38 The Most Powerful Cat King
When they woke up the next day, Myra decided to complete the formation at the city.
"Aaron, let's go buy some mounts today. I don't feel like running to the city all the time and the carriages always take such a long time to prepare and even with this formation I will not be able to use it all the time. Maybe once or twice a week to get there and back again otherwise I'd just burn out with all that power usage."
"Sure, just stop by after classes and we can look for something. Do you want to ask the others if they want to come to the city as well?"
Myra thought for a moment but then shook her head. "I think Nell and Liam are off to some of the holdings, showing some of the workers what we want of them. Alyn told me that she would visit her family and ask if she could get some help as well."
"They have exceptionally skilled mages that are mostly nature focused, clearing the land without causing a lot of destruction should be easy with their assistance and would really speed up the process of making those holdings accessible."
"Alright, I see you later then." Aaron gave her a quick kiss on the cheek which made Myra blush, before heading off to his own classes.
--
Classes were exceptionally interesting today, most of all because Myra seemed to ask their instructors lots of questions about various creatures that could be used as mounts. Unexpectedly, most answered her question in lots of detail, even though it had nothing to do with what they wanted to teach the class in the first place.
Maybe they were just happy that for once, Myra wanted to know something and wasn't the one instructing them instead? Who knows?
Those instructors also had their pride and having a young woman around, not even half their age, who would constantly remind them that compared to her knowledge, nearly all of their techniques and spells were inferior didn't sit well with them.
No matter the reason, Myra learned a lot about mounts. There were the normal beasts of burden like oxen or donkeys and various horses, but none of them caught Myra's interest.
Those normal animals would simply require too much effort to train, to take care of and did not have the intelligence to follow more advanced commands. She would never call animals dumb, but their outlook was just too different from a humans, not to mention that they couldn't use magical power and were an easy target to take down.
While Myra didn't worry about fighting too much, she didn't want some stray arrow to kill a mount that she already got used to. Seeing how quickly she got attached to others, she wouldn't be surprised if she started to quickly see the mount as a friend too.
Among the magical creatures of Luminos there were several varieties and only a few of them were openly sold on the market. All the other creatures either did not seem tameable, were too smart themselves and were more likely to negotiate and make contracts for their services or were simply too rare to be found.
'Phoenix? Hmm no too hard to find and too troublesome. Dragon? They get too big, they don't fit in a stable. Most of them are too smart too, they wouldn't enjoy being a mount.'
'What about a Qilin? Hmm, maybe not, they look kind of odd. What about a Roc? No also too big.'
It took her a while to sort through lots and lots of magical beasts. Some were too hard to find in the area, while she didn't like others for various reasons. Some were simply too big or would not make a good mount.
'Oh what's this, a Cat Sìth. They are also called Phantom Cats or Fairy Cats, now that's a nice name and they look like big panthers. I would love to have a flying mount but they are just too hard to find, maybe I try to get one of these.'
She quickly found out, that while there lived a few groups of these on the continent, they were not sold and were rather hard to track. Having great abilities when it came to hiding and sneaking about, these big cats were also said to possess superior physical abilities compared to regular cats as well as some abilities to travel in a spirit form.
The smallest ones would be just as small as a large house cat, while largest ones could reach a length of up to 3 and a half meters, easily dwarfing horses and normal panthers. The strongest of their species could easily compete with a Skylord for dominance even though they could not fly themselves and would have no way to prevent someone to escape if they would just fly away.
Most important of all, they didn't eat normal food, they ate spirit creatures and lived on spiritual and magical power. With her strong spirit, she would be able to feed them just by using some power and as she would not have to channel it through her body, it would not really affect her in any way.
Some stories told about smaller Phantom Cats to living close to humans mages in order to feed off the magical residue that was a lot denser around a mage than in a normal area.
Some scholar's guessed that the only reason why the bigger ones of these smart magical beasts would not be found around humans is simply that they would be lacking the necessary magical power to even feed them.
The bigger the cat, the stronger the required source of power would be. The biggest cats would all occupy some ley lines or other natural treasure in order to survive.
