As soon as she is done eating I take Kechara and lay her down in her nest where she curls up and goes to sleep. Or at least she seems to be asleep, but I won't be surprised if by morning she has managed to migrate to the hammock. But before I go to sleep I want to burn through my sacred power, I should be able to hit rank two this time.

Core Upgrade Progress: 100%!

Core Upgrade Completed!

Congratulations! You are now rank 2!

Sacred Power +100! Gained Sacred Ability: Wind Blade!

Wind Blade

Level: 1

SP Cost: 50

Blades fired: 1 Damage per blade: Int x1

'Oh! This must be the ability Kechara's mother used against me!'

Normally I would test it out immediately, but since my sacred power is exhausted I am going to have to wait. I was hoping for another plus five to all stats but I am not disappointed since now I finally have a ranged attack again. I am definitely going to have to put some effort into leveling the skill up so that it does more damage.

Right now it does a little over two hundred damage since that is my current intelligence. Leveling up the skill should increase the damage and that will be easier than raising my intelligence. It would have been better if it used my wisdom since my wisdom shot up so much when I absorbed the guardian's core.

As I climb into my hammock I glace over at Kechara and catch her with one eye open watching me. As I thought she was just waiting for me to go to sleep, so I tell her it is okay. She immediately gets up and jumps onto the hammock where she curls up on my chest and goes to sleep.

With her warm weight on my chest I fall asleep very easily, and she is still there in the morning when I wake up. As I reach up and start petting her with a smile on my face I notice that she has grown another couple of inches. So I carefully check her back, but there is still no sign of her wings growing in.

It worries me a little, I don't want to leave her on her own before she learns how to fly. The main reason for that is because I have not seen anything on the slope for her to hunt. If she hasn't learned to fly by the time I am ready to leave I should probably just take her with me.

As long as I don't try to take her off the mountain before I find out more about the guardian it should be fine. If I am being honest I just don't want to think about parting from her until I absolutely have to. Besides, my curiosity about how she will grow will drive me insane if I walk away before finding out.

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Maybe naming her was a mistake, I have become much more attached to her than I should have. Even if it was a mistake it is too late to change my mind now, I will just have to figure out a way to free her from this mountain. Anyway, first things first, I want to try out this new ability, so I aim at a spot on the wall.

"Wind Blade!"

The blade of wind launches from my hand and strikes the wall, but not exactly where I was aiming. So I fire off the spell a few more times until I manage to get the aim right. To my surprise, after my last spell another wind blade strikes the wall, it came from Kechara.

Apparently, watching me allowed her to learn to use the ability as well. That makes me happy since it means she isn't defenseless anymore, I will worry a little less now. When I get up to check, my slashes cut into the wall about two inches, whereas Kechara's is only about an inch.

Considering how young Kechara is I am still fairly impressed since that means her intelligence is about half of mine already. Given that she will most likely end up with a higher intelligence than me by the time she is fully matured. The only thing I don't know is how long that might take, it could be months or years.

Since there is no answer right now I set aside such thoughts and instead turn my attention to making breakfast. As soon as I am done preparing the meat and have it in place over the fire Kechara attacks me. She has been sitting watching patiently and now she attacks my hands and doesn't stop until she has licked all the blood off.

It is cute but it is also evidence that she is developing more of a personality which is good. Once my hands are clean she sits and watches the meat cooking, she is obviously eager for breakfast. While the meat is cooking I drop into meditating to burn through the rest of my sacred power.

Core Upgrade Progress: 11%

Only rank two and it is already slowing down this much, I won't be able to get back to rank six at this rate. If I remember right, last time I could only get to rank four through working on my core, after that I had to rely on eating demons. That does bring up an issue, am I still going to be able to rank up by eating demons?

If not then I may be in trouble, since creatures like the guardian are probably even harder to find than demons. That is a worry for another time, for now I will advance my core as much as I can through meditation. Once I can't advance any more then I will head for the temple and the library and see what happens.

Who knows, maybe those aren't the only two options and I will be able to find a third way to increase my rank. What I knew of the rules only applied to demons, I have no idea what the rules might be for sacred creatures. Come to think of it, I really don't know anything about sacred creatures, that should probably be something I search for in the library.

The library is hopefully going to provide me with all sorts of information. Considering its location and how much effort the empire put into keeping it a secret it must contain a lot of useful knowledge. According to the diary only the archmage and the royal family knew about the existence of the library.

You don't keep something restricted that much unless it is of great value. My curiosity is burning, I would go straight there if I thought I could make it. Even though with my rank going up I am able to move normally again, I still don't feel that I am back to my former condition.

"Stats!"

Strength: 250(530)

Agility: 250(290)

Endurance: 250(382)

Intelligence: 209

Wisdom: 402

Charisma: 171

Willpower: 55

Luck: 30

Toughness: 40

Regen: 15

Unspent Points: 50

At rank zero my stats were limited to fifty, as I went up in rank another hundred was unlocked each time. If it stays that way I won't be able to use my full strength until rank five. Which since I am not sure if I can go past rank four might be a problem, I will just have to hope I can figure something out when the time comes.