Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

Mira and Maria got back to Lunar Fox City and went straight back to the Zaria Family. Mira wanted to spend the majority of her time trying to give her beast egg enough energy to hatch. She also wanted to spend time training Maria in martial arts as well. Mira didn't have anything else that required immediate attention and training her body right now was out of the question. She also wanted to spend some time cultivating as well.

Mira spent the rest of the day providing energy to her beast egg but felt that she needed an area where she could continuously provide her blue lighting to the egg. Mira spent the entire night freezing over her room and making countless shards of ice in the room. Mira then made an ice pedestal in the middle of the room with a metal rod in the middle. She would use this as a conduit to shoot off a bunch of bolts of blue lightning. Mira was satisfied with the result and set the beast egg on the pedestal as she sent energy into the egg and blue lightning into the pedestal.

Blue lighting shot out of the pedestal in every direction as the whole room was filled with blue lighting and a freezing aura. The blue lighting would then start to be sent to the egg and was absorbed by it. Mira continued doing this until it was time for her to train Maria. Mira left the beast egg there as even though Mira wasn't there to send blue lightning in the surrounding area, there was still enough residual energy left behind to provide at least a little bit to the egg.

Mira found Maria cultivating alone in her room as she notified that she was here and dragged her away from her cultivation. Mira then proceeded to teach her about the techniques of various martial arts. Of course, Mira would only demonstrate it once before sparring with her. Mira knew that it would take Maria a long time to master these techniques or at least get to a point that she can fight back in the spars, but Mira still wanted to continue. After sparring with Maria for a few hours, Maria wanted to talk to Mira a bit.

"Why do you want me to learn how to fight without a weapon so bad, Mira? I will hardly ever use these techniques because if I need to kill something, it is much more efficient to use a weapon." Maria asked as she truly didn't understand why she needed to learn this.

"You are right. If you are perfect and aren't careless then you might never have to use any of these techniques. If you were extremely talented with a weapon then you might never have to use these. If your weapon never breaks or if you never forget your weapon or if you can make sure that you will never be without a weapon then you may never use these techniques. What will you do if you don't have your weapon for whatever reason though? Roll over and die? Sure you may think this is useless and that you may never use these techniques, but one day this might save your life. That's the difference between learning this and not learning them." Mira explained as she continued.

"Martial arts is also not something that only affects you physically or sharpens your hand-to-hand combat skills. It also provides a huge boost to your mentality. If you knew you were a master martial artist, but still fought with a weapon, how would you feel? Absolute confidence! You would know that even without your weapon, you could defeat your opponent. Learning martial arts can also improve your coordination, improve mental stamina, develop some self-discipline, and be a great way to relieve stress. Learning and mastering these techniques may also fill you with great satisfaction as you learned something with your own mind and body. There are no downsides to learning martial arts other than it takes up some of your time." Mira finished explaining as Maria was in awe about how useful learning martial arts could be. Now that she thought about it, her mind does feel a bit clearer after practicing with Mira. It also did feel oddly satisfying to try and beat up something with your own fists. It was a great way to relieve any pent-up stress. Maria's eyes shined brightly when she thought about this. Wouldn't this make a great hobby or past time for cultivators? Cultivators generally live long lives and can have stress built up over many years. Of course, getting used to the stress is part of being a cultivator, but being able to relieve the stress would be amazing!

"I see! I just thought you wanted me to learn this so you can continue torturing me. I didn't expect there would be so many benefits to this! Even though I would still rather not continue training in martial arts, I will try to keep an open mind when learning from now on! Thanks, Mira!" Maria said with a silly smile on her face and Mira just nodded.

"I'm going back to trying to hatch the egg. I don't know how much longer it'll take, but I feel like it needs more lightning energy now and less Qi. My lightning may not be useful for attacking, but it should still be enough for the beast to absorb and hatch. We will continue this tomorrow. Mira said and went back towards her room.

When Mira reached her room, she started to make even more ice shards and crystals of varying sizes. She also made more mini pedestals in the room that are connected to the main one to spread out and provide even more of her blue lighting. When she ran out of Qi to give, she then started to feed it some of her blood. And after she felt like she had given enough blood for the day, Mira started to cultivate for a couple of hours. After cultivating, she would repeat the process of sending Lightning and Qi into the egg, train Maria in martial arts, providing blood, and cultivating. This schedule went on for the next month.

