The boy returned to the cabin completely confused and tried to get more information from the book, but unfortunately apart from those three drawings it didn’t contain anything useful, only long rows of words. After cursing the insensitive author for not including more nice pictures, Leo went back to his lake and had a dinner in a somewhat crappy mood.

‘It all started so well …’ Leo murmured to himself.

Luckily he was still a child and couldn’t stay gloomy for long. The next morning he woke up the first thought that came to mind was to check out the other lake and see how the big chicken actually lived. He also was curious about the pavilion and why the two places were built differently.

After the breakfast and waving goodbye to his cat who as always ignored him, Leo went over to the chicken’s place. It turned out to be not that far – the distance from the cabin seemed to be exactly the same to both lakes and the annoying part was only fighting through the thick jungle in order to get there.

While chickens were also domesticated animals, Leo felt much more comfortable around the big cat that lived in the middle of ‘his’ lake. Since the arrival here he had seen the chicken fly over many times and often it cried out pretending to be some kind of an eagle while showing off another gigantic snake it had caught. Compared to it the cat was just like any other cat in the world – lazed around all day while mostly sleeping and went out, probably, only to relieve itself.

‘Definitely! Cats are so much cooler that chickens!’ Leo thought watching the rank seven nightfeather griffin fly off.

Just as expected the surface of the lake flashed with the purple lightning indicating that the drinking from it had the familiar painful side effect. Of course, Leo was the only one who would describe it as ‘painful’ rather than ‘lethal’ and probably because of that he didn’t hesitate to actually taste the water, but unfortunately swooping it stung just like when he was getting the water from his own lake.

With a sigh the boy sat down and looked over at the island. Indeed, it had a pavilion built not far from the tree, although it looked more like a canopy – probably because the mutant chicken had made a nest under it. But then he noticed the nest had something round and white inside. He couldn’t see clearly from the distance, but there was only one thing that came to mind what it was.

“Mother tucker!” Leo cursed jumping on his feet, already salivating. This was the biggest egg he had ever seen in his life!

Since leaving home he hadn’t had an egg to eat, a cooked one that is. He had sampled few raw ones he found in birds nests on the ape island, but those were disgusting. On the other hand both omelet and boiled egg were his favorite dishes!

Of course, back home Leo ate basically anything that was prepared by Renaud family cooks and all the dishes were his favorites – that was one of the reasons for him getting so chubby. But after the departure for half a year he ate only crackers and dried meat, then for another half a year – fruits and raw sprouts. For the past days he did finally get cooked meat, but, truth to be said, it was simply burned flesh that somewhat resembled food. Obviously the boy longed for a decent meal.

And now, looking at the huge egg in the distance he had only one thing in mind – he wanted that thing! He really, really wanted a boiled egg! Fortunately, before he did anything stupid, a distant cry of the hateful chicken reminded him of the implications and he ran back to his lake upset, but still salivating.

Normally attention of a child is easily diverted by almost anything. Unfortunately for Leo there was nothing to do except sleep and eat the same careless birds that from time to time got electrocuted by the purple lightning and fell in the lake only to get roasted afterwards.

The problem was that the cooked food that he was so thrilled about just a few days ago didn’t bring any satisfaction anymore and all he could think was that huge chicken egg in the middle of the other lake. He thought about it when he woke up and kept dreaming about it when he slept – the previously careless life started to become a nightmare.

But he did try to do something about it. He climbed nearby trees, plundered nests of different birds and threw the stolen eggs in the lake to boil them. He quickly learned the proper timing to fish them out and they tasted really good, but to his great disappointment it only added to the longing for the egg under the canopy.

It was quickly becoming an obsession and soon Leo decided to put a stop to it. Renaud family men were strong and decisive and he couldn’t let down his father by behaving like a little girl, sulking all day because he wanted something. If his father took a fancy in a woman, he took her for a wife, if he liked a sword, he got it by any means necessary! Yes! Leo realized he also had to act that way – there was so much he could learn from his father even though the old man was not around!

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The first thing he needed was to find out when the big chicken left its nest and for how long it stayed away, therefore for the next few days, right after the sunrise, Leo rushed to the chicken’s lake and carefully observed it while staying hidden up on a tree in the jungle.

The whole endeavor was incredibly boring since most of the time the chicken actually spent in its nest. But the view was pretty and his father always reminded him he had to practice patience, thus Leo decided to scout and train at the same time.

