My Summons Are Mythical Beasts

Lucas grilled a few more meat strips before he felt satisfied. Spot, in his Gentle Dog form, was also satiated and was now lying beside him with a peaceful expression.

Just earlier, Spot had once again walked to the creek to drink some water before he returned beside Lucas to lie down.

Drinking the water, nothing out of the ordinary happened to Spot yet. Still, Lucas was quite wary of the creek's water, afraid that it would produce some unknown effects in the long run.

However, considering that Spot still appeared normal, Lucas lowered his guard down a bit to take a few sips out of the water canteen, just to satiate his thirst.

He actually planned to boil the water, but since he had no suitable container to boil it on, Lucas eventually discarded that thought for the time being.

'Maybe I could take the skull of the beast we kill later on and use them to boil water?' This thought crossed his mind.

Although crude and barbaric, it was the only way he could think of at this moment.

Such actions of boiling water might still not eliminate the 'specialness' of the water though, but he would lose nothing if he did so, so it was worth a try, to say the least.

Now that he has access to fire, Lucas could now do a lot of things that he was unable to do prior, especially in terms of safety and overall survivability.

Speaking of the fire, Lucas could not help but turn to look at the mane and the tufted tail that it would be produced from.

Earlier, Lucas had marveled at how magical it was. It was unscientific, and to say the least, truly magical and out of mundane understanding.

However, even though it appeared so, Lucas also discovered something normal about it.

For example, even though it appeared undamaged, it actually has a few burnt marks on the very corner of the mane's fur. It was in that area where Lucas had swiped the tufted tail, causing the whole mane to ignite into flames.

Lucas had thought that the fire it produced was inexhaustible, but after seeing the burnt marks, he realized that it was the 'payment' for fires he had produced.

Lucas imagined the Flame-Mane Lion would do the same thing to ignite its mane into flames. However, since it was a living creature and could grow its mane's fur, the concept of limited fur never existed, so it would always ignite its mane all day long without any problem.

However, since the mane he got no longer came from a living being, it would no longer grow any more furs, and hence, the concept of limits could be applied to it.

In order to gain something, you must also lose something in return.

The mane's fire was not as inexhaustible as he had initially thought.

Although he was not aware of the specifics, Lucas could somehow guess that every time the mane was ignited using the tufted tail, a few strands of fur would be burned in exchange, with the rest of the mane's fur igniting as a result of being a good conductor to flames and at the same time highly resistant to it.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

It was kind of ironic and conflicting, but this involved something out of realm of what the current age's science could explain after all, so Lucas took it like a grain of salt. Anyway, these were all just his conjectures, so it might be true, and at the same time, it might not.

All he could confirm was that once all the fur would be burned, it would be the day that he would no longer have access to the easy flames it could produce.

'Well, better make the most of it while it's still here,' he thought.

Another thing he noticed was that after he ignited into flames, the pungent and unpleasant smell of the mane and the tufted tail seemed to have disappeared as well.

To confirm, Lucas even steeled his resolve and to sniff it as close to his nose as possible. And he indeed confirmed that the bad smell has disappeared.

Recalling that the same thing had happened to the meat strips earlier, Lucas took another bold guess that it was another magical property of the flames it produced. That still needs confirmation, though. Unfortunately, he and Spot were already full, so he could only confirm it another time.

Seeing the smoke billowing out of the put-out fire from the firewood, Lucas thought that it was the right time that they continue to move forward as well.

Without wasting any time, Lucas went into action.

He gathered his things as well as the meat strips he had laid out in the sun and kept them inside the bag made of the boar's flayed skin. After that, he and Spot moved forward along the creek, their destination still the mountain located in the west.

***

Some kilometers away, atop a tall and humongous tree, a figure of a man could be seen standing at the top, looking around with a straight and unemotional face.

The man appeared injured, and quite badly at that. His clothes were torn beyond recognition; the parts that remained intact were barely covering some parts of his body. Wounds and lacerations were also present here and there.

If Lucas was here, he would have recognized the man at first glance as Asher, the senior who had come to finish him off inside the dungeon.

At this moment, though, Asher no longer looked as clean and steady as before. Even his brown hair appeared bloody.

Wherever he got his wounds from, it does not look like it was obtained recently, and normally at that.

The most grievous wound he got was probably the one located on his chest. It appeared to be a wound that came from an extremely sharp object. Blood dripped out of it; some had already turned black, while news ones, along with some white fluids, were still oozing out, albeit in a small amount.

As if feeling the ache, Asher touched the wounds on his chest with a slight grimace. His gaze then shifted toward the distant mountain as a decision was finally made inside his mind.

Recalling how he had ended up here, rage could not help but boil down his eyes.

"You damned brat! I'll surely find and skin you alive!"

One of his precious contracted beasts was killed by him.

Even at this moment, his mind was still ringing due to the damage he received after one of his contracted beasts was killed right in front of his eyes.

If he could not get revenge, he did not think that he would be able to sleep peacefully at night.

Hence, when Lucas was pulled by the dungeon gate that morning, consumed by rage and the desire to enact vengeance, he did not hesitate to dive to that dungeon gate to pursue the damnable brat that had killed one of his beasts by a mere fluke.

Unfortunately, he did not see Lucas when he landed from the gate.

What was even worse was the fact that he had been grievously injured as a result of forcefully going inside the dungeon gate. The wounds all over his body were the result of his actions.

As for the huge slashed wound in his chest and the more fresh wounds all over his body, it was the result of a recent clash with a strong beast.

Although it was his fault to begin with, Asher did not think so and blamed it all on Lucas, who narrowly escaped his wrath.

This wrath, though, had been boiling and seething ever since he was able to think again after recovering from the dungeon gate's assault and the mental injury caused by the death of his beast.

Now that he could move again, Asher was once again in his path of pursuit for vengeance.

Crushing the broken flashlight in his hands wrapped in thick vines with rage, Asher was sure that he was on the right track.

As he willed to come down, vines suddenly sprouted out of the tree, bringing him down the tree as gently as possible.

If one were to observe closely, a vine-like creature had still wrapped itself around his arm. The vine-like creature, though, was no longer as lively as before as well. From the looks of it, it has also sustained some form of injury along with its master.

As he landed on the ground, Asher turned his head and saw the corpse of an extremely massive beast not far from his feet.

Looking around, one could also see the devastation

That corpse of the beast was wrapped around by thick vines. At this moment, the beast has already deformed, appearing withered and dry, as if it had been dead for a few months, or that the bodily fluids have been sucked out of it.

Asher turned his head away from it as if it were just a normal sight. He then turned around and walked toward the mountain slowly.

The vines wrapping around the beast corpse retracted themselves, leaving no trace behind except the marks present in the corpse.

A few minutes later, though, those marks disappeared; along with it was the collapse of the beast's corpse. It crumbled to the ground, as if a building had suddenly lost its foundation.

***

Unaware that someone was pursuing him from the regulated dungeon all the way here, Lucas traveled along the creek and finally encountered a beast.

Checking his grimoire and the amount of Spiritual Energy he currently has, Lucas communicated with Spot, asking if he could handle that beast.

Receiving a nod, Lucas no longer hesitated and told Spot to attack.