Chapter 200 - 199 Lilia’s New Companions

After they finished having their discussion on the expedition to the boss room that Jarek had found, the two of them went their separate ways and Marcus headed back to the Towering Bear to meet up with Lilia and get some rest.

Once he arrived, he went and checked on Blitz along with he two golden lion cubs that were still tied up.

The two of them looked hatefully at Marcus and if looks could kill, not a single speck of Marcus' soul would be left.

However, Marcus simply disregarded their looks since come tomorrow they would be his sisters companion's whether they liked it or not.

"Here eat up."

Marcus put out some some pieces of puff cow meat he normally reserved for Roxene for the two cubs since they had not eaten since Marcus had captured them.

Yet even though they were obviously hungry the disdain they held for Marcus was deep and they resisted eating the food he had given them.

Shrugging his shoulders, Marcus just walked over to Blitz and fed him, figuring that the cubs might eat once he had left, and if not, he had ways to force them to eat if necessary.

Having fed Blitz and left food for the golden lion cubs, Marcus went back inside the inn and up to his room where he found Lilia passed out.

Unlike him she had physical limits and after a week of being in a dungeon, she had reached her limit.

'I guess I will let her sleep, when she wakes up, we can go and get something to eat.'

With a bit of time on his hands Marcus opened up his status and looked at the number of stat points he had after his level up.

Normally he would have only obtained eighty stat points but because of the supreme skill he had obtained from Roxene he ended up with one hundred forty-one. This was not quite double the normal amount, but it was still far more than normal, showing that for someone to reach their peak they would normally need dozens of natural treasures and stat boosting items.

After a bit of time contemplating how to allocate his pints, Marcus decided to give his spirt stat thirty-six points, intelligence thirty, and his three physical stats twenty-five.

'Now, do I want to use any of my skill points? They are always in high demand, and unfortunately, even greatest potential does not change the number I get. I only have twenty-four and there are a number of skills I want to level up. I could also get some new skills… ah what am I going to do.'

Marcus then spent the better part of the next hour toiling with what to do with his new skill points but ultimately decided to save up for a couple more levels and upgrade his strongest skills for the biggest impact.

With his status maintenance after leveling up completed, Marcus decided to train his mana control and attempt to separate it from his body in its pure form. He had seen a number of warriors do this like the kingdom's knight commander and Jarek, allowing them to fire off pure blasts of mana and increase the range of their attacks.

However, like the ability to channel mana into a weapon this was not a skill recognized by the system and more of a derivative ability of magic circulation, forcing Marcus to practice instead of just purchasing it.

'Damn this is harder than I thought it would be, I have been trying off and on for over a month now with little success. I managed to do something similar once when fighting the boss of the third layer in the ocean bluff temple when I extended the range of my scythe with mana, but I have not been able to recreate it.'

Marcus continued to practice the high-level ability that was a mark for the strongest warriors, but he still found himself unable to separate pure mana from his body by the time Lilia woke up.

Once Lilia was awake Marcus could tell that she was hungry as her stomach began making loud gurgling noises and the two of them went down stairs and got some food.

'Wow, this is just as good if not better than the food Stella makes. I wonder what level their chef's cooking skill is.'

Marcus continued to eat the food he had ordered enjoying the taste of the vegetables and the meat that was from a beast called a vajra turtle.

When they had finished eating, Lilia looked quite refreshed and ready to begin the day anew.

Unfortunately, evening was already descending, and it seemed that being in the dungeon for so long had disrupted Lilia's sleep schedule.

However, Lilia still needed to go and turn in the items for the requests she had taken and pick out some more.

Marcus wanted Lilia to increase her rank as quickly as possible so that if she ever wanted to be or needed to fall back on being an adventurer, she would already have a solid foundation.

Thus, the two of them headed back to the guild and Lilia handed in the requests she had taken and got upgraded to bronze rank.

Then with Marcus' help picked out a couple of iron rank missions that could be completed in the dungeon, though their were very few and eventually settled to pick some that allowed for people of any rank to complete.

