The Burning Fiend

The next 50 years were calm for Reynolds and his family as they stayed on their courtyard training, their progress was notable. After nurturing their souls with the soul essence both Talia and Jenne became saint magus, while Windsor become a Demigod through understanding the 'Earth Elemental Essence' and had gained some small insights on vitality.

Catherine, after thousands of years without improvement, finally managed to become a Fullgod through the Edict of Life as she managed to increase her understanding of 'healing', however besides the improved spiritual and divine power she did not become much stronger as this aspect of the Edict of Life was not very useful for offensive actions.

Reynolds on his part managed to consume all the soul essence he had obtained from the amethysts, improving the spiritual power of his God avatar to the limit, and through this 50 years he completed all the 2-way fusions of the four laws he had mastered. His God avatar was currently pondering the 3-way fusions available to him from the Elemental Laws of Fire he had mastered, Reynolds thought that it might be close to impossible to start fusing the four laws without going through this process.

His other two divine avatars were pondering the Edicts of Life and Death. He found that it was easier to train the Edicts than it was on the Yulan Continent, but his affinity towards them was not comparable to his affinity towards the Fire Elemental Laws and it will be a long time before this two avatars could be upgraded to the God level. On the other hand his saint body was constantly accompanying his wives and perusing the books he had bought before.

He understood now that Silver Grass City was one of the 10 great cities within the Silver Prefecture, the closest continent was the Bloodridge Continent several billion kilometers to the north making it normal for most deities to never leave the continent where they were born. After talking to his family they decided to wait for all of them to be at least Gods before they started wandering the Jadefloat Continent or even consider visiting another continent. They had no reason to go to other continents for the time being, and they would go just out of curiosity, so they had no hurry in this respect.

---

Finally, one morning Reynolds was walking with Koral towards the Fiend Castle. Koral was excited to leave the courtyard where they had stayed for 50 years and enjoyed the jealousy of her sisters and her daughter as she walked hugging Reynolds's arm. She was not going to participate on the trials to become a Fiend, but she was curious about the process causing her to pull Reynolds's arm to increase their speed.

The Fiend Castle was just as big as the Jadefloat Palace, there were many places where Fiends could gather either for leisure or in wait for a mission. They could see that there were many rooms where people were processing information and treasures as they approached a desk with a notice that read 'Fiend Trials'.

A young man with golden hair was seemly bored as he guarded the desk and his eyes brightened as he saw Koral but the light deemed immediately as he noticed that while she was looking around like a curious little girl she kept her arms around his companion's arm with an aura of possessiveness, and he cursed in his mind. 'Damn, in this city most of the women are slaves and when I finally find a free one she is already with someone else, how unlucky can I be? And with this cursed desk job it might take another 5,000 years for a woman to appear again'. He sighed in frustration and thought that he might have enough inkstones to buy a slave in 1,000 years... even if only a saint, but a Demigod spark would cost only a 100 inkstones, he shook his head as he realized that the couple was in front of him.

"Hello to you two, how can I help you?" The golden haired man smiled still a little depressed causing Reynolds to chuckle. "Hello friend, I would like to ask about the Friend Trials... are there requisites to consider? What are trials exactly? And how much would the application cost?" Reynolds's voice was calm and his mischievous smile had a way to warm into people making the golden haired man smile realizing that the person in front of him might not be even a thousand years old.

"You are in the right place". He smiled as he pointed to the notice chuckling before starting his explanation. "The trials are not fixed, normally they would take place as support from a higher rank mission. There are not any requirement in order to participate in the trials besides paying 10,000 inkstones". The golden haired man ended his explanation in a better mood feeling wise after instructing a couple of young children.

Reynolds smiled and took 10,000 inkstones. "I would like to apply for the trials please". The man nodded and took the inkstones before handing over a ticket. "You have to leave an address as a reference for someone to go and notify you when the next trial is going to take place... I think that you will have to wait for a couple of weeks". Reynolds complied and left the castle with Koral as they took a long walk on the commercial area enjoying the different views with curiosity.

