The Over-Break System

“He’s nervous,” Brance stated, causing everyone’s eyes to narrow.

“Yeah, I had to calm him down earlier,” Selene added as her eyes never left the screen.

“How can you guys tell?” Gabby asked in confusion. To her, Cynrik appeared as expected, albeit maybe a little hyper, but still average for him.

“He’s tense; even if Big Bro is good at hiding his body expressions, he can’t hide the subtle movements of his jawline tensing or the rapid flickering of his eyes. Watch his body language.” Crossing his arms and leaning back, Benny explained so that Gabby could understand.

Crack….Crack

While they were talking, Cynrik could hear the faint sounds of the egg shells cracking as thin spiderwebbing lines formed on the surface of the shell.

With the appearance of more cracks, the markings on the matte black shells started swirling in four different colors, resembling the Tri-Colored OmniPoison and Dark.

DEE DEE DEE

“Incubation Complete, please carefully monitor the hatching of the Egg within the chamber and be ready to assist the Avian within if needed.” The prescripted voice of the Incubator spoke, causing Cynrik’s body to stiffen as he moved forward.

Steadying his breathing, Cynrik readied himself as the second Incubator chimed with the same announcement, but by this point, Cynrik only heard the faint chirps and cracking sounds coming from inside the tubes.

TSSSSSSSSSSSS

Since the Incubation was complete, the machines vented the excess gasses, and Mana left within the hatching chambers and opened the glass tube down the middle, exposing the cracking eggs to the outside world.

However, as this happened, a massive gust shot through Cynrik’s bedroom, scattering everything from his bed to his dressers and bookshelves. Luckily, nearly every piece of furniture in the house was somewhat resistant to damage, and with a flick of his wrist, his bed, which had been flipped over, was back in the proper position.

Unaffected by this, Cynrik stood rooted in place, coating himself in a thin layer of Dark Mana, stopping the powerful surge of Omnipoison and Dark Mana from injuring him as he stepped forward until he was right against the two brightly shining eggs.

“Come on, you two, fight your way out, don’t force me to help you.” Cynrik calmly said loud enough for the babies within the eggs to hear, drawing an intense quivering of the eggs and another burst of Mana.

However, with the second gust of Mana-filled wind, Cynrik winced slightly as the Omnipoison broke through his thin barrier and began eroding at his skin.

Luckily for him, though, he had enough experience dealing with the full power of the poison dished out by Jormie, allowing him to quickly negate the effective damage he would have received. Also, in contrast to Jormie’s Omnipoison, the particles shot out from the Incubators were significantly weaker.

When Cynrik was less than a step away, he held up his left arm to block his face and continued to speak encouraging words to the two chicks until finally, the first egg shattered into fragments, leaving behind a tiny palm-sized plump baby bird.

The image Cynrik saw nearly made him laugh, though, because the little plump chick’s head was covered entirely by eggshell remains, making it look like it was wearing a helmet.

“Cheep Cheep Cheep,” flapping its wings in frustration; the little raven struggled by squirming about and flapping its tiny wings erratically to remove the shell covering its head. It wasn’t until Cynrik leaned into the Incubator and carefully pulled off the egg piece covering its sight that the baby raven finally calmed down and stared at him with its round Indigo eyes, a color derived from the tri-colored Omnipoison and Dark Mana.

“Hello there, little one,” Cynrik said with a warm smile as he gently rubbed its head with the knuckle of his left index finger. To his surprise, the plump chick joyfully didn’t recoil from his touch but instead nuzzled against his finger.

‘This feeling, it’s just like when I met Selene, a sudden closeness that can’t be explained,’ Cynrik thought to himself as he gently cleared all the eggshell fragments, moving them to the right side of the newborn raven.

“Chiip, Chiip, Chiip,” the chick in the right Incubator cried for help, drawing Cynrik’s attention away from the chick nuzzling against his finger.

To his surprise, he almost lost his composure again, but for a slightly different reason.

Unlike the first chick, who wore its shell like a helmet, the second chick’s legs were poking through the top of the shell and kicking back and forth, indicating that the chick had awoken upside down and couldn’t right itself to break free of its shell.

“CHHHIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!”

However, just as Cynrik was about to help it, his pupils suddenly constricted. He scooped up the first chick into his arms and shielded himself and the newborn chick with copious amounts of quad-color Mana particles in response to a large Mana fluctuation.

FWWWOOOOOSSSHHHh SHOOOOMMM!

“Oi, Oi, calm down, you little rascal. Are you seriously trying to hurt your Papa and older sibling?” Cynrik scolded as he extended two tiny Dark Mana tendrils from his hand and turned the egg over so that the protruding feet were standing on the Mana-constructed nest.

—

Back in the living room, the other members of MyrkLys burst out laughing their asses off at the chicks’ hatching process, considering that Cynrik had just called himself Papa.

“HOLY CRAP HAHAHA! HE ACTUALLY CALLED HIMSELF PAPA!” Gabby howled as she grabbed at her belly with tears streaming down her eyes.

