Leander was back in the forest, the chilly mountain air making even breathing difficult, and the discomfort of traveling in the mountains were starting to irritate him, but not as much as the fur ball that carelessly lay on his shoulder.

"So how is like... you know... coming out of a va—".

"Can you please stop asking things about my past lives, and I already answered it's wet and disgusting".

Nohrie asked for the hundredth time since Leander had told his history, she had been asking the weirdest questions she could come up with, two days had passed already and she still had a list of questions that never ended.

"Ahhh, enough with questions did you already forget what we are doing here?" Leander was a reincarnate, he had been murdered and endured pain multiple times, his mental fortitude was something that few beings could match, Nonetheless, a black cat pushed his mental stability to the test.

"We are here because you want to learn about spirit magic".

"Exactly, so here is my question how do I capture a spirit?".

"Capture a spirit?" She tilted her head to the side and stared at him as if he was a child asking a dumb question.

"Yes, you said that mages can use spirits in a fight right?"

"Oh, you are talking about assimilating a spirit".

"Assimilate?"

"Yes, there are two methods to control a spirit: assimilate them or make a contract. In principle, the contract is the simplest; you give something to the spirit, and the spirit will be loyal to you, just like me and you, but a contract can only be done with intelligent spirits."

The other one is what we call assimilation, this is more complicated since you have to use a rune spell and also fight the spirit".

"Ok, do you know if there are spirits here?" he asked, taking in what he had just learned.

"Yes, it used to have a lot of spirits here, but I think the majority of them stay away from that field spell Elentiya placed around the house area".

"Hmm... ok teach me the integration technic"

"Are you planning to integrate with a spirit?"

"Yes, it's part of the plan" Since he had discovered the truth about his Family, Leander had resolved himself about what to do from now on.

"What plan?" Nohrie asked excited to know more about it.

"I will tell you at the right time" he flashed a sly smile, making nohrie roll her eyes.

"You should trust more on your partner"

"Perhaps when this companion quits asking ridiculous questions. Let's hurry up we don't have all day just some hours before Celine notices that I'm not in my bedroom".

"Ok, pay attention then"

Nohrie started drawing a set of runes on the ground with her sharp claws.

"First we have to prepare the runes, the assimilation spell uses both Solrien and Luavron magic"

"Wait what do you mean uses both Solrien and Luanvron magic I thought people had just one of these two" He was surprised to see Nohrie talking casually about using two types od=f magic as something normal.

"Ugh sometimes I forget you just started learning magic"

"Is true that people are capable of using just two natures of magic, that's why mages use runes when they have to use both natures"

Using pure mana, she drew three little runes in the air. The white runes became silver, and a little bubble of water formed on top of them.

"See I'm a Solrien mage but I just used water magic, pure mana doesn't have any kind of nature, only when is absorbed into your body is when that mana gains a nature, just like a body, runes are capable of absorbing mana and change its nature"

"Wait but that doesn't mean mages can fight using the two natures?" Being capable of using all the elements could give him an advantage in a battle but Nohrie shock her head negatively.

"No, runes on a fight are completely impractical, unless your opponent patiently waited for a few minutes until the runes finished absorbing mana from the atmosphere".

The bubble of water she made a few apart just after a few seconds of being formed.

"See, the runes take too much time to absorb mana and also can't maintain a spell for much time, that's why you need to prepare the spell before the battle"

She then explained how to make runes using pure mana, he realized when he drew a set of solrien runes they assumed either orange or yellow color, while Lunavron assumed either silver or blue color.

"That's the set of runes to the integration spell".

She Drew two sets of runes, and the runes moved according to her will and arranged themselves in two circles, at the end of the alignment the runes took on a bright red color, she moved the two rune circles to be around her paw as if were a bracelet.

"Now I will cover them with a layer of my own mana to absorb them into my body".

With the final step, the runes vanished, Leander was confused about how runes could be absorbed into the body but he decided to try himself first.

