A strong breath escaped Dyon lips. In the next moment, the poison that had just been ravaged his innards was pushed out from his pores, incinerating the clothes he had been wearing to nothingness.

To avoid hearing Lilianna's rant about his indecency, he immediately stood and dove into the clear lake that was just behind them. Unfortunately for Lilianna, this was the very same clear lake that Dyon introduced before, meaning one could see all the way to the bottom. Dyon's body wasn't hidden at all.

Madeleine smiled as she watched this scene before going back to meditating herself.

She held a large black stone in her hands, but what was odd was the fact wisps of red smoke emitted from it every so often, entering through Madeleine's orifices and causing her to tremble slightly in pain.

Over the past few months, the two of them had found all sorts of fantastical metals and minerals. Without regard, they had taken them all.

One of these minerals was the rock Madeleine held in her hands now. It was known as Embryonic Flame Stone. Actually, it was this stone that inspired the creation of Flame Tempering Pills. However, their affect was far better than their pill counterpart.

Embryonic Flame Stone was a special mineral known for birthing unique flames by accumulating the essence of Fire over long periods of time. Because of this, it had two stages of evolutions in its life. The first was the accumulation phase, and the second was flame purifying phase. Although neither stage was more valuable than the other, the first phase was by far the best for those who wanted to improve their current flames instead of accepting a new one.

Of course, the other part that decided the value of this stone was how far along its timeline of evolution it was. Obviously, it was the most valuable during its first stage when it was on the precipice of breaking to the second stage. As far as the second stage was concerned, it was the opposite. This was because the more mature a unique flame was, the harder it was to take control of.

Madeleine was lucky enough to find one just about to enter its second stage. This sort of stone was enough for her to cultivate her flames well into the dao realm, which was why she had to be very careful now, or else she would cause irreparable damage to herself.

This aside, it wasn't only Madeleine who benefitted from their trip. Little Rain, who was currently hugging his shining broad sword against a tree like a little boy on Christmas morning, benefitted a lot as well. Dyon didn't even bother to fight him over "hard" minerals and just let him feast for now.

As time went on, this paid off though. Little Rain began to ignore the weaker minerals of this category, finally allowing Dyon to collect some of his own.

The other good news was that Little Rain was not only an excellent training partner, he would also be a powerful ally. By Dyon's calculations, with just a few more improvements to the broad sword and its chains, Little Rain would be able to fight peak celestials and multiple at that without much of an issue.

As for Dyon, his gift was all the resources he was steadily accumulating. Wild ideas about an army shining in bright, impenetrable armors and wielding weapons sharp enough to split the earth in two, filled his mind.

He had found massive reserves of Red Mercury, the very same metal that Sabona forged her artificial wings of. It was incredibly light, but it was known that its sharpness after being processed was almost impossible to match.

Then he found a counterpart to Red Mercury known as Sky Mercury. According to the twins, not only was it even lighter than Red Mercury, it was able to defy laws of gravity, allowing you to build large structures that could float in the sky. Building airships out of Sky Mercury was the dream of many a General as their speed and maneuverability was unmatched.

Little Rain also found a massive reservoir of Star Jade, the very same jade that coated the Demon Sage's palace and helped facilitate yang cultivation. Although he didn't find any Moon Jade to act as its balance, Dyon was extremely satisfied. After all, they were peak comet grade minerals!

But, this wasn't even the discovery he was the most happy about. He was also able to find massive reserves of Timeless Stones! These were rocks with residual time will hidden within them and they were half the resources needed to power the Jafari Clan treasure. To top it all off, they could also benefit Dyon's time will comprehension.

Then, as though blessed by the gods, Little Rain also found him Spaceless Stones, which just so happened to be the other half of what was needed to power the treasure.

As things stood now, Dyon was incredibly happy. These tasks would have been nigh impossible with Little Rain's sensitivity to minerals considering even Dyon's divine sense couldn't pick up on many of them. But, facing life and death really did mete out appropriate rewards.

**

Within the Mystical Realm, a battle ravaged a valley of black. The canyon was so deep that its base was pitched in a perpetual night, unable to see the sun above.

Four Celestial Beasts stood together, fighting an innumerable wave of creatures of darkness.

Enormous bats with ghastly teeth and blinded red eyes screeched into the night. Blood thirsty hyenas creeped forward with ill intensions. Wolves with fur so dark and eyes so yellow snarled, barking and howling like rabid dogs.

In the distance, looming shadows watched over without even the intention to move. It seemed this wasn't a random attack, but rather one that was organized by the overlords of the Demonic Gorge.

An ape standing at over thirty meters tall swung a staff taller than itself, roaring with a might many times its own. It valiantly protected the three beasts behind it as a massive shelled beast provided support.

'Hand in there Shere, I'll have the magic circle prepared soon.' A resolute and beautiful celestial deer stood over a majestic celestial tiger. But, it seemed that the once lush white fur of this tiger had been coated in blood, while its slaughter qi had weakened along with its shallow breath.

It was obvious that these four celestial beasts were none other than Dyon's companions, Shere, Biibi, Linlin and Sen.

Linlin roared to Sen's back, causing a beautiful illusory shield to appear just as the soundwave of dozens of demonic bats approached them.

The shield shook violently, quivering under the combined might, but in the end, it just barely withstood the attack.

"Reflect!" Linlin's delicate voice called out, trembling with rage.

In that instant, the quivering shield explosively doubled in size, glowing with a fierce light as it bared down on the waves of enemies below.

A pulsing light bulged from its center, growing larger and larger until it blasted outward in a beam of light tens of meters wide. The destructive wave blasted a trench directly down the middle of the battlefield, alleviating the pressure on Sen.

Linlin nearly collapsed under the strain, her white face reddening. But she knew she had to stand tall. Both Biibi and Shere stood on her back under her protective barrier, she had to last.

Above this gorge, about half a dozen or so members of the Sapientia Guild watched on silently. Honestly, they thought that what these four were doing was nothing short of suicide, but they were curious about a True God's beast companions.

"Hey, don't those four beasts look familiar to you?" An azure robed young man suddenly asked.

"Do they?"

"Yea. Remember when the Masked Wife Stealer had that confrontation with the Magic Swordsman? Weren't his beast companions also a turtle, an ape, a tiger and a deer? That's a little bit too much of a coincidence, no?"

The young man's five companions paused in thought, but eventually a black robed young woman shook her head no.

"That was only three years ago, how can a beast grow so fast? They're already celestials when back then, they hadn't even begun cultivating. Plus, these are transcendent grade beasts while those from then were mere earth grade beasts my master said so himself."