'I guess with the dungeon being the big draw here, lower ranked request are far less common.'

With Lilia now sorted out at the guild, the two of them wandered around the city going into shops to sell the surplus items they had obtained and opening up room in their storages.

'Damn who would have guessed that the bodies of those golden lions were so valuable. Selling both of them I managed to net nearly eight thousand gold. Though I could have gotten a better price if it had been a request but just showing up and selling high quality materials is bound to get less money.'

Luckily, Marcus was not too upset about not having made as much money as he could have, they still had nearly two months in the city and Marcus figured that the real value of their trip would come from the rewards he would get from beating the dungeon boss.

Having finished up all the little things they needed to do, Marcus and Lilia headed back to their inn as it was starting to get late into the night.

The next day soon arrived and Lilia had slept for quite a while waking up again long after the sun had appeared in the sky.

However, instead of getting a late breakfast from the kitchen downstairs, Marcus had fixed a special meal for Lilia using the orange lotus flowers he had obtained as the main ingredient.

Lilia gladly ate the meal and soon the exquisite taste of the natural treasures washed over her tongue, and she ate to her hearts content.

'Looks like those lotuses increased all of her physical stats but more so her vitality. Well, she is more of a physical fighter anyway, now let me see how these fruits I got from the lion's glade work on her.'

Marcus then took out one of the fruits he had gotten from the tree the golden lions had taken as their own and had her eat it.

Afterwards he once again appraised her and found that the fruit had increased all of her stats by three except for spirit which it had increased by five.

Marcus then realized how high quality these fruits were, and he wished that the tree would have had some more that were ripe so that he could have boosted Lilia's stats even more.

"Lilia take these fruits and make sure to eat one every morning until you run out."

Handing over six more of the fruits, Marcus wanted Lilia to slowly increase her stats and when she had reached higher levels, he would give her the remaining ten in his possession.

Shortly after Lilia had finished eating, the two of them got ready and went to collect the two lion cubs along with Blitz and their carriage.

'Looks like they are still refusing to eat.'

Looking at the to now spoiled pieces of meat he had left for the two lion cubs, Marcus could see that they still refused to eat and decided it was time for drastic measures.

Marcus pulled out some already cooked meat and left it on a plate before possessing the cubs one by one and eating for them.

While he did this, the cub the was not possessing screeched out, making distressed squeaking noises.

However, their resistance was futile, and Marcus had no intention of letting them die via a hunger strike.

After making sure that the two cubs had eaten enough, Marcus tied Blitz up to the carriage and Lilia got inside with the two cubs while Marcus steered Blitz to their location.

Arriving in front of the inconspicuous shop of the halfling beast master Tris, Marcus brought Lilia inside along with the two golden lion cubs.

Ringing the bell on the counter, Tris appeared nearly instantly and after greeting Marcus moved over towards Lilia and began staring intently at her.

"Like her sister, her soul is far stronger than the normal for her level, and she is quite young as well. And such a pained but still warm soul, it is not every day I see someone like you."

Lilia was starting to get a bit creeped out by the way Tris was staring at her, so Marcus interposed and asked if they could get down to business.

"Yes, your sister has a sound character, even more so than you, so I will be willing to perform the seal between her and these two cubs. Now for the price, five hundred gold per seal should be about right."

Hearing this Marcus became a bit skeptical since the price of the seal that was even made between him and Roxene had been cheaper.

However, as he asked why it was so expensive, it was because Tris was using a modified seal of her own making that would create and empathic connection between master and beast, allowing them to increase the bond between each other as well as better communicate.

Handing over the thousand gold, Marcus waited in the reception area as Tris took Lilia into the back and performed her special seal of dominance between Lilia and the two golden lion cubs.

Not long after Marcus heard Lilia give a loud scream causing him to panic, and he ran back even though he was supposed to wait and saw Lilia had blood flowing out of her nose, eyes, and ears.

However, what really caught Marcus' attention was that she was hugging the two cubs which were also bleeding from the same areas as her, though they appeared to be unconscious.