The Burning Fiend

Reynolds was seating under the shadow of a tree while looking at the lake enjoying the moment of peace, a small velocidragon that looked more like a oriental dragon with long body and short legs was coiled around his arm sleeping. Koral seemed to be extremely fond of sleeping in his arm while he drank wine.

It is been 5 years since they had constructed their castle, and their calm life was very satisfying. Reynolds smiled remembering how Koral, 2 days ago, had jumped around like a puppy while calling. "Master! Master! I did it! I am a saint! The great Koral has become a saint!" Koral was not the only one who had make great progress.

Windsor was working on a sculpture not far from him, he liked to watch her dance around the boulder with confidence and elegance, she was at the peak of the 8th rank as magus and had already reached the 6th rank as a warrior. It will not be long for her to reach the next realm in both systems, he was sure that she would have no trouble reaching the saint realm.

Next to the lake a beautiful woman, with silver hair that reached her waist, was dancing with a spear and the sprinkled water made her warrior outfit wet creating a new level of temptation. Jenne hair had turned into a beautiful silver due to her pure soul was easily influenced by the death magic essence during her meditations. She was now a rank 7 death and water magus while her qi had reached the peak of the six rank. Her talent was not as good as Windsor, but her affinity to death magic will give her the time she needed to reach the saint realm within 300 years while maintaining her beautiful appearance due to the water elemental essence that nurtured her body with her daily meditations.

A small cat was sleeping in the shade next to him, Bolt had reached the 8th rank and his mind was still that of a child but his intelligence had grown a lot. Bolt was lazy as cat would normally be and liked to keep his small size to be petted by both girls.

Reynolds had reached the peak of the 9th rank in both mage and magus systems, he knew that he could become a saint warrior any day now but reaching the saint magus will take another 5 years. His understanding of the 'mysteries of fire' had grown to the point that he could transform all his body into fire and add elemental essence on the environment to increase his size while taking different forms. He was a little frustrated as he could not divide his body in several parts while using his 'fire body' but he could feel that he was close to reach that realm.

He had already envisioned his battle form once he reached that realm, he would transform into several 'fire feathers' reinforced with fire elemental essence from the environment an move as a cloud while burning his opponents and becoming practically immune to most physical attacks.

He smiled as he noticed that Koral had woken up and said to her. "Koral, I have a favor to ask you. Remember that we built our home over an area with high concentration of magic stones? Now that you can make your body small, can you have a look at what is in that area? I don't like the feeling of seating on something unknown that might become a danger one of this days."

Koral started floating and said. "Master, I will go immediately but remember that you promised to teach me how to practice the 'mysteries for fire'". Reynolds laughed and stroked her head gently. "Do not worry Koral I will keep my promise, I can feel that I will become a saint within the following days. After I become a saint I will explain to you the way I trained and give you some ideas for you to train."

Koral purred and then made her way towards the center of the island. Reynolds took a look again at the lake and smiled, during this 5 years he had been casting life magic continuously on the artificial mountains and the external area of his territory and now his lake was already surrounded by threes and vegetation. His lake was now part of the outer area of the Dark Forest.

He stood up and picked up Windsor, who was admiring her sculpture, holding her over his shoulder while holding her legs with one arm and walked towards Jenne who was oblivious of his actions but soon found herself on the same situation than Windsor and seemed to not know what had happened for a moment, but then she asked. "Master, is it bath time already?"

Reynolds just whistled a happy tone as he made his way towards the castle.

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It has been 3 days since Koral started her exploration of the underground of the castle and was close to the reach the area of interest, she was moving slowly to avoid damaging the castle and in prevention of unknown dangers.

Reynolds was waiting patiently when suddenly he felt that his qi reached a point of saturation, he smiled and started to circulate his qi full of expectations. His body trembled slightly every time that his qi completed a circulation and it suddenly seemed to resonate with the plane and his soul. There was not any indication that anything important had happened but Reynolds could feel that his qi had changed significantly and just like that he had become a saint warrior.

He started to float slowly as if enjoying the moment, this was the first time that he was flying without his 'fire wings'. It was a new experience as he did not need to use any energy to fly, but the speed was slow, it was more akin to floating than flying and he was glad that he had spent so much effort perfecting his 'fire wings' as his aerial abilities had suddenly skyrocketed. He was so engrossed on the feeling that he had not noticed that both Windsor and Jenne were looking at him with a happy smile and tears on their eyes, they were waiting for him to land again to rush to him.

Reynolds finally calmed himself, he had always been sure that he would reach this stage but it was still a fantastic moment. He looked down and found both girls waiting for him, he smiled and went to them and before he could said anything they were already in his arms congratulating him.

After enjoying the moment of celebration with Windsor and Jenne, he received a message from Koral. 'Master, I found a huge door buried on the ground and there seems to be a passage to some unknown place. What should I do?'

After thinking for a moment, he answered. 'Come back Koral, we will create a stable passage and will check it out later. It is better to be careful'.

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That afternoon Koral was looking at Reynolds like a child waiting for candy, and he could not help but laugh a little. "All right, calm down. I do not know how many secrets the 'Mysteries of Fire' holds, but I think I had gained enlightenment into two mysteries. You have seen me training the 'Fire Body' and the 'Fire Elemental Essence', I think that the 'Fire Body' is of a higher realm than the 'Fire Elemental Essence' and it is also more difficult to train.

The way I trained both mysteries was to create a 'fire spear' and fussed it to my body, later I followed the same principle to create my 'fire wings' and fussed them to my body. I started by condensing fire elemental elements from the environment and forced them together with the 'impose' realm to create a weapon and took me almost 3 years to understand how to do the same just by manipulating the fire elements without the 'impose' realm."

Reynolds waited for a bit so Koral could digest his words before continuing. "I think that you should start with the 'fire wings', you already know the process of how I created mine and when you manage to build them to a satisfactory level... I think you should create a human body with fire elements that will contained your saint body while reduced in size."

Koral looked surprised at the last comment and waited impatiently for him to keep talking. "If you manage to create a human body, you can practice with a 'fire weapon' and study the realms of wielding through it while maintaining your fire constructs without dissipating and perhaps this would give you a better chance to understand the 'fire body' as you will try to feel what you human-fire body should feel."

Koral was looking at him with eyes wide open and started to jump in happiness as if she could not wait to start and then moved quickly towards the girls demanding them to undress so she could have a reference for the 'fire human body' and there were a few screams as she started to take things on her own paws as they did not understand what was happening.

Reynolds looked at this with his mouth wide open and then started to laugh while walking towards them to enjoy the show. He had already a bottle of wine and started appreciating its fragrance while Koral was trying to strip Jenne n.a.k.e.d while Windsor looked resentfully at him.

"Don't look at me like that my beautiful Windsor, don't you want to help Koral on her training? I think you should undress yourself before you end up like Jenne..." Then he could no longer kept his face straight and started laughing again.