Right after tiger’s preemptive attack, the female started to loudly laugh, but male sighed and gathered the scattered pieces of meat. He stacked them neatly near the lake and washed each peace carefully one by one putting it on the bundle of grass afterwards.

It seemed that the male was a bit annoyed at his mate who was laughing and pointed at the nearby woods, ordering her to gather some branches in addition to a couple wooden pikes.

‘There it is! They hid their weapons in the woods!’

The young woman ran away while still laughing, but tiger didn’t bother with her. Even if she had an hour handicap, he could still easily catch her. But to his great surprise she returned moments later carrying large branches and dropped them few meters away from the pile of meat. Then she apologized to the tiger and said she will now cut the wood and he shouldn’t be worried – she will not hurt him!

‘Seriously? What nonsense is this? How can they have any ability to …’

The tiger was almost snorting out loud when the young woman unsheathed her sword. Tiger instinctively took two steps back and lowered his body to the ground. This weapon was dangerous! He instinctively felt she was right and could hurt him! Is this the moment the two humans will finally attack?

But then the male shouted at the female to not scare the local king and just break the branches with her hands. She pouted, but apologized again and put her sword away. Tiger instantly felt that all the pressure was gone and the girl from a dangerous opponent became a careless and harmless butterfly.

‘Was this a warning to not attack them or they are still playing tricks?’

Tiger was confused again, but decided to observe some more before deciding on his next action.

Meanwhile, the young male was caressing the pieces of meat in weird way and sticking them on one of the wooden branches that could be used as a pike. But there was no way it could hurt him – it would obviously break at the first impact!

Tiger got another shock when heard human explaining he plans to cook the meat so it tastes better.

Why would he need to eat cooked meat? The meat from the fresh pray was the best!

There were definitely some tricks involved, but the tiger still couldn’t sniff out any poison. He knew there were few poisons without scent, but none of them could even bind him for a second – was this young male so desperate he still wanted to try? But they had a good and dangerous weapon, why would they try to attack with a useless poison?

Tiger felt himself balancing between shock and confusion since the time he came out of the woods. He instinctively felt these two were harmless, but the experience in dealing with humans taught him to always expect the worst.

‘Right, humans are the worst!’

When the young female finished breaking the branches, she explained that she will now make a bigger fire to cook the meat, but then suddenly stopped and looked around deep in thought. For some reason she asked tiger his opinion where the fire should be made. She expressed her concern that this place was too beautiful and may be even was his favorite spot, therefore the fire definitely shouldn’t be lit here.

Tiger was in confusion again. It was not possible for her to know this was his favorite spot, but even so, it was impossible to lure him in some trap if he was the one to choose a place for the fire.

While pondering he went further to the side and slapped his paw on a place with less vegetation. He could bury the burnt pieces of wood together with the two bodies here later.

Then, smirking at his own joke, went to a side. The female obviously was clueless about the fact that he had already chosen their grave and even thanked him, moved the branches over and lit the fire.

Tiger had always envied people for their ability to manipulate fire. Although he didn’t need it and even on highest mountaintops he felt warm, those flames looked really pretty and the sparks that sometimes flew out were just asking for him to catch them. These humans, though, probably didn’t even understand the beauty of it and sat nearby while holding over the fire two long pike-like branches with stacked pieces of meat.

While sitting the male was instructing the female how to properly hold the branch to not burn the meat and at the same time roast it from the inside as well.

Tiger was snickering to himself about these useless actions until he suddenly realized he was salivating from the aroma coming from the meat. He felt embarrassed and tried to stealthily swallow, but the hateful male human noticed it and asked him to be patient, because soon the meat would be ready.

Why would he be patient? He didn’t even want it! As soon as they started to cook it, the meat was obviously ruined! Tiger snorted and continued to observe.

For some reason the male spoke a lot, though his voice was not that unpleasant. Turns out these two came from the big settlement of the humans to look for a place with rich natural energy and in the end found this place.

Of course, this was the best spot in the whole mountain range, no, in the whole world! But unfortunately it was not possible for him to hide it from everyone. Back in the day that ugly fellow found it as well and sadly at the time he wasn’t strong enough to defeat the bastard.

Tiger sighed while remembering past and noticed how the fat from the meat fell in the flames with a weird, but pleasant sound.

‘What a waste.’ Tiger thought to himself and wondered if the two already ate the rest of the snake. It shouldn’t be possible – rank five snake could be hundred meters long and, judging from the pieces of meat, it definitely has been.

‘May be these two really killed that snake?’ Tiger noticed that the scabbard of the female’s sword was covered in a snake’s skin and the shoes of those two were also made from it. Humans were so fragile they needed clothing for protection, but at the same time dangerous as well and knew how to use tools as weapons.

Tiger clearly remembered those times when he was still a young beast who barely formed his core and several humans attacked him at the same time and tried to kill, but then he led them into mountains and later killed off one by one. Their meat didn’t taste that good, but still carried the flavor of victory.

