Dante woke up, still very sleepy. A week ago, the others had left.

It was difficult to measure the passage of time without sunlight as a reference. Day and night blended into the young cultivator's training.

When he expanded his senses into his body, however, the difference was obvious. The wounds left by Sabrina's advance into Gold were almost healed.

For a week, Dante avoided leaving the training room. The wounds made by the dark Qi persisted on the boy's skin. Trying to get his Qi channels to irrigate the corrupted skin was excellent training, putting Dante's concentration on test.

Now, however, it was time to go out in search of new challenges. He was at his peak of power, and had the impression that he would only get another breakthrough through battles.

"Onward, child. With the sunrise, the enemies will feel the dawn of pain. Those who hide in the shadows deserve only misery and suffering," said the phoenix.

Well, that was also happening.

After the battle for Sabrina's life, Dante started to have small moments of contact with his monster core. Dante let out a long sigh. To his misfortune, for the time being, communication was a one-way street. The young cultivator could only hear small phrases from the monster, but could not speak.

After finishing his stretching session, Dante went to the place in the room where he had positioned the map. The image was raw for now, as Dante had not yet explored the cave. Thoughtfully, he brought his hand to his chin. Today he would go out into the cave for the first time, but he didn't know exactly which way to go.

From the instructions Isaac had left, Zay's mission was clear. Dante would have to collect some artifacts scattered around the cave and deliver them to the dragon. Although Isaac had said nothing about a reward, Dante wondered what sacred material awaited him at the end of the mission. He felt a little bad about wishing for more, since the dragon had already sponsored him. But his desire to help his family came before anything else. If he had to go through indelicate to do so, so be it.

"Go forth, my disciple. Make fire rain down on those abominations who call themselves monsters. Their Qi is impure, it deserves no place in our storage."

Dante stared into the void and waited for the cringe feeling to pass. He knew the monster meant his well-being. He could feel it. But talking like that made Dante look like a completely soulless person.

Still, the monster's insight gave him a good idea. Facing a fire monster in order to test his offensive power would be a good start. The young cultivator also had to investigate further the strange relationship of his Qi with other types of fire.

Gathering some supplies, he walked carefully through the cave.

After putting some supplies in a backpack, he left the room and entered the cave. Soon after leaving the neutral region that housed the training rooms, Dante arrived in the area where he had faced the trees earlier. In place of the bodies he had left there, there were new monsters. Alive.

There was no reason for him to repeat the massacre. His body thrived on encounters with new types of Qi.

Still, it would be useful to test how much more resistant he was to the same type of Qi after a battle. He repeated the same strategy as the other times and put himself in the middle of two monsters. Careful not to attract other beasts, Dante moved the fight away to a more remote location. The monsters followed him, greedy.

When he reached a suitable position, the disciple waited for the attack of the monsters with his chest open. Agonizing in anticipation of the pain to come, he circulated Qi throughout his body. When he received the impact of the attacks, he widened his eyes. He didn't feel extreme pain, nor were the branches able to pierce his skin.

As he could not waste any time, Dante conjured his flame claws–which he had affectionately dubbed Phoenix Razor–and finished the monsters.

On the way to the next cave region, Dante tested an idea he had had during the week of training. He located another monster, and again conjured up his attack. This time, however, he didn't limit the flow of Qi to just his hand, and extended the energy throughout his entire arm. As a result, besides his claws, his right arm also burned in sunfire flames. When Dante attacked the tree-shaped monster, his attack shattered the creature.

The young cultivator smiled. All the intense training was not in vain. He had skyrocketed his offensive power, and now he better understood how his body's adaptation process worked.

The only weakness Dante had not yet managed to overcome his inability to fight at distance. Determined after a series of successes, he reached out his hand toward a nearby wall. With his concentration at its limit, he circled his Qi with full strength towards his hand. He could feel the energy bubbling up, until it was possible to see an aura forming slightly in front of his palm.

When the aura was no longer translucent, going through solidifying, Dante fed all the Qi he could into the technique and released the energy.

When he saw the result of the attack, he brought his hand to his head. The fire had not crossed an arm's length in front of his hand. Perhaps because of his new physique, he was having trouble channeling his Qi. Every kind of attack that did not involve direct contact failed.

"The sacred flame of conquest is missing in your heart. Expand our empire, take flight, and aim for the heavens! A soldier's place is not in caves."

"Give it a break. If you will not help, at least don't get in the way," Dante said to the void. He doubted the dragon could hear him. Even if it could, he doubted even more that the monster would listen.

He felt a vague sense of discontent coming from his core. Sketching a smile, Dante thanked the heavens. At least he could curb the crazy things said by the dragon.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

He hoped so.

After leaving the environment irrigated by nature Qi, Dante passed through a slightly cloudy environment. From what the cultivator remembered from his first day in the cave, still in the presence of his friends, the fire environment would come soon.

Absolutely focused on his goal, he walked for about an hour until he arrived at the desired location.

Dante surveyed the new monster in front of him. The beasts looked like lions, but had black coats and white manes. Still, the temperature of the place left no doubt. That was certainly the environment that contained Qi of fire.

"These abominations are worse than insects! They mimic a fire too feeble even to clean the dirt off our clothes. Put order in them, my disciple, your master commands."

Dante clenched his fists in anger. If it continued like this, he would have to find some other girl who possessed a demon core and was advancing to Gold. It was time for another personal talk with the Phoenix.

While the cultivator studied the group of lions to see if he could observe their Qi, a searing pain seized the left side of his body.

Following his instincts, Dante jumped to the opposite side of the attack in search of protection. After finding shelter behind a rock, he circulated his Qi around the affected area.

