The One Month

Leon had the Lightning Griffin fly at top speed, not because he wanted to get away form the Hell portal. He had already buried its image deep into his mind never to be thought of again. He wanted to reach the island before Pace. Leon had told Pace he was going to the island to cultivate. Pace was already suspicious about the teleporting across continent. It would be just pouring water to grow those suspicious if he started lying and going of alone.

The fly took a while. He reached the island. He didn't bother to wait for the Griffin to land. He jumped off and unsummoned while using Lightning Step. He flashed into the cave and started running to the elemental caves.

Through the cave he ran pass Pace who was walking casually. Leon had quickly hidden his face and used Formless aura. He then used Lightning Step again to zap into a room and started to cultivate.

Leon sat in the Blood cave and started cultivating.

"I made it in time." Leon felt the relief fill his body. He got up and started acting like he had just finished a cultivation session. There was no one else in the room so Leon's exaggerated movements could not be appreciated.

Leon walked out and saw Pace.

"Leon, I left Eos with her Master. So what do you plan on doing? We have around three weeks left till the fourth around. We need to prepare the best we can."

"Let's start cultivating. Clyde and Dwight are still in the Fire cave cultivating. I've been focusing on the Blood element for a while. I'll start cultivating the Fire element again."

Pace nodded and they both entered the Fire cave. The cave had other people then Dwight and Clyde. They had also stayed to cultivate. This cave had the most people out of all the caves.

Leon moved and sat in the place he had let the Phoenix egg enter the ground. The Phoenix egg had sunken deep in and was right next to the source of the Fire energy. It absorbed energy at a faster pace.

"It should be able to hatch I'm half a year." Leon was happy with that, it was better then letting it stay in the desert volcano.

Leon had now captured the Ifrit Beast so could cultivate fire arts quickly again. However he reached another problem and that was summoning the Ifrit Beast. Leon thought about and came with a quick way of doing it.

He left the cave and went or the surface of the island. He found a secluded spot and summoned the Ifrit Beast. The fire demon like beast watched Leon. It looked at its surrounding and reached for a tree. As it's hand touched it the whole tree lit on fire and turned to ash. The ifrit's black eyes widened in surprise of this thing it had never seen.

Leon gauged the Ifirt's stats. He knew its potential was eight voidstars. It was at the yellowstar level at the moment. That was surprising as it was only a child beast.

Leon used Formless aura to hide the Ifrit's aura and then used the ability Formless body to transformed the Ifrit into a Fire Demon soldier. The Ifrit lists its goat legs and horns. It became completely human shaped and had two small stubs for horns.

The Ifrit was surprised by the transformation. Leon explained what happened through soul vibrations. The Ifrit looked interested and asked if Leon could transform it to look like stronger types of Beast. Leon said that he could but he would show it later.

Leon then walked with the Ifrit to the Fire cave. He sat in his spot again. He started cultivating Vermilion Burning art. It took him a few hours and he reached Flames of rage. He now only had two levels left, Heart fire and Vermilion flames.

With the Ifrit the cultivation was quick, much quicker then the Fire Tiger or its evolved from the Pink Flame Serpentine Tiger.

Leon quickly went thought the flames of rage. The Ifrit seemed to have a natural connection to destructive flames and the cultivation went smoothly to the next level.

Leon reached Heart fire. His cultivation pace dropped exponentially. He had finally reached the hard part of the art. As it was from a heavenly art, it was much harder to cultivate.

A few days went by and he finally broke through to the Vermilion Flames level. As he did this everyone in the cave felt a change in fire energy. They woke up to see Leon sucking in energy like a whirlpool.

They were surprised and started cultivating again.

Leon had his body light up with Vermilion Flames. They were only a fake but had some of the essence of the real Vermilion Bird's flames.

Soon he reached the peak of the art. He formed a rune in his hand. It was Vermilion like the flames. It was called the Burning Heart rune. Leon formed it swiftly and didn't bother adding his own comprehension other then taking much longer, Leon planed to cultivate this art multiple times.

The Burning art rune gave the ability of Flame heart. It allowed control of Fire energy and better absorption of it. Leon absorbed the rune into his body. It lit up with a Vermillion flame.

Leon felt comfortable and started cultivating all over again. He had already spent more then a week cultivating the art for the first. He spent another to cultivate.

After the week Leon formed the rune again. Leon had focused on having the purest flames he could form. He formed another Burning Heart rune. It was a little stronger then before.

Leon took the rune and stored it on the floor. Under the floor was the Phoenix egg. It absorbed the rune and was going to hatch a day earlier.

Leon knew he didn't do much, but it was all he could do at the moment. He started cultivating again. The final week went by. Leon formed another rune and fed it to the Phoenix egg.

Leon got up and left the cave for the surface. Other had also arrived back to the island. Many walked out to the surface.

The Lady who had brought them here was up in the air.

"How was your Month of Break? You Better have made the most of it as the sixth round has begun."

"What you have to do is evolve all your beasts to six voidstar beasts in four months. There cultivation must be in the Greenstar at least. The month I gave you off was part of the four months, you now have three months left. You all must come here next month for an update. Good bye." The Lady then disappeared.

