The Burning Fiend

They resumed they leisurely travel way looking for a suitable magical beast for Windsor while keeping attention for any 9th rank magical beast as Reynolds planned to hunt at least 3 before meeting his family. Jenne will have to reach the rank 7 as either magus or warrior so a descent magical beast would accept to submit to her.

Having Koral with them proved to be extremely useful, velocidragons rarely reached the 9th rank and the magical beasts that found her presence assumed that she would be a weak rank 9 magical beast. A violet tattooed bear found Koral's essence and felt anger from the invasion of its territory so it growled making the floor tremble and charged towards the velocidragon.

Reynolds and the girls were a few meters behind to allow Koral have fun with her hunt and watched as Koral waited proudly for the approaching rank 9 magical beast and lazily waved her tail as the violet tattooed bear entered her range. The bear seemed frozen in place for a moment as panic was visible in its eyes but as the space was compressing more as the tail approached in a gentle way the bear could make no sound at all.

The tail touched the bear head and it turned into paste immediately leaving behind a dark-colored rank 9 magic core, the rest of the body showed varying degree of damage and it did not turn into paste, like a human would do, due to the powerful flesh of the magical beast. Koral seemed annoyed that the violet tattooed bear had died so quickly as she did not have enough fun and growled unwillingly.

"It seems that Koral has become almost invincible below the saint rank, I'm pretty sure she could defeat a new saint level combatant without much trouble". Reynolds mussed with happiness and Koral purred from the praise.

Reynolds put the magic core in a previously prepared jade box and they collected the bear paws for their dinner before continuing with their travel. The next beast that faced Koral's onslaught was a red mastiff that attacked them 3 days later and it fell in the same fashion than the violet tattooed bear adding a new rank 9 magic core to Reynolds's collection and even if Koral was a little disappointed from the lack of difficulty, she was still very satisfied with the results of her training and knew that her hard work was worthy.

10 days later the met the third rank 9 magical beast and it turned out to be a wildthunder stormhawk, this time Reynolds was happy as an aerial battle would have some degree of challenge. He unfolded his 'fire wings' and the grass at this feet burned to ashes as he moved his wings raising to the air facing the hawk.

Windsor and Jenne who were standing not far from him could see the details on the feathers, it seemed that his year of obsession with birds had proved useful and Windsor took a mental note to try that level of detail on her sculptures.

Reynolds gained height with calm and the hawk did not try to evade as it was confident than no creature below the saint level would pose danger to it in the air and even lowered its speed to allow the human to approach it thinking of teasing its prey but the voice coming from the human annoyed it beyond belief.

"Well I don't want to waste time, so you have two choices. Submit and become the magical beast companion of the woman below who is a rank 8 earth magus or die". The hawk was enraged as it could feel that the human in front was a 9th rank as well and he wanted to make it a slave to another human who was even weaker than him.

The enraged hawk charged at him trying to pierce him with its steel razor claws but found that the human was not much slower than its own flying speed as Reynold's fire wings helped him to avoid its attack without effort and even managed to use a fire spear to attack as the hawk passed by. The hawk managed to avoid severe damage and escaped with a shallow wound on its flank, enraged it released a lightning bolt towards Reynolds who escaped this attack again.

Reynolds was fascinated as he found that spending so much time studying feathers and wings in general had been more profitable than he had expected, the detail on the wings allowed to react to the air currents and even feel the air push from the attack and directing the heath produced by the wings he could create his own wind currents and escape damage almost without effort.

The hawk was enraged that his powerful attack were not even touching the annoying human and charged with its razor sharp talons only to find the same result, it could not touch Reynolds. The hawk started thinking that running away might not be a bad idea but at this moment Reynolds decided that he wanted to try his speed and not only remain passive avoiding attacks, so he charged to the hawk at high speed and his 'fire spear' started dancing around the magical beast causing many burning wounds that only increased its madness.

Reynolds was happy as it was the first aerial battle he had experienced and he could feel improvement with every move he made, practice sure helped growth but it was actual battle that provided true improvement, suddenly his control over the 'fire wings' was better than ever and he knew that he would not have reached this level for another year if he only trained as he had until now. After a couple of minutes it was clear that Reynolds was toying with the hawk and decided that he would not be gaining anything else from this battle so it was time to put an end to it.

"Last chance, submit or die". The Wildthunder Stormhawk had lost its mind in humiliation and anger, so it didn't even register his words. Seeing that there was no answer, Reynolds wasted no more time and his spear pierced the its neck killing it. Reynolds got hold of the body before it reached the ground as it will be their dinner and it will be ruined if it crashed on the ground from this height.

As he descended from the air and released his 'fire wings' he said. "My beautiful Windsor, this hawk was stubborn and it decided that it was better to be our dinner than becoming your magical beast companion. Are you angry?". Windsor smiled and said. "Master, it was not meant to be. I'm sure there would be many opportunities on the future". Reynolds started petting her while saying. "My Windsor is the best, I will get you a good magical beast companion. But I don't think we will find one as cute as you... of course Koral is an exception". He added as Koral was starting to feel resentful, but ended purring in satisfaction at the compliment.

They continued with their travel leisurely enjoying their training and playing time, after three months passed Reynolds had major breakthrough as he managed to reproduce the fusing of the two mysteries at will, he no longer need to depend on the 'fire body-spear thrust' to achieve the effect.

He was able to fuse his 'fire spear' to his hand completely increasing his ability in battle as the spear was now truly part of his body, another improvement was that by managing to completely fuse his 'fire wings' to his back he could feel the air more clearly through his wings gaining another level on aerial battle. He knew that he could not defeat a peak saint but he would be able to keep his ground unharmed until his qi run out or, if the situation allowed, he could escape as his flying skills were superior than most saints due to the 'fire wings' truly becoming part of his body.

They were roasting a boar to celebrate his breakthrough when they noticing that a small magical beast was slowly making his way towards them most likely attracted by the fragrance of the roasting meat. It was a feline type magical beast of the sixth rank, but Reynolds could see that the magical beast was still a baby. It had blue grayish fur that seemed silver under the light of the fire, it was half a meter tall and a meter long with beautiful electric blue eyes.

After getting a good look he realized that it was an 'electrobolt panther' which is a magical beast that would reach the saint level after reaching maturity, he smiled as he felt that Windsor had already found her magical beast companion and wouldn't be needing his help capturing it. For a magical beast of this lineage to be alone and approaching humans for the tentation of food would probably mean that it had been separated from its parents for a long time and hunger had taken over fear.

Reynolds instructed them not to made sudden moves, he could easily capture the panther, but it would be better if Windsor did this on her own. She took a piece roasted meat and seat a little away from the fire to offer the food to the baby panther, the panther was hesitant but the fragrance was too alluring for it to resist and it made its way slowly and took a small bite and run back.

Seeing that nothing happened, the baby panther started to move slowly again and took another bite only retreating a couple of steps back this time. It waited a moment and slowly approached again but this time it did not try to retreat, the baby panther started eating the roasted meat purring in satisfaction and happiness.

After eating he approached Windsor sniffing for more meat and cried as if begging for more, Windsor smiled and went to the fire for more meat while the little cat never stop watching her every move with eyes filled with hope. It started jumping in happiness when Windsor returned before start eating again, this time it was seating in her l.a.p and even fell asleep after purring.

Windsor started reproducing the runes of the magical contract and the baby panther did not even know to resist as it slept happily with a full stomach. Reynold knew that this baby panther would had been suffering from hunger for a few days now, otherwise it would not had been such an easy capture.