Phoenix

Getting up in the shop as if nothing happened, Aurus excitedly opened his inner world to release the phoenix in the shop. From the moment the contract had been made, the phoenix had become his contracted beast and wouldn't rebel unless there were some special circumstances.

Seeing the phoenix appear out of midair, he looked amazed at it. The blazing colour of its feathers, red eyes and it's long tail were mesmerizing. Seeing it fly freely in the small interior of the shop without accidentally hitting anything made Aurus jealous of its ability to fly.

Finally stopping and landing in front of Aurus, it gently lifted its head and rubbed it on his arm giving a small cry. It seemed extremely happy to be free from those adventurers who were planning to give him to a noble for an experiment. There was no need to guess, a phoenix was extremely intelligent and could understand basic human speech. Thanks to this, it had somehow understood that it would be used as an experiment and it was overcome with grief since it couldn't escape from the cage made of special black metal.

So, when the beast contract appeared in its soul, it was more than happy to comply with the contract even though it wouldn't have been able to evade it anyway. At most, it made the contract's work easier.

Aurus could feel a spiritual connection with the phoenix and could more or less understand what it wanted to say. Normally when one had a contracted beast, they would be able to create the spiritual connection and only after sufficient training would they be able to freely understand each other. As such, while Aurus was far on the road of understanding his contracted beast, he wasn't there yet either.

Bringing his right hand over its head to pet it, he felt the contentment of the phoenix through the weak bound between each other.

Looking at it closing its eyes, Aurus smiled happily. After all, his first contracted beast was a mythical creature in the eyes of the people from Earth, a rare and powerful creature from the point of view of the world of Ernia and a completely new beast from the world of Arashina. He was pretty proud of himself for catching such a beast even though he didn't actually catch it. Well no matter, he was happy.

Looking at the young phoenix in front of him, he couldn't just call him phoenix at all times. Well, he could since it was the only phoenix in this world and people thus didn't know what was a phoenix. However, he wanted to grant it a name. After all, they would be living and fighting together for dozens of years if not hundreds of years in the future and they would-be companions.

Getting down at the same height as the phoenix he said: "From now on, your name will be Zaya. You will be my first amongst countless contracted beasts in the future and we will be very strong."

Getting up with the loud cry of his phoenix, he could tell that it was extremely thrilled. Feeling the slight hunger of Zaya, he took some fire cultivation resources and gave it to him to eat. In this world, every material he brought from the world of Ernia gained a special property after being met with the cultivation energy in the air. As such, while the herbs wouldn't do a lot of things back in the world of Ernia, after being mixed with the special energy of this world, they became great treasures.

Zaya's eyes lit up as it smelled the fire herb Aurus had gathered during his tasks. The fire herb had the property of increasing the purity of fire. As such, for a phoenix, it was a great boost in power since their fire could sometimes be mixed with some impurities of other elements which lowered the intensities of his flames.

As it ate fire herbs, Zaya's fire became more and more pronounced and hot. Luckily, the shop had a temperature regulation function and was more or less indestructible which helped in protecting all of the materials in the shop. When Zaya finished eating the few fire herbs he had given, Aurus looked at the floor and there wasn't even a slight burnt mark on the ground.

For the moment, he had only given four fire herbs at Zaya since eating more than this could slow down his absorption ability. Of course, he wouldn't tell this to his clients as the monster would completely absorb it eventually but it lowered the speed compared to another beast which would eat the same amount but on a longer period. In other words, if a beast ate twenty fire herbs in one go, it would absorb it completely in a period of a week. On the other hand, if Zaya only ate four herbs each day for five days which would total twenty herbs, it would finish absorbing it completely the same day. Aurus figured it might be related to eating too much and needing to absorb it for a longer period of time compared to someone who ate two small meals instead. Well, in the end, it was the description of the system and up to now, it had never tried to fool him so he more or less believed it.

Aurus then took out ten fire slime cores he had bought at the adventurer's guild for a cheap price of five copper coins each. Once again, the eyes of Zaya lit up as it looked at Aurus as if asking for permission. Giving a slight smile, he nodded his head and Zaya immediately went to eat the fire slime cores.

Back in Ernia world, Zaya had killed a few fire slimes cores but none of them seemed attractive at all but here in this place which possessed some kind of different energy, it seemed extremely tasteful.

Seeing Zaya gently eating the cores, he opened his eyes wide and wondered one thing: "Which gender is Zaya? Male or female? He hadn't thought about it previously and its name seemed a little more feminine. Opening his identification skill which had ranked from E rank to D rank thanks to identifying the different herbs and creatures he had met along with the skill orbs he had previously seen in the adventurer's guild, he identified Zaya.

[A phoenix contracted beast granted the name of Zaya. This phoenix is a female. It currently possesses purer flames than its counterparts and has met a new kind of energy which continuously strengthens it.]

'Oh, so it's a female. Well, it's not like it matters anyway although I weirdly prefer that. I guess it's because of the head patting from earlier. I would find it weird for a male phoenix to be patted on the head.'

Seeing Zaya finishing it's last fire slime core, it finally gave it the Spicy lily flower. This flower had the ability to refine the energy of the body for the beast with low-grade cultivation. In other words, the energy which flowed in the body of the beast would be compacted and strengthened. For example, the energy Zaya had absorbed through the ten fire core slimes was used to strengthen its cultivation but by refining the energy of the fire cores, the energy would become stronger and more potent and would take less space in its core. This way, the beast eating this flower would be able to have more energy compared to any other beast of the same level after having filled their core with refined energy. One could classify refined energy as higher grade energy which would eventually give more benefits to the beast and strengthen it a lot.

The three flowers were enough to completely refine the energy of the ten fire slime cores and it was also the limit which would grant the best effects. After this, the beast would have to wait for 24 hours before the effect could be fully used once again.

Actually, Aurus was happy with the fact that the customers had to come back for the greatest effect on their contracted beast. This would give him a good customer flow in his shop in the future.

Right after Zaya finished eating the cultivation resources Aurus gave her, he heard footsteps from the stairs. Laia, who had heard noises from the shop, got down the stairs. She understood that her brother was back but at the same time, she had never heard of the loud cry.

When she finally arrived in the shop, she saw the Zaya in all her splendour. With some flames at the edges of her wings and her head high looking straight at Laia, she emitted a splendour which was hard to replicate.

Laia was stunned when she saw Zaya. She had never seen such a beast before and before she could regain her composure, she was awakened by Aurus.

"Laia, this is Zaya, my contracted beast." As if hearing the words of Aurus, Zaya opened her wings which completely turned into flames and started to fly, landing directly on Aurus's shoulder. Luckily, she was not too big yet. However, he didn't understand why she had landed on his shoulder. The only reason he could think of was to mark 'her' territory but he didn't understand why Zaya felt the need to demonstrate it to Laia.

Getting Zaya to go down as it was getting harder and harder with the weight Aurus continued. "Zaya, this is my sister Laia, be sure to get along well."

As he said that, Laia came closer and tried to touch Zaya's feathers only for her to evade the touch and soon it turned into a chasing game. Aurus had never seen this side of his sister before. She always looked composed and mature and never showed her playful side in front of him. Smiling happily, he asked his sister: "Laia, are your homeworks done?"

Laia stopped chasing Zaya who became relieved and she answered: "Yes, I finished them a few minutes before I heard you and Zaya."

"Alright, be prepared to go to bed soon, you have school tomorrow morning."