Everyone felt like a bomb exploded in their Mind. They had three months to evolve their beasts. The worst part the Lady didn't even tell them about the month being included.

Everyone started forming an opinion ever the situation. Some thought it was unfair, while others saw it as a way to test. However both knew that they couldn't do anything to change the test and started hurrying up.

Eos had returned as well. She was surprised by the news. She found the others.

Anastasia was back, Clyde and Dwight were talking to her while Leon and Pace listened. Eos walked up and joined the group.

After greetings, they started the real conversation.

"We're all here now. So does anyone have any idea on how to go with leveling up our beast?" Pace said.

Eos interrupted, "Sorry guys but I can't stay with You all, Master Harlan told me that I have to return after this." Eos had a helpless expression, she wanted to stay with the clan members but she had to train with master Harlan.

"Eos that's fine, it's better If you train with Master Harlan. Your already behind in cultivation compared to most of the competition you need the help he can give you." Pace said. Most of the people around were at least at Level eight or nine summoning teacher. Eos had only recently reached the first level of summoning teacher.

Eos understood this and felt better seeing that Pace and everyone was fine with her going.

"Like Eos I plan on going separately to the Corrupted Flame City for Poison materials. I already wasted a month looking around and couldn't find anything to help my beast grow. Now I need to go there because of the competition." Anastasia said adding to the sadness of members leaving.

Pace understood that Anastasia was a poison cultivator and so it would be hard for her to go with them to look for materials.

"Anastasia I don't think you should go, Corrupted Flame City is now lawless because of the Uprising of the Flame Bandits. But I understand you don't have an option so rather you shouldn't go alone it would be better if a clan member went with you."

"I'll be fine alone, No need for other people to come with me. I was just telling you where I was going since I have to." Anastasia then turned and grabbed Eos's hand. They both then started walking away while talking.

As they reached a far point they both summoned a beast. Eos summoned her Skyfire Witch to carry her, while Anastasia summoned a new contracted beast. The beast was a big Black bat. She jumped on the bat and rose to the sky with the Skyfire Witch.

Eos waved good bye and the two left.

Pace watched still stuck on the idea that someone should go with Anastasia. He had already decided that he would be soon following her to the Corrupted Flame City. But first he had to talk what everyone else's plan was.

"I'll go back to the Flamesmith Clan. I'll ask the Clan head to help in the evolution of my beasts." Dwight said.

"I'll go to the Clan as well. This island is nice but I've cultivated enough." Clyde seconded.

Pace nodded, "The Clan head should be able to guide you two on how to evolve your beast. So what about you Leon?"

"I think I'll go with you to the Corrupted Flame City."

Pace smiled and said, "How did you know I was going?" Pace already expected that Leon would choose to come with him.

"Come on it was obvious. Let's get going." Leon summoned the Griffin and had Clyde jump on. Pace summoned his StarFire Peng and had Dwight ride it with him. They both headed for the Flamesmith Clan first.

The fly was a long one. They reached the desert town and dropped off Clyde and Dwight outside the town. They said there good Bye and left for the Corrupted Flame City.

"Corrupted Flame City is all the way near the Field Of Fire Flowers. It will be long fly there." Pace said to Leon.

"Pace what is the voidstar level if all your beast?" Leon asked. Hearing the task Leon started thinking. He had six contracted beast. Of the six he could only summon two in public, the Dragon and the Lightning Griffin.

He could also summon the chimera disguised as a Red Flaming Tiger but that disguise would soon shatter as it can't use any flame abilities. He would have loved to said that he had evolved into a Ice tiger or even Dream Ice tiger but that would be impossible to achieve in the Fire Continent. With such a lack of ice materials, it would be impossible to completely change a Fire beast into an Ice Beast in just a year.

Leon was already barely summoning the Chimera. He had slowly gotten over his fear that and was ready to have it summoned again. It was just that he would still make sure the Cold Mist Ghost Dragon was nearby.

He had already shown the Ifrit Beast in the cave as a Fire Demon Soldier. He could summon it then but would not be able to summon it in front of people like Harlan.

The Blood Harpy was evolving. That was something he had to deal with as well. If it evolved he could teach it a transformation ability because of its blood body ability. Other then making the body out of blood it allowed the beasts body to be transformed.

Then there was the Spirit Butterfly. Put of all his beast it was the one that needed the most work. It was a five voidstar beast making it lower then the Criteria for the competition.

Pace answered Leon's question, "My StarFire has reached six Voidstars, Fiona is at Four voidstars, the Purple Cloud Fish is also at Four voidstars and the Yellow flame winged wolf should be a six voidstar beast."

Leon nodded, he had estimated similar levels. "My beast are all at six voidstars. So we need to work on your beasts. So do you plan on following the path High Elder Harlan gave you for them?"

Pace nodded, "I will follow it. The path seems the best for my beasts. Although it will take a bit longer."

"So we'll be looking for shadow and cloud element materials for your beasts." Leon said. Pace agreed. They planned the whole way on what they would need for the evolution of that beasts.

"We're here. Anastasia should have already entered." Pace said.