To Leo’s great disappointment the hateful chicken left only on the fourth day. Of course, the boy had no clue the two rank seven beasts actually didn’t even have to consume any food – the rune formations they spent their days in provided them with the necessary energy. Only because of the habit and slight entertainment they ate the prey the eagle usually brought, but since the eagle for some reason stopped coming by, out of boredom the griffin flew out from time to time and hunted a larger snake or two. Of course, there were no endless supplies of beasts on the island, therefore it refrained from doing it too often.

In comparison the goldenglow tiger couldn’t be bothered by wasting its time with such nonsense. Leo almost guessed correctly – the tiger only left on a rare occasion only to go for a drink. It was long fed up by this place and intended to became a venerated Nascent soul stage being as soon as possible even though it had to serve the damned humans for a couple millennia. Unfortunately it was not that easy to form a nascent soul for a beast, thus it was stuck here for now.

After observing the chicken for many days Leo figured out its trivial pattern. Once every three, four or five days it flew away in the morning and returned in the afternoon. That was it. All he needed was to find a way to get to the nest.

Unfortunately Leo couldn’t leap like the giant cat did nor did he have wings. Obviously he couldn’t walk on water either thus the only remaining way to cross the lake was to swim.

“This is going to hurt.” Leo whispered staring at the purple lightning flashing across the water surface and then resolutely stepped inside.

The goldenglow tiger had seen many humans in its life, heck – it had eaten quite a few as well. But it had never seen anyone as moronic as the kid who arrived to their island from who knows were a month ago.

At first it jumped directly in the waters of Divine tribulation tree. Then, after miraculously surviving, he began drinking the water from the lake while screaming in pain. Why? All he had to do was to go three hundred yards through the jungle to the west to find the river with clear and sweet water! One could even hear the stream from here if they listened carefully enough!

But no. When the tiger thought it had finally seen the limits of human idiocy, the little masochist found another way to torture himself – he began to wade through the water first knee, but few days later – waist deep! Even more – a couple of days after that he began to swim from time to time as well!

The biggest problem, for the tiger, of course, was the fact that the kid did all of that while screaming his lungs out – clearly it hurt a lot! And, of course, it had to – the birds and animals that touched the water got immediately electrocuted and after they fell inside within the span of few breaths they turned into lumps of coal. How in the world the little f*cker even survived?!

Multiple times the tiger had an impulse to just end the miserable little life that currently was splashing in the middle of the lake. It could bite the head off or just slap him leaving only a small puddle of blood and gore behind. It would be so easy! But the fear of those guys suddenly appearing was an incredible form of deterrence. Maybe this was even the final test the bastards thought of? It had to be! That was the only logical explanation!

After this conclusion the tiger didn’t even bother looking at Leo anymore. Since the boy began his swimming practice in the morning and with few breaks continued throughout the day, the tiger just began to leave its island in order to not fall in to unnecessary temptation and kill the kid. It did miss the valuable cultivation time, but it felt it was ready enough and it was certain that soon the time he needed to guard this place would be up anyway.

Staying in the water while getting constantly electrocuted was really hard and even harder was to swim in such conditions. But it was almost impossible to swim without having a clue how to do it properly.

Leo thought it was only natural for him to get used to the pain and didn’t bother with explanations why he was capable of spending increasingly longer periods of time in the water, but what bothered him was the lack of swimming techniques. Back home he mostly took baths and really never learned how to swim, and that led to the helpless and tiring splashing he went through the past days.

Fortunately the big cat began to leave its place and didn’t watch him with those eyes full of ridicule. In addition, it provided Leo with a practical goal for his swimming lessons – he needed to learn how to get to the island and back, but he was reluctant to swim in the island’s direction while the scary cat was still there.

Leo didn’t count, but it took him whole thirty two days to get to the island where the leafless tree was growing, but when he finally got there, he was so tired and out of breath, he couldn’t enjoy the feat one bit. Only after half a day of rest he got back on his feet and went over to observe the spot where the cat usually slept.

It turned out just as Leo suspected – the place was set up exactly like in the drawing he saw in the book with four five feet tall pillars stationed at the opposite sides of a large, round platform. Every part of the structure was covered in rune markings, similar to those he saw on the platform near the cabin. Clearly this was some sort of magical place meant for special cultivation, therefore the cat kept sleeping here all the time and in the end grew to the enormous size.

The tree nearby also looked very peculiar. Ignoring the obvious fact that it had no leaves, for some reason it left the impression it was still alive. And although the purple lightning was dangerously flashing between its branches, Leo noticed there were three white fruits in the size of a baby’s fist hanging from the lower branches.

Surely he would’ve become interested in those fruits and maybe on a different occasion even tried to pick one or two, but now he had much more important task – he had an egg to boil!