After Linley left, Ace, Amira, and Julius tiheir advehrough the mountain range.

  Other than looking for beasts to hunt that could pose a challeo Amira or Ace, they also looked for different ingredients for Julius.

  Whilst Linley received the dragon’s blood, Ace kept the bones, scales, and its core for himself and gave the meat to the ht teen chef.

  Ace ractically salivating over the thought of tasting it after it was cooked by Julius, but he told them that meat like that was too precious to cook with the ingredients he currently had on hand. Instead, if he wao truly make the most of the dragoo make a meal deserving of the quality of meat, he needed certain ingredients.

  Over the st month, they had found the majority of the ingredients Julius had mentioned. Now, they were only missing one more.

  “Fatty, I think I’ve found the lio ginseng you mentioned,” Ace said as he stared at the ground from the top of a cliff.

  At the base of the small mountaiood atop, a rge crimson ginseng with specs of silver could be seen poking its head out of the ground.

  “Finally!” Julius excimed as the ers of his lips raised, giving shape to a wild aed grin. Whilst Ace was excited to eat the drago, he was excited to finally try his hand at actually cooking it. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go get it!”

  “Not so fast,” Ace said. “You guys stay here. I’ll go get it.”

  Amira’s right eyebrow raised suspiciously when she heard that. “What rank is the beast down there?”

  “Not particurly high,” Ace shrugged. “Only at the peak of the fourth rank.”

  “Then why are you grinning like that?” Julius asked as he noticed the fiendish smile that hung on his friend’s lips. “You only ever smile like that when you’re about to faething that really give you a challenge.”

  “Don’t tell me there’s a…” Amira looked down at the ground where a rge opening could be seen in the mountain opposite them. “Since when was it so easy to find Divis?

  How does its aura pare to Bebe’s and that Azure Dragon from before?”

  “No weaker thaher of them,” Ace replied, his griing wider by the sed. “But its aura feels a lot more bloodthirsty.”

  Amira looked down at the opening of the cave unwillingly. She was yet to fight against a Divi, let alone one of that level, but she was also aware that although she’d improved a lot over the st few months, she was at most capable of challenging a peak rank six beast. A Divi like that was still to for the current her.

  Plus, Ace’s expression said it all. This fight was his!

  “Tch, whatever! But the one is mine.” Amira snorted.

  Ad Julius gave her a look as if to say that they had already run into three; the ces of them running into a fourth were virtually zero, but when they saw the threatening glint in her eye, both boys wisely decided against saying anything.

  With that decided, Ace excitedly ran down the mountain ughing wildly as he ran towards the beast’s cave, basically announg his preseo the beast inside.

  In response, Ace received a deafening roar. He may not speak beast, but he knew whatever was inside was angry for being disturbed.

  “Haha, E!” Ace bellowed back, his blood boiling with excitement at the prospect of his first serious fight sihe Azure Dragon.

  As the creature exited the cave, Ace’s eyes lit up, his fiendish growing to the point it looked like it would envelop the whole of his face.

  “Do y?” Julius asked Amira from atop the cliff, calmly looking down at the growli that emerged.

  “I don’t,” Amira shook her head as she studied the horse-sized bck lion with a striking crimson mahough my family’s dots on Divis are extehere are still many Divis and beings that aren’t recorded.”

  As Ace looked at the rge lion-type Divi before him that boasted an incredibly muscur physique, a strahought suddenly popped into his head. “Submit to me!”

  Like the Azure Dragon from before, although it couldn’t speak, it could uand the words of the little human in front of it, and just like the Azure Dragon, its pride ran bone deep.

  Though there were mas in the mountain rarohan it, it had sughtered its way to the top of the food in this region, making it something of a local hegemon.

  Not only was the human before it provoking it by encroag on its territory, it was even trying to viote its pride by telling it to submit to him.

  A deep growl escaped the lion’s mouth as its hind legs bulged.

  “Shit,” Ace said as he hurriedly ducked, barely avoiding its paw, which was no smaller than Ace’s head.

  If it weren’t for his [Observation] remaining active the whole time, Ace’s head would’ve been spped off of his shoulders.

