Mira and Maria stayed like this for some time before eventually, Maria composed herself. The only thing she's wanted all this time was to become friends with Mira, or at the very least cause some wave in Mira's heart.
It seemed like all of the trials she's gone through up until now haven't been for not.
'It seems she finally sees me as something more than a corpse in the waiting, hehe.' Maria joked to herself.
"Let's go back to where Celaine is and find a place that isn't quite so open. It'll be troublesome if we run into another surprise attack while trying to protect her." Mira suggested and let of Maria.
Maria just nodded her head and followed after her.
It didn't take long for them to reach the still unconscious Celaine. They went ahead and dragged her back into the dungeon as that is probably the safest place around here that is immediately accessible.
Mira wanted to start cultivating while waiting for Celaine's injuries to heal, but it seems Maria had other ideas.
"Sorry for acting like that earlier. I know it was childish of me, but I just want you to show some sort of care towards me. I mean, I've done my best to accompany you over the years and you still haven't shown any semblance of friendship or even acquaintances towards me. You're right in that I don't understand why you won't allow yourself to connect with me, but I just want you to give me a chance!" Maria apologized and bowed towards Mira.
Mira just glanced towards Mira and nodded. After a moment of silence, she finally started to speak.
"It's fine. I actually expected this to happen much sooner considering your personality, but it seems that you somewhat exceeded my expectations. Just remember that being these trials you are going through is just the price you have to pay for my friendship. This is just the beginning as well. At some point, you will have to go out into the world by yourself to temper yourself and find your own path. The only thing I can teach is how to fight. I can't teach you how to use your Dao, the sword, alchemy, or really anything else. We might be separated for tens or maybe even hundreds of years, but if you can survive these trials by fire then I will reciprocate your feelings with utmost respect and sincerity." Mira said seriously.
Maria was a bit sad to hear that one day they will have to split, but when she gave it another thought she understood why. Her growth is rather limited staying with Mira. Sure, she might be able to temper a great battle sense, but ultimately that's all Mira has to offer in terms of skill.
Mira can teach her a thousand different ways to kill a person, but will that help when she is concocting pills? Can her hand-to-hand combat sessions teach her how to properly wield a sword? Mira doesn't even use the same element as her so that's also out of the question.
That's not to say that Mira's teaching is useless, far from it. What Mira is teaching her is the ability to survive, how to make split-second decisions, showing her the harshness of the world, and how to know when to be merciless. This knowledge may be more useful than any sword techniques, pill recipes, or Dao comprehension as that's all useless if she ends up dead!
"I understand. And about going our separate ways… when do you think that'll happen?" Maria asked in a soft voice.
"Whenever I feel you are ready. Right now your mentality and strength are too weak. You almost got yourself severely injured or killed just because your companion almost died. You need to be able to keep a level head at all times or you might as just commit suicide right now…" Mira paused after saying that.
"...I plan to send you out on your own after you hit the Core Formation Realm as you should have the strength necessary to survive then. Also, unless some unforeseen circumstances happen while we are in this Secret Realm, we will not be separating. This place is way too dangerous, even for me. Also, we are heading towards the same areas anyway so it doesn't make sense for us to split up now." Mira explained and then began cultivating without waiting for Maria to answer.
Maria didn't know what to think of all that, but right now she was just happy that Mira had no plans of splitting up with Maria anytime soon. As for them splitting after she reaches the Core Formation Realm and they leave the Secret Realm… well, we'll just have to wait and see!
***
A few weeks went by and Celaine's injuries were just about fully healed and returned to her peak.
It took her a few days to wake up after falling unconscious. Needless to say, she was scared shitless after Maria explained to her what happened. She soon came to the realization that she is lucky to be alive, or more like it's nothing short of a miracle that she actually lived.
This was one of Celaine's first times ever experiencing something this traumatic, but she didn't let this get her down. On the contrary, this experience caused her determination to get stronger to soar.
She will use this situation as a reference so nothing like this ever happens again. The most frightening thing to her is to die without even knowing how. She didn't even have time to dodge and just a casual body slam nearly killed her.
Celaine spent the next few weeks using every ounce of energy to tend to her wounds and bring her back to her peak.
Mira was happily surprised to see that this experience didn't cause Celaine any backlash or heart demon. How is she supposed to use her as a practice dummy if she becomes useless?
After Celaine returned to her peak, the three of them decided to leave this dungeon and head out to explore some more. Although they don't necessarily have a destination, there is a ton of unexplored or uninhabited places in this Icy World that are just begging Mira to loot them.
But they weren't even able to take two steps out of the dungeon entrance before a terrifying aura filled the sky and a black shadow came diving down towards them.
"For fucks sake, didn't this same situation happen already? Couldn't you have greeted us in the dungeon? Why must you make a scene just like that shitty Tiger did a few weeks ago." Mira muttered under her breath while Celaine and Maria nodded vigorously.
If these beasts wanted them dead so bad, why can't they just go ahead and kill them? Why all of the trouble?
The only difference this time is that whatever was greeting them now was on a completely different level than that Tiger they ran into a few weeks ago. Even if they had another 20 of them it wouldn't matter. They even doubted if they would be able to leave a scratch on whatever was coming down to 'welcome' them.
It was only a few seconds later when a massive bird covered in icy feathers and radiating frost flames landed in front of them with a *BANG*.
"Greetings humans."
