Outside Calico city Yu was rushing toward White Woodland as fast as he could, with the time it took him to transport all the barrels to the hotel and convince the baron to buy it, not much was left before the waters purity starts to dissipate

“If I had actually filled the whole barrel with purified water it would have already been reverted by the time the fish started on the third one”

Yu hadn’t actually filled them with Elixir Water, only the top, while the barrels he had costume ordered were fitted with a glass divider close to the top so he had filled the rest with elemental water, that’s how he was able to pull this nasty trick off, now the baron would definitely be out for his blood once he finds out the truth, which would be within a few minutes if he was carful enough or a whole day if he stored the barrels now instead

“Anyway they can’t trace me, I left no evidence”

The reason he had dressed up in many ways and even went through the trouble of carrying the barrels in bags was to leave no witnesses of him bringing them from the farm, and with no one knowing about the underground lake which he closed the entrance to there was no way to link the proud noble to a measly mercenary

Still Yu had to make it to the White Woodlands as fast as he could, who knew if someone would stick his hand inside the barrel? Very unlikely as they wouldn’t want to dirty the pure water but after seeing the guard’s stupidity he really didn’t trust people to be smart nowadays

Three hours later Yu finely spotted dense white trees that gave the place its name, no one knew why but the only vegetation that grew in this land were these tough white trees, they were very hard to burn, needed the full blown power of a Silver Ranked beast to be chopped off and provided no substance to the dwellers of these woods, how beasts even lived in this dead land baffled the travelers

All this proved quite useful to Yu though as he could make use of the endless woods to lose any would be pursuers, so he walked into it without hesitation, zig zagging his way toward Begaria

“I’m beat” he said between short breaths as he stopped his rush with the suns decent, it was dangerous running in the dark, even in these scarcely populated woods, he would make camp here till morning

“Guess I can make use of this time to put my new treasures to work”

He first took out the Runes book and flipped through it, unlike those ignorant people from the Mund family he had some basic knowledge on Runes and could tell that the book wasn’t really all that

“Probably explains some of the beginner Runes is all, though I can’t tell which ones these are they certainly don’t belong to the elemental sets, since they belong to the other five sets they must be pretty hard to learn”

He flipped through it a bit before chucking it back into his ring, speaking of the ring he found it to be the third best item out of all his new treasures, this ring would make his life much easier from now on

As for the first and second they were naturally the “Crystal” and the plant that helps absorb the fire elements, those two not only harmoniously worked together to give him the boost he needed, one of them was even the most valuable Vermilion Royal Ruby, a natural crystal born from two different pure flames resonating together, this particular stone had not shown itself on these lands for god knows how many centuries, for it to pop up in a remote and barren land baffled Yu to no end

“Since it lost so much of its flame someone must have used it for over extended periods of time, otherwise if they used it to the extent it dropped to such low levels in one go it would have broken “

He felt saddened that the stone had lost much of its grandeur but that was also why he could use it now, along with the plant he could give his loveable companion the final push she needed

He summoned Lyra and put the stone inside the plant next he presented it to her with both hands, he didn’t know how much pain she would go through but he would be sure to share it with her this time

“It might hurt a lot, but if you tide through this you might just have control over two elements, plus you can push through your bottleneck, still if you want to go another method we can try that”

While he wanted power he didn’t want to hurt Lyra at the same time so he gave her the option of looking for a less painful alternative

Lyra didn’t dally like Yu thought though, it just swallowed the plant and its continent with one bite, what followed was a jolt of skin scorching pain that ran through Yu’s whole body his lanky figure bent down as he clenched his teeth as hard as he could to not scream, all while the wolf merely scrunched its face and stood there silently enduring

“Wha..t. th… fu…”

Yu couldn’t even make a full sentence with the heat coursing through his body, he only shared a part of the sensation that Lyra had to go through but he was already paralyzed, how could she who had to take on the full brunt of the pain just stand there while scrunching up her face

‘And I thought I had quite the willpower, what is this wolf made of’ He could only complain to himself inside his mind, furthermore he sweet dropped even more when he recalled this was only the leftover of the Vermilion Royal Ruby, he was really glad now it had been brought down to its current level or else he might have already passed out from the pain

A few minutes pass by with Yu scrunched up like a ball while the wolf silently stared at him, suddenly fire ignited on Lyra’s body setting her ablaze, this scene caused Yu to clench his teeth harder in preparation for the coming pain, sadly, or rather thankfully, it didn’t come, what he felt instead was sudden relief as all his tension started to melt away

Lyra on the other hand was already encompassed by blood red flames, flames so hot they set the white trees known for their endurance ablaze with but a touch, the flames expanded and contracted like a heart pulsating, with each beat Yu felt his own heart throb with power as a surge of powerful emotions spread into his body

His logical senses suppressed those powerful emotions though as he erected a shield to hide him from the flames, sure they wouldn’t hurt Lyra but he knew if they touched him they wouldn’t care if he was the master or not, he would be turned into ashes, if even that was left

The bloody flames didn’t last long though as they soon burst apart with a large pulse, then they dispersed into the surrounding woods burning everything in their path, in their place was a red and black sleek figure radiating unimaginable heat

“AWUUUUUU” Raising her head the new Lyra howled to the skies, her unique wailing howl reverberated through the silent lands scarring away any and all who thought to come check this phenomenon out, even Silver beasts who were coming from far away decided to retreat as far as they could to avoid the source of these hellish flames

“Wow” That was all Yu could muster from his dry lips, the noble figure of the wolf left him stunned, feelings of pride and joy that came from within him resonated with Lyra’s own feelings, creating a much more powerful emotion that stirred in both of them

Lyra lowered her head after the howl and sauntered over to Yu, when she entered the shield the flames on her body had already been extinguished, her extremely hot body returned to normal as well, instead a dark hue covered her while she rubbed her head against Yu’s

“You really did it, you merged two different contradicting elects, I’m really proud to call you my Soul Guardian” “Wuuu!”

Lyra nodded happily at Yu’s words, she finely managed to break through bronze tier, signaling the start of her new long journey ahead

Weng~

Light shone on both their bodies signaling their rank up, surprising Yu quite a bit, he called out his Grimoire and open it, while there was no indication to its rank he felt it was at three stars, gaining a rank up himself was quite a surprise but after thinking about it he had indeed defeated many foes stronger than him in the last few battels, ranking up his Soul Guardian was the last push he needed for his new rank

He then flipped to Lyra’s page and read the new discerption

Soul Guardian: Royal Vermilion Evil

An incarnation of pure evil in the form of pure flames, the two elements had merged peculiar as one is meant to hide the other. It can wield both flames and darkness to its will alike

[The First of its kind]

The decryption poured a bucket of cold water on Yu’s head, he really started to believe that reading the Grimoire only served to give him bad omens. Hide th other? They didn’t merge normally? Pure evil? And what the hell was that First of its kind thing, speak clearly or don’t say anything!

Yu couldn’t be bothered anymore with the book and he closed it after checking Lyra’s stars which had blown their way into three stars, skipping two stars at once

“Let’s have some rest here, I dare say whoever comes looking for trouble now would only be digging his own grave”

Yu shoved the questions that popped up to tomorrow since he was really tired and leaned on Lyra to sleep, he really felt tired as it had been two days since he last slept, he couldn’t get a wink of sleep in the hotel and he had gone through hyper tension twice today, some shuteye was what he needed the most right now

“Wuu Wuu” Lyra curled to surround Yu’s body while she also closed her eyes, her other senses were active though as she was ready to enter combat as soon as something approached them

Thus another night passed for the happy duo