112 Chapter 58: Getting to Know Our New Partner

It took Lilly a little longer than usual to actually finish taming the large spider. It was continuously struggling against her taming when it woke up, but since Tank had it pinned down and Joshua had his scale blade ready to slice its head off if it struggled to much it eventually gave in and their aura's intertwined together until the taming was complete. The spider slowly started to become more docile and then it finally bowed its head and let Lilly start to pet it. Of course Joshua wasn't exactly sure why anyone would want to pet a spider, but he guessed some people had to like them since they were considered pets in a lot of cases.

"You can get off of her now Tank, she's feeling more secure around us now." Lilly said getting a nod from the giant turtle in return. "Well Joshua what do you think of our new partner?"

"I think she is going to be a great companion. Considering her speed and strength alongside all of the abilities she show cased I'm sure she'll grow up to be extremely powerful." Joshua said referring to the spider as a she because Lilly had said it before. He wasn't able to tell personally since he didn't know all that much about spiders, but he assumed the females were usually on the bigger side thanks to some movies he remembered seeing when he was younger. "The fact that her status is that of a child tells me that her potential to evolve is probably greater than any creature we've met up to this point right?"

Lilly smiled brightly at that and nodded her head emphatically. "Yes, she is able to evolve more than once from what she already is. At the moment she is too young to have good control over her abilities which is why Tank was able to handle her so well, but as she matures she'll be a force that can even contend with him."

"Well that's good to hear." Joshua said before looking towards Tank that seemed to have a bit of a baffled expression as he looked at the giant spider. Lilly was already starting to use the two rabbits to help heal all of the large spider's injuries, so Joshua took the moment to ask Tank for his opinion. "So what do you think Tank? You look like you have something on your mind."

"Well I'm fairly positive that I've seen a similar spider to this one in the past, although that one was much bigger and was as powerful as me. Just like me that spider was of the tier just below guardian creatures, in other words we were strong enough to face Haze monsters alone and be able to be victorious." Tank said with a bit of pride in his voice.

"If you guys were that strong then how strong are the guardian beast exactly?" Joshua asked a bit surprised by that fact.

"Guardian beast are on another level entirely and are everyone else's goal to reach. If I could fight off and kill a city scale haze boss monster in a one on one fight then guardian beast are so powerful that they terrify haze monsters. They're the reason why those abominations stick to the cities instead of venturing out into the world. A guardian beast could tear them apart in moments." Tank said with a serious look.

"Well that's good to know. I hope I never get on the bad side of one of them in the future. The one I met back in the beginner's forest seemed fairly docile if you ask me." Joshua said getting a nod from Tank.

"They often are. As long as you don't attack them or their children then you won't have anything to worry about. The moment you do though you might as well consider yourself a dead man." Tank said with a chuckle. "Anyways I'm guessing this little girl must be the off spring of that spider I met in the past. Judging by her size I'd say she's still fairly young and probably only knows how to communicate through feelings at the moment."

"Hmm, well it will be interesting to see how she ends up. I guess you must have some idea of it if you met her mother in the past." Joshua said getting a frown from Tank that shook his head to show he wasn't sure. "Why, didn't you meet her mother in the past?"

"I did, but her mother wasn't a variant like this one is. From what I remember her mother was all black with a bit of red patterning on her back, but there wasn't any sort of heat or fire involved. Her mother relied on her speed and venom to take down opponent and I'll tell you right now she was fearsome with just that. If I didn't have this big shell she could have torn me apart if we ever actually fought. I'd be too slow to keep up." Tank said with a frown.

"Then, I guess all the fire stuff must come from her variant abilities. She might actually end up evolving into something completely different." Joshua said with a grin. "Well we've got fire and water now, with two more elements Lilly can ascend to something greater." Joshua said jokingly.

"Tank do you mind coming over here." Lilly asked getting the attention of the both of them. "Ms. Webby hear needs your assistance." At that moment Joshua didn't know a spider could show such a look of disgust at something. Lilly didn't seem to notice, but both Tank and Joshua could tell that the spider definitely wasn't going to allow Lilly to name her that.

"I don't think she likes that name Lilly." Joshua said with Tank nodding right behind him. "In fact you might end up driving her away if you keep calling her that. Children usually react violently to stuff they don't like."

Lilly frowned as she noticed that the spider looked pleadingly towards her to change the name and she could also tell through her feelings that were coming through her aura in waves. "Well then can you give her a name then Joshua, but it better be something that fits." She said while the spider turned to look down at Joshua with a gleam of anticipations in her eyes. She was so excited that some heat started to generate off of her and Joshua had to activate his aura shroud to protect himself from it. Lilly was fine since she was currently synchronized with the spider after taming her.

