101 The Beast Altars

"Hehehe, you can't beat Rosie just yet." Not letting this chance slip by, Elder Brevre poked fun at Greyson. It seems his son and grandsons were all destined to suffer the same fate as himself: stuck beneath the power of the females in the family. Greyson could tell that his grandfather was just happy looking on at his misfortune so he just bitterly smiled without saying anything.

"Hmph, old man! Don't think this lady does not know that you also were a slave to Rosalie since the beginning. Anything that girl wanted you would give." Rolling her eyes, Elder Freizon had no qualms throwing her husband into the fire.

"In the end, you are my wife. Can't you save me some face around our grandchildren?" Through clenched teeth, Elder Brevre hissed out.

"Face, what face do you have that you don't already lose all by yourself?" Snorting, Elder Freizon gave him a look of disdain before walking out."

Greyson giggled warmly to himself watching their antics before also getting himself out of bed. With Lucius being fine now, he could also feel his body quickly restoring to its former healthy state. Getting changed, he only now realized that a certain furball seemed to be missing. Searching around his room, he finally spotted a cute white tail sticking out from beneath the bed. Unable to contain his smile, he laughed a little before pulling out Snow by her tail.

"Ah!" The little cub jumped up. "Daddy, are you alright now?"

"Yeah, I am fine. Why were you hiding underneath the bed just now?"

"That Auntie was really angry with Snow, so I hid underneath the bed..." Pulling her paws over her eyes in a cute manner, Snow looked slightly embarrassed.

"Just because she yelled at you? You can't be such a scaredy cat later on!"

"Snow is the best at running, Gold fights better. That's because Gold is stupid, though. Snow is smart, so Snow makes the best decision based on her strength." Huffing in anger, Snow looked extremely indignant over such a comment.

"Alright, alright, I know that you are the smartest." Smiling, Greyson pet her smooth fur before starting to pack his bag with some supplies. Al actually arrived with Greyson and mostly stayed right outside the room just sunbathing. Since he was leaving for a long period of time, Greyson made sure to bring Al along so that he could store more things for the journey. Though the Terra Beast was not much stronger than before, its innate ability was nonetheless extremely useful.

...

When Greyson arrived at the bottom of the Snow Dragon tribe mountain, he easily spotted Rosalie, but he was surprised to see that she was not alone. Standing alongside her was a familiar group of people. It was the same group of friends he met before!

"Sister... Are they sending you off?"

"Huh? I wish, no, they all want to come along..." Grumbled Rosalie underneath her breath.

"They are all coming with us? Does this really require such a large group to go?" Greyson looked confused at the rest of the group, not understanding why they would want to come along.

"Oh, Grey Grey, it's because you do not know how boring it is waiting for missions to come rolling around. Staying in the mountains all day is the worst thing ever! So boring~." A chill ran down Greyson's spine as he heard this voice call out, but he pushed down his rising unsettled feeling to focus on the words before looking towards Cerul.

"So, you guys just want to tag along for the fun of it?"

"Exactly!" All of the immediately responded in unison. Almost face-palming, Greyson just sighed in resignation without another word. It would not hurt for more to come along, so there was not really much he could say to deny them. In the end, they would just follow them if they really wanted even if Greyson and Rosalie both did not want them to come along.

"Hehe, well we are not just coming along to be hindrances. I, for one, can be the transportation. Wind Dragons are the fastest beasts in the skies!" Cerul patted his chest trying to look reliable, yet Greyson could not even bring up an inkling of confidence in him. "Huh? What with that look of doubt? Don't look down on me! I am really extremely fast. Why do you think I always get back to the mountain the fastest?"

"Cerul, don't exaggerate. What, fastest beast in the skies? Yeah, right. That's if you do not include any of the wind element bird magic beasts that could either match up or fly circles around you." Aeos had no qualms calling out his friend's lies. "I will give you ONE of the fastest, but you guys are definitely not THE fastest."

"Well, at the least, I am much faster than all of you guys." Pouting slightly, Cerul did not continue to quibble with the specifics. After saying so, he jumped up into the sky before his lean, good-looking figure became an extremely large green dragon. The emerald green colored scales reflected a glossy shine. Those familiar mischievous eyes looked towards them and gestured with his head for them to get on his back. Looking around at each other, the rest of the group just shrugged before jumping onto the spacious back. Greyson was not prepared as Cerul shot off into the distance. The rest of the group did not let him know, and just watched with laughter as he was almost thrown off Cerul's back. Using his wind magic, Greyson eventually stabilized himself while glaring over at his sister. All of them did not mind his glares and just laughed among themselves. Even Cerul's body was laughing as he could imagine Greyson's plight, everyone who rode on him for the first time goes through the same thing.

"What clue do you have for the word 'altar'?" Changing the subject, Greyson turned towards Rosalie asking about her ideas. He was not really certain what it meant. Elder Sweetbow taught him about the basic tribes of the Beast Empire and Halcrem spent most of his time talking about general interactions and manners. However, he was not really sure about actual important places or historical sites in the Empire.

