Chapter 197: An Escort Mission (1/2)
The birth of an elemental and its environment were tied together by an inseparable relationship. For example, a fire elemental can only be born in a place of flames while a water elemental can only be born at a point where a river flows towards or a giant body of water. The strength of an elemental is decidedly in large part by the environment it grew up in because of the vast amounts of elemental energy needed while growing up. Naturally, a purer source would produce better results.
The elemental production rate of such a special location was fixed on a daily basis. An elemental subsisted by absorbing a certain level of pure elemental energies from their environment. Only after meeting the basic requirements would any further absorption lead to evolution. However, that wasn’t to say that merely absorbing energies was enough to evolve, other requirements still held true as well.
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“That Fire Elemental Core you speak of, what does it do?” Mo Na jumped onto my neck and curled her lips as if it was the most natural thing for her to do. “Just two? Isn’t that too little?”
“Those are the relics of the former head and the former former head!” The elemental cried, clearly agitated by her callous disdain. However, he immediately suppressed his anger upon realizing it: “There are a wide variety of uses for a Five-stars Fire Elemental Core. If you give it to your two subordinates over there, they will probably evolve right away into an Infant Flame Demon. Not only that, they would also gain the ability to transform into flames.”
“Transform into flames?”
“You don’t even know that?” The elemental scoffed at me. “Once a Flame Demon reaches the level of Eight-stars, he gains a new ability called Flame Transformation. It allows the devil to temporarily transform his body into that of a fire elemental’s, gaining unimaginable destructive powers in the process.”
“Such a perk exists?”
“You really didn’t know about that?” He threw me another disdainful look as if not knowing that was some sort of sin.
I, however, wasn’t one to suffer such nonsense: “If that’s how you’re going to act, then I’ll just leave with my subordinates.”
“…”
Naturally, things settled down from that point onwards and an agreement was reached with the promise of two such elemental cores as a reward. Honestly, such a show of generosity on their part truly exceeded my own expectations.
With the deal settled, I asked the elemental if he knew about a method to reach Abaddon. His answer was a disappointing one to say the least but at the same time, it was only to be expected.
The entrance to Abaddon was most likely a closely guarded secret. The fire elementals themselves spent their entire lives in Purgatory, not because they couldn’t leave the place but because they couldn’t survive in areas with scarce fire elements.
Like how fish needed water and how humans needed oxygen, fire elementals needed a suitably rich environment of fire to live in. Thanks to that, these elementals rarely left their territory. Even if they were left it, they had to first ensure that their destination possessed a sufficiently dense level of fire elements in order to support them.
Naturally, such denizens were clearly not cut out to be travellers so was it all that strange that they didn’t know the entrance to Abaddon?
Normally, the mission of escorting the fire elementals would have been done by the Demon Fire Salamanders. However, their hands were tied at the moment and they could only spare that one salamander to be a messenger. If they needed an escort, it would have to be that lone salamander. Should they encounter a large pack of Fire Devouring Fishes in the interim, they were doomed. As such, the head of the fire elementals had no choice but to plead with us.
The temporary head of Raging Flames Lake was that fire elemental whom Mo Na beat up. His name was Arca, an insufferably arrogant moron.
In total, there were over one thousand two hundred fire elementals living in Raging Flames Lake. Arca was one of the few Four-stars present in the settlement. Because he wasn’t able to evolve into a Five-stars yet, he could only be considered a temporary head of the settlement. Should another fire elemental make it to Five-stars before him, Arca would then be replaced by this new elemental as the official head of the settlement.
However, that had nothing to do with us at all, zilch. As long as we ensured Arca’s safety up till the moment he coughed up those two elemental cores, our mission was complete…ahem, I meant Arca and his tribe.
With no time to lose, Arca immediately summoned his fellow fire elementals upon closing the deal. Just like before, a majestic pillar rose into the air and over a thousand fire elementals spewed forth from it.
Strictly speaking, the fire elementals were running for their lives right now and had no time to dally about. Thus, the salamander promptly led the way to the safe zone while Arca marshalled his tribe.
That salamander was to be our scout for this journey. Should it discover any signs of fishes, it would immediately let out a cry to warn us. That cry would then be translated by Arca after which we would act. Unless we encountered some kind of large group, it was mostly No.3 and Big 4 who took care of the fishes along this journey.
Like that, we safely made it through three days of fleeing. Suddenly, Arca stepped up to me and sighed: “You truly are an unusual devil.”