Elder Vova returned shortly, a Fae Box in hand.
It was covered an a few symbols and ancient talismans, created from Inscription Attributed Fae and Word Attributed Fae, obviously indicated the importance behind this particular Fae Box, as well as how well protected it was.
Inscription Attributed and Word Attributed Fae weren't exactly common in Winter Rain Mountain. Both of them didn't exactly possess combat abilities, but they could be used to restrict and restrain movements at times.
They were mainly used as support or mostly as growth type Fae, but....
Elder Vova nodded, as he handed the Fae Box to Arthur.
"The Clan is trusting you Arthur. Your importance is not necessarily less than Randolf's, or even Dominic's. This will be able to help your cultivation increase rapidly, allowing you to reach Rank 2 quickly, and Rank 3 even faster than Andrea and Randolf.
"Your intentions don't go against the Clan and your motives won't harm the Clan either. But, I must ask of you to return this Fae once you reach the peak of Rank 2. So that this can be passed down to the person who is next fated for this Fae".
Arthur nodded resolutely.
"I promise I will return it. You have my word".
Elder Vova nodded and smiled before sitting back down in his chair. He gave Arthur one last nod before waving his arm and dismissing him, now that all of their affairs had been settled.
Arthur gave one more deep bow to Elder Vova before leaving, closing the door behind him.
Arthur didn't miss a single beat, as he quickly headed back towards his basement, as the light from the sun slowly set over the horizon.
Old man Wagner had to close down his tavern early nowadays, but waited up for Arthur to return before closing up properly.
Arthur gave the old man a small bow, causing Wagner to wave his hand, not thinking too much about it.
Entering his humble abode, Arthur sat down on his bed and removed the talismans on the Fae Box, in the same order that Elder Vova told him.
The inscriptions on the Fae Box were actually used to slow down time inside the box itself, lessening the amount of food that they would need to give the Fae inside. While the talismans, which were covered in symbols crafted by Word Attributed Fae, were used to protect it from various elements and attacks, so that it couldn't be destroyed.
One needed to take of the talismans in a certain order, and then open the box. Only then would they be able to take the Fae inside the box out and refine it.
With Arthur's current experience, it would still take him a few hours to decipher all the talismans and inscriptions on the Fae Box.
He wasn't a Fae Immortal that specialised in either of those two Attributes, so his attainments in either of them weren't nearly as high as "shadow" or "bone".
Taking a deep breath and opening the lid to the Fae Box, Arthur was greeted with a large, four winged butterfly. The size of which was probably larger than the hands of a single adult male, while the wings themselves shone a magnificent verdant green, allowing it to hide amidst large sections of greenery.
It's tiny, little legs supported the weight of its massive body, which fluttered upwards before landing on Arthur's shoulder.
"Rank 2 wood essence fae..... not bad", he muttered.
Arthur let out a deep breath before activating the bloodseeker leaf fae as well as those three origin essence sea fae, letting his origin essence surge towards the wood essence fae.
The purity of Arthur's hadron quartz origin essence was undoubtably as pure as someone of his realm could make it. That meant that not only was his foundations more sturdy, allowing his future attainments to be higher, but also the amount of origin essence needed to activate or refine Fae was less than the average Fae Master.
Since this was a Rank 2 Fae, Arthur needed to use everything in his possession in order to properly refine this particular fae. The vein limit fae was one thing, but since Arthur wanted to increase his cultivation as quickly as possible, he also needed to use the three origin essence sea fae in order to boost his origin essence quantity.
Arthur's origin essence was pushed towards the wood essence fae on his shoulder, which fluttered gently without removing itself from Arthur's shoulder.
Arthur picked off one or two leaves from his Water Leaf Tree fae and a single melon from his wood essence melon fae, placing it front of the wood essence butterfly, trying to lower its guard, even by a sliver.
Luckily, this wood essence fae seemed quite pleased with the wood essence melon offering, and floated off Arthur's shoulder, landing on his lap while quietly munching on the melon in his arms.
It's rejection of Arthur's origin essence had faded significantly, allowing Arthur to more efficiently refine the wood essence fae, getting him closer and closer towards his goal.
Three wood essence melons and two hours later, the wood essence fae disappeared, vanishing as Arthur called it back into his origin essence sea.
Arthur didn't even give himself a chance to celebrate as his figure adjusted its posture, immediately entering a meditative state. With this brand new Rank 2 Fae, which could regeneration origin essence more than twice as fast as the bloodseeker leaf fae, Arthur's cultivation would soar, exceeding that of Andrea's cultivation speed by a huge margin.
The vein limit fae, the bloodseeker leaf fae and the wood essence fae.
Arthur could increase it temporarily by eating the wood essence melons from the wood essence melon fae, but there did exist some faint impurities within said melons, considering it was only from a Rank 1 version of it.
It wasn't nearly as bad as origin essence stones, but still had roughly a third of the impurities in it.
Arthur felt his origin essence bubble immensely as an impressive surge of origin essence rose up within him. It was as if he had just added in a pot of boiling hot water to an already steaming bucket, increasing both the quantity and quality by a huge amount.
He now possessed the origin essence regeneration of a Rank 2 Fae Master as a Rank 1 Fae Master. When he activated the wood essence fae, Arthur almost felt as though his origin essence seas were about to burst, being inflated by an enormous power.
But then-.
Arthur let out a deep breath of turbid air.
Several hours had already passed and his clothes were covered in sweat and grime.
Arthur had experience using a growth type Fae of a higher Rank in his previous life, but never in addition with other Fae.
This single bout of cultivation was comparable to a single week's worth of effort just without the wood essence fae. Using such a Fae was both a blessing, and a curse for most cultivators.
Once they got a taste of such a fast an efficient method of cultivation, most wouldn't want to turn back. Once they broke through to Rank 3 or Rank 4, their cultivation would stagnate and progress slower without the power of a Rank 2 growth type fae.
The vast majority of these types of fae were formed using Fae Formula, and their evolutions were varied and sometimes negative.
Even throughout multiple different Eras, Fae Masters still couldn't list every type of Fae in existence. They were just too numerous, and too difficult to come by to list all of them.
Arthur ignored the rising thoughts and indulged in the sensation of his origin essence continuously retracting and expanding.
He let out a pleasurable sigh.
"If every cultivation session was like that one, I'm afraid that most people would abandon their dao companions in favour of this", he muttered.
Arthur removed all his clothes and started preparing a warm bath.
Even though the rest of the Clan was worried about war and battle with spirit beasts, Arthur remained calm, as if it was nothing more than a gust of air on a windy spring day.