Chapter 500: 501. The Hidden Seventh

“I see you down there,” Dallion let go of his dartbow, then summoned his harpsisword .

Slip next time you strike, a young voice said.

It sounded very much like that of the dragonlets. The notable thing was that it wasn’t directed towards Dallion, but his harpsisword.

He doesn’t deserve you, the voice went on. He’s just using you.

Amusing child, Harp replied, using her standard form of communication. You need to get out more.

“That doesn’t work against empaths,” Dallion said. “Drop your illusion and let’s have a proper face off. Or maybe you’re willing to learn a thing or two?”

A tree beneath transformed, regaining the form of a dragonlet. It was a lot darker than all the rest, even the emerald dragon. Scales covered its entire body, even the wings. A deep sense of rivalry flared up in the creature’s chest.

Looks like he’s acknowledging you as a strong opponent, Nil said. Of course, that doesn’t amount to too much.

I had forgotten how critical you were, Dallion muttered.

Occasionally, someone needs to bring you back to reality, dear boy. In this case, I was being quite literal. It’s more than probable that the dragonlets have never actually seen the real world. They have been safely guarded here by the dragon, where their battles were carefully controlled. I suspect that if they come close to being defeated, the dragon would step in. And even if by some miracle he doesn’t, all that will happen is they will be ejected out of the realm.

The thought sent chills down Dallion’s spine. In a manner, the dragon had managed to create a settlement in which to keep his offspring. There weren’t any buildings, or lairs as such, but it was safe and had everything that was needed for them to grow and develop, anything except danger. However, the realm was also a prison, just as cities were. Dallion knew that firsthand, now more than ever. Becoming a hunter had allowed him to see the invisible cages surrounding every city, as well as help him slide out of them when he wanted.

Is that why you sent me here, Felygn? Dallion wondered. He had always assumed that his task was to save the creature from being hunted. It was starting to look like all the corpses in shining armor had been challengers that had proven to be unworthy.

Dallion felt relieved he had managed to survive the dragonlets’ initial attack. If not, he too would have become a permanent decoration of the dragon’s nest. Now all he had to do was keep staying alive.

“Am I the first to survive this long?” Dallion asked, looking around.

The dragonlets kept flying around him, waiting. Eventually, the dark green one opened its wings and flapped up to Dallion’s level.

Your guardians must like you a lot, it said.

“We’re friends.” Are you the one who called me? Since it was the only one with a developed empathy trait, that seemed more than likely. Either that, or the old dragon has asked the Moon to help get one of the dragonlets safely in the real world.

You’re not the first, the dragonlet said after a while. Over twenty managed to survive.

“They still died, though. Right?”

The dragonlet snorted. Dallion could see disappointment appear within it and all the rest. It was obvious what had happened: the previous hunters had focused on killing the dragonlets in order to escape the realm. However, the old dragon hadn’t allowed that. The rules of the game were very specific: fail and you die, get close to killing one of the offspring and you die as well.

“Did anyone make it out alive?”

“Just one,” the dragon’s voice boomed throughout the air. “She had magic.”

By the sound of it, a mage had been here before and it didn’t sound like it was someone from the Academy.

“So, did I pass the audition?” Dallion asked. “Or do I still have to face you?”

The dark green dragonlet burst into a dozen instances. Instinctively, Dallion did the same, creating twice as many. Once he saw the length of time this one could maintain its combat splitting, he summoned his dartbow and did the same demonstration he had a moment ago.

The dragonlet barely reacted as its instances faded away, as if it had been expecting that.

“Checking if I’m lucky?” Dallion asked.

I wanted to see if I can learn your trick, the dragonlet replied.

Told you it’s cheeky, Gleam said.

Do it again, the dragonlet said, increasing the distance between the two.

The exchange happened twice more. The dragonlet would try different approaches, and Dallion would put a quick end to them with a bolt, largely thanks to Lux. After each time, the curiosity within the creature grew. It was obvious that it was determined to figure out the trick, though consistently failed to do so. It was only on the eighth try—when the ridicule coming from his siblings finally got to him—that he succeeded.

The moment that happened, the land beneath rose up, creating a crescent-shaped mountain. On cue, the dragonlets stopped flying about and quickly perched on specific points on the peak.

Does that mean I won? Dallion asked. It seemed suspiciously easy.

“Congratulations, you’re the first to pass the audition,” the dragon’s voice boomed. “I’m entrusting my offspring to you. Teach them anything that you think would be useful. After I see results, we’ll talk again.”

“Sure.” Dallion nodded. This wasn’t what they had discussed, but saying that openly to the dragon in whose domain he found himself in wasn’t the best solution at present. “What are your benchmarks?”

“You’ll know when you achieve them.” A pillar of rock emerged beneath Dallion, ending in what could pass for a building from a dragon’s point of view. Clearly, this was to be his “home” for the foreseeable future.

Well, dear boy, this is a fine mess you got yourself into, Nil said.

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Look on the bright side. Dallion forced a smile. At least there won’t be any time lost.

We’ve yet to see if that holds true.

Training officially started a few hours later. The old dragon was generous enough to provide any structure or terrain modification Dallion requested, as long as it was sufficiently well explained. On the flip side, that significantly limited the excuses Dallion could come up with for not showing results. That wasn’t too big an issue, though. Thanks to all the creatures he used to capture from the wilderness, Dallion had become accustomed to training all sorts of creatures, some of them quite dangerous.