'They are ideal. No need to feed or take care of, other than a bit of power, stronger and tougher than a normal animal and with their dependence on magical power, I can likely catch their interest with offering them high quality magical power to feed.'
"Aaron! Change of plans, the city has no mounts I'm interested in!"
As soon as classes were over, Myra excitedly headed over to Aaron's room to tell him of her findings and about the Phantom Cats.
"Are you sure this is a good idea? They seem to be rather hard to find."
"It's fine, trust me! Finding something is easy for me." Myra assured him that it wouldn't be a problem and he quickly concentrated on other things again.
"Oh, by the way, I gave Rae a room in the living area of our shop." she told him while getting ready to head to the city.
"That's fine, there are more than enough rooms in the place. As long as you don't give one to each of the kids it shouldn't be an issue." Aaron already expected something like this. The girl was adorable and even though he had no idea how to deal with kids, he already started to get used to the idea, that Rae would likely stay with them.
"Do you think it is unfair to the other kids that I picked Rae and just drag her around with me all the time?"
Aaron could easily hear the tinge of worry and self-doubt out of Myra's voice.
"Don't worry about it. You're already helping them. Emotions and love have nothing to do with fairness or equality. If you love the kid, then don't push her away just to conform to some odd sense of morality."
"I might not know a lot about kids, but at least I know that there is nothing wrong with what you're doing. You're not helping the other kids by ignoring the attachment you have to the girl already. Just accept it."
"Mhm. That sounds nice. What about you? You're my boyfriend, what do you think of Rae?"
"She looks adorable and seems really smart. I don't mind her staying with us. If I can ever see myself as a father? I don't know yet. I guess I forgot how to act nicely and just recently remembered it when you came along. Let's give it some time. At the very least I let you play the part of her mother and won't interfere."
"Mhm. Maybe she will really see me as a mother at some point." Now Myra's shy look made Aaron smile even more.
For a moment, Myra just stood there thinking about the idea some more before she realized that there were still a lot of things to do.
"Get ready, the carriage should arrive soon and we still have to go shopping for furniture to make the place liveable. Not to mention that I want to complete that transference array at Celestial Armaments."
Shortly after a carriage slowly but steadily headed for the city. When they arrived in the late afternoon they quickly started their shopping. Some small things they would take with them right away, while they hired carpenters to bring or craft everything else that was bigger and would not fit into a carriage.
"We should probably be able to have enough furniture to stay overnight tomorrow. Can we stay the night at the inn?" Myra asked cautiously.
"You go ahead, it's already late and Rae is probably waiting for you. Taking care of the furniture we already bought likely still takes an hour or two. Let me handle this and I stop by later."
Happy with the arrangements, Myra quickly rushed to the inn. There was no time today to teach the kids, but she wanted to put Rae to sleep at the very least.
Most of the children were already sleeping when she arrived, exhausted from being able to spend all their time playing and not worrying about food or where to find a roof over their heads.
Rae was also in her room, but didn't seem to be sleeping yet. She already knew that Myra would be coming, so she waited patiently even though her eyelids were already heavy and she was really tired.
"Oh, I'm sorry you had to wait so long darling." Myra quickly gave the girl a hug and was really touched, that the little child would be waiting for her all this time.
A tired but happy face, was all it took to make Myra happy as well. In the end all the effort and work seemed worth it for just such a smile.
"Will you tell me another story?" the little girl asked and Myra quickly agreed.
Helping the kid change out of her regular attire and into a set of cosy pajamas, Myra started to tell her another story. This time it was about a black cat, whose dream it was to become the strongest cat of all.
When this 'King of the Cats' finally managed to achieve this dream though, he suddenly realized that even though he was now more powerful than any other cat, he had wasted his life and had not achieved a single thing.
He had no friends, had no family and everyone was just afraid of him. The story ended with this cat king giving up his throne and finding a cute cat wife to live happily ever after.
Once more, Rae had already fallen asleep by the time the story was half told and everyone but Myra seemed to recognize that her stories were horrible. No one had the heart to tell her though, least of all the little girl, who was just happy to have Myra around.