"It's actually not a well-known fact, but there are 4 Beast Altars spread out across the empire. Each of them was created by the legendary Black Phoenix. Another such variant phoenix has yet to be born, so this Phoenix was one of the most powerful magic beasts during its reign. Tales say that the Phoenix could still be alive and it was only through word of mouth that people believe that the Phoenix passed away due to old age. Each altar represents one of the four elements of the Black Phoenix: wind, earth, fire, and water. They are like dungeons with different tiers. While each level has a test. No one has been able to pass all four altars before. It's treated like a test for the young magic beasts and tons of them travel to them all the time. I cannot really think of anything else in this empire that altar could be referring to other than those." Rosalie kept smiling to herself, however, she still answered his question seriously. The rest of the group nodded with her words. All of them had gone to the altars before and tested themselves. Each one has seven layers and they all got to the fifth layer in most of them while the twins got the sixth in the fire altar, Cerul got to the sixth in the wind altar and so on. They all received some cool magic tools, but nothing more than the usual geniuses of the tribes.

"Which one are we heading to right now?"

"Well, we have no way of knowing which altar that your friend, Lucius, went to, so we are just going to the closest one to us right now which is the Earth Altar."

"Earth Altar?"

"Even if Lucius is not there, we can still stop in and let you try your hand at it. Going through it could let you earn a powerful magic tool from the Black Phoenix's collection."

"How long would it take?" Greyson just frowned in response; he was not sure that he could calm down enough to test himself.

"Hahaha, don't worry about the time! Each altar's creation was helped by an ancestor of mine that owed the Black Phoenix ancestor a favor. The time is sped up. The most you should take to get to your limit in the altar is a day. Most people finish in a couple hours." This time Aeos spoke up instead of Rosalie.

Greyson was a little surprised to hear that these altars had a different time flow. He had heard legends of such places that some powerful families allow their children to use to speed up their progress, however, a time magician needs to be at least a Magic Emperor for him to be capable of forming such a complicated space. He started to look forward to the altar and it brought his attention away from Lucius. Greyson continued asking about more specifics. Hearing of their results, Greyson set his minimum at the sixth level. Almost no one has ever reached and passed the seventh level ever since the altar's creation, so Greyson would not expect that from himself. But he expected that he should at least be able to get to the sixth level like all the other geniuses of the world. After everything that needed to be said was put out, all of them dove into meditation and stopped talking. Cerul flew extremely fast, but he ended up putting his own wind shield up so that the rest of the group could focus on meditation instead of blocking the wind. Greyson almost forgot that he was even travelling on anything because the ride felt so smooth.

...

"Guys, incoming!" A shout broke through the tranquility of the group. All of the opened their eyes quickly and looked around in preparation. A large fireball slammed into the wind shield that Cerul was keeping up. Following the attack, Greyson could hear the neigh of an approaching group. When they arrived, everyone's expression grew strange except for Greyson's. He gazed over the newcomers and identified them as Amians. These were four-winged horse-like creatures who all controlled the fire element. Their manes were all made of fire instead of actual hair. Two curved horns grew out from their forehead. Amians were known for their aggressive and proud temperaments, however, they were also straightforward and rather unintelligent. While Greyson continued to look with curiosity since it was his first time seeing Amians in the flesh, Ferno's and Fervis's expressions both darkened as an irritated grimace formed on their faces.

"Ferno, Fervis, I know the both of you are there. Who else would Cerul allow to ride on his back? Aren't you going to come out and greet your fiancé?" A high-pitched and whiny voice called out among the group as they parted ways and allowed for one of the larger Amians to come forth. Her presence was obviously stronger than the rest and seemed to be their leader. However, Greyson did not pay attention to her but instead paid attention to her words.

"Did she just say fiancé? As in singular woman? But there are two of them..." Greyson glanced over at Rosalie who also was fairly speechless.

"We met this psycho on one of our missions. She got in it her head that she needs to mate with the most powerful and talented fire element magic beasts so that her children could possibly have a stronger bloodline than herself. An idea, sadly, which her family completely supports. They continued to bother and bribe the Fire Dragon tribe so that they would betroth the twins to this Amian. She is the princess of the Amian tribe and was born with six wings which shows her superior natural talent. The Amians are not a weak tribe and just the Fire Dragon tribe alone cannot defeat them. The rest of the dragon tribes love to watch the others suffer when they can and can almost never reach an agreement to work together. Thus, the current situation." Aeos answered instead while clearly trying to hold in his laughter, but his quivering lips gave his amusement completely away.

"The twins have been trying to reject and ruin this marriage forever, but nothing seems to deter her as she has started to take their rejection personally. We think that even she knows how much the twins loathe her, but she just wants to continue at this point to spite them." This time it was Sloan who spoke up. She did not seem to take the same amusement from the situation and instead looked at the twins with pity.

"Ah..." Greyson nodded silently not really knowing what to say at this point. He just joined the rest in watching the situation play out.