...

Shin waited for quite some time before his Elemental Companion fully awakened. And when the time finally came, the whole cave started to tremble once again, attracting the attention of everyone.

"I guess it is finally finished," muttered Hanzo while staring at the floating ball of light at the center of the cave.

Hearing that, Shin slightly nodded his head before saying. "If that is the case, then how about you guys go to your respective positions now? We still have a lot of things in our schedule and we can't afford to fall behind, so we need to wrap this up as soon as possible."

"Tsk!" Hanzo clicked his tongue when he heard that before disappearing from his current position and reappearing on a certain corner of the cave.

At the same time, the others also did the same while waiting for the new spirit to finish its awakening.

Boom!

Not long after, a blinding light suddenly shone from the center of the place, almost blinding everyone. Then they saw a silhouette of a humanoid creature standing in the middle of that light before slowly floating down towards Shin. And a few moments later, that Elemental Spirit stood in front of Shin barefooted alongside its towering structure.

"This guy is huge," muttered Shin as he got a clear look at his new Reaper's Retainer.

Its height seemed to be a little over two meters while its body structure was very muscular. It had a bald head while its sharp eyes were glowing with a flickering golden light. There was a pair of crimson lines running down from its head and passing through his eyes all the way to its jaw.

Its entire skin had a metallic color which was resembling a steel iron. There were also some golden runes glowing on its bare chest that was running all the way to its shoulders and down to its entire arm.

It was wearing traditional black tribal pants on its lower body while a thick fur belt wrapped around its waist.

Shin tried to use his 'True Sight' observation skill at Elemental Spirit to read its details but the system told him that he couldn't see it due to some restrictions. "Huh!?"

He was still frowning his eyebrows from reading the system notification when the Elemental Spirit suddenly kneeled down with one knee in front of Shin with a loud bang before asking. "This loyal servant is humbly asking my lord to grant its name!"

Rumble!

The whole cave shook once again due to the loud voice of the Elemental Spirit.

Shin stared at his new retainer weirdly as he tried to suppress his twitching mouth from further twitching. 'What the heck? Another one of those kinds?'

He didn't know how to properly respond to that as he was not used to being treated like this. It really made him uncomfortable and awkward.

Fortunately, the system quickly woke him up from his dazed state almost instantly.

Ding!

System: After a long time of slumbering, your fourth Reaper's Retainer lost all of its memories from its previous lives. And to start anew, he is now asking you to grant him a new name.

System: Please give your Reaper's Retainer a new to register its updated data.

...

Shin read these lines quite fast before shifting his gaze at the towering Elemental Spirit kneeling in front of him. "That's right, he is basically my fourth Elemental Companion."

He then fell silent for a few moments as he tried to think of a good name for this one. But while he was contemplating about that, he suddenly sensed a pair of sharp gazes locked on of him from a distance.

"D*mn! I know that you two are a little unsatisfied with your names. But I can no longer do anything about that, so please forgive me," said Shin with a stiff smile, trying to apologize to Whitie and Blackie.

Then he turned his attention back to the Elemental Spirit in front of him before starting to think of a good name for it. 'Should I make it a simple name? How about Rock? Nah! This guy is going to squash me to death if I name him like that. He has some golden runes on his body, so what about Goldrock? Meh~! It should even lamer…'

Shin spent quite some time thinking of a good name but it seemed like all his efforts were futile. It even started to frustrate him when he couldn't come up with anything. 'D*mn! Why is it so hard giving someone a name?!'

'And what's with that dark aura radiating from his body? He looks more like an evil spirit than an Elemental Spirit,' when Shin thought about this, something suddenly flashed within his mind.

'Wait! Evil? Imposing, muscular, and evil…' he held on to this thought before smiling from ear to ear before saying. "Alright, I finally decided! From now on, you will be called Astaroth!"

Hearing that, the Elemental Spirit quickly bowed his head even deeper before responding with a loud voice. "This humble servant accepts your grace, my lord!"

Ding!

And immediately after that, Shin immediately received another notification from the system to inform him about the details of his new Elemental Companion.

---------------------------

Name: Astaroth

Race: Metal/ Earth Spirit

Life Rating: Guardian Elemental Spirit

Level: ??? (Calibrating, restricted due to the host current level)

Stats: ???

Details: ???

---------------------------

Seeing that the system had given him yet another batch of question marks, Shin couldn't help but wear a stiff smile as he didn't know how to feel. "This stupid system is giving me basically nothing once again. But I guess it is still a good thing since this guy is also a strong one just like the others."

"Alright, let's set his code as 'Grey Reaper' for the time being," he added while setting the commands on how he was going to summon this new Reaper's Retainer.

After that, he looked at everyone and said. "Alright, let's wrap this up, everyone. I can't fall behind our schedule."

Hearing his words, the Elemental Spirits quickly positioned themselves in different corners of the cave before channeling their powers on the magic circle that Hanzo and Vladimir had drawn on the ground earlier.

In the meantime, Astaroth quickly flew towards the center of the cave once again before assisting the group with the transporting of his rebirthing place.

Ha!

Boom!

************

Meanwhile, Charlotte was already outside the cave, sitting under a nearby tree while waiting for Shin to finish.

Rumble!

Not long after, she felt an intense tremble of the ground which was much stronger than what she had felt earlier. "I guess this should be the last one since I can already feel the density of Earth Elemental Mana in this place is rapidly dropping."

It didn't take long for her guess to become true as Shin finally walked out of the cave after a few moments. And through her Elemental Sight, she could spot seven different specks of lights circling around Shin with unique rhythms.

"Tsk! Such a lucky player!" muttered Charlotte with a soft voice before standing up and walking over Shin. "So, are we going to regroup with your friends now?"

Shin pursed his lips for a moment before nodding his head. "Well, we can enter any City in this Kingdom, so we have no choice but to head over there."

"Wait! Let me contact them for a bit," he added before opening his friend list and contacting Owen.

It only took a few rings before the side picked up the call. But Shin was immediately greeted by the troubled look on Owen's face right after the call was answered.

"What's wrong? Did you encounter some problem?" asked Shin almost instantly the moment he saw the look on Owen's face.

On the other hand, Owen took a helpless sigh first before asking in return. "There is a pair of bad news that I want to tell you, which one do you want to hear first?"

The corner of Shin's mouth suddenly twitched when he heard those words before replying. "If both of them are bad news, then what's the point of asking me which one to pick. Just tell me whatever they are."

Hearing that, Owen slightly nodded his head and quickly responded. "Then let me go with the less unfortunate one first."

"The Beast Glazes Kingdom is also under the threat of the Corrupted Cult. And to make the situation even worse, there are also some powerful NPCs from that cult hiding within the Kingdom so I think asking for some assistance from them is going to be much harder than what we are expecting."

He then paused for a brief moment before quickly continuing. "As for the Dwarf Kingdom-… there is a major event happening in that place."

"It looks like a party of players managed to unlock a Racial Unlocking Quest. And for some reason, this particular quest forbids all of the players from making any contact with the Royal Family of the Kingdom until that quest is done."

"So-… I also doubt that they can give us any assistance with our problem," he added with a dejected tone.

The expression behind Shin's mask turned weird after listening to everything that Owen had said. 'Of course, after every fortune is a misfortune to balance everything out! But why does it always have to be like this?'

...…