The very first thing that Dallion found that getting dragons to do the same thing was as difficult as herding cats. Each dragonlet had its own temperament and understanding what was important and what not. The five weaker ones insisted that Dallion teach them the secrets of combat splitting, while the remaining two wanted to focus on how to cause said splitting to fade away. Not only that, but the creatures were prideful to the point that they refused to be taught by an echo. Dallion’s attempt to teach everyone at their own pace resulted in him quickly losing half his health as several dragonlets let their frustration known by ganging up and killing off several echoes. A new approach was needed.

Dallion deeply wished that dragons would be more like shardflies. With them, it was enough to illustrate the same thing to dozens, and even more, and they would follow the instructions, with few exceptions.

The first few days passed in Dallion, using Lux to rush from dragonlet to dragonlet, explaining something for a few minutes, before moving on to the next. The progress was poor, but that wasn’t the point. Dallion had dedicated the time to get a feeling from each individual creature, and also start thinking how to proceed forward.

The next few days, Dallion came up with names for the dragonlets and gave each of them tasks to complete. There was a lot of grumbling, and more often than not, the creatures would fly over to where Dallion was at, to see what he was teaching their siblings.

Looking at you brings tears to my eyes, Nil said. It brings me such joy seeing that you’re starting to get a sense of the pains I had to go through teaching you.

Thanks, Nil…

You didn’t have any concept of the basics, but at least there was only one of you, so things even out.

You weren’t the one to teach me combat splitting, Dallion grumbled.

To be honest, Vend didn’t either. He just showed you a few practical examples and let you work out the rest. Poorly at first, I must add.

Sometimes, practice is the best teacher.

After another week, Dallion had a sense of the traits of each dragonlet. As he suspected, four of them proved to be single digits and unable to learn combat splitting. Even so, he kept on providing hints for them to make it more difficult for opponents that relied on splitting. That was a thing based on Dallion’s personal experience, or rather based on the way Gleam fought. Relying on wide attacks increased the chances of affecting several instances simultaneously, not to mention it diminished the enemy’s options.

Never before had Dallion dreamed that he’d end up teaching tactics to dragons, but the here he was. Quite alarmingly, the creatures picked up things fast. By the end of the week, fighting them was significantly more difficult than the initial encounter. In some cases—when the dragons were capable of splitting themselves—Dallion had to rely on Lux to thrust him out of the fight before things became serious.

“Tomorrow you’ll continue only with three of them,” the dragon’s voice boomed during the night in the realm, while Dallion was having a snack. Food, fortunately, was something the dragon had made sure to provide, even if it was in the form of plants with the appearance of pumpkins and the taste of lawn grass.

“Are you unhappy with something?”

“No. Otherworlders have good teaching skills. They’ve learned all they could in their present state of development. Until they level up another five levels anything you show will be wasted on them. I want you to focus on the rest.”

“You mean advanced combat splitting?”

“That will be enough.” The dragon’s presence disappeared, letting Dallion know he was allowed some privacy.

You got it, Dallion thought.

Dallion took a few more bites of his pumpkin, then put it on the side. A single moon filled the night sky. Looking at it reminded him of Earth. Of course, the Green Moon was a lot larger—not to mention green—but it brought a sense of nostalgia, making Dallion think of his youth.

I thought you weren’t going to think about your home, Nil said.

“I thought so as well,” Dallion replied. Jiroh’s return to her world had made him start thinking about Earth again. The forgotten discoveries he’d made in the Star’s domain had amplified those thoughts. The sad thing was that even with Dallion’s high mind trait, his memories of Earth were getting more and more jumbled. “I feel like I’m starting to forget the faces of people.”

It’s bound to happen. You’ve been away for quite a few centuries. Don’t worry, though. The more you increase your mind, the—

“Can magic help me see into my world?” Dallion interrupted.

That’s not a good question to ask. Nil’s tone became a lot harder all of a sudden.

“The new trait I got from defeating Goth is magic, isn’t it? It’s just a fraction, but enough to let me obtain it.”

No, you’re wrong. What you have is an illusion.

Dallion remained silent. There was a time when he thought the same about empathy. Back then, he didn’t even know what it would be, but through persistence and achievements managed to reach a point at which it had become a trait like any other. Why shouldn’t it be the same with magic?

Magic is unlike other traits. It’s useless without a skill, and unless you already have it, you can’t advance it.

“That’s not what I saw.”

What did you see? That you gained a fraction by killing an echo of the Star? Well, when you next meet the crippled, maybe you could ask him to let you fight nineteen more, because that’s the only way you’ll reach your first point. There are no other achievements that advance magic. You’ll have to level up. And even if you decide to sacrifice all other traits for the sake of it, then what? You’ll just have it at one. You’ve probably seen that your trials are becoming more and more difficult. At some point soon you’ll hit your limit. It might be thirty levels off, or maybe less, but even in a best-case scenario, you’ll have the stat at ten, which is just enough to make you noticeable and utterly unable to protect yourself.

“You’re probably right, but there’s still a way.”

Oh? Please enlighten me, dear boy.

“Once I’ve kept my promise to Felygn, I could ask for another favor.”

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