After Ning pulled the completely intact Shadow Essence Crystal, Clara could only be shocked and nothing else.

She had seen a lot of things happen today, and this shouldn’t surprise her at all, and yet it did. This was something simply impossible to be found and yet he did.

“How did you know there was a Shadow Essence crystal here?” Clara asked.

Ning shrugged. “I just did,” he said. A moment later the massive crystal vanished.

“Where did it go?” Clara asked urgently.

“Stop worrying, it went to my storage,” Ning said, sighing a bit before walking outside.

Ning created some rocks inside the giant cave as he walked out, covering the entire cave with something so that the hollowness did not collapse the entire mountain.

Once he walked out, he was about to take the two girls away when he paused. He looked at the beast in front of them that had still remained there.

“What’s wrong?” Ning asked before realizing what he had done. “Ah, yeah that. Sorry. I suppose I ruined your house didn’t I?”

The puma said nothing, simply staring at them with her mouth closed. Ning had no idea what she wanted and was about to try and apologize. He would try to find a replacement for her.

But, the puma spoke first.

“Who are you?” she asked, plain and simple.

“We’re travelers,” Emma said. “Not from this world but from another. I believe my father came here to get some Shadow Crystal to try and help his friend, and I got interested in taking you as my beast friend, if I could.”

“I can see that you are instead with children and I would doubt you would want to stay anywhere dangerous, let alone come with strangers like us. I’m sorry we ruined your home too, we’ll try to find you another.”

She turned around to look at her father who nodded. He asked the system to look for good places where they could drop off this beast without any problems.

If not that, he wanted to see if there was any way to help them right here.

“If I come with you,” the puma spoke. “Would it be a mistake?”

Ning paused and looked at the beast. “You want to come with us?” he asked.

The puma nodded. “Where will I be going if I went with you?” she asked.

“Same place I said before,” Emma answered. “I will take you all over the world to see things that you haven’t seen before.”

“And you can guarantee that my two children will never get hurt?” the puma asked.

“If they do, I can heal them,” Emma said. “I am capable of many things that no one in this world is capable of. More than that, my father here is capable of almost anything. You can trust us.”

Emma could use more than just words to make the puma trust her, but she didn’t want to use anything else. She wanted her sincerity to be seen through her words.

Emma truly wanted these beasts to be her friend. She knew that she couldn’t take any of them with her to her world, as they didn’t have a long lifespan in the grand scheme of things. 𝒐𝑽𝓵xt.𝗇𝓔t

But she still wished to get a beast on her journey, just like her father said he did on his first journey outside of Earth.

The puma thought for a bit and looked at the cave that could no longer be their home anymore. And all alone, she had no idea how she could raise two children when she had no Shadow Essence anymore.

“Alright, I will come with you,” she said. “I hope… you won’t go back on your words.”

“I promise!” Emma said before quickly jumping onto the puma and hugging her firmly.

The puma was not used to these sorts of gestures and felt uncomfortable. However, when the petting started, the puma didn’t mind it so much.

“Aww, look at these two fluffballs,” Emma said, rubbing her face against the two cubs that were hiding under their mother.

The two cubs started crying out loud because of Emma. “Alright, alright, go back to your mother,” she said, placing them on top of the puma. “They don’t know me yet, so they’re angry. They’ll learn to like me soon enough.”

The puma said nothing regarding that. “May I know how to address you three?” she asked.

“I’m Emma,” Emma said.

“You can call me Ning,” Ning replied.

Clara simply looked around in confusion as all this time, all she could think of was why the two humans were talking normally to the puma, and why the puma was even bothering to talk back.

Could they actually understand it? When they started introducing themselves, Clara didn’t even realize that she had to do it.

“This is Clara,” Ning said. “But she won’t be around for long.”

“You guys were actually talking to the beast?” she asked.

“Of course,” Ning said. “What did you think we were doing?”

“I don’t know… I don’t know anything about you two,” she said. “I thought you were just speaking one-sidedly.”

Ning chuckled. “No,” he said.

“Oh yeah, you don’t have a name, do you?” Emma said. “Let’s see. You do need a name.”

“A name?” the puma looked surprised and almost expectant.

“What should we call her?” Emma turned around to ask.

Clara shrugged. “I don’t really know,” she said. She barely even understood what exactly was going on.

“How about Shadow? Or Black?” Ning suggested.

Emma glared at him. “You stay out of it. You have zero naming sense,” she said.

“But—”

“No, I’m not going to name a Shadow Puma, Shadow,” she said. “I’m also not going to name her a color like you did with Uncle Blue.”

“OH! How about Umbra?”

“Umbra?” Ning thought for a moment and nodded. “That’s not a bad name.”

“Right?” Emma said excitedly.

“Umbra…” the Shadow Puma said with a hint of fascination at her own name.

Emma rubbed her head. “I hope we’ll be friends for a long time, Umbra.”