Even as the evening skies of Xion illuminated with mysterious patterns of colors, a huge wind ripper gracefully flapped its metallic wings, reflecting the beauty of the colors.
Sitting atop this bird, Liam was dazedly staring at the egg in his hand that was twice the size of his palm.
This egg had a peculiar pattern on its shell. Half the shell was pitch black in color and half the shell was pure crystalline white.
On top of this, there were light blue runes all over the egg on both the black and the white half, making it look even more mysterious.
"I wanted to power up but instead you powered up. Wait till you get out, I will make you work day and night." Liam sighed in exhaustion.
Perhaps because he was not in the presence of nether anymore, the mental exhaustion from fighting so long was finally hitting him.
He felt tired and drained and wanted to close his eyes to take a rest.
Luna's condition was also much better now. The cracks had healed. The bleeding had stopped and some weird patterns had appeared. So he didn't have anything to worry about.
Yet, Liam was unable to rest. He had a plan but now it looked like things had changed and he would have to rethink everything.
And this new enemy who was working from the shadows… he needed to know more about him.
His biggest concern was... how the hell did he know precisely when he would be arriving at the necromancer's hideout?
If it was someone like him who had travelled back to the past, then he might be aware of the location, who the experts were, who was weak, who was strong, where the treasures were and so on.
But how could he possibly be aware of the exact time and place of his action? Was it just a coincidence?
Liam silently mulled over this as the wind ripper chirped loudly, finally arriving near the royal city.
"Right here, Talon." Liam pointed to a location with a dense cluster of trees, a bit farther away from the city.
He then hopped off the bird and traveled the rest of the distance by foot reaching the gates of the city.
"Greetings, Lord Duke."
"Greetings, Lord Duke."
The two guards at the entrance immediately bowed and greeted Liam, but he was in a hurry so he barely acknowledged them and rushed past them.
As a Duke, he no longer needed to worry about entrance fees and such. In fact, he could have entered the city atop Talon.
However, that would cause too much attention and Luna's condition had stabilized so he didn't feel the need to do that.
Nevertheless, he was in a hurry so he directly rushed over to the beast hall in the royal city. He needed to know what happened and what was going on.
Liam ran as quickly as possible, so he reached the destination in under 2 minutes. Inside, Seraphina was surprised to see him return this soon.
There was still time for the grandmaster to arrive so she wondered why he was here.
"Lord Duke, may I assist you with something?" She humbly asked. Liam nodded and took out the egg from his inventory.
"You can assist me with this." He showed it to her.
"Ah…" Seraphina was immediately shocked as soon as she saw the egg. She revealed an expression very similar to the one Liam had and this made him nervous.
"You don't know?" He asked.
Seraphina turned her head to look at him with a helpless expression. "This… please forgive me, Lord Duke. I have really never seen anything like this before."
"Can you at least see if she is healthy and needs anything?"
Seraphina hurriedly nodded and then sat down on a nearby chair, with the egg on her lap. She then circulated her mana to the egg to check its condition.
But unexpectedly, the moment her mana touched the egg, she felt a bolt of energy strike back at her. "Ahhh!" The loli beast master screamed in pain from the backlash.
"What? Did something happen?" Liam frowned.
"Lord Duke, your egg… how should I say this… she is too healthy!" Seraphina smiled bitterly and then added with a sigh. "And also she hates me."
"Huh?" Liam took the egg back from her and observed it once again. This small spirit beast was truly mysterious, always giving him shocks.
"She should be ready to hatch soon, my Lord," Seraphina explained.
"Are you sure that she is alright?" Liam was not convinced. Only he knew how much he had struggled these past several hours, trying to help this little fox.
He sat down and started recounting everything that happened to Seraphina hoping that she could provide him some sort of assistance.
Though it was risky to reveal some key details to her, he couldn't help it. After all, the little fox's health was more important.
Still, Liam modified some things to make sure that he didn't expose his own secrets and fabricated it enough so that it was similar to what actually happened but was also different enough.
However, even hearing this toned-down version, Seraphina was floored.
"What! This really happened? The egg cracked and then started healing by itself?! Lord Duke, I have never heard of such a thing! Never before in my life!"
"I can tell you why she started to turn black."
"Something triggered her and I think she attempted to evolve too soon in a hurry. She probably needed more time, therefore failing to do so."
"This is always the risk when a beast evolves and usually happens when a beast tries to evolve beyond her abilities."
"The failure penalty for such a mistake is terrible. Most often the beast won't survive this failure. So the same thing happened with Luna also."
"This was why the egg was cracking and turning black, all her life force slipping away." Seraphina murmured as she expressed her thoughts.
"But how is it possible for her to heal back like this? Not even a precious herb is capable of doing such a thing… Unless…"
"Lord Duke, perhaps you managed to obtain some rare elixirs?" She looked up at Liam with a weird glint in her eyes.
"Hmmm… I am not sure." Liam replied vaguely.
He in fact had a sample of that moss he had fed Luna but looking at the strange expression on the loli's face, he decided to individually get it inspected and analyzed later on.
As if she didn't believe him, Seraphina asked again. "My Lord, did the egg really crack and bleed?"
Liam shrugged. He already told her several things. What more could he say?
"This beast… then this beast is probably…"
The loli sat in silence as if she was thinking about something deeply. She then abruptly stood up making her chest jiggle and her hair braids swing back.
"Lord Duke, I think you should definitely pay a visit to the grandmaster. He will be here soon in a few days."
"I think Luna might have evolved to a very powerful beast. Such a beast could help our Kingdom greatly, especially at times like this."
Help the Kingdom? Liam rolled his eyes but didn't say anything. "Alright. I will definitely pay a visit. Then in the meantime, is there anything that I can do for her?"
"Perhaps keep feeding her more herbal essence?"
"Hmmm… ok." Liam replied but he thought of something, so he quickly added. "What about another flame fragment?"
"My Lord!" Seraphina was taken aback. Did this guy think that finding flame fragments was like picking up cabbages from the garden?
"They are difficult to obtain, my Lord." She bitterly smiled.
"But yes, if you manage to find one, then it might help her. After that, she would perhaps only need a few more days to regain her strength back and hatch."
Liam nodded. He refrained from telling her that the little fox had already eaten another possible flame fragment. It seemed that he had to be very careful with NPCs.
The look on her face whenever she saw the egg wasn't anything good.
It was as if all she needed was a wink from Liam and she would grab the egg and run away. Liam warily took Luna's egg back from her hands.
She was reluctant to let go so he had to pry it away from her, with a polite smile.
Seeing that there wasn't much more help he could get from her, Liam quickly thanked her and left the beast hall.
After talking to her, he became very curious about the moss that the egg had inhaled in huge quantities.
Maybe if Luna was a dark or nether attribute pet but she was a fire attribute pet.
So he wanted to know what was the grade of the herb if it was a herb at all and just how much it could have possibly helped her.
Liam headed straight to the alchemy association to get the moss inspected.
He paid the fees at the counter and headed upstairs to the inspection place when suddenly he heard a few voices in front of him.
"You are stupid.. Why did you not bring more of this herb, Kouske!" A woman's judgmental voice sounded.