It was close to the curfew time when they arrived to their courtyard bringing a few delicacies for the rest of the girls and Koral started telling them proudly of their adventures making Reynolds chuckle. He really liked this life.

---

A couple of days later, a man came to inform Reynolds that the time fore the trial has arrived. He left with the man after leaving an interspatial ring with 4 million inkstones to the girls as a precaution and kissed Talia's forehead as he noticed that she was nervous.

He joined a group of Gods, after receiving a trial medallion, to wait to be informed what would the Fiend Trial entail this time. Reynolds looked curiously around and noticed that there were no women among the group and sighed as he had already realized that in the Infernal Realm the majority were males, and he wondered what would be the reason for that.

He chuckled as he remembered the angry looks the bandits had given him before dying as they noticed that he was traveling alone with 6 women. He now realized that he had being too conspicuous since the very moment they arrived to the Infernal Realm.

After a few hours they were finally escorted to a metallic life form and departed the city, he noticed that there were a few Highgods with the Fiend ensign on their c.h.e.s.t, but most of them only had 3 stars and only a couple had 4 stars. Reynolds sighed as his confidence grew, according to Harry he was close to a 7-star Fiend before leaving the Yulan Plane and now that he had fused 'Heat' and 'Mirage' his power have raised to another level. The power of a middle level mystery fused with a high level mystery was already monstrous enough, but adding 'erosion' and 'illusion' to it, his mental attack was already enough to kill 6-star Fiends instantly if they were not wearing a Highgod soul defensive artifact, and still it might be destroyed while they could be severely hurt.

His attention returned to the moment as one of the 4-star Fiends stood in front of the participants of the Fiend Trial and said. "This time the Fiend Trial consist on a visit to the 'Death Mist Grasslands'. For those of you who are not familiar with the place, it is inhabited by divine man eating plants called 'Death Orchids'. During this time of year they release a special mist that many practitioners of the Death Edicts use to manufacture flesh corroding poisons". He paused enjoying the terrified looks that most of the Fiend aspirers showed.

"Your task consist on fill an orb with the mentioned mist and return to the metal life form. You do not need to worry about the 'Death Orchids' as the 3-star Fiends would be dealing with them while Jored and I will keep other people at bay". He then returned to his seat ignoring the scared Gods.

Reynolds frowned as he recalled what he knew about the 'Death Mist Grasslands' and the 'Death Orchids', the 'Death Orchids' were divine level plants that seemed to have no sentience and attacked anything that came close to them. The mist they released had a flesh erosion effect that would damage Demigod defensive artifacts in only a couple of hours.

He decided to collect more of this mist to study it hoping to find some clue to 'decay', he closed his eyes and started pondering the 3-way fusions along with his God avatar as the travel to the 'Death Mist Grasslands' would take 15 years.

Due to had used the soul essence to fortifying his God avatar, his ability to ponder the laws and perform calculations and simulations had increased several times, he was able to find the starting point of fusion 'Heat', 'Mirage' and 'Fire Elemental Essence' after only 10 years making him extremely happy, his God avatar continued working with this fusion while his saint body kept looking for a new 3-way fusion.

Soon he woke up from his pondering as they arrived to the 'Death Mist Grasslands' and was impressed by the eerie mist that seemed to cover everything in sight, he noticed that his group was not the only one arriving but the other groups looked at them with apprehension. Well, they looked at the 4-star Fiends with apprehension while ignoring the Gods participating on the Fiends Trial.

"All of you take a crystal orb. You will have to go to deeper into the grassland to be able to gather the mist, remember... only gray mist. If your orb has a trace of white it would be counted as failure. Now go!"

Reynolds received his crystal orb and used his divine sense to examine it finding no difference with the ones used for containing soul essence at the different stages of refinement and started making his way towards the grassland while covering his body with a curtain of divine power made from the fusion of the 'Fire Elemental Essence', 'Flame Body' and 'Heat' nullifying completely the effect of the mist, and he focused his full attention to his surroundings.

He did not expect to be attacked at the moment, but he was sure that there might be people willing to try stealing from him once he managed to obtain the required gray mist. He smirked and wondering if he would be lucky to gain something valuable for those unfortunate people.