The Burning Fiend

It was during this time that Linley had revealed his stone sculpture abilities to Yale and George and decided to start housing his work on the Proulx Gallery with Yale's help. They made their way to deliver his first two sculpture, a pair of velocidragons, to the gallery and left to celebrate in advance for the success of the future master sculpture on their dorm.

It was at this time that Linley and Reynolds were thinking on taking their first adventure on the Mountain Range of Magical Beast. They planned to go each on their own, but started to plan together and ask senior students about their experiences.

They learned that the most dangerous thing was not the magical beasts but their fellow humans, a senior student recommended to use mask as they youthful appearance would make them target of many.

Reynolds knew he need to be more careful than Linley as he did not have a powerful magical beast to protect him around the clock so he kept gathering information on how to survive on the wild. He learned to never light fire at night to cook, to avoid areas that lacked magical beast as it would probably be the territory of a powerful high ranked magical beast. He learned that the most dangerous people will be children and women as they would act in deception to kill their prey.

He understood that he could not be naive and that he would have to distrust anyone he met. On his preparations he asked Yale to borrow a contract scroll that he would use if he become lucky to come across a suitable beast. He would pay it back with his winnings and debt or simply return it if the chance to use it did not came along. It was quite useful to have a rich elder brother.

Reynolds decided to make his way to the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts by night in order to arrive at the early morning and avoid possible ambushes on the way. He tought that he was being a little paranoid but it was better to be safe than sorry.

He was wearing a black hooded warrior outfit with a black mask that obscured his face completely. He carried a small backpack with two spare outfits, some cooking utensils and a small water container. He carrier his spear on his back and a knife on his belt. By now Reynolds was 1.75 meters tall so it was no much trouble to carry his spear on his back and he needed almost no time to wield it if needed.

He moved in silence as he made his way through the night and arrived to the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts at the early hours of the morning. He did not stop, now that he was a warrior of the fourth rank he could spend a couple of days without sleeping without being affected by it.

He planned to spent two months for training and thus he had no rush as he made his way careful. The first magical beat he met was a third rank boar that was grazing, he decided that he had found his breakfast as he approached wielding his spear. He was much stronger that the third rank magical beast and with his excellent control of the spear along with his understanding of magical beast, it took only one thrust of his spear to pierce through its eye and ended its life quickly.

He harvested the magical core and cut the four legs with his knife before leaving the place to avoid the approaching visitors attracted by the blood. After half an hour he started to roast one of the legs controlling his magic trying to use the opportunity as practice, it was not overly successful but managed to kept a third of the leg unburned and that was enough for his breakfast.

He continued to explore the terrain as he make his way through the jungle keeping tabs on water sources and places suitable to camp and meditate. While night approached he used his fire magic to burn the air around him to eliminate his odor and started meditating on top a tall three, before falling sleep.

As the days passed his senses seemed to become sharp as he needed to pay attention to everything around him, he had no access to scouting spells but found that he had no much trouble to spend the night without being bothered as his hobby for runes showed useful for the first time. He was able to depict a set of runes with the blood of magical beast and powered by a magic core that allowed him to hide his presence. He had found this arrangement on one of the book that Yale had lend him.

On the first week he had been attacked by a assassin before he made his camp after he had roasted a piece of meat using his magic, he had managed to kept his food from burning after a few days. Reynolds was alert especially when eating so he was not taken by surprise and counterattacked with his spear the very moment the assassin made his move.

The assassin used a dagger and moved very fast, but Reynolds was fortunate to have practiced with his spear for almost 10 years engraving the stances and the basic moves into an instinctive nature reacting without thinking with the most appropriate attack. The assassin had no managed to approach enough to use his dagger while the longer range of Reynolds spear pierced his throat and jumped back to avoid a counterattack.

The assassin died unwillingly without being able to make a noise. Reynolds was in a little panic as it was the first time that he had killed someone but managed to calm himself and direct another attack just to make sure the assassin was death. He then trembled as he approached the corpse to search for loot. He kept the dagger and the backpack as he did not found anything else of value and leave the place after burning the body.

That night he was not able to sleep as he keep watching the moment he had kill that man every time he closed his eyes, he kept reflecting that it was done nothing wrong and that if he had acted otherwise it might be him the one who ended as a corpse. He decided to meditate to calm himself.

As the morning arrived he finally calmed down and started looking what was inside the bag. He found 20 fifth rank magic cores and 40 fourth rank magic cores, which was more that what he had expected to find during his whole stay of two months and realized how lucrative assassination was. But he was not tempted by it, he would not hesitate to kill if someone was attacking him, but he did not want to start looking for people to kill as he felt he would lose something important.