When Greyson woke up the next day, he looked over to where he left the little Cloud Leopard on the ground. Shooting up from the bed, Greyson realized the little beast was s.h.i.+vering looking to be in pain. Furrowing his brows, he began checking the with his light magic. He could actually see a black substance wreaking havoc inside the Cloud Leopard"s body. Frowning, Greyson quickly tried to get his light mana to touch it, but this dark thing would continually dodge around. He allowed his light mana to lead this black substance in one direction before suddenly trapping it with his other open hand. Trapped inside his light mana, Greyson managed to pull it out. Trapped inside a light ball, the black thing screamed and slammed around inside. Grimacing, Greyson poured more of his mana into the ball to reinforce the spell. He recognized this as one of the evil dark magic spells of the Midnight Order: Soul Poison. They were created by refining a live person into a poison and injecting this into someone. The poison would then have some form of consciousness and could even give magic kings grief if they could not find a light magician in time. However, its bane was clearly light magic and this Cloud Leopard luckily met Greyson. His eyes burst into a golden color as a bright light extinguished the Soul Poison inside the cage.After this problem was eliminated, the Cloud Leopard stopped shaking and fell into a deep sleep. Greyson sighed in relief and used the remainder of his magic to heal the rest of the wounds inside the cub. He kept going until his mana ran low once more and he stopped the constant flow of light mana and changed to his own meditation. Surprisingly, Rosalie did not stop by today so Greyson continued to meditate before turning around and healing the cub"s wounds one by one. Light magic was not a miracle worker and Greyson could not just heal all wounds with a snap of the finger. This Cloud Leopard was deeply injured and almost dead when Greyson picked it up so he had to spend an extended time using his light magic. Once all the wounds were healed, two days of quiet meditation and healing pa.s.sed by for Greyson. Using his light magic so much actually deepened his understanding of the element so Greyson did not feel it to be a waste of time. A new plan for practice started to form in his mind through this experience, as well. In the end, Greyson was very happy with the results. Being a Good Samaritan for the day was not bad. He should rescue things more often. Laughing and shaking his head at his own ridiculous idea, Greyson suddenly felt the empty s.p.a.ce of Lucius missing his snarky comebacks. As much of a pain that cat could be, they had been together for so long, it was like every moment was too quiet that it was unfamiliar to Greyson.
"I should leave here as soon as possible to go looking for Old Lu...I wonder what a Cloud Leopard like you is doing at these mountains, though. I hear it"s very hard for outsiders to try to climb these mountains." Greyson felt this was fairly strange. Picking up the small cub into his arms, he stroked its soft fur. Sitting cross-legged, he placed the cub on his legs and decided to meditate the rest of the day.
The morning sunlight peaked into the room through the window and hit Greyson"s face. Feeling the warmth on his face, Greyson opened his eyes slowly. Looking down, he saw the Cloud Leopard was still sleeping so he placed it onto the bed before stretching. Fully energized and refreshed, he felt like he should go out to train today. As if on cue, his sister, Rosalie lightly knocked on his door and walked in. She walked in to see her little brother in loose white s.h.i.+rt and brown pants yawning cutely like a little cat. Without even noticing, her hand rose and pet his head.
"Good morning! Are you ready to fight again today? Maybe today will finally be the day you beat me! You can break that forever losing streak of yours." Giggling happily, Rosalie teased her little brother.
"Hmph! Perfect, I was about to go looking for you today. My body is itching for a fight." Lightly slapping her hand away, Greyson tied his hair back before putting on his boots.
"Oh, well we shall see if I will beat that itch out for you or not." Rosalie smiled, before seeing a spot of white on the bed out of the corner of her eye. "Hm? What"s that, Grey?" She walked pa.s.sed him to approach the bed.
"I picked up an injured Cloud Leopard a couple days ago and healed it. It was even afflicted with the Midnight Order"s Soul Poison so I haven"t told anyone else about it because there are a couple suspicious things." Greyson told his sister all of the story because he also wanted her opinion on what to do. This situation was rather odd no matter how he thought of it, so he did not know if keeping this leopard cub would bring on some sort of issue or not.
"Soul Poison?" Rosalie widened her eyes in shock. Closely examining the small cub, she also made a noise of surprise. "This is not a Cloud Leopard, it"s a Sun Moon Leopard. How rare!" She exclaimed. Picking up the cub, she showed him the crescent moon shape on its chest.
"Sun Moon Leopard? I don"t think I have heard of this race."
"That"s not surprising. They are very rare and have gone almost extinct. The entire race is very talented and they all have an interesting condition. They are both male and female until they have found their mate and then will choose which gender to be. Until then, they control four elements. The female Moon Leopard is a dark and water dual element beast while the male Sun Leopard controls the light and fire elements. The female side is extremely good with defense and escaping speed, while the male side is strong at attacking. Their tribe used to one of the most powerful in the Beast Empire during ancient times, however, they were too greedy. Of course, they are more powerful if they never choose to mate. Therefore, the amount of offspring produced in the tribe was extremely small because not many in the tribe chose to give up this ability. The tribe tried to get this under control and only pick a select few of the most talented in a generation to stay this way while the rest had to choose a mate. However, this only created bitterness and unhappiness within the tribe as to many ambitious individuals were forced to choose. The tribe imploded from within and now there are very few Sun Moon Leopards left within the Continent."