“Oh so majestic those little Nátt Hrafn, pfft, one covers its eyes with its shell, the other wears it like pants, I can’t, haha.” Covering his mouth to hide his smile, Brance joined Gabby in laughter.

Even Benny was smiling as he shook his head.

Only Selene was silent, unlike the other three, who were fooling around; she watched with bright eyes and an excited expression as the camera panned toward the tiny chick in Cynrik’s arms.

She had already decided long ago that if Cynrik treated his ravens like his children, then she would as well since fate had already determined they would spend the rest of their days together.

—

Once the egg with legs was right side up, a faint pecking sound could be heard as the chick inside bashed its beak against the shell, creating a network of cracks from the point of impact.

Cynrik smirked as he noticed cracks sprouting around the eggshell, and he held the first chick in his arms, letting it see its sibling hatch.

The small pudgy chick opened its eyes wide, unsure of what was happening, but after noticing the focused look on its Papa’s face, the young Nátt Hrafn understood to some extent that something important was happening.

“Chiip, Chiip, Chiip”

Crack, Crack, Crack

A soft impact sound followed each of the chick’s vocalizations. Finally, after a full minute of struggle, a round black feathered face smashed through the shell and looked around with round Indigo curious eyes.

Its eyes landed on Cynrik, and it felt a sudden and warm connection between itself and the being standing not far away.

“Chiip, Chiip,” it said while hopping out of the remains of its shell and reaching the edge of the nesting area.

“I know, I know, I’m coming,” shaking his head with a smile and watching the newborn chick hopping up and down excitedly, Cynrik stepped forward and rubbed his finger against its head, drawing a soft cooing sound from the over-excited baby.

After a couple of head rubs, Cynrik gently picked up the hyper chick and carried both it and its quiet sibling over to his blanketless mattress, where he placed them down and knelt beside the bed, getting on eye level with both his new birds.

At this time, he could finally examine both their physical features thoroughly.

Unlike newly hatched chicks on Earth, where they would be featherless and their eyes closed, both of Cynrik’s Nátt Hrafn were well past that stage of development.

Their bodies were plump and round, yet their features still resembled that of a Raven from Earth; however, there were several distinct differences.

For starters, their Indigo eyes seemed filled with infinite power and even faint signs of intelligence. Upon further inspection, Cynrik could even see vague specs of what resembled Dark Mana particles and Omnipoison Particles floating around in their eye fluid.

There was also a distinctive colored hue on each feather covering their bodies, in the same shade of Indigo as the creature’s eyes, giving their feathers a slight shimmer similar to a blade’s edge.

Although they were plump with baby fat, Cynrik wasn’t worried; he knew that nearly every species had some form of “baby fat” that would be shed in time. Ignoring the plumpness of the chicks, Cynrik smiled at them and picked up the hyperactive chick in his hands before stretching out its wings and examining the feathers more in-depth.

At first, the chick was surprised and wanted to struggle, but it soon realized that Cynrik meant no harm and was simply examining its body, so it allowed him to do as he pleased.

Once he was done with his examination, Cynrik placed the hyper chick back on the bed, conducted the same process with the second hatchling, and determined some faint differences between them.

Although they were very similar and had contrasting personalities, one quiet and shy, the other hyper and outgoing, there were some distinct differences between them.

For starters, the shy chick was slightly smaller, and after using [Mana Sight], Cynrik could determine that it had a Stronger Affinity for Dark Mana. In contrast, the more outgoing of the pair was more potent with its Omnipoison Affinity.

He found this strange since they both had the same amount of Mana to draw from, yet that was just a passing thought as he didn’t mind.

Drawing from his experience as a Veterinary Assistant on Earth (Basically an Animal equivalent of a Nurse.), Cynrik conducted a quick physical check-up on both chicks until he was satisfied that both newborns were perfectly healthy.

With the medical check-up complete, Cynrik gave one of his fingers to each chick and continued petting them as he observed them further with [Mana Sight].

‘Interesting, their Codex and Mana Circuits are already fully formed, not to mention that if what I am seeing is correct, both of their Codex’s have already reached Tier-2, even though their bodies are still at Tier-0.’ Cynrik thought as he channeled small amounts of Dark Mana into his fingers and allowed the hatchlings to play with thin tendrils of Mana.

“I don’t know how well you understand me,” Cynrik said as he drew his fingers away from the chicks, gaining a chorus of unhappy chirps in reply.

“I know, but there is plenty of time to play later; we have something important to do first, little ones.” As he spoke, Cynrik used the same tendrils the chicks had been playing with to nick his fingers enough to draw a few drops of blood.

“I need both of you not to fight back ok, this may sting a little bit, but if you both accept what I am about to do, you will get stronger than you could ever imagine.” His words were more so for himself, as the only responses he got from the chicks were head tilts and eyes full of confusion as they watched the drops of blood coming off his fingers with shimmering eyes.

It was time to formally use his Tamer class and form a contract with both Chicks.