Dragon Sorcerer 2- Chapter 97 (Patreon)

Sorry this one took a while. The chapter ended up being over 4k words so I had to split it. This part is still fairly long and I'll finish up 98 tonight.

I took my wife to a concert in Chicago yesterday and ended up not getting it all done. Sorry there is some growth here but also needed to quantify some of their gains. If you pay attention though you'll see Nico taking some important steps.

If I don't get 98 done tonight it will be out tomorrow. Then there should be 2-3 chapters after that to finish book 2 and then onward  to book 3 and other things I need to get done.


Chapter 97- Comparing Notes

It turned out that my even my ugly human body realized that it needed sleep after what I’d been through. I ended up sleeping through an entire day. When I woke, it was almost nighttime again. I smiled. For some reason simple things like this made me happy.

The first thing I did of course was to check the rest of the notifications. My body had felt weird walking back to my dorm room. As I thought about it, that only made sense, though. I had experienced a significant gain in Agility slowly over months. In fact, I had adjusted to it seamlessly, but now the boost in Strength threw everything out of whack because it happened all at once.

I even considered put my free stat points into Agility, but I knew this was a problem I could adapt to. What I really needed was more casting power and to that end, I plopped all 28 free stat points into Mind.

Then I looked at the new class skills I had gained. It was fascinating as they both interacted with my draconic abilities in ways I hadn’t seen from previous skill gains before.

You have gained the skill: Purge the Body- with this skill you immediately recognize if any harmful foreign substance has been introduced into your body. Then, at will, you may cleanse it from your body. The mana cost for using this ability can be variable based upon the potency of the harmful foreign substance. Base mana cost: 2 mana per second.

Error… you already possess Poison Immunity.

Adapting skill.

New skill is My Body Poisons the World- instead of cleansing your body from harmful substances, your blood can become both acidic and toxic. Use will level this skill. Base mana cost: 3 mana per second.

This was promising and happened again with the second skill.

Dragon Warrior Form- transform your entire body into a humanoid, winged dragon, with full dragon head, and breath weapon. Dragon color is based upon your top elemental affinity. Height increases by 80% with requisite weight increase. Gain Strength: +30%, Agility: +10%.

Error… you already possess this ability within your Shape Change skill.

Shape Change +1

When taking dragon warrior form, you will possess 50% of your true body’s Strength.

As impressive as the gains through my new class were, it was really the growth as a dragon which pleased me the most. Each new age category represented a more significant change than the one before it. I truly noticed that now. There were so many changes that I had to look at the stat sheet to verify everything, but I at least took in the highlights.

My size increased significantly, and I couldn’t wait to transform. My physical damage increased, as did the range and damage of each of my breath weapon types. I also gained some automatic increases to Attack, my Armor Rating, Critical Hit Chance, as well as improving some of my skills without having to spend DKP. Yes, I could definitely get used to this.

You have gained 5% Age Category

You are now a Mature Adult Dragon (0% to Elder)

Strength: +200

Durability: +200

Mind: +50

It kept showing little changes to my skills and abilities, but I pushed them aside. I’d look at them soon enough. I was frankly thrilled to have reached this point. It was faster than any dragon in my memories. But I was even more excited that I did this part on my own rather than because Cami had gained another level.

The next question was if I should trigger an evolution now, but the rumbling in my stomach answered that for me. Human body couldn’t even manage to go three days without eating without feeling like it was starving. Oh well, off to the dining hall. As I went, I reached out to Cami.

I expected her to be full of questions about my training; she was always so interested in me, which was likely part of why this worked so well. That wasn’t the case this time. I could practically sense her excitement. “Oh Nico, sorry, I was sleeping, but the most amazing thing happened.”

“I know it did. I was about to tell you all about it.”

“Oh… right. I should ask about you.”

There was something off about her tone. I didn’t know what it was, but that rumbling in my stomach had stopped and it almost felt like there was a deep pit down there which had fallen in on itself. Was I sick? I didn’t like this feeling, that much I knew for sure.

Then she spoke again. “Where are you? I’ll come to you.”

I was slow to answer as I tried to figure out why I felt so strange. Finally, I did the telepathic equivalent of mumbling. “I’m on my way to the dining hall.”

