When they approached the creature they were able to see what it looked like.

“A FOX?!” They both exclaimed. Even Mira was very surprised. Whenever a tale or myth talked about a creature born from flames, you think of a phoenix. There are even tales mentioning a wolf, dragon, tiger. These are the more common myths and legends, but never once have either of them heard of a fox being born like that.

The fox looked like a baby fox. It was only about 15-20 centimeters long. This isn’t that much bigger than a normal newborn fox. There was one main difference and that the aura from this newborn was incredible. It was like its whole being was flames. The fox also had bright red fur with orange stripes that extend to its underside. This fox looked like lava in living form. They guessed that it was at least Rank 2, but the blazing aura coming off of it was definitely not from a normal Rank 2 beast. They couldn’t determine the stage, but they could only imagine how powerful this fox will be in the future.

“CUTE!!” Maria yelled and slowly approached the fox. The little fox was a little wary at first, but it felt no hostile intentions from Maria. Maria reached the little fox and reached out her hand before reaching the fox. The fox seemed to understand and came towards Maria and started rubbing its head against her hand.

*Yap* *Yap*

The fox seemed to like Maria and only felt good intentions from her. Mira then began to approach this little fox. The little fox sensed her walking toward it and became wary of her. It was also able to sense a frosty aura emitting itself from her very bones. Even with her body being tempered with lava, she could never have a fiery aura. The fox felt this person was definitely not as kind-hearted as Maria. It began trying to hide behind Maria.

“Mira, you are scaring the little fox! Can’t you be more gentle?” Maria complained to Mira.

“It’s okay little fox. She won’t hurt you… Probably.” Maria tried to comfort it.

Mira kept approaching it, once she reached it she began to inspect. The basic beast instincts were constantly raising alarms. It felt like it might die if it made a move. Its instincts told it that this woman held its life and death in her hands. The one that he was hiding behind could only accept if Mira wanted it to die.

“It doesn’t seem to like me. Well, that doesn’t matter. We aren’t compatible anyway. Even if I wanted to keep him, we would only limit each other. His fire is way too damn hot and will probably only grow stronger. If I were to have him fight with me our elements would start to cancel out. You should try to form a contract with it. There are 2types of contracts to form with beasts that I know of. There is a life and death contract in which the beast has to initiate the contract. This signifies the beast’s absolute trust in you, if you were to die the beast would also die, but not vice versa. There is also a contract of equals. This is more of something like a business contract. The beast has free will to do whatever it wants and only has to listen to the agreements set by beast and man.” Mira said while Maria immediately answered before she could say anything more.

“I want the contract of equals!” Maria tried to get Mira to accept this.

“No. I will not allow it. Not to mention I don’t even know how to do that.” Mira said then turned to the fox and took out her scythe.

“Oi Fox! I know you have some intelligence as Heaven and Earth wouldn’t leave someone born from them without anything. Form a Life and Death contract with her.” Mira coerced it.

The fox just nodded repeatedly as it really didn’t want to die after just being born. It nipped its paw and put its paw on Maria. Then it sent its energy into her. After a while, one could see a red fox tattoo started to form on her back. It was the head of the little fox that was initiating the contract. The fox head tattoo on her back started glowing then it sunk into her body, leaving only a faint outline of the fox head on her back. The contract was now complete.

“Good, it looks like it’s complete. Let’s get out of this damn cave now. This fox sucked up anything useful in the cave anyway.” Mira said as she put on her black Daoist robe now that the heat was dissipating and there was no more lava to burn it to ash.

“Wait! We need to come up with a name for the little guy. Hmm, let’s see. What would be a good name for you?” Maria wondered.

“How about Vulcan? There is a myth about this name belonging to a God of Fire. Let’s also give him a species name as we might be the first people to discover this. Let’s see, when he was formed the phenomenon reminded me of a supernova. Let’s have his species be a Nova Fox.” Mira nodded at these names.

“Yes! Vulcan and Nova Fox! Those sound so cool! But I’ve never heard of anything like a supernova or God of Fire named Vulcan. How do you know that Mira?” Maria tried to ask

“I wonder. Let’s go!” Mira dodged the question and Maria just shrugged as she figured that would be the answer. Maria also changed into a red Daoist robe and they started to walk outside of the exit. Like before this tunnel was so small they had to crouch just to fit. Mira was leading with Maria following while holding Vulcan. It took them a long time to get through this tunnel like before. When they realized that they should be close to the exit, Mira started hearing voices outside of the tunnel.

‘Shit! I figured this might happen, but damn how unlucky. I guess we might have to fight our way out of this one.’ Mira thought.

“Maria, there are people outside, more than 2 but I don’t know how many. Have Vulcan conceal his aura. This will be a good time for me to see if you have grown your mind while I was unconscious. Come up with a plan.” Mira said.