***

A month after Mira had gotten back from escorting everyone to the trial.

Mira was currently providing blue lightning and Qi to a beast egg on a large pedestal. The room she was in currently did not look like the same room a month ago. The whole room was frozen over and an ice blizzard had formed in the room. This blizzard was filled up with blue lighting and there was so much lighting in the room that one could not even see their hands if they looked for them. Mira had been gathering this much blue lightning for a while now as she was getting ready to send it all into the egg. Mira had one hand still on the egg and one hand on the pedestal. She then took a deep breath as she hoped this would be enough for the egg to hatch. This little fucker was really just a greedy black hole.

Mira then sent a strand of blue lightning into the egg as the beast inside the egg started to want more. The blue lighting then started to continuously be absorbed into the egg. It looked like the egg was slurping up lightning like it was eating noodles or something. The egg kept absorbing the Lightning until most of the lightning in the room was absorbed. There was actually some lightning left that the egg seemed to not want or need anymore. Mira looked expectantly towards the egg as she felt like it might hatch soon, but that never came. Mira then started providing it more Qi as well as giving it some of her blood.

When her blood made contact with the egg, there was finally a change. Mira felt a strand of energy from within the egg reach out to her as the energy was sent into her body. Mira could then feel a tattoo start to form on her back as she realized that this little thing was about to hatch and that it had also just formed a Life and Death Contract with her. It kept absorbing her blood and Qi before Mira felt it stop. Mira then took the egg in both of her hands as she looked at it expectantly.

The egg started to wiggle and move as she felt the beast trying to come out of the egg. It didn't take long for a crack to form in the egg. Then another crack and another as more and more cracks started to form on the egg. Then the beast inside had finally made a breakthrough and made a hole in the egg. Mira was able to see something fluffy in the egg as she kept waiting, not wanting to help the beast come out of the egg. The beast seemed to be eating the egg as it broke off more and more pieces. Each piece it ate also seemed to increase its strength as well. It didn't take long before the beast had eaten the whole egg and was now in Mira's arms. When the egg was completely gone, the entire room crackled with golden lightning that also had strands of blue in it. After a couple of seconds, all of the lightning flowed back into the beast as Mira was now able to take a good look at the beast.

Mira looked down and was surprised by what she saw. It seemed to be a winged wolf of some kind. It was beautiful! It had thick golden fur and shiny golden wings. It also had ice blue stripes going down its back as well as a golden blue tail. It also had golden eyes with a blue lightning symbol in the middle of its eyes. It had a sharp set of wolf ears as it stood around 30 centimeters tall and 40 centimeters long and seemed to have a wingspan of 50 centimeters. It had large feet and looked about the size of a large wolf cub except it had wings. Mira then felt the aura coming from the beast as it was actually a Peak-Stage Rank 3 Magical Beast. Mira also felt that it wouldn't be long before it reached Rank 4. This shocked Mira to the core as she was expecting that she would need to try and find some way to elevate its strength to her level, but apparently, her thoughts were wasted as its cultivation was actually a little above hers. There was also one more thing Mira noticed. It was that she felt a strong connection with the wolf, almost like they were related. She guessed that this was likely because of all of her blood that it had absorbed.

Mira then looked at the tattoo that had formed on her back and it was a picture of a magnificent and powerful winged wolf.

"It seems that I may have gotten quite lucky as you are already this powerful after just being born. I also bet that you aren't just some ordinary Peak-Stage Rank 3 Magical Beast either. Well, you are nothing but a cub right now, but with proper training and going through various fights, I bet you can be much stronger." Mira said to the cub as it just tilted its head at her cutely and nustled up against Mira and fell asleep.

"I guess breaking out of that egg would be quite tiring. I guess I should come up with a name for you. Let's see. You are a winged wolf that controls lightning. I named Vulcan after a fire god. You seem to be a female so let me think of something that might suit you. Back when I was alive on Earth, there was a godly wolf in Japanese mythology called Raiju and a Chinese Lightning Goddess called Dianmu. I'm not that great at naming things so I'll just combine the two. I'll name you Rhydian. I will ask you if you like it when you wake up. But now that you are finally out of that egg, I can finally rest a bit. I've spent all of my blood and Qi on you over the last month *Yawn* I think I'll take a short rest." Mira said as she laid down and went to sleep with the little winged wolf in her arms.