“Oh, I’m already there. I have a lot to tell you, but I want to hear about what happened to you, too. And before I forget, I have the choker that you commissioned. It turned out really good, and he even refunded all of your gold since he’s your minion now.”

And just like that, all of my confusion was gone. It wasn’t really a present since the gold had been mine, but getting both the enchanted choker and the gold made it feel like one of those human holidays where they exchange gifts.

When I got to the dining hall, Cami already had several plates full of my favorite foods. I felt a sense of warmth from her as she saw me and I realized that I too had missed her. Something trembled within her and as I looked at her, I remembered my lesson. My soul defined me. Why could it not be the same for Cami?

She was brave, loyal, and bold. Perhaps if I just thought of her as the soul of a dragon, which had been unfortunate enough to be born in a human, then I could respect her more.

I moved to sit down so I could begin eating, but she stood and pulled me into an embrace. My first instinct was to pull away, but I found that it wasn’t entirely awful. I could feel her heart beating as she held me close. I supposed it was only reasonable that she would have felt lost without me.

Then I sat down and dove into my food. Neither of us spoke for a few minutes as I ate. I could sense that she wanted to speak so in a magnanimous gesture mostly fueled by my desire to eat rather than speak I urged her to tell me what she had been doing for the past five months.

She briefly described her training with Modessa, some of the new spells she had learned, but her excitement showed when she started talking about what she did with Daggin.

“I did it, Nico. I actually did it.”

My mouth was full with a large bite of steak, so I didn’t say anything, but there was no need as she continued speaking. “I worked so hard. I just thought what would Nico do, and I knew you’d never give up. You’d always try to become the strongest.”

There was a note in her voice that I hadn’t ever heard before. It might have been there; I just hadn’t noticed. I found myself strangely uncomfortable with it. She clearly wanted my approval, yet that wasn’t something I was used to giving. I felt good seeing how much she looked up to me. It was only natural. Yet was I missing something? Was there something more that I needed to do?

On a whim, I said, “You would have made an excellent dragon.”

She stared at me for a second and then burst out into a wide smile. Apparently, that had been the right thing to say. It was easy though, because I was beginning to see that Cami becoming stronger made us both stronger. Cami’s accomplishments were by extension mine, so they needed to laud. And it was true, the mishap of her birth was hardly her fault.

Even the system seemed to approve because we both got a notification.

Mutual respect is the foundation of the bond even if it is not always obvious. Your bond progresses to level 14. Moving forward, new benefits will become available at level 15, 20, 25, and so on. The maximum level of a bond ever achieved is 26. Will you be the ones to take it beyond?

She gasped as she read it. I needed to maintain a better composure, but I too was excited. Something about a challenge. Instinctively, though, we both seemed to know that now wasn’t the time to talk about this, so instead I asked, “And did it work?”

She nodded vigorously. Then she willed her stat sheet open for me. I looked at it. Her growth was impressive. In part, her stats had risen because of my growth, but that would only be part of it.

I focused in on the most important part. Cami had gained a class. She even shared her notification with me about it.

Crafting Class: Soul Forger Level: 1

Soul Forger is a legendary class. The limits of this class have never been reached but certainly extend beyond level 20. :Level your class by creating soul tools, weapons, and armor for yourself and others as well as by leveling those items.

Soul Forger Class Abilities:

1) Create Soul Items. Soul items possess a sliver of the soul of a living being. They can grow their own personality and can gain XP through appropriate use. It is up to you to discover what the appropriate use for each item is.

Current limits: You may only use your own soul. Cool Down on the ability is 1 year. Level your class to reduce your limits.

2) All Soul Items are automatically soul bond to the being from which the soul sliver is taken from. But after the death of that being they may bond with another. You may also forge soul bonds between willing subjects and other magical items of at least rare quality.

3) Because your path to soul forging was through elemental forging, your class includes all of the abilities of an elemental forger, allowing you to imbue elemental qualities into the items you forge by altering the fundamental nature of the substances.

Legendary Crafting Classes have both variable and fixed stat gains.

At each level, you will gain:

 Strength +2

Durability: +2

Mind: +2

You may also gain bonus stat points based upon your achievements.

For achieving a legendary crafting class, your initial stat gain is 10x greater.

For being the first to open the Soul Forger class in the past century, your soul will fully be restored after 3 days of sleep and your reset for using your primary skill will be reset. This is a onetime bonus.

