[Lust Points: 50,000]
'So, I earned 46,000 tonight, huh? Not bad, I guess. Now, I only need to earn 100,000 more in the next two days.' Max surmised.
After that, he closed the status window, hugged Belen's curvy body, and quickly fell asleep.
…
Due to last night's intense 'workout', the trio woke up a little late in the morning the next day.
After they had a bath, wore clean clothing, they headed to the nearby restaurant for the breakfast.
After they were done eating and paid the bill. They strolled out of the town. After reaching the entrance, Max asked Belen, "Has the bird recovered yet?"
"Although it hasn't made a complete recovery, it shouldn't be a problem for it to take us to the academy." Belen replied.
"How much time do you think it will take us to reach the academy?" Max asked.
He only had two more days before he needed to go to the demon continent. In these two days, he had to rush back to the academy, 'work hard with his women to earn the rest of the required LPs needed for teleportation, spend some time with his lovely half-sister Anna and meet Flavia.
Belen thought for a moment before she replied, "According to the trader, this red sparrow is a peak two-star beast and its speed is almost comparable to an early-star flying beast's speed. However, because it still hasn't completely recovered yet, it should take us a full day (12 hours) given the distance to the academy from here."
"Mhm." Max nodded. He still would have one and half day to do the things he wanted before departing for the demon continent.
Suddenly, system's voice sounded in his ears, [Kid, give some of the beast essence to the sparrow. Not only it will recover the bird within minutes, it might even push it toward the breakthrough to the three-star realm.]
Hearing this, Max's eyes sparkled, and he immediately took out of the jars containing the beast's blood essence.
"Belen, take out the sparrow and let it consume this beast's blood essence."
Belen became happy after hearing his words. She also wanted to ask him for some beast's blood essence to give the red sparrow, but thinking that he might have some other use for it, she didn't.
She immediately took out the sparrow from her storage ring.
Whoosh!
Chirp~ Chirp~
The red sparrow had recovered quite a bit after the night's rest. As soon as it appeared outside, it opened its wings and took to the sky, chirping happily.
After the Elvin beast traders captured it, it had been living in the cage, its freedom restricted. Now that it was out in open and wasn't as weak as it was yesterday, its first instinct was to fly in sky and express its happiness.
Belen glanced at the bird flying happily, and a smile appeared on her beautiful face.
Max and Leticia also found the scenery of the beautiful red fowl flying around in glee strangely emotional and pleasing to the eyes. So, they let it went its emotions for a while.
After a few minutes, Belen ordered the bird to come down, to which it reluctantly complied.
It landed next to Belen and affectionately rubbed its head against her legs.
Belen patted bird's feathered head and pointed to the jar of beast's blood essence in Max's hand and asked, "Do you want to drink it, little Scarlet?"
Little Scarlet was the name Belen gave the sparrow.
Little Scarlet glanced at the jar for a moment and tried to examine what it was. However, because the jar was tightly sealed, it couldn't sense the blood essence contained within and ended up shaking its head, clearly disinterested.
Max chuckled and pulled out the cork. As he did so, the scent of blood essence permeated the air.
Little Scarlet's eyes shone with desire when it sniffed the blood essence's scent.
Its first instinct was to snatch the jar from Max and consume it immediately. However, it was intelligent enough to see that Max was her master's friend and they might punish it for doing so.
Therefore, it contained its impulse, but the desire to consume whatever was inside the jar was evident in eyes fiery red eyes.
This slightly surprised Max. From what he knew, before breaking past the mortal boundary, beasts usually acted according to their instinct because their intelligence was too low to think or comprehend anything properly.
Seeing the surprise on his face, Belen smiled, "My previous guess was correct. Little Scarlet is a hybrid of a scarlet sparrow and a powerful fire elemental beast that must have already broken past the mortal boundary and gained human-like intelligence. Little Scarlet seemed to have inherited its intelligence to some extent."
"Oh?" Max and Leticia were surprised by this revelation.
Leticia suddenly clapped her hands and giggled, "Hehe, it means we've profited a lot since we only paid a million Mana stones for it."
"That's correct." Belen nodded, a smile on her face as she glanced at the little Scarlet.
Excited, Leticia asked, "Belen, didn't you tell us that the scarlet sparrows have the potential to break past the mortal boundary when they become mature? And since you suspect that its other parent was already a beast above mortal boundary, does that mean little Scarlet can also break past the mortal boundary in the future?"
"Yes. She can." Belen nodded. (Yes guys, the bird is a female.)
"Great!" Leticia exclaimed. "It means we will have a five-star or above companion in the future. Maybe we can visit the central plains under its protection."
As Leticia mentioned the central plains, the excitement was palpable on her cute face. Belen's eyes also shone when she heard this.
Max was slightly surprised and asked, "You guys want to go to the central plains?"
Leticia nodded her head and with a dreamy look in her eyes, she spoke, "I can't speak for Belen, but I sure do. I have heard that there are many opportunities for the people like us to increase our strength. If your talent is decent enough, you can easily reach the four-star realm and there are high chances to break past the mortal boundary and reach the five-star realm."
After saying this, she sighed dejectedly, "Unfortunately, it's quite far from here and the road is riddled with countless dangers. If one isn't a five-star mage at the very least, the chances are very high that one will drop dead even before reaching the outskirts of the central plains."
Belen also sighed at this.
"Don't worry. Maybe the opportunity to go there will present itself to you guys in the near future." Max smiled calmly.
He then handed the beast's blood essence jar to Belen, "Here, have little Scarlet drink this."
Belen took it and placed it in front of little Scarlet's beak, "Drink it, little Scarlet."
Chirp~
Seeing Belen's gesture, Little Scarlet chirped in excitement before she grabbed the jar with her beak and emptied the contents in one big gulp.
Burp!
After drinking it, she burped in satisfaction, rubbing her round with her wings.
The trio was amused by her human like gestures.
"She is so cute." Leticia exclaimed and took a step toward the bird to caress its head. When suddenly,
Scree~!
The bird let out a loud, painful screech. A blood red mist slowly seeped out of its body and covered it completely.
"Wh-What's happening?" Leticia halted in her tracks and seeing the bird in pain, she worriedly asked.
"Don't worry about it. It's the effects of the beasts' blood essence she consumed just now." Max calmly said.
For the following fifteen minutes, the bird kept screeching in pain as she rolled around on the ground.
Hearing the bird's cries, a few people came running to see what was happening.
Leticia became displeased by their presence and shooed them away.
After fifteen minutes, the bird gradually calm down and the blood red mist slowly started receding into her skin.
After another half an hour, the blood mist vanished without trace.
Swoosh!
Chirp~!
With a flap of her wings, the bird took to the sky and let out a deafening chirp that forced the trio to cover their ears.
Swoosh!
After a while, it nosedived toward the ground and landed in front of the trio and chirped as if asking them to climb on top of her.
