Seeing that Vasileios had mao deal with the Gun Libellu’s, Draco felt somewhat satisfied with the oute.

  Curious about how the others were faring, he sent out a pulse of energy through the area to observe them.

  To his surprise, they were all doing quite well and holding their own against the monsters.

  ‘Seems like I still subsciously uimate them. Perhaps I should increase the difficulty soon,’ Draco thought but quickly dismissed the idea.

  Although they were perf well now, they hadn’t yet experiehe true terror of the tree byrinth—the sheer number of monsters.

  ‘At this rate, a week should be enough for them to adjust before I turn up the iy,’ Draco sidered.

  Once he was fident that his familia could hahe 19th through 23rd floors, he po either hunt the Goliath reen dragon for his own level-up.

  He wasn’t in a rush, as he was already at the threshold for levelling up; it was better to focus on increasing the level of his familia to boost their survivability.

  “Uhm, Draii, a little help!” Vasileios yelled from below, where Draco was zily perched on a tree in the distanbsp;

  While Draco had been lost in his thoughts, Vasileios had been ambushed by several Lizardmen and was currently overwhelmed.

  Draced at Vasileios but chose to ignore him.

  He had sehe approag Lizardmen when he sent out his earlier pulse but decided not to inform Vasileios, judging that the number of Lizardmen wasn’t too much for him to handle alone.

  Vasileios could normally mahe monsters just fine, but he wasn’t used to being fnked.

  Typically, he had another familia member c his back while he focused on frontal attacks with his shield.

  Left to fend for himself, he had to keep track of everything by himself.

  ‘Hmm, what’s that?’ Draco thought, his senses pig up something with traces of fire elemental energy above him.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’ he wondered.

  With that, he sprouted his draigs and flew upwards.

  ‘Where is he going? Why isn’t he helping me?’ Vasileios wondered as he brandished his short sword, taking down another Lizardman.

  As Draco flew closer to the source, he discovered a rather cute bird-like creature, around a meter in size.

  The creature seemed to subtly glow like a su, its feathers a wild mix e, red, and gold, flickering like fmes.

  Its beady eyes sparkled with mischief, and its short, curved beak resembled a slice of ivory.

  The talons were curved and sharp.

  When Draco reached a certain distance from it, the bird immediately became wary, engulfing itself in fmes, ready to attabsp;

  This was a monster known as the fire bird, a very rare bird-type mohat spawned oh floor, specializing in le fire attacks.

  Fwoosh!

  The fire bird released a stream of fire as soon as Dratered its range, but he simply jured a stream of water to ter it.

  The two attacks met in the air, creating a burst of steam.

  ‘Oh, it’s strohan I thought,’ Draco observed, gradually increasing the potency of his attack while closing the distanbsp;

  There were easier ways to quickly end the battle, but Draco chose to stick with the currehod because it was amusing.

  Watg over his familia all day as they struggled below was a rather b task, after all.

  It didn’t take long for Draco to overwhelm the fire bird, dousing its body in water until its feathers shrunk from being soaked.

  The fire bird struggled ts fmes, finding it harder to fly while wet, but Draco suppressed it with water until it pletely ran out of magiergy.

  Without energy, the fire bird followed its instincts, flying to attack Draco with its cws and beak.

  However, melee bat wasn’t its forte, and it soon found itself captured in Draco’s bsp;

  Fpping its wings and filing, the fire bird chirped, but no matter what it did, it couldn’t escape.

  Eventually, it ran out of stamina and became docile, its chest heaving as it struggled to breathe, eyes refleg its readio accept death.

  ‘Finally given up, huh?’ Draco thought. Initially, he was going to ighe fire bird, but then he wondered if it ossible to tame it.

  He sensed a minuscule amount of fire elemental energy from it, leading him to sider that his passive skill, blessed by the elements, might affect it.

  Having captured the bird, Draco returo his previous positioling fortably on a tree branbsp;

  Now fully settled, he began experimenting with the fire bird.

  First, he created a small ball of fme with his elemental energy on his finger, if the fire bird would reabsp;

  Iingly, the fire bird attacked the fme with its beak, the only movable part of its body held by Drabsp;

  Other than poking at the fme with its beak, it showed no other rea.

  , he tried the water element, which caused the fire bird to instinctively retreat.

  There was ion to the wind ah elements.

  Draco pondered for a moment and decided to try something different.

  He eled a mix of fire and wind elemental energy into his hand, creating a swirling ball of fire that moved in a hypnotic spiral.

  Mixing his current elements had bee easy after his transformation.

  The fire bird's eyes widened, fixated on the mesmerizing dispy.

  Slowly, Dracht the elemental mixture closer to the bird.

  To his surprise, the creature didn’t flinch or try to attabsp;

  Instead, it stretched its neck forward, almost eagerly, as if drawn to the energy. 'Iing,' Draco thought, a slight smile tugging at the ers of his mouth.

  He allowed a small amount of the elemental mixture to touch the fire bird's beak.

  The effect was immediate; the fire bird attempted to spread its wings, which Draco allowed, still holding its talons firmly to prevent escape.

  The bird's body ignited, its fmes trying to match the motion of his own.

  Draco was intrigued by its rea, w why it respohis way. Meanwhile, below, Vasileios grunted as he deflected another Lizardman’s sword with his shield.

  His arms were growing weary from the stant onsught, but he refused to yield.

  The young boy had already taken down several of the scaly beasts, their drop items scattered across the forest floor around him, but more kept ing.

  “Draii!” he called out again, hoping his brother would finally e to his aid.

  But Draained perched ireetops, seemingly oblivious to Vasileios' plight.

  Gritting his teeth, Vasileios steeled himself.

  If Draco wasn’t going to help, he’d have to find a way out of this on his own.

  He couldn't rely on others forever.

  With renewed determination, Vasileios ged tactibsp;

  Instead of staying on the defensive, he charged forward, bashing his shield into the Lizardman.