Same Place, New Name
Edrick exhaled strongly. As a matter of being absolutely certain that his seed would find fertile soil, he had quite literally unloaded everything he had to offer. Even Endless Spring proved not to be so endless after firing so many streams of baby batter.
Fanqia was left utterly exhausted after being bred in the same position for several hours. Her pink palace was left overflowing with her husband’s elixir… Edrick had truly held nothing back. It wasn’t common for his fifth limb to end up limp like this, and especially so when he had only lain with one girl…
But on this note, since he had the cycles of his wives perfectly memorised, he knew that Fanqia had been at her most fertile today. So by all means, this should have gotten her pregnant.
After catching some rest and pouring the rather hefty amount of excess energy from the mating session into physical exercise, Anoteros prepared for his first focused training in the list of what would probably be many of them.
He prepared a bag of supplies and tools, amongst many other things. Why did he need all of this? It was because he had decided to do his training inside the secret realm, which he had decided to name Eltysia, since just calling it ‘Secret Realm’ was terribly uninspired.
In any case, Eltysia had higher concentrations of ambient energy, and Anoteros believed that being in a somewhat wild and hostile environment was better for training. It was filled with all sorts of beasts that he could fight and test himself against, and while he was at it... He could explore, discover, and further his relations with the Underwood Elves.
Naturally, since he needed to train his beast cultivation technique as well, Oswulf and Ansbach would be accompanying him. He had already bound them using the technique–Something trivially easy for him, since they were already bearing his crest–Thus, they were perfectly obedient.
He bid goodbye to his wives for now and left for the realm using the Lodestone, reappearing in the exact spot where he had previously placed it. Anoteros immediately went to work. He had already moved some things over to Eltysia previously, and with them, he cut down some trees and began the full process of building himself a hidden hut. It would be what hid the small cave the Lodestone was in.
This process was a lengthy one. However, with his superior strength and correct tools, it was rather simple. Especially since nothing came to disturb him, and if something did, they would have to deal with two angry dogs.
Although Ansbach looked a bit ridiculous next to Oswulf, he was probably the worst of the two. He was vicious and sadistic. In comparison, his red-furred fellow always ended things efficiently regardless of whether or not Edrick told her to.
Unless Ansbach was expressly told to end things quickly, he would eat his prey alive, starting with their limbs. He was quite good at that, and while Anoteros did not mind if he did this, he needed to understand what his master wanted.
‘Keeping watch’ meant that there should be some care and attention put into it. You couldn’t just take a pose torturing a random beast whenever you had the occasion to…
Anyway, Edrick eventually built a rather nice cabin. It was a far cry from the luxury of his residence, but he didn’t mind it in the least. It did its job, and that was all he asked from it.
“Alright, you two. We need to be careful not to provoke the guardian of this realm just yet. The goal is that by the end of my training, I’ll be able to defeat him, so don’t destroy or kill beyond necessary. I am talking to you in particular about this, Ansbach”
The dark Bearhound exhaled from his nose and whimpered. For a killing machine, he was quite good at being cute... He had managed to get in the good graces of all the wives impressively quickly, despite his usually off-putting behaviour.
He always looked like he was ready to pounce, which rightfully put people on edge. After a while, though, he figured out how to stop doing that... Or at least, stopped being so overt about it.
Oswulf, of course, didn’t need to do anything special to get in everyone’s good graces. She was big but friendly from the very beginning. It also helped that she was especially expressive.
Right now, her sword was nowhere to be seen, which was because she could summon and unsummon it at will like a genuine weapon cultivator.
Edrick felt quite optimistic about her future.
“If you smell a beast, don’t rush in… You know I want to try and get abilities from them. In particular, be careful if you smell another canine, alright? It could either be some Nature-Blessed Wolves, or it could be a Laughing Fox… The latter are annoying, and they can have an evolved version that might be incredibly powerful, so we'd better avoid that”
It looked a bit ridiculous to speak like this to two beasts, but the combination of a crest and cultivation technique to bind them to him made it so that both Ansbach and Oswulf were actually very receptive to his words.
Unfortunately, the clarity of communication only went one way, but it was impressive regardless. They could understand the nuances in what he said. He just needed to repeat it enough, and they would fully integrate his orders.
In any case, after he finished building the cabin, he actually left quickly for the biomes beyond the mountains, where he found himself some slightly marsh-like plains. He wished to put a big focus on cultivating Guardian Hippopotamus Physique first thing in the day, and doing so in a pond or lake improved the efficiency.
Anoteros had already discovered how becoming closer to something could be of great aid when he had immersed himself in the role of the sasquatch lord back then. Similarly, he was now immersing himself in the role of a Guardian Hippopotamus to speed up the cultivation process.
But of course, he didn’t just focus on that.
After several hours of meditation, he would train Twisted Weapon Encyclopedia with the Arm Of Depravity. He placed more attention on weapons for which he had a cultivation technique, trying to fully integrate them into the superior technique.
Once that was done, he would train Beast Lord’s Authority by hunting with his two companions. The biomes beyond the mountains contained ruins, but they mostly contained vast spans of plains.
Grass Buffaloes were especially abundant, as they always moved in large groups, so they consequently became a common source of food for Edrick. As well as… Common partners in the acquisition of excess energy through Five-Legged Devil Goat Physique.
‘I should be able to acquire an ability from them relatively quickly at this pace…’
He figured that he might as well try to see if he could get abilities from individual Grass Buffaloes and not just from the species group… It was also a good occasion to run some tests on just how the boon-granting effects of Five-Legged Devil Goat Physique truly worked.
So far, Edrick was greatly enjoying his trip to Eltysia.