"Well then if I had to pick a name that fit you….how about Cinder." Joshua said as he clapped his hands in realization. This spider made him think of a character from a show he used to watch occasionally and if that character was ever personified into an animal a spider that could control flames wouldn't be so far off. "I think that's a name that would fit her perfectly."

The large spider now named Cinder seemed to bounce around excitedly at the name and walked over and nudged Joshua a little bit with its massive head. Of course it avoided getting any venom on him, but it was still an odd experience. "Well she seems to like the name so we will stick with that. Welcome to the group Cinder now I need you to follow Tank and listen to him so you can learn how to control your aura and abilities a bit better." The large spider nodded and followed Tank over to the clearing. Joshua could tell they were communicating through their auras and whatever they were doing was important so he decided to leave them to it.

"Well how do Cinder's stats and abilities stack up?" Joshua asked while letting down his aura shroud since the heat wasn't so threatening anymore.

Lilly seemed to brighten up at the question after pouting about not getting to name the spider. "Cinder's amazing Joshua, and she has so much potential to grow even stronger in the future. She will probably evolve past the child stage soon, if I had to guess around level fifty. Oh here's her stats." Lilly said as she passed the information over to Joshua through the party chat.

Joshua opened it up and started to browse through it and was stunned at what he saw. Stats wise Cinder was on another level from every pet outside of Tank and she wasn't all that far behind him. She had fairly high strength which allowed her to use her size rather well and her vitality was decent do to her exoskeleton, but she wasn't in the same league as Tank in those two categories at the moment. Where she shined the most was her dexterity. It was insanely high in comparison to most of her stats at the moment and was about twice the amount of Joshua's. It was no wonder her movements seemed like a blur to him when they were fighting.

Her mental stats of Intelligence and wisdom were less than Tanks, but that was most likely do to the fact that she was still considered a child. She was already able to use some basic magical attacks judging by the fireball that had been sent their way at the start of the fight. Her will stat was surprisingly high which meant she could handle debuff like attacks well, but not quite as well as Joshua and Tank. In the end her stats were fairly well-rounded outside of her dexterity which was extremely high. Then there was the fact that at the moment she was only a four star monster and still had potential to grow for her current level. At this point all of Lilly's pets had been trained to the point they were all five stars with all the fights against higher level opponents. So soon in the future Cinder would be put in the same situation.

Now it was time for Joshua to check out her abilities and oh boy did she have some rather interesting abilities, some of which she hadn't even been able to use in their fight earlier.

[Cinder (Variant Black Widow (child)) Abilities:

Heat Exhaust (Passive): As a rare fire variant of the black widow species this creature is able to give off constant waves of heat that can impact its surroundings whenever using its aura. This ability can dry the moisture in the air or burn creatures in the surroundings. It is most useful for changing the environment to be more suitable for the user.

Burning Venom (Active): This creature's bites can inject a deadly venom that can burn the target from the inside. It takes a little while for the venom to build up for reuse, but is generated at a decent pace depending on the age of the spider. Once the opponent is injected it will feel like they are constantly burning in all of their nerves and cause searing pain that will slowly shut down their nervous system. Unless healed this can put down enemies twice the user's size in a matter of minutes.

Fire Magic (Active): This creature has the ability to use basic fire spells and can learn more as they grow stronger.

Web Creation (Active): This creature can create webs that can tangle up its opponents while fighting. They can also be used to cocoon up their preys. As a Variant this creature's webs will slowly burn the opponent when put in contact with them.

Web Riding (Active): This creature can run along any web it creates at a speed twice as fast as on other surfaces. At the same time the webbing will slow down others that try to do the same thing.

Resize (Active): Do to Cinders use of aura she is able to change her size up to a certain point depending on her strength.

Smoldering Smoke (Active): This is an ability that allows the user to send out a smoke from their body that can burn anything it touches. It also greatly impairs vision of other creatures in the surroundings and can even hamper other forms of vision to a decent effect. The strength of the smoke depends on the user's aura and magic stats. It is stronger in areas that are dry and hot.]

Joshua was baffled after reading through all of Cinder's abilities, but he'd talk about it with Lilly later. At the moment he was surprised to see the scalding surroundings change a bit as it seemed like Tank had finally been able to show Cinder how to better control her aura. Her Heat Exhaust would be great in a fight, but if it was always on then it would be nothing but a hindrance in their everyday life. Joshua was sure That Lilly wouldn't want to put Cinder in her Soul Realm all the time so it was good to know Tank was able to show her to better control her aura.

Soon Joshua could feel a presence roll over his own aura and could feel a sense of gratitude from it. He saw Cinder Looking towards him and Lilly and they both smiled back at the large spider. "Well welcome aboard Cinder." Joshua sent back through the aura connection.