affinity is from exploring around here.’
Kain took his time stopping in front of all of the cages and sensing if there was any pull. Even the Black Iron ones, after all its not as though he plans to contract any of them, he just needs a clue as to what he can and cannot bind.
However, after nearly two hours and exploring every cage, Kain was no closer to finding any answers.
Sigh
“Do you need any help?”
“Aah!” Startled, Kain turned around to see the pink-haired scary breeder Merida. Her face was mere inches from his ear.
“I-I-I can’t find a spiritual creature suitable to contract.”
“Hmm… I see. Well, these are all of the spiritual beasts we have available to contract. You could try the Nursery, which contains all of our unhatched spiritual creatures. Most of the eggs are the same species as the young ones out here, but occasionally we get an egg of unknown origin that was sold to us by mercenaries or explorers.
If you have an affinity for any of the eggs you should be able to sense it.”
“I didn’t know we could select an egg?”
“There’s no rules against it. But considering most college entrance tests are within 2 months and there’s no guarantee an egg would even hatch by then, it’s very rare for a student to select an egg for the first contract.”
Kain nodded in understanding. He also had no intention of binding to an egg for his first contract, but he feels an affinity for an egg and can figure out what is in that egg, maybe he’ll have a better idea of what his affinity is.
Making his way to the nursery, Kain spotted hundreds of eggs of varying shapes, colours and sizes within glass incubators.
As Breeder Merida said, all of the eggs Kain had passed so far had labels for the species as were in the cages outside. It wasn’t until he had looked through over 90% of the eggs that he got to a section of unidentified eggs without labels. There were 20.
Stopping before the first one, a beautiful multicolored egg with pink, violet, and blue hues, Kain closed his eyes to see if there was any pull. Nothing.
Stopping before a light blue egg that gave off a chill Kain could feel through the incubator, Kain once again closed his eyes. Again Nothing.
After going through all 20 eggs, Kain was now at the very back of the Nursery but still did not feel any pull.
Sigh
Leaning against a staff only door at the back of the room, Kain closed his eyes in despair when suddenly he felt a pull!