Greyson was shocked hearing this news. A whole powerful tribe fell just like that and not from any outside force but from infighting.
"Was it really because they did not want to give up the power? I feel like the majority would not be like that."
"Well, that is the explanation in the history books because the tribes try to use this plight as an example of why certain figures of the tribe must learn to yield. However, grandfather told me that in reality, the problem was more emotional. Sun Moon Leopards are almost like two personalities in one body. They feel the other half of them is like a brother or like a sister. To choose only one form would mean that part of themselves would die off and disappear. For some, the feeling of just killing a part of themselves was very difficult and led to a lot of anger or depression."
Nodding deeply, Greyson could suddenly understand the feeling. If someone told him that he had to kill Rosalie, he would never be able to do it, no matter what was at stake. It would hurt him deeply.
"It should be fine to keep around. Not many would recognize this Leopard anyways. Most of them would just think it"s a Cloud Leopard like you. However, the Sun Leopard form is a little less common looking so you should just try to teach the cub to stay in its Moon Leopard form. Sun Moon Leopards are very intelligent creatures because their bloodline is powerful, only, this one seems to be very young. I do not know to what level its intelligence has developed. We should just hold off on the fight for now. You should watch over this cub until it wakes up. If it wakes up without you here it could go running around and get captured or injured again."
Listening to his sister, Greyson sat back down to just quietly meditate and wait for the cub to awaken. Part of breaking through to new stages was the acc.u.mulation of mana anyways, so it was not like he was wasting his time.
Around the morning of the next day, the cub finally stirred from its sleep. Greyson could feel the movement since he was making sure to keep his attention partly placed on the leopard. Flipping his eyes open, he watched closely while slightly worried about how this cub might react. After opening its eyes, the cub was shocked for a second before noticing Greyson beside it. Frightened by the sight of him, the mark on its chest lit up and transformed into a sun. The black spotted white fur turned completely golden as the small cub crouched down and began to growl. Greyson was unsure of what to do, so he first put his hands up trying to look as non-threatening as possible. Seeing that the cub was not calming down at all, Greyson decided to start radiating his light mana. It was then the cub finally showed a reaction. It closed its eyes and softly purred feeling the comfortable and familiar aura. Slowly approaching, Greyson finally arrived in front of the cub and stroked it gently. By now, the small cub leaned into Greyson"s touch before licking his hand gently. Smiling, Greyson could tell that this cub recognized him now. Instincts were a crazy thing with beasts, he guessed that the cub might be familiar with his light mana since he was constantly healing the cub with it.
"Daddy!" He heard a young voice suddenly shout out. Choked for second, Greyson coughed violently. Shocked, his purple eyes glanced downwards to see the little cub staring back at him with stars literally shooting from its golden eyes. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Greyson was not sure how he was supposed to respond.
"No, I am not your daddy. I am Greyson." He tried to patiently explain.
"Daddy!" Shaking its small head, the cub was stubbornly set.
"No, I"m-"
"You are Daddy!"
Speechless, Greyson did not know how to proceed.
"Little sister says that your mana is familiar and comfortable so you must be our daddy. Little Snow is smarter so Gold will listen to her."
"Snow and Gold? Who named you two? How old are you?" Feeling he would get nowhere trying to convince the cub, he decided to ask different questions.
"Hmmmm... I don"t know. We have always been Gold and Snow..." The little leopard showed confusion in its two eyes clearly not able to remember.
"Do you remember what happened? How were you hurt?"
"Hurt... Gold does not remember... Little Snow was escaping... Everything was so painful." Trying its best to remember, Gold struggled to through what it remembered. Greyson soon realized, though, that the Leopard"s memory must have been damaged from the Soul Poison. Deeply sighing with helplessness, Greyson decided to just let it be.
"Little Gold, can you let me meet Little Snow?" Greyson remembered what his sister reminded him of. Looking over the Sun Leopard form, Greyson agreed that there was no particular name that came to mind seeing this form so it was much more of a giveaway than the Moon Leopard form.
"Little Snow? Sure!" Nodding its little head, the sun on the cub"s chest once again glowed before turning into a crescent moon. Its golden eyes turned an icy blue while its fur became white with black spots.
"h.e.l.lo, Daddy!" Snow happily greeted. Greyson just wryly smiled back.
"Little Snow, do you think you could stay out for now? If people saw Gold, bad guys might try to take you guys away." Trying his best to simplify the situation, Greyson pretended he was talking to some of the little kids from back at the orphanage.
"Take us away from Daddy?!" Snow gasped and widened her eyes. "Okay, Little Snow will stay out. We don"t want bad guys to take us away." Innocently nodding, Snow agreed with Greyson"s words. Although he saw her agreement, Greyson still had to wonder if she understood. Feeling a headache coming, he felt concerned about this situation. His only real experience with magic beasts before meeting the dragons was with Lucius. Every single magic beast he has met has always been older and experienced. This was the first time he had to deal with such a young magic beast. Usually this was the best for others when they wanted to rear a magic beast. They would capture it while it was young and impressionable to make it loyal to them. Greyson looked at the bright-eyed, cute little cub staring back at him in happiness before sighing yet again. What a disaster...