402 Ghost's Origins

Nevertheless, Ajax wanted them to experience some fights on their own. 

However, the three-eyed black ghost fox was clearly not excited with Ajax's words and didn't show any interest in venturing the Shixato wilds.

"Okay everyone, go now and come back when I call you," 

Ajax didn't ask anything to the three-eyed ghost fox for now and asked all the elemental spirits and spirit beasts to start their venturing the Shixato wilds.

'Roar'

'Roar'

'Whoosh'

All the elemental spirits and spirit beasts except for the three-eyed ghost fox and Snow had left the spirit stone mine.

"Huh? Snow, don't you want to leave for a while and venture outside?" 

Ajax didn't ask the three-eyed ghost fox because he could guess that reason behind it. So, he asked Snow for her reason.

"If everyone left, who will protect you, Master?" Snow said with a small smile on her face making Ajax unconsciously smile at her reason.

"Do as you seem fit," Ajax didn't force and leave it up to her to decide what she wants to do.

After saying that he looked at Ghost, which walked towards him slowly.

"What happened, Ghost?"

Ajax picked it up from the ground and asked while caressing its smooth and black fur.

After absorbing the spirit consciousness of the King realm spirit beast, the size of the three-eyed ghost fox was shrunk and looked like a normal small black fox; however, there was an additional eye on its forehead that made it look different from black fox.

'Purr pur'

Enjoying the caressing from Ajax's head the little black fox purred in a low voice as though it was explaining something.

"Snow?"

Since he didn't learn the beast language yet, Ajax looked at Snow and asked her to translate the black fox's purring to him.

"He is saying that he wants to go back to his home and meet his parents," Snow said to Ajax in a sad tone making Ajax also sad.

"Ghost can you say more about your home and where is it?" Ajax slowly asked the ghost fox about his origins.

Even though Ajax guessed his origins, they were still assumptions. So, he wanted to get a clear idea of its origins.

'Pur pur'

Soon, the black fox started his purring and explained about his origins.

As usual, Snow started translating Ghost's purring to Ajax.

It took Ajax a couple of minutes to know the origins of the three-eyed ghost fox and it was somewhat similar to what he had assumed but there was one thing that surprised him and made him laugh loudly.

However, Ghost was annoyed by the vigorous training by his father, who was a humanoid black fox. So, one day, he escaped the tribe and was surrounded by some masked humanoid beings and was knocked out by them. 

The next thing he remembered was opening his eyes in the Shixato wilds and eventually found a beast king's corpse.

After cultivating in that for a few years, he learned a skill to summon the black foxes from its blood for every single month and eventually made an army to protect its new shelter. However, the army was killed by Ajax and later it formed a contract with Ajax.

"What? Your parents are humanoid beings?" 

This was the first thing that made him completely shocked in the story that Snow had translated.

According to his knowledge, the spirit beasts that re-cultivated into humanoid forms would give birth to humanoid children but from the story, Ajax found out that the parents of Ghost were re-cultivated but still gave birth to an unevolved spirit beast which made Ajax puzzle and felt that he still have more to learn about this re-cultivation thing.

"So, you escaped from the tribe, got kidnapped and appeared in the Shixato wilds. So, why didn't you try to go back to your home?"

Even though he wanted to know about the people that kidnapped Ghost, from the words of Ghost, he could understand he doesn't know a thing about them. So, he asked another question.

'Pur purr'

"He wanted to go many times, but the problem is he didn't know the way to his home and something inside him made him cultivate the spirit beast king corpse," Snow translated the purring once again.

"Looks like there is more to Ghost's background," After hearing all about the three-eyed ghost fox's origins, Ajax concluded with this thought and looked at the small black fox in his embrace, he said, "Don't worry. I will take you to your home and see your parents."

When the black fox heard Ajax's words, he clutched Ajax's hands even more tightly as though he was excited by Ajax's words.

"Since everything here is settled now, let's go back to the hawk tribe," After promising that he would take the black fox to his home, Ajax said to Snow and silently left the spirit stone mine.

'I will take good care of this spirit stone mine, Master,' After Ajax left the spirit stone mine, Red, the new guardian of the spirit stone mine, swore silently looking at the disappearing silhouette of his master.

...

In a dark cave, Somewhere in the five elemental world.

'Swoosh'

A two-coloured elemental spirit slowly moved towards the middle-aged man.

"What happened? Did you find out about the boy you mentioned earlier?"

When the elemental spirit was within 2 meters, the middle-aged man, who was completely covered in black robes opened his eyes and asked it.

"I am unable to find it," The elemental spirit that looked like the combination of the two different elemental spirits shook its transparent head and said to its summoning master.

"Huh?"

When he heard his elemental spirit's words, the middle-aged man raised his eyes and looked at the elemental spirit with a frown on his face.

"Sorry summoning master, I am becoming useless more and more recently," 

Before the middle-aged man could say anything, the elemental spirit apologised to him and blamed itself.

"Don't blame yourself. It's just that your power is weakened so much after our last battle," the summoner shook his head and consoled his weakened elemental spirit and continued saying," Tell me more about it. Even if you are injured, that doesn't hinder you from finding that boy, who was capable of summoning the various element-types of elemental spirits."

"When my energy reached that boy, I was deflected by some kind of powerful force, which I have never seen before in my life or in any of our adventures," the elemental spirit nodded its head and briefly explained about what it had faced when it was trying to find about Ajax.

"What?"

As soon as he heard his elemental spirits words, he stood up and asked with a shocked expression on his face.