Having finished their duel, Max told John about 'something' he found.
It turned out to be a hidden cave accessible through a passage from inside a hot spring, and there was a pond with a tree in the middle of the cave, which had four pretty mysterious fruits.
Max sounded certain they were of Silver-rank or perhaps even Gold-rank resources.
But there was one problem. The pond had four Bronze-rank Prime-stage Ice Flower Turtles, which were considered powerful Bronze-rank Pet Monsters of the top tier, alongside the likes of Sun Fox, Metal Blade Mantis, Ravenous Hound, and such.
John was almost tempted to tame one, but Bronze-rank Tamers were limited to two Pets. He would only get more soul space for additional Pets after breaking through to Silver-rank Soul Core.
"Alright, I'll help, but not now. My friend is taming an Eagle up there, so we'll wait for her."
"Oh, it's a girl?" Max blinked twice. "Is she your girlfriend?"
"Friend," John smiled.
"Really?"
John rolled his eyes.
"Oh, ok, ok. Hehe, then I guess I can make a move if I like her."
"Sure," John replied disinterestedly as he looked northeast. "I am going there to that spring to train my Pymon. I saw a few fish jumping around."
"I am just waiting here," Max said as he sat down, leaning against the tree's trunk before taking out berries from his waist pouch made of leaves.
Meanwhile, John arrived at the spring, ready to train Pymon.
"Alright, you got your skills now, so it's time to hunt," John smiled as Pymon flew up and sharply whistled, sounding high-pitched but still with a hint of immaturity.
With almost a meter of body length and two meters of wingspan, it was already big at the adolescent stage.
'You see those fish? Good. Let's check your Phantom Dive skill. Go.'
Whistle!
Pymon sharply whistled as he locked onto the Spring with its sharp eyesight and dived down speedily with sparkling black and blue mist covering him.
The bird dived into the water in a graceful arc, leaving behind three shimmering black phantom mirages. Each was formed from razor-sharp black mist particles. As Pymon burst out from the water's surface, the mirages detonated in a cascade of pressurized black wind, unleashing a storm of needle-thin spikes.
Two bronze-rank Young-stage Fish instantly died as the spikes penetrated them easily despite their scales!
Those two Fish Monsters had a defense of 24, but Pymon's attack insta-killed them!
'It costs 30% of its soul energy, so there's that, but this attack is damn good. Super-fast dive that leaves lethal explosive phantom mirages.'
John couldn't help but grin. 'The only problem is this attack only works inside water for now, but Pymon will eventually learn to master his Water power better and be able to create mirages in the air.'
"Awoo!"
"You go and find some monsters to hunt, but if anyone tries anything funny, immediately call me."
"Woof!"
"Whistle!!" Pymon went to swipe at Alfred's butt, but Alfred turned his head at perfect timing and released a powerful bark right onto Pymon's face, scaring the shit out of the kid as the bird crashed into a tree.
"Woof! Woof!"
John couldn't help but laugh. "You're too young to mess with Alfred for now, kiddo."
Pymon shook its head while feeling dizzy and whistled loudly before flying.
"Alright, now use the Abyssal Current skill and kill as many as you can in one dive."
Pymon cried enthusiastically in response before it flew up and then paused, using the skill.
Abyssal Current!
Pymon's claws wrapped into a torrent of spiraling water with black wind streams in the shape of its talons, but became twice as big.
This skill significantly increased Pymon's claw attack damage and penetration power for ten seconds.
Pymon dived down like a rocket, his claw tearing apart one Fish Monster instantly.
Another one made a beeline as its scales shone, creating a defensive bubble, but Pymon burst it before the claws shredded it.
'Lethal!'
Pymon didn't rest and killed another Fish Monster right before the skill effect vanished. Bursting out of the water, he whistled sharply, turning to the spring and using Razor Tide this time with John's command.
Razor Tide was a long-range attack as Pymon flapped his wings sharply with a surge of sparkling black wind and blue watery energy that shot like spinning circular razors, three from each wing, one by one, a total of six razors!
Pymon used up the last of his soul energy but killed all four remaining Fish Monsters!
In the air, Pymon suddenly began to glow while getting bigger!
Pymon already had enough Soul Core fed to initiate growth, so he just needed to exert himself physically. Lo and behold, Pymon reached Young-stage.
"Awesome! Wait, I'll extract Soul Cores, and then we'll have a feast of them."
After extracting soul cores from all dead Fish Monsters, John fed some Soul Cores to Pymon and absorbed some himself, making his Soul Core reach 100.
Finally, he reached the peak of Bronze rank as the Soul Core inside his Soul Sea completely became pristine white, and round, with replenishable soul energy whirling around it. The amount of energy capacity also depended on the Soul Core.
Meanwhile, Pymon also became strong. John was surprised to see that Pymon had 1 point higher Strength and 3 points higher Speed than Alfred had in his Young-stage, though Pymon's defense was quite weak.
[Pet Name]: Abyssal Darkwind Eagle
[Pet Attributes]: Water/Wind
[Pet Rank]: Bronze
[Pet Growth Stage]: Young
— Gene Potential: 41/100
— Strength: 24
— Speed: 26
— Defense: 18
— Soul Core: 67/100
[Skills]:
—> Razor Tide
—> Abyssal Current
—> Phantom Dive
—> Storm Barrier.
A new skill also emerged, and fortunately, it wasn't an offense-type, unlike Pymon's first three skills, which were all offense-types.
Storm Barrier: Creates a storm barrier with raging water and wind around self or target, granting defense and in case of defending against projectile-type attacks, there's a chance of deflecting them.
Afterward, John took Pymon to another spring where Alfred was barking and giving telepathic messages to John.
After getting Pymon to kill more monsters there, John returned.
Yuna was still on the tree, but she was almost done as she was in the process of communicating with the Eagle.
A few minutes later, she descended.
Max introduced himself and told her about the passage inside a spring leading to a secret cave and the mysterious tree with fruits there.
Yuna was immediately interested, so the trio departed right away.