Overcoming The Beast

After climbing out Leon wanted to rest. The only place he could think of was the pool in the cave he walked there.

Along the way the snake got tired from slithering along so Leon picked it up and let it sit on his head. The tiger also got tired traveling in the intense heat. Leon let it walk as punishment. He would feed it very small pieces of Netherworld ice as a way to cool down. The snake also wanted to eat. alSo Leon also fed it ice but a lot more to it.

Reaching the cave Leon went in towards the pool of water. As he was about to wash himself he noticed his skin was fairer, his hair colour had changed, it had turned completely white and even his eyes had turned grey. He touched hid hair messed it up. The tiger watched from the side nodding that he's he had changed.

Leon looked at the tiger "Aren't you little to smart? Normal beast aren't able to understand human language. They only understand soul vibrations."

The tiger was shocked that Leon thought it was a normal beast. It looked insulted. It took a pose and held its high in pride saying it was the best tiger in the world.

"I guess it was the effect of the oath. So you have high intelligence as well." The snake which was looking at itself in the water looked back and nodded.

"Well then this will be easier. I want you both to know that you need to work hard. I want you two to reach the peak of the element you are in. Understood." The snake nodded, it's eyes shinning. The tiger shook its head a little saying it was uncertain but after looking at Leon's face and quickly nodded.

Leon then pulled his in front of his eyes "Well now I need to hide this, that ice crystal liquid was way too powerful, it even mutated my genes, I can't go back to the clan looking like a snowman."

Leon and company rested in the pool. Leon just floated and thought about what to do. The snake and tiger swam around. The snake kept on diving and then jumping over Leon. The tiger just d.o.g.g.y paddled around enjoying the coolness.

Finished washing himself. Leon sat down and started cultivating the formless aura art "If I reach level two I should be able to change my appearance, with that I'll be able to go back to the clan" he had the frost snake and Fire tiger come to him to cultivate and took out the netherworld ice shards giving the snake a few to eat.

The elemental energy flowed through him but the art was far from leveling up. "Well I guess I'll have stay around here for a while until I break through."

"I had already reached level two of the Nine thrones soul technique." He ran the technique and two thrones appeared behind him. "I won't be able to reach the third throne soon."

He then went back to running Formless aura. "I have already reached Formless Presence the first level. The second Level is Formless body. I will need a lot of energy."

"Oh right! My cultivation. I should have entered Summoning Apprentice the moment I awakened the Soul book but what level am I now." Leon judged his soul energy. "Weird it looks like I am of the second level of summing apprentice. But the quality of my Soul energy is at least that of a summing scholar."

"This should because of the Nine Thrones soul technique. I never got to use it at a low cultivation so it increased the quality by this much at summoning apprentice. At summoning master it only increased a sub level in my past life."

"Most participants at the competition should be level 3-4 summoning apprentice."

"Let's break through okay guys." The tiger and the snake both agreed.Leon then started cultivating the Pure Fire Cloud Art. He still hadn't finished mastering it.

It didn't take long, because of the Soul book and Phoenix, Leon was easily able to get fire energy. Both absorbed energy passively. The Phoenix that was absorbing energy in the volcano had less then one percent of the energy transferred to him through the Soul book. This was one of the reasons why a strong beast is such an advantage.

The soul book also constantly absorbed energy to grow in quality. Some clans even see the Soul book as its own identity by how alive it is.

Leon easily reaches the peak of the Pure Fire Cloud Art. But he didn't stop he kept on practicing it started using information form the incomplete arts he remembered. One art was the Fire Storm art. An earth rank art that Leon could only remember the second level of. He used the knowledge he had gained from the art and incorporated it into the Pure Fire Cloud Art. Leon remembered a peak earth rank Fire art- Samsara of the Golden Flame art. This art focused on purity and used much more advanced concepts then the Pure of Pure Fire Cloud Art.

Leon finally felt that he had cultivated enough to form a strong rune. He sent all the Pure Fire Cloud energy to his hand drew a circle and formed a fist in the middle. A rune formed in his hand. It was similar to the eruption rune in shape but seemed to be a different word. It was made of a gold flame. The Samsara Art was to strong. It really took over.

Leon was familiar with Runic Language. It was something you had to learn at a certain level of cultivation. This rune wasn't as simple as the eruption rune. Reading it Leon said "Golden Cloud rune? what kind of ability is that." He wasn't planning on using this on himself so he called the tiger who was drooling while looking at the rune.

The tiger ran to Leon and sat in front of him. "I'm giving you this rune, it might be good or it could be bad I don't know I've never seen this type before. Are you willing to take the risk?" The tiger quickly nodded.

"Well ok, Leon looked at the tiger and decided to add the rune to its legs." Unlike humans beast would gain the ability to what part it was added to. Humans had the Soul book which absorbed all runes on their body allowing them to control where they want it.