When the healing process had begun, he sought the monster that had attacked him. When he located his new targets, however, he felt his stomach grow cold. Three lions stared at him, white smoke billowing from their mouths.

There was no time to work out a strategy. Dante would have to fight the monsters by improvising. Doing the best he could, he jumped toward the beasts, targeting the monster in the middle. Since they could attack at long range and Dante could not, he needed to shorten the combat distance.

Unfortunately, nature didn't give those monsters the instinct to protect their own kind. Even when Dante stuck to the monster in the middle, the other two opened fire on him.

There was no time to defend. Circulating Qi quickly into his hands, Dante did his best to cover both of his arms in flames. Following this, he tried to block as much as he could from the oncoming attack.

Even with his body reinforced by Qi and his arms reinforced by flames, Dante could feel the raging white fire coming from the lions burning all over his body.

To escape death, he did what he knew best. He put his mind in the same state as when he trained with Isaac, in order to make the pain a little more bearable.

When the lions ceased their attack–probably thinking Dante was dead–he took advantage and ran away. The monsters didn't find him instantly, such was the mess caused by the white fire. Before another disaster struck, Dante went into meditation position and cultivated. He tried, at least.

As he looked at the misshapen pieces that he once called his hands, Dante accessed his core and pulled all the Qi he could into his arms.

The result was immediate. His flesh grew and regenerated. Luckily for Dante, the ambient Qi meant he could force regeneration further than normal, because he could absorb more Qi.

To his misfortune, regeneration had limits. His efforts made a difference, but only to a certain extent. As he looked over the edge of the stone, sweat beaded down his forehead as he realized the monsters were approaching. At this rate, it would not be long before the Slayer would be slayed.

"Ikarus, I need help!" he shouted, in the vain hope that the monster would listen. After a few agonizing seconds, he took steps of a desperate man. "If you don't help me, the Sunfire Empire dies here! No more meat for you."

Dante felt his hopes dashed when he saw the monsters blocking his escape route. There would be no way out of there without a fight. The cultivator looked down at his hands when he felt a difference in the flow of Qi. The sunfire energy had regenerated his limbs when a sudden influx of Qi hit his meridians.

"Those kittens think they can hurt a vassal of the Lord of Heaven without consequences. Know, worms, that he who attacks the vassal also attacks the lord!"

He looked with wonder at his hands, which took on a claw-like shape, but different from his normal technique.

It was as if, instead of Qi enveloping his fingers, real claws had appeared. He could feel the weight and size of his technique, which far surpassed his previous one.

Taken by a fresh wave of energy, Dante wasted no time. He wrapped his hands in the claws of flame. When the skill was ready, something was different. The claws were more solid...more real.

Thanking Ikarus, Dante went into combat. The monster had his quirky ways, but the Phoenix would not let Dante die. All that was missing was an on and off button on the monster's lines for the symbiosis to be perfect.

This time, Dante waited for the perfect moment. When the lions opened their mouths to fire the steam of flame, he crouched down and charged. Narrowly evading the attacks, Dante attacked the monsters directly in the head. There was no time to lose.

His claws met little resistance in the monster's head. As he prepared to kill another of his enemies, a jet of white fire hit Dante full on. This time, however, the damage done was lower. Dante resisted some of the force of the blow, so that the attack did not destroy him again. Since he now knew he could withstand the attack, he wasted no time. The cultivator advanced on the other two lions and finished the fight.

Dante's physique was really amazing. The more he fought, the stronger he got. He knew that an opportunity like that was next to impossible. At that moment, he again knelt down and vowed not to let it be in vain.

There were no other monsters in the vicinity. None had noticed the battle that had just occurred. Not to take any chances, Dante took his harvester and collected the spoils from the fight. Since those were Class C monsters, he pocketed 300 points in total.

The cultivator had earned the points. Dante had almost died. It seemed that the higher the monster class, the greater the intelligence of the beasts. Greater than the reward of points, however, was what was about to happen.

After finding a safer place, Dante took from his belongings a pill of light Qi and a purification pill. He ingested the cultivation materials and entered a meditation position.

From there, he concentrated on the ambient Qi. The fire danced in his meridians, in a battle rhythm. Little by little, the rotation of Dante's core increased, until he heard a resounding pop. Finally, he was a little closer to Gold.

Zay had said he had given him a map with the orientation of where the artifacts would be. The problem was that Dante wasn't quite sure where he was at the moment, so the map wasn't all that useful.

One item left by Isaac showed on a white map the location of the artifacts left by Zay. The problem was that Dante didn't know where he was in relation to the map left by the master.

So, his next goal would be to triangulate his location.

To do this, he went to an intersection point between the fire region and the one containing fog. After comparing his map–which was being filled in–with the dragon's map, Dante discovered he was not that far from the object.

Curious, he walked through the fire areauntil he reached the position marked by Isaac's map.

He let out a mocking laugh. In front of him was a den of those damned lions. More than a dozen creatures hovered over the room, as if garnishing something.

"Be careful, disciple. These worms always have a leader. The head monster always takes advantage of its minions to accumulate more power, so the skill difference can be great. Don't compare a monster at the top of Class C with a lesser one," said the Phoenix.

At this point, there was no longer any denying the Phoenix's usefulness.

As long as Dante learned to deal with the strangeness of the monster, he might as well take advantage of the situation.

"Thank you, lord of heaven. I shall honor our lineage," Dante said, laughing inside.

This time, he felt a slight sense of contentment coming from his core. It took little to please the monster.

Dante stretched his arms and legs. After resting a bit, he would begin the hunt for the great lion.