Inside the fire ghoul cave,

While Nick's hand stuck in the armour of the armoured fire crocodile, Henrick was using his pure internal fire energy to refine the muscles in his body.

​​

'Aargh'

In between, he would let out some pained noise; however, gritting his teeth, he forcefully tried to complete at least one circle before the baby fire monkey could break through to the rank 3.

'Phew...'

He continued for another couple of minutes before finally heaved a sigh of relief as he fell to the ground while gasping for air.

'Finally, I did it. I have completed one complete rotation and with another two more rotations, I will reach rank 2 in the muscle strengthening realm,' After gasping for a while, Henrick felt happy that he had successfully completed the rotation of refinement.

'I feel much stronger than before. Where should I test it?'

Next, he checked his body and noticed that he was feeling stronger than before; however, he didn't dare to try that strength on the huge fire ghoul in front of him because he knew his physical strength was no match for it.

'I will check it later,' Nevertheless, Henrick shook his head and looked at the huge white-haired monkey in the distance.

With the continuous refining and absorption of the fire ghouls' blood, the white hair on the fire monkey had hints of red-colour on it.

'The blood floating above its head is about to complete but there are no signs of its breakthrough,'

Until now, Henrick felt that the baby fire monkey would breakthrough to rank 3 and help him kill the huge fire ghoul, which was cultivating in front of him; however, when he saw there were no signs of break through, Henrick was worried a little.

'Roar'

All of a sudden, the huge fire ghoul in front of him opened its eyes and roared at him.

'What the hell! What happened to you all of a sudden?'

Henrick was shocked and hurriedly checked his body.

"System, what happened to 'Ancient fire surge'?" Henrick hurriedly dodged the incoming attack from the huge fire ghoul and asked the system in a loud voice.

Because when he looked at his body, his body was not glowing with the red-coloured light making him a puzzle.

'There is still more than 30 percent pure internal fire energy. So, I wonder what happened to it,'

Before entering this fire ghoul cave, his dantian was filled with exactly 44% of the pure internal fire energy and adding to the pure internal fire energy he gained from killing the fire ghouls in the current cave, it had already crossed the 50 percent mark.

However, after continuously using the 'Ancient fire surge' for the last two hours, it decreased by a lot.

'Ding,

Master, you have used the 'Ancient fire surge' for two hours without any breaks. So, you need to wait for at least another two hours to use it again.

Soon, the system replied to him making his doubts cleared.

"Looks like I need to stall it for some time until Spark achieves a break though," Henrick clenched his head as he wanted to try his best in surviving.

'Swoosh'

'Roar'

The huge fire ghoul was much angrier than it first appeared in the cave. It made Henrick assume that his 'Ancient fire surge' was the reason for its anger.

Nevertheless, he continued to dodge the huge fire ghoul's attacks.

As for its attacks, the huge fire ghoul mostly used 'Ghoul Slash' 'Fire bite' 'Ghoul rush'.

'Swoosh'

'Kacha'

'Aargh'

Even though Henrick was already good enough to continuously dodge the attacks from the mutated rank 3 fire ghoul, he was always not lucky because from time to time, he would receive some injuries making him cry in pain.

'I have to be careful with its long-range attacks,'

Nevertheless, his body was like a snake, very agile and his reaction speed was very good making him continuously dodge the mutated fire ghoul's attacks.

However, he already had an idea about the mutated fire ghoul's skill. So, he was being careful with the long-range attacks like 'Fire rock' which his tamed beast the baby fire monkey had learned from absorbing the blood of the mutated fire ghoul.

"Roar"

Finally, the rank 3 mutated fire ghoul's anger reached the point where it could not control it anymore and angrily roared at him.

'I guess, its ultimate skill is coming,' Henrick was ready to dodge the next powerful attack from the mutated fire ghoul and carefully looked at it.

'Roar'

However, no long-range attacks came from the mutated fire ghoul; instead, the body of the mutated fire ghoul started increasing and at the same time, the nails on its fingers and the teeth in its mouth started growing.

Also, while its body was growing heightwise, it started becoming thinner and its legs turned into long blades.

"Huh? What is it? Transformation?"

Compared to before, the current mutated fire ghoul's form looked more hideous and terrifying. Just looking at its appearance could raise goosebumps.

Henrick was unable to say what the mutated fire ghoul was using to change its appearance, he was sure about one thing and it was a bad thing for him.

"Swoosh"

As soon as the mutated fire ghoul had transformed, it disappeared from its position and appeared in front of them within a couple of seconds.

'What the….,'

'Punch'

'Rumble'

Before he could finish his sentence, he was punched into a wall of the cave which rumbled a little after he hit the wall.

'Damn it, I am stuck,'

Even though he was heavily injured by the earlier punch, Henrick tried to get up; however, his leg was covered by the rocks from the earlier rumble.

'Gr rr rr'

Seeing that the human, who entered its cave in front of it, the mutated fire ghoul growled at him as though it was mocking him.

"What did you say?"

All of a sudden, Henrick became angry as he replied to the mutated fire ghoul in front of him in a low yet powerful voice.

'Gr gr ae rr'

Just when the mutated fire ghoul was about to kill Henrick, it stopped in its tracks and said something to Henrick with a surprised look on its hideous face.

"Haha...I can clearly understand what you are saying,"

When he saw the surprised look on the mutated fire ghoul's face, Henrick scoffed at the fire ghoul.

Actually, the mutated fire ghoul asked Henrick whether he could understand its words and Henrick's reply made the mutated fire ghoul carefully look at him.

As for why Henrick could understand its words because he knew the '10000 beast languages' with the help of a skill book from the system.

"Roar roar roar"

Instead of becoming angry with Henrick's words, the mutated fire ghoul became excited for some reason and started roaring with the same excitement all over the place.

'Huh? Why did it become happy all of a sudden? Does it have some other plans for me?'

For some reason, Henrick felt a bad premonition in his heart when he looked at the excited mutated fire ghoul and tried to remove the rocks from his leg one by one.

'So, I can let you live on one condition,'

The mutated fire ghoul excitedly roared for sometime before suppressing its excitement and asked Henrick with a grin on its hideous face.

Author's note:- In reality, the mutated fire beast just spoke in the beast language; however, Henrick could understand it. So, it is taken from Henrick's perspective.

"Huh?"

As soon as the mutated fire ghoul looked at him, Henrick stopped moving rocks from his leg; however, after hearing its words, he raised his brows for a moment before asking, "What is it?"

From time to time, Henrick would look at the huge fire monkey in the distance to see how his tamed beast was doing.

Currently, all the blood above the fire monkey was absorbed and Henrick was just waiting for the fire monkey to wake up.

"I want you to be my slave. As long as you allow me to keep my spirit imprint in your mental sea, I will let you go. What do you say?"

The mutated fire ghoul looked at Henrick as it informed about its condition and waited for his reply; moreover, it was ready to eat him if he rejected its offer.