Chapter 558 Phoenix Fire Lion

It was necessary to create a temporary base before they started the construction of the shelter. However, that was quickly resolved. It took only a few hours before everything was prepared.

Afterward, the Originals began to spread out illumination crystals that hovered up in the air to make sure that it would be bright around the construction site even when it was dark.

They wanted to finish the foundation and the core region of the shelter as quickly as possible. That was also why everyone chose to work tirelessly with only a little sleep squeezed in between their working hours.

There was no need for Originals at the Deux rank to sleep or eat much within a week, to begin with. As long as they had enough mana in their surrounding, sleeping and eating twice a month would already be enough.

Nial didn't really feel like forcing everyone to work non-stop. Thus, he simply told everyone to work appropriately and to take breaks whenever they needed one.

It was not as if he paid them a specific wage for the hourly work they put in, to begin with. One could even say that they were slaves. That was how little they would receive in return for constructing the entire shelter.

Everyone was given permanent residency within the new shelter and other minor benefits that weren't actually worth mentioning, but that was basically everything the Shelturion rebels, Elves, and Dracos would receive.

Only the Shelturion would gain something that was more valuable than the work they put into the construction of the shelter.

As for the gains of the Elves and Dracos, the most important was that Nial would feel indebted to them which he would want to repay sooner or later. Their help was mostly a means to show that they were willing to help him without demanding anything in return, which was actually not the case.

They hoped that Nial would create an amicable relationship with them and that he would return the favor once he would become a Saint Runicier and be much stronger.

Nial was fine with that since he had gained much more in the long-term process. He focused on expanding the army of beasts that were employed to conquer all dungeons, analyzing them and giving him a detailed report of the exact resources they could get their hands on within the dungeons in the mountain-range region.

Other than expanding the army of dungeon beasts, Nial didn't have to pay a lot of attention in the initial processes of the shelter construction. The foundation of the shelter took two months before it was completed, yet, Nial's only task was to make sure that everyone would be protected and help out thrice with his knowledge as a Runicier.

The presumed overlord of the humongous plateau never appeared and the other race that was supposed to be somewhere in the Savannah region hadn't been spotted yet either. Nial simply told himself that the plateau's Overlord and the race in the Savannah had annihilated each other.

That would make things much easier and less troublesome.

Unfortunately, things weren't as easy as he had hoped for. A large lion with a height of more than ten meters appeared near the temporary base of the Dracos Army one day. The Lion's mane was made of blazing flames that flickered brightly but that wasn't what immediately caught Nial's attention when Nial visualized it.

"The Lion is severally injured and carries cubs in its…mouth?" Nial blurted out when his Mana Sense perceived everything about the Large Blazing Lion with exceptional clarity.

The Lion had severe wounds all over its body and its life force was gradually being drained. It would be a miracle if the beast were to survive the next few hours.

One of its hind legs was missing and so was its tail. Nial visualized a long gush across the Lion's entire head, cutting through one eye, while the other eye was covered in dried blood. The beast could barely see anything and it slumped to the ground just before the entrance of an underground cave.

Nial and the others had reconsidered filling the caves as a necessity for the terraforming process but they didn't need to do that yet. Thus, nobody had really bothered about closing the few holes and caves that could be found all over.

"A Phoenix-fire Lion?" Michael Ignis wondered when he appeared next to Nial who had gotten close to the Phoenix-fire Lion that was hardly breathing.

"You know what that is?" Nial asked in response just for Michael to nod his head.

"The Phoenix-fire Lion is a powerful beast at the Mythician rank. They rarely give birth to cubs, and they're extremely valuable, especially the cubs. I guess that's why someone chose to hunt them," Michael explained, which made a few more questions appear in Nial's head.

"Why are they valuable? Because of their Phoenix fire?" Nial concluded according to the beast's name, and Michael nodded his head once again.

"The matured Phoenix-fire Lions gave birth to a Phoenix Fire that purifies everything in a similar way to the Dragon Crystal. As for the cubs, they have an unawakened Phoenix Fire crystal inside their belly. Consuming the Phoenix-Fire Crystal allows you to refine your body, expel all impurities and awaken the Phoenix Fire attribute yourself.

It's a fate-changing object…and we should get our hands on that as well!" Michael said in a feverish tone that showed clearly how much the Draco desired the Phoenix Fire crystal.

Michael stared at the Phoenix Fire Lion cubs with greed in his eyes, but Nial didn't feel the same.

He thought about something when visualizing them.

"Someone must have hunted them…probably the people from the Savannah region…looks like we are going to have some fun!" Nial mumbled mostly to himself when he understood that the Mythician-ranked Phoenix-Fire Lion was the Overlord of the plateau and that the Originals from the Savannah region were likely to come after the beast and visit the plateau pretty soon.

"You think we should kill the cubs and devour their unawakened Phoenix Fire crystals? I totally agr–..." Michael said in excitement just to be interrupted by Nial who shook his head.

"We won't kill them…We will raise them!" Nial corrected Michael who looked blankly at the blind Original as if he had lost his mind.

However, what Nial said afterward caused Michael's jaw to hit the ground, "...and I will get my hands on the matured Phoenix-Fire Lion as well!"

Saying so, Nial shot some dark energy through the ground before he exerted the Grasp of the Eclipse technique. He disappeared into the ground and emerged only a few hundred meters away from the Phoenix-Fire Lions.

The cubs were struggling to get up from the ground and upon taking a closer look with his Mana Sense, Nial figured that they hadn't been birthed too long ago.

"You must be one of the strongest monsters that emerged on Jundra, for now. I will save your cubs and even allow you to raise them if you become one of my subjects! If you don't like that, I can just take your cubs and do whatever I want with them!" Nial proposed in the universal language that should be understood by the mature Mythician-ranked beast while spreading out his Mana Sense to figure out where the mother of the Phoenix Fire Lion cubs was located.

The matured Phoenix-Fire Lion was male and it was certainly not capable of giving birth to the horse-sized Lion cubs!

'Maybe the female was killed by those poacher-like Originals?' Nial thought with a shrug as he cleared his throat.

"Make your decision. Die and never know what will happen to your cubs, or become a part of my army and witness the growth of your cubs!"