"Now try yourself"

Leander started his first attempt at making a rune spell, he first attracted the mana near him on the atmosphere without absorbing it and using the pure mana he drew the runes, after finishing drawing them he made the two sets move to become two circles and envelop his hand, after having successfully completed the two steps he moved to the final step.

He expelled mana from his mana system to envelope and absorb the runes, the runes began to disappear as they were absorbed into his mana, and he felt them being engraved in his mind as if he had read an entire book in one second and now all that information resided in his mind, Leander also felt the runes mana brimming with power inside his body just waiting to be used.

"Okay, what do we do now?" He asked eager to put his first rune speel to test.

"To successfully integrate with a spirit you need to battle and weaken him first, depending on how strong it will be harder to integrate with them".

"Hmm..."

Leander needed a strong spirit for his plan to be completed; without it, his entire scheme could fail, his magic had been improving but he was still weaker than the merijiya he found in the forest; but together with Norieh, they had a numeric advantage against the opponent, and that could turn the tables in his favor.

"What types of spirits live around here?"

"There are many spirits around, this mountain used to have powerful magical beasts, after they died here some of them became spirits"

Nohrie made the grimoire appear in front of his face and started to babble about the types of spirits that lived there.

"Maybe we should try a Merijiya, a weaker one than the one you faced of course, or there is a really strong one, the humans on that village called Nehem I think is the one that looks like a two-headed snake that has..."

"I think this one is what I'm looking for" Leander pointed at the picture of a spirit on the book.

"T-that one... are you crazy?" She said looking at him with her big feline eye's widened.

"Why not?".

"That's the salamander dragon it's a guardian spirit way stronger than you and me".

"But it's the only one that fits what I'm looking for"

The salamander dragon description said he was born while an ancient temple was attacked, the monks prayed for the entity they believed in to manifest, However, while some of the monks were slain while praying, their faith and determination were so strong making the mana from their corpses coalesced to create a spirit, in an unusual way the dragon salamander was born from the monks' will to guard the temple.

The remaining monks were amazed that an entity had finally manifested to assist them, or so they believed until the salamander dragon began to murder both the invaders and the monks in the temple.

The stench of blood plagued the air while the spirit tore apart soldiers and monks together, the will to protect the temple wasn't the only will that formed the salamander dragon but also the anger that the monks felt toward the soldiers who killed them, the rage blinded the spirit and its will to kill extended to anyone who dared to set foot in the temple, a spirit born of the will to protect and hatred created a creature with a possessive and bloody nature.

Bodies were ripped painting the temple walls red, this incident made people start calling the place the profane red temple.

"YOU SEE THIS, DO YOU SEE THIS?" Nohrie kept pointing at the words killed and massacre with her pawn.

While she freaked out Leander had finished Reading the magic abilities the spirit possessed.

"Definitely the one I'm looking for, it's a spirit that has Solrien nature, has camouflage capabilities, and strong earth and fire spells as well".

"Yeah you just ignored the part that this thing can definitely kill us," She said rolling her eyes.

"It says the spirit doesn't leave the temple and is also a low-rank guardian spirit so we can use this to your advantage, is Worth the shoot".

"A guardian spirit of low level is still a guardian spirit".

A plan to how to defeat the spirit, he knew it was a high risk, but he needed to try it was also a good opportunity to test his actual strength against a real enemy, both his and Nohrie's strength had improved a little over the week but it was difficult to determine how much he has progressed.

"Let's go we gonna fight the salamander dragon".                     

They both headed to the north side of the hill where the ancient temple was located, the place was hidden among the trees with a long staircase made of stones that led up to its main entrance, the shape of the gate seemed familiar to leander for some reason.

"Looks like the entrance to a Buddhist temple".

He got perplexed after saying that, he remember almost nothing of his life on earth but suddenly the memory of a Buddhist temple came into his mind

"---ey are you hearing me?" Nohrie's voice cut off his thoughts.