  As soon as the paw passed over his head, Ace realised that even with the bination of his retly prehended fusion of ‘wielding’ states and his [Armament Hak coating his arms and give, in a battle of raw power, Ace would always e out on the losing side.

  Surprisingly, Ace felt that this lion was the stro of the three Divis he’d seen thus far in terms of pure power, but that only served to excite Ace even more.

  “Only a beast like you is qualified to follow me!” Ace decred as his body flickered, appearing on the opposite side of the lion, his give desding with incredible speed and power.

  The lion roared furiously as if it wao deafen the ignorant human in front of him, its paw swiping up to meet the ining polearm.

  Despite having gravity on his side and having started his move first, Ace was still forced three steps back, a feat that made his smile grow all the wider.

  “Again!” Ace bellowed as he ughed heartily.

  “It’s always Ace who gets the best oppos,” Amira said as she enviously watched Ajoying himself.

  “Best oppo?” Julius asked as he palmed his face. “I knew getting stuck with you two masochists was a terrible idea.”

  “Who’s a masochist?” Amira snorted as she gred at the rouhreateningly.

  “Did I say two?” Julius replied nervously. “Ace is the only masochist ieam. You definitely should’ve been chosen to lead the team instead of that brute.”

  Amira just rolled her eyes at the supersized mage’s attempts at fttery, very much used to his slick tongue, before fog ba Ace’s battle. Though she wasn’t particurly worried for his safety, she still found it hard to trate on anything else.

  From the outside looking in, it looked as though Ace was the one in the superior position as several shallow cuts started to accumute on the body of the giant feliill, Amira, who had a very keen eye for battle, khat their battle-crazed team leader’s dition was er.

  His attacks were still incredibly fast and sharp, but they were definitely slowing slightly. Amira’s uanding of Ace’s current strength was sed only to Ace himself. She khat with his stamina, there was no way he would be slowing down this soon. The only possible reason was that the impact of each csh was doing more harm tha on.

  She could also tell that he was trying his best to avoid a direct csh, but incredibly, the lion’s battle IQ didn’t appear to be much worse than Ace’s.

  Even though Ace was defihe faster of the two, the lion always mao find a way to force Ace to fight head-on.

  Amira and Julius watched as the strength of Ad his oppo began to wane as the fight went on. More cuts and bruises began to form on both of them, whily sped up their fatiguing.

  Amira was tempted to assist Aore than one occasion, but when she saw the pure-hearted smile on his face, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she couldn’t help but think back to Julius calling him a masochist. ‘Maybe he was right…’

  The most peculiar part about it was that it appeared that Ace wasn’t the only one who seemed to be enjoying himself. It looked as though the lion was also grinning as it cshed with an equal oppo.

  As a Divi, it was rare that it met an oppo and rarer still that the oppo was of the same realm.

  After another hour, Ad the lion colpsed. They were both still scious, but her was able to move another muscle.

  “Seriously?” Amira scolded as she appeared behind him. “You’re supposed to be the team leader, yet you decide to fight till you ’t even move?”

  “Haha, my bad,” Ace chuckled as Amira helped him up.

  “Let me guess,” Amira said as she looked over at the exhausted feline. “You don’t wao finish the job…”

  Even though it was uo move anymore, its pride hadn’t waned in the slightest. It didn’t exhibit so much as a hint of fear as it calmly met her gaze.

  “You know me so well,” Ace chuckled as he too focused his eyes on the giant lion. “I’ll be the oo defeat him, and when I do, I’ll make sure to beat him till he agrees to follow me of his own will!”

  A look of surprise fshed across the eyes of the lio heard its former oppoell his panion to spare it, but when it heard the followience, a loud and surprisingly human-like snort left its mouth. An act that was subsequently met with a boisterous ugh by the give-wielding teen.

  “e o’s get going already,” Amira said as she pulled the eed youth away. “I’ve already picked the ginseng. The faster we set up camp, the faster fatty make our ‘Divine Dinner’!”

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  P.atreon./ACoilingDragon

  Book 4 - Chapter 22