When I returned to the grotto, the first thing I decided to do was eat, as hunger was making itself felt very strongly. The only thing was that I couldn't cook. I had to ask Shion, but there was only hope for her cooking skills. Because according to the anime, she was cooking a living substance, a strange color with a killer taste. And if my memory serves me correctly, with the help of it, Tempest's people received resistance to poisons!
"Shion... Please roast the rabbit on the fire," I asked her very hesitantly!
When she heard my request, she just beamed with happiness and answered with a cheerful cry:
"Mr. Senko, don't worry, I'll do everything in the best possible way now!"
"That's what I'm afraid of," I said to myself, starting to get nervous!
While Shion was making a bonfire and starting to conjure a rabbit, I came out of the caves to explore my new appearance, as well as get to know my skills a little!
Stopping at the same place where I checked my appearance last time and looked at the stone, I started checking all the changes!
What first caught my eye was the dramatic increase in my height and muscle mass. Every detail of my appearance now spoke of strength, grace, and not of sweetness and weakness, as it was recently!
My fur, thick and luxurious, flowed over my body like liquid gold, shimmering and sparkling in the last rays of the day. The shade was deep, saturated, without a single speck or impurity, pure as an ingot of precious metal. The wool was thick, soft in appearance, but at the same time dense and elastic.
But the most striking thing was the tails themselves. There were two of them now! Each tail was as fluffy and golden as the rest of the coat, but at the very end of the tails they acquired a bright red, orange hue. In addition, they moved with grace and strength, like two separate creatures living their own lives, but at the same time amenable to my control. With my mind, I could make them calm down or start moving according to my desires. When I stood still, the tails gently lowered, touching the ground like two golden plumes, but as soon as I started to move or just shift, they shot up like flames.
My eyes were very bright and unusual. They were also the color of molten gold, deep and penetrating, but at the same time, there was a scarlet glow lurking in their depths, like the glow of the setting sun or smoldering coals. This red hue gave the fox's gaze a mysterious and somewhat wild look, hinting at hidden power and ancient wisdom.
Well, now I started to look like the foxes that were the subject of many legends in my home world. I also have the predatory features of Kurama, but they are smoothed out by the gentle nature and incredibly kind temperament of Helios!
When I had enough of my new look, I decided to explore my new abilities a bit. But I don't think it's going to be too difficult, because I have knowledge in my memory of how the original owners used them!
Let's start with a fire salvo, since everything is clear with a bite and a scratch! As my memory tells me, for him I need to gather energy, in our case spiritual force, at one point, more precisely in my mouth, and then shoot it out of there! Mini bombs, by the way, have exactly the same method of operation, but I need to add a little destructive power, maybe try to combine them later! It doesn't seem complicated, but I'm afraid it might explode in my mouth. Memory is certainly good, but personal experience and practice are something else entirely! So I decided that I would practice in the presence of Shion for now.
With illusions, everything turned out to be much easier than I initially thought. I just need to imagine what the opponent should see and it will happen, but at this level of strength, I need eye contact. But in my opinion, this is very inconvenient, after all, the enemy is unlikely to look into the eyes of his opponent often! But I have Shion, so I won't face any serious problems right now!
All that remains is the power of healing, and she's the most interesting one in my arsenal! For it to work, I need to gather my spiritual power in my tail, or both at once, the more strength I put in, the stronger the wounds I can heal! After that, it's just boring for me to touch a person's wound with my tails, or in any other place, but then the healing will take longer.
For some reason, this method reminded me of a scene from Hayao Miyazaki's anime "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds". Where at the end of the anime the Oms healed Nausicaa with their whiskers!
I can also use the power of healing through my tears, pure phoenix. Even though I'm becoming more and more like an unknown animal, well, okay! But to use tears, you need my sincere desire to heal the target. So tears shed through violence, or because something got into the eye, will not heal!
"Mr. Senko, the rabbit is ready to eat!"
"I'm coming!" I shouted, after which I was shackled by uncertainty and even a little fear!
I went back to the cave, and a lot of thoughts were spinning in my head.
"Well, she can't just ruin a roast rabbit, can she? Or maybe...?"
When I reached the grotto, I saw Shion blocking the fire, and in her hands she was holding a long stick on which a piece of meat was strung, but for some reason it was slightly purple and overcooked!
"Shion, why does the meat have a purple hue?"
"Oh, well, I added some traffic that I could find near the cave!" Shion told me, putting the meat on the stone in front of me.
Honestly, I was very scared to try this creation. But looking at Shion, namely her eyes, which were waiting for me to taste her creation, forced me to hide this fear far away and take a bite of rabbit meat!
At first I expected a terrible taste, but surprisingly it tasted great, as if it had been cooked in some restaurant! However, a few moments after I swallowed the first bite, my vision blurred a little and my head started to spin. I slowly sat down on the floor to recover, just in time to hear the notification:
[Poison resistance received]
"Yeah, something like that was to be expected. Well, at least now I can eat without fear of dying from poisoning."
"Ah, sir, did you say something?" Shion asked me, turning her head away from the campfire, where she was roasting another piece of meat.
"Nothing, thanks for the food," I replied, finishing my piece!
"Fortunately, the older a spirit beast is, the less often it needs to eat, so we need to increase its age as quickly as possible!"
The next morning
When I woke up, Shion was no longer in the cave, but there were strange noises coming from outside. When I came out of the cave, I saw Shion practicing with her giant sword.
"Oh, good morning, sir!" she greeted me when she finished training.
"Shion, I'd like you to practice with me." And she taught me how to fight!
"Okay, but I won't spare you, so be ready!"
The look that followed made me shudder! And I felt with all my skin that hell was waiting for me!