The tiger had been particularly talented in leg arts. The golden cloud may allow the tiger to walk on clouds Leon thought. He then bent in front of the front right leg of the tiger. He then stamped his hand on and turned it ninety degrees Clock wise.

The rune stuck to the skin. Leon watched what would happen. The leg that was imprinted on caught on a golden fire. Leon looked at the tigers reaction. It looked back at Leon and nodded saying it was okay.

The fire then burst out and covered the whole tiger. The tiger started to roll around trying to take it off. It eventually stopped and noticed it didn't feel anything. It looked at Leon saying with its eyes "Were you trying to scare me earlier? was it all a prank?"

Leon didn't like the flame. It was golden and soft. He put his hand out to touch it. He didn't feel anything to his hand. It was like touching water. Leon suddenly remembered something.

He slammed his hand on to where he had left it and turned it one eighty degrees anti-clockwise. The flame dulled. He bit his thumb and drew runes all around it.

The tiger didn't know what Leon was doing. Why is he so tense? it thought. It suddenly felt sleepy. It's eyes drowsy about to close. Leon shouted "Don't sleep! unless you want to die." The tiger was surprised it wanted to know what was happening.

Leon shouted "Snake keep it awake! If it sleeps it'll die!"

The snake felt the seriousness. It opened its mouth and shot a ray of ice onto the tigers other leg. The tiger woke up feeling the sudden coldness.

Leon finished drawing the runes and said A quick chant. He then took out the bottle that contained Ice crystal liquid. He dipped his thumb in, took it out and pressed on the runic circle he had created with his blood.

The blood red runes turned blue. An ice blue chain grew out from it and split into multiple chains that wrapped around the tiger. The flame were put out as they touched the ice blue chain. All the flames were put out and the chains sunk into the tiger's body. The place where the rune was stamped you could see chain marks on the skin of the tiger under the fur.

The tiger finally didn't feel sleepy, it was more alert and looked around. It looked towards Leon for an explanation.

Leon fell back. He used all the Soul energy in his body to form that runic circle.

"The rune I formed was the Golden Cloud rune. At least that was what I thought. In runic language Golden Cloud was a homograph for Eternal Sleep. I remember reading about the ability in a book. It was a cursed ability of the Eternal Sleep Clan. The person with the ability will fall asleep forever. It's basically death. There are no ways to remove the curse. Only that dream elemental beast are not effected by it."

The tiger already had all the color on it's face leave when it heard it was about to die. The snake just watched wondering- wow that tiger got lucky master was quick.

"I've sealed the Eternal Sleep rune using a compromised version of the runic seal called the Immortal Ice Lock." Hearing the name the tiger was impressed. And had a breathe of relief it was fine now. "I neither had Immortal ice or the time to draw all the runes of the real formation. Basically the rune on your leg is a time bomb that will explode at any time."

The tiger fainted it couldn't handle such stress. It was just a normal tiger. It didn't have any special talent or luck what was it suppose to do now. It just woke up one day after being captured with spiritual awareness and understood things better. It wanted its old life back, the ignorance and bliss in small things.

Leon looked at the tiger and wondered why did he pick such a pathetic beast as his contract beast. The snake also did the same it slithered up onto Leon's head looking down at the tiger.

The tiger got up seeing this, it roared at them. Both of them understood it was saying that they don't understand the pain of being stuck on the edge of a cliff never knowing when you'll fall.

Leon laughed and answered "Why are you waiting there, just climb down."

The tigers eyes grew bright and turned to Leon.

"Yes! I do know a way to solve this. I was on the fence on doing this but now it really isn't a choice. I learned a special method for raising beast. I'll have to combine you with other beast using a special technique not only will that raise your talent and give you new elemental types it will also make you a completely unique beast of unlimited potential for evolution."

The snake on the side looked at Leon wondering if it could use this method to. "No. You're already talented. Don't bite more then you can chew."

It took that as a compliment and looked back at the tiger like it was looking at trash.

The tiger had been sent to a world of riches and strength by Leon's words. It imagined itself roaring and shattering the sky. All beast bowing down to it.

Leon broke its dreams "Obviously the method has its risks. It has a hundred percent fail rate." The tiger was done. It didn't want to have hope and have it shot down over and over again- it was going to go drown itself. It felt that dying now was better then anything dying randomly unaware.

Leon grabbed it "Okay not hundred percent failure. It succeeded once..." The tiger looked at Leon. "In millions of experiments." and wondered why it bothered

"Those weren't done by me. Your master here is the most talented person in runes. I had studied runes all my life and have reached the peak. I know enough runes to cover this whole continent in them."

The tiger looked at Leon head to toe. And then smirked. It's face said "Why don't you just say you know everything under the heavens?"

"Look, you die I die. Simple right? I'm not going to let myself die. So don't worry."

The tiger calmed down. It agreed.

"Now let's go back to cultivation shall we. I broke through to level two summing Apprentice. I'll break through to level three now, then we'll go to the Auction house and buy resources to break into level two of the Formless Aura art."

The tiger and snake nodded.