I felt like my chest was puffing out. That was my rider, my companion, my knight. She was the first to achieve this class in a century, and it was a legendary class. I wasn’t fully sure what Soul Items were, but they sounded impressive. Anything that could grow stronger overtime had to be impressive, right?

“That is amazing.” She seemed to respond to my praise. If she’d been a dragon, I would have expected her to start preening her scales. By that point, I had finished my food, or at least enough of it that I began telling her about my new class. It might not be legendary, but it was a combat class and dragons didn’t normally get those. I was in new territory with this.

She was appropriately impressed and wasn’t just fawning. The bond made sure I knew she genuinely thought I was amazing, which of course I was. She was particularly proud of me for reaching Mature Adult on my own, which prompted another conversation about strategizing the best way to focus on her development. Obviously, the further along I was the more those 10% age category boosts were worth.

If I received them while an ancient dragon, they would be exponentially more valuable than receiving them as a mature adult dragon. Realistically, we could only count on thirty-two more of them, that was twelve more for Dragon Knight and twenty for whatever her second class was. It was probably telling that I never expected her to do anything other than get an epic class for her second class. She was my bonded after all.

I still had to make it through Mature Adult, Elder, and then Ancient. So technically, she could boost me to Great Wyrm, but I was beginning to wonder if there was anything beyond Great Wyrm. If there was, it would be great to use those level ups. In the end, we decided that it would be fine for her to still level up, but that she shouldn’t push for levels in her second class and instead focus on her crafting class and Dragon Knight. It didn’t hurt that she still hadn’t worked out a second class. Then again, neither had I.

After that discussion, she talked to me a little bit about the minions. She had handled them very well and I wouldn’t need to make an appearance anytime soon, but could once we completed the mission I had told her about when discussing the dragon dream. I didn’t go into what Tra’vis had said, not because I wanted to keep it from her, but because I still needed to process it myself. It raised too many questions I was uncomfortable with.

Then she showed me the choker, which made me very happy. I read its description and then popped it on right there in the dining hall. Thanks to the enchantments Rubin had placed on it, the choker immediately became invisible to visual observation.

It was strangely refreshing to know that I was immune to all non-epic level scrying and Cami would benefit as long as she was close enough to me.

Choker of Freedom Quality: Epic

This metal strip has been worked by a rune metal smith and then enchanted by a master level enchanter. It takes the concept of a collar used against your race and subverts it to provide protection against that very thing.

Note these items contain both rune enhancements and multiple enchantments. Because it was created by beings who are now your minions, all effects are increased by 10%. Because the enchantments were tempered with the blood of a dragon given willingly the effects are increased by 25%. Because the blood used is that of the one the item has been created for the effects are increased by 15%.

You have already attuned to the item, so once you put it on it will become soul bonded to you.

Rune Enhancements:

1) Durability: +200% (+300%)

2) Heat Resistance: +100% (+150%)

3) Pliability: +100% (+150%)

4) Armor Value: +3 (+5)

Enchantments:

1) Resistance compulsion and general mental or emotion based magic. +75% (108%) vs Compulsion. +50% (+75%) vs General Mental/Emotional Magic

2) Curse Bane- user will receive a warning before willingly putting on any magic item possessing cursed or negative effects. Such items can not be put on against the will of the user.

3) Scry and Detection Magic Resistance- Immune to all such magics of less than epic level. Bonus resists such spells up to level 25 and provides 40% resistance against such spells of higher level.

4) The choker becomes invisible when it is worn.

5) Your bonded companion enjoys the same benefits as long as she is within 1000 feet of you.

Then she showed me her spear, which it turned out that Daggin had worked runes into and Ruben had been able to put an enchantment on it, using the last of the blood I had provided to temper it all.

Beyond the base benefits she had created which were yet to be defined but showed potential, it now had the following:

Enhanced Sharpness and Piercing

Chance of Critical Strikes +10% (+15%)

Damage Increased +12 (+18) base damage

Enhanced Durability: +100% (150%) above normal soul item

Length Extension: The concept of a spear is to give reach against an opponent. Runes have been worked in to enable the user to double (triple) the length of the spear for short period or reduce it by 33% (50%) when needed.

Apparently, the bonuses I got for the crafters being my minions and the use of my blood applied equally for Cami.