The pride spent the entire day soaking up solar aura, and soon darkness fell. The team for this hunt consisted of six lionesses, including the mother lion and two other lions who had given birth around the same period. Each of them had two cubs, adding to the three cubs from the mother lion, which brought the total to seven cubs, all of which were eager and ready to go. Three additional lionesses from the pride joined the hunting team. While the other cubs excitedly played, Dontaé, although just as excited—perhaps even more so—remained calm, understanding that hunting could be dangerous business and that even though their only job was to watch and learn unexpected situations could still pop up. Mother lion released a series of throaty grunts, instructing the cubs to stay close to each other, to follow their instructions and not to do anything rash as it could end horribly.
Soon, the team departed under Father Lion's watchful gaze. They traveled in a formation that kept the cubs safe in the middle, with two lionesses at the front, two at the back, and two at the sides. The group maintained a slower pace to facilitate the cubs, but those lagging were met with a warning growl and a tight paw slap. As they journeyed, they passed by a herd of elephants, zebras, and giraffes near a pond. They even saw many more beasts like owls, snakes, crocodiles, foxes, wolves, gazelles, and rabbits.
Donaté was greatly fascinated by what he saw. "The wildlife here is so similar yet so different from those on Earth. The main difference is in their sizes. The adult beasts here seems at least twice as large as those back on Earth. I already noticed that the adults in our pride were much larger, but I thought that maybe it was just an isolated case."
Soon they arrived at a pond surrounded for hundreds of meters with patches of shrubs and grass. Immediately the lionesses crouched their bodies low to the ground and began taking slow calculated steps through the grass, causing no disturbance. Mother lion released a very faint growl letting us cubs know that we were supposed to follow their actions. They began to spread out in a semi-circular formation while enclosing a lone animal that was drinking water at the pond. I couldn't see it clearly at first, but after reaching a bit closer I finally got to see what it was. It was a large black buffalo with a pair of lustrous black horns that curved up and pointed forward slightly. Everything was in place and all that was left now was to wait for the prime opportunity to strike. Right then, however, the inexperience of the younger lions revealed itself as in their impatience three of the cubs charged at the buffalo. Immediately it snapped around, already prepared to attack. The buffalo's horn began glowing with a bright light blue radiance, Droplets of water appeared out of nowhere and started rotating around its horns as it charged towards the cubs grunting powerfully. Realizing the danger, the cubs tried to run away.
The lions reacted swiftly, with the mother lion dashing towards the buffalo head-on, claws retraced and releasing bright red claw-shaped flames, its edgeas flashed menacingly. But before she could get to the buffalo, its horns managed to pierce into the bodies of two of the cubs, one with the left horn and the other with the right. In a flash, the claws of mother lion came down forcefully against the forehead of the buffalo sending it staggering back a few steps bleeding and burning slightly. However, the buffalo only shook its head, momentarily dazed by the force of the collision, mother lion's paw however was bent at an unnatural angle clearly broken. The two cubs who turned out to be Dontaé's siblings fell to the ground bleeding profusely from a hole in their sides.
At that moment the other cub that ran out was taken back to safety while the other lionesses lunged fiercely at the buffalo. With their flaming claws, they clung to the back and sides of the buffalo, their claws sinking deep into its flesh. The buffalo although strong was brought down under the weight of their combined charge. The pain instantly caused him to sober up, releasing a furious grunt while shaking his body fiercely, successfully managing to get rid of his attackers. However, its efforts came too late, before it could rise to its feet, immediately a red streak flashed past and suddenly the buffalo lost all the light in its eyes falling lifelessly, its body missing a significant section of its neck. On the other side of the buffalo where the streak had stopped stood Mother Lion awkwardly on her broken leg as she clutched the missing section of the buffalo's throat in between her burning fangs.
Dontaé was thoroughly engrossed in the clash from start to finish; zoning out even his surroundings. Even though he knew that this world could facilitate the supernatural, this was the first time he had seen such powers in action. Powers he had yearned for all his life. His mind raced as he replayed the battle in his head, the whole thing not lasting even half a minute. "When will I be able to do that."he thought, his mind buzzing with anticipation.
Thinking about his goal and his current situation he sighed deeply. "I've indeed been a bit too playful since my rebirth not training enough and caught up in the thrill of the novelty. Even though it's good to build bonds with siblings, I can do so while also training hard. My time must be spent wisely from now on. I'm still young and vulnerable. I need to speed up my growth before it's too late."
"Mhmm, Perhaps training my body to its utmost physical limits nightly before aura absorption in the day could actually have a positive impact on the speed and quantity of solar aura absorption, something like body cultivation from those xianxia novels I used to read. I could even get my siblings to join in as well, after all, they are like my little followers now. Bonding while training seems like a whole lot of fun too. I've decided, I will make them my right and left-hand generals. My little brother, the gloriously handsome and domineering warrior feared by all nations. And my little sister, the beautiful but thorny angel admired and feared by the world. And me, Zakquazé, the overlord and royal king that stands at the pinnacle of all races."
"Hehege, That does have a nice ring to it. I'm going to nurture them well from now on."
Looking over at the cubs beside him he saw that his little brother and sister was missing he suddenly rememberd that they were injured during the confrontation. He was so caught up in the fight and thoughts that he momentarily forgot. He ran over to where they were. All the other lionesses and cubs also ran over. Straight away they began releasing red aura particles from their bodies. "That's fire element particles, they're just like the ones I absorbed while in the void. What the hell are they doing?"Suddenly under the guidance of the lionesses the particles came together to form two rice grain-sized spheres that descended onto the wounds on the cubs which then began to mend the damage visibly. Luckily the horn did not go in too deep so the injury stopped bleeding and was soon stabilized, the cubs were out of the woods, however, the lionesses seemed weakened as a result.
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Speed was not the aim for the return journey. Mother lion led the charge. Behind her were the five cubs. Flanked on both sides behind them were the lions carrying the two injured cubs in their mouth. And at the back followed the three with the buffalo's body. They made it back without any major mishaps, except for a group of hyenas that tried to steal their kill but were intimidated away.
When we finally got back to the pride, Father Lion and the others came forward to see us. They then started to communicate and I could hear their growls. "So that's what happened. Good job saving them." he said, congratulating them. "Let them rest and recover for a few days. Also switch to a smaller target, small groups or lone gazelles are perfect for the cubs' observational training. Zebras and Wildebeest should work too, basically anything in that range will do. but not above, I don't want them dying too soon." said Father Lion as he strode off to lay down in his usual position the two injured cubs by his side.
"After hearing what father said and remembering the incident earlier, Dontaé immediately put his new training plan into action. He got up and stretched his body a bit then started running around the territory at his fastest speed. He then started jumping under a small tree trying to go high enough to touch the closest branch. The others looked at him and from their body language he could tell that they were wondering about his strange behavior.
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"I'm dead tired," Dontaé said as his legs gave way and he fell to the ground. "This new training method thing better work." was all he could manage to think before his mind went dark and he drifted off to dreamland.