“Dang! How unlucky! It makes sense though as they probably sensed Vulcan’s undulations. Well, right now we have the advantage as they don’t know we are here. If we keep going and meet them outside, we will lose our advantage. So our best option is to stay in the tunnel and wait. The only problem is how small the tunnel is. Ok, I think I got a good plan.” Maria said and shared her thoughts with Mira.

Mira heard this and nodded. This was indeed a good plan.

“I think this is the best thing we can do with so many unknown factors. It will also be a good chance to see Vulcan in action. Don’t disappoint me Vulcan.” Mira said. Vulcan felt like that what she said to him had a double meaning to it. Like if he disappointed her, he will regret it. Vulcan just repeatedly nodded his head and wanted to make sure he did exactly as he was told.

Mira took out her scythe. Of course, it’s too big to fit in the tunnel, but she held it like a spear. She put on her black mask and crouched as low as she could. Maria was right behind her wielding her sword. Vulcan was standing on the ground, ready to charge forward.

Soon they heard voices getting louder and louder.

“Damn! It’s fuckin dark in here! I can barely see my hands it’s so dark. I hope this treasure is worth it!”

“I wonder what kind of treasure it is.”

“Man, this tunnel is so small! I can barely fit in here!”

Mira and Maria heard many voices. They seemed to be in a group of around 5. They also seemed to be relatively young by the sound on their voices so they were probably only in the Qi Condensation Realm. Mira readied her spear to stab them.

The leader of the group kept walking, but he felt something was off. He was about to alert the group to be alert, but before he could do that something penetrated his throat then decapitated him. The rest of the group felt something was off as they immediately smelled blood and the leader hasn’t said anything.

As soon as Mira attacked, a small fox charged forward and ran to the back of the group. Mira formed 10 ice needles and shot them towards the second person. The 2nd person had his sword out and managed to cover his vitals, but the needles still hit his stomach and legs.

Mira charged forward to stab the 2nd person. The guy deflected her scythe/spear but got hit with a light beam to the gut. He faulted for a second and Mira used this to decapitate him. She then charged towards the 3rd person, but this guy had a spear as a weapon. Mira tried to stab him, but it would keep getting knocked out of the way.

Meanwhile, at the back of the group, a small fox was standing behind them. Vulcan coated his little paw in fire and ran at the last guy in the group. This guy felt a scorching heat coming from behind, but this tunnel was so small that you couldn’t turn around easily. The fox charged at the guy’s neck and was able to smoothly sever his spinal cord in his neck, killing him. The fox then began to do the same thing to the 4th guy.

Mira and Maria were still dealing with the guy with the spear. He just kept his distance and blocked Maria’s light beams and the ice needs coming towards him. Of course, he couldn’t block them all and was only able to cover his vitals.

“Coward! Hiding in the cave and ambushing us like this! We can’t even properly fight you!” The spear guy said this and knew that this probably wasn’t the case. They probably already have the treasure and were returning when they heard them.

Mira just ignored him and continued attacking. The 4th guy soon died to Vulcan and all that was left was the guy with the spear. He tried to focus and block both Mira and Vulcan with his spear, but Mira took advantage of it when he blocked Vulcan and stabbed his throat, decapitating him.

“Let’s grab their belongings. They should at least have something useful on them. Then Vulcan, you burn their bodies to ash.” Everyone nodded and they started looting the corpses.

Each of them had a space ring, so they took their space rings and weapons. Then Vulcan did as Mira said and used a tiny fire breath to burn them to ashes leaving no remains of their bodies. Then they hurried out of the tunnel as they didn’t want to run into any more trouble. They soon made it out of the tunnel but kept running to get away from this place. They didn’t want to run into any more people, people that might be stronger than those 5 kids.

Finally ran far enough away that they could relax.

“Ahhhhh! Finally! Sunlight! Wind! Grass! Trees! I’ve missed you all! The devil has finally freed me from damnation! I have returned!!” Maria yelled in euphoria. One would think that this was the happiest day of her life.

Mira’s eyebrows twitched at being called a devil but didn’t say anything as she was also enjoying being back in the forest. They then went through the loot that they got. There wasn’t much in these space rings. They got a total of 200 Spirit Stone, 5 mortal weapons of varying grades, 100 Rank 1 Rejuvenation and Blood Restoration Pills, and 5 space rings. They all had the same size as Mira’s, 5 cubic meters. They split everything in half, but Mira gave Maria the weapons as she didn’t need them. Mira kept all 5 space rings though as hers only had limited space.

“Now we can continue on our journey. You are close to breaking through to Stage 3, I want to consolidate my foundation before trying to break through, and I want to see how well Vulcan can fight. We will continue looking for the ruins, but on the way, I will fight the Low-Stage Rank 2 beasts alone or with Vulcan and Vulcan will clean up all of the Rank 1 fodder around us.”

Mira and Maria then continued their journey with their new member, the Nova Fox, Vulcan. They kept traveling in the forest like they have been, slowly circling and going farther into the inner region.