“Alright, ready! Let’s just wait a bit for it to cool down. After all this work I really want to eat something, I hope you are hungry as well, you will enjoy it!” The human male said.

‘What a mean thing to say! Why would he want me to be hungry? Does he hope that I’ll kill him quickly and then eat as well?’

Tiger was a bit unhappy, but the meat did smell good. Can it really be tasty? But what if there is a poison on it? He decided to let humans eat first and then check it out himself. Although there was not that much meat, it would suffice for him. As for those two – they are so small and can’t eat much anyway.

Few minutes later the human male poked one of the meat pieces and smiled in satisfaction. What a weird species these humans are!

Just like the barrel from earlier, the youth suddenly summoned a small table and couple of plates from nowhere. Then he put a piece of meat on each plate and asked where to put the rest since it was meant for the tiger.

Tiger got embarrassed, he wasn’t ready for this question at all! Instead of carefully analyzing enemy, he was lost in thoughts and memories. But the human suddenly loudly exclaimed that he had an idea and ran back to the spot where the broken pieces of barrel lie around, then he took the round bottom and put it in front of the tiger and carefully stacked the pieces of the cooked meat one on another.

Humans had some positive aspects about their small bodies – with his little hands this male managed to stack meat without even getting a grain of sand on it. Then he wished for the tiger to enjoy the meal and sat in the grass at the small table.

Suddenly in the hands of both humans appeared small knives and they started cutting the pieces of meat on their plates and slowly eat. For some reason they ate very slowly, chewing each piece over and over again. Tiger could see they really enjoyed the food, but why would they eat this slowly? Was there really some trick?

He carefully smelled the small mound of the roasted meat in front of him. It did smell so good!

‘Alright! The humans are not getting poisoned, so I will be fine as well. I’ll try just a piece … just one!’

Tiger thought to himself and grabbed the top piece, chewed a couple of times and swallowed. But then his eyes almost popped out – it was so delicious! He had never tasted anything like that before! Even the rank five horned elephant he managed to defeat more than a decade ago didn’t taste this good.

“I think you should eat a bit slower, it will let you enjoy the taste more.” The hateful human spoke.

Indeed, they were devious creatures, but smart ones. They already knew this meat is so tasty, therefore ate slowly from the start!

Tiger looked at the meat in front of him. If he ate like before, there wouldn’t be anything left within a minute. Fine, he will eat slowly, but just this once.

Then he lied down and started to munch on the roasted pieces.

To the tiger’s big surprise, human male finally stopped talking and they could enjoy their meal in a pleasant silence. Humans concentrated on their respective plates, but from time to time drank something from cups in front of them.

‘Weird creatures! Can’t they eat first and then go over to the lake and drink?’

“This is a special brew that we make by boiling water and herbs. It helps us in training. We don’t have such strong bodies like you do, therefore not only we have to practice hard, but eat and drink in a special way as well.”

‘How did that hateful male knew what I was thinking? I hope other people are not like that.’ Tiger squinted its eyes and thought.

“Don’t worry, this is our special system and others live normally.”

‘There it is again! Did he read my mind?’

“Can I ask you something? We have spent already some time together and didn’t introduce ourselves properly. My name is Nick and she is YunYun. May we give you a name as well so we don’t have to call you simply a ‘tiger’?” The male was really hateful. What was wrong with calling him ‘tiger’? He was one after all! And he wasn’t interested in their names either, why would he be?

“You see, there are thousands and thousands of tigers in the world, therefore you, as their king, should have a special name, at least I think so. Of course, the decision is yours.” Young male continued.

‘How did he know again what I was thinking? Is it also the power of Qi, similar to my instincts?’

“I really liked how he looked when he infused Qi in his fur. It suddenly became white and accentuated the black stripes really well.” Suddenly the female said.

‘Of course, I look great! Wait! How did they know that I become white when infuse Qi in my fur? These people are not simple at all!’ Tiger became cautious again.

“See – he showed it to us again. You are the most beautiful tiger ever!” For some reason female suddenly couldn’t shut up. Oh, she ate all her meat and now had nothing better to do.

“What if we called you ‘White’? It really suits you.” She continued.

Tiger thought that this idea wasn’t bad at all. He liked the white color and sometimes he climbed the highest peaks in winter just to lie in the white snow.

“Not sure, white is the simplest of colors, but he is gracious and elegant. I think the name ‘Snow’ would suit him much more.”

‘How does this male human do it? He read my mind again? But I do like the name ‘Snow’. Alright, I’ll let them call me ‘Snow’ for a while.’

“Great, he agreed! That means we already befriended the third rank six beast!” The female excitedly clapped while male gathered their plates and went to wash them in the lake.

But it did sound exaggerated.

‘Where would they find another rank six beast? There is only me and that big lump!’