"Yes I'm hearing you Nohrie it's actually impossible to not hear you complaining this entire time".

"I'm sorry that my worries about our lives are annoying to you" Nohrie was worried about what could happen, she didn't exactly know the Salamander dragon's strength, for her, this was a suicide mission.

"Trust me even if we lose to him I will make sure we survive

***

The empty temple had a dark atmosphere, knowing its history Leander could almost see how the battle occurred through the claw marks on the walls, the burn marks on the ceiling, and the shattered statues.

He could tell by the smell of blood in the air that anything that went in and didn't get out fast enough was slaughtered.

Leander was in the middle of the entrance, he knew the spirit sense was sharp enough to detect him from distance, and that just standing there was enough to trigger its anger.

The breeze made the bells ring and their sound echoed through the ambient.

"These bells just make everything ten times creepier," Nohrie said, she was riding in his shadows and looking around.

"Pay attention to everything this spirit can camouflage itself".

Suddenly sounds of something breaking far away caught their attention, Leander turned around to where the noise came from but found nothing there besides a broken statue.

"BEHIND YOU IN THE COLUMN" Nohrie screamed.

Without turning around Leander jumped as far as he could, he couldn't waste, and just as he thought a hole opened where he had been standing before.

The salamander dragon turned off his camouflage when he realized that he had been detected revealing his menacing figure

The spirit was four meters high and six meters in length, its appearance resembled something between an oriental dragon and a salamander, both his front and hind paws had thick claws, he had few dark blue scales yet his black skin seemed as tough as they were and made his reddish purple eyes seem more threatening.

Besides the weight the spirit was fast, he closed the distance between him and Leander in a few seconds.

"Nohrie now"

"Got it".

Nohrie used her solrien magic to make metal spikes that came out from the ground, not only solrien mages could control eath but the different types of minerals in it as well, but unlike Elentiya or Celine Nohrie's spell was weaker but was enough to touch the Salamander dragon skin without breaking.

That was all Leander needed, he used his lightning spell on the metal, and his knowledge of otherworldly magic also helped on discover how to create lightning in this world but the result was just as he expected.

"I was right".

The salamander dragon didn't even flinch the electric discharge wasn't strong enough, and the spirit didn't even bother with spikes since they couldn't even scratch his skin, he opened his mouth, and a jet of blue fire came out eating the spikes.

Without wasting one more second he made a thick ice wall appear in front of him, he knew his spell wouldn't resist against a dragon's flame, his control over mana was too amateurish, and he was wasting too much more mana than necessary.

"Nohrie is time for phase two"

"Ok"

Nohrie started to gather mana for her next Earth spell but suddenly her elemental affinity with the element became weaker.

"Leander something is wrong" she shouted her intuition made her look around in time to see walls of earth rising from the ground.

"ITS A FILED SPELL".

Leander started to run immediately, the Earth walls that raised from the ground looked like the ones from the temple, it was as if a replica of the temple was rising from the ground to trap them.

"I thought a field spell wasn't something that can be made in seconds like that" More walls started to rise trying to trap them there.

"It's a simple field spell but still if we get trapped here with that thing we are done for".

Nohrie had seen this type of spell before, To create a simple field spell a mage had to spread his own mana on the atmosphere and manipulate the elements in a wide área, mages used this type of spell to trap someone and she had no idea the salamander dragon had this mastery over magic.

"Right there".

Leander used air magic to propel himself and got through a small gap between the walls, he had to keep running, the spirit had just dissolved the Earth's walls into mud and kept chasing them.

"It's a simple field spell but it still takes a good amount of mana, he is weaker but still not enough" Nohrie had been analyzing the situation to give them the best openings to attack.

"We should move to the last phase then," Leander said amid heavy pants, again his child's physique was slowing him down.

Before going down the stairs he made an ice slope the thin layer of ice made him slide down, yet even as they descended the stairs the spirit did not slow down, Nohrie and Leander had to dodge two more fireballs aimed at thir heads.

"Nohrie now".