Wild Dragon of Rome 44 (Patreon)

“Come on, blondie, you can do it. Just three more rounds,” Astrid shouted even as she pointed at the target, and Lillian swung her sling … missing again. “You make a terrible hunter. How can you take down a prey if you can’t even hit a tree.”

I just watched from a distance, not alerting them to my presence. I shook my head in amusement even as I watched them. When I left for another exploration trip to get a better sense of the slight threat that I could feel at the depths of the valley, Astrid had been rather skittish after watching another ... Mana transfer session.

Maybe because Lillian had been unnecessarily loud in an effort to convince her to peek, a ploy that had been successful. The last thing I heard before leaving was Lillian asking for her help training her aim. That felt weird at that time, knowing Astrid’s attitude toward the elemental magic, but I trusted Lillian to handle herself. She had a better handle on Astrid’s attitude in any case.

It seemed that I was right to trust her. Astrid looked far more comfortable, enough to mock Lillian openly. It was welcome progress.

Too bad my trip hadn’t been as fruitful. I had gone out for a trip for one reason only. I was able to feel an unsettling presence in the depths of the valley, one that actually triggered an unsettling feeling in my new set of instincts. I spent most of the day exploring the tracks around the valley, trying to get a sense of what it might be, but failed to find anything that could explain it.

As for moving deeper to explore it, I flat-out ignored it. The whole point of it was to check whether it meant some kind of immediate threat. Going deeper might give me a better idea of what that threat was … but then, it could also trigger it.

That was not an acceptable risk. Considering that, up until now, those instincts triggered nothing but rash aggression, even when I was facing a force of multiple mages, I decided to take that sense of caution seriously.

“Marcus, you’re back,” Lillian shouted as she saw me approach and put her new sling back to her belt and started running toward me. “Come on, defend me. Astrid had been bullying me all day.”

“I was not. I was just helping her train —” Astrid started, only for her words to be cut short when Lillian hugged me possessively, and started kissing me. Her anger might be fake, but her passion was certainly real. Astrid turned to the side, trying to avoid looking at us, but she wasn’t able to keep herself from glancing our way regardless. “Can’t you two wait until you’re not in front of me,” Astrid admonished.

I chuckled even without pulling from the kiss, and Lillian’s lips mirrored. After all, it wasn’t like doing so gave us any privacy. Once she pulled back, Lillian sent a smug glare toward Astrid. “It’s your fault for bullying me all day,” she said.

“It’s not my fault you’re a terrible hunter, even children have better aim than you,” Astrid replied, frustration making her tone more biting.

“It’s because you’re too demanding,” Lillian answered, and they started arguing, making Astrid more and more frustrated. Lillian looked frustrated as well, but she had been faking it. Deliberately triggering resentment was a weird path, but I decided to trust Lillian for now.

Watching them would have been amusing, but I had a more important objective. Trying to control my transformation. The whole day, I hadn’t pushed myself even once, yet I had three more scales on my forearm. At this point, it was covering almost half of my forearm. Worse, it was speeding up.

I closed my eyes, meditating just like Astrid had taught me, spreading my consciousness inward, just like I did to control my mana or develop my elemental cores. This time, however, I ignored my damaged cores and focused on my arm. The last night, the meditation was about getting familiar with the process.

This time, it was about control. According to Astrid’s teachings, the initial method of feeding the vitae required channeling the mana directly to the transformed part. That way, the transformed parts slowly strengthened and generated more vitae, and the remnant mana would grant some kind of control.

Repeat enough times, and the holy warrior would slowly develop a rudimentary control over his transformation. According to Astrid, it was a process that took years, but most of it was about teaching them how to channel their mana actively, something that was not a problem for me.

Instead, I grabbed the smallest amount of mana I could control, and channeled it to a targeted portion of the scales, pushing directly to it … only for it to be devoured immediately, like desert sand devouring water.

Disappointing, but not surprising. It was just as I expected.

Most of Astrid’s explanation had been about how to control the amount of mana that was fed to the essence of the immaculate beasts, as flooding with too much mana could easily destroy the nascent, developing vitae.

Unfortunately, my situation was different enough for it not to matter. The fact that my scales absorbed all the mana at once wasn’t surprising. I didn’t know the attributes of a dragon heart, but fragile didn’t belong to that list.

I could flood one of the scales with all the mana I could channel to test its limit, but I was afraid of the results. It would quicken the transformation even further … and what if there was no limit.

“No, let’s try something different,” I muttered as I channeled another minuscule bit of mana, and brought toward the scales. I let the mana touch the edge, but when the scale started to devour the mana, I didn’t let it go. Instead, I pulled it back forcefully, turning that into a tug of war.

The mana snapped.

“Promising,” I muttered, but I kept my eyes closed. I gathered my mana once more, this time not touching the scale, and instead let it linger at the edge, trying to resonate with the scales without touching, trying to resonate.

It had been somewhat more successful. As I spent my time, trying to extend connection while trying to treat the scales the same as my other vitae, I could feel some kind of connection. It was a weak connection, like trying to speak to someone in a raging storm, someone who spoke an utterly foreign language. Further interaction was impossible.

Still, I smiled. It might be useless for practical purposes for the moment, but it was still the greatest progress I had made. And, it was just the first day.

Magic was not easy to master, especially when dealing with a condition like mine, which, by all accounts, should have been an unmitigated disaster.

I stayed like that for an hour, trying to expand the connection. Unfortunately, I failed to expand the condition no matter how hard I worked.

It was time for another experiment, trying to replicate the foreign instincts. Anger was the easiest method to achieve that, and luckily, I didn’t have any particular trouble getting angry. I just needed to imagine my uncle and start dreaming about how I would rip my uncle into two for betraying my grandfather.

My heartbeat quickened under my revenge fantasies, and along with it, the amount of mana in my body. Still, it didn’t reach the critical density that would forcefully infuse my body, so I ignored that plight for the moment, and instead, repeated the indirect mana resonance.

It was hard to simultaneously meditate and revel in my anger, another thing I was able to achieve thanks to my unique brand of training. The connection was still as flimsy, and the background noise was still a raging tempest, but to extend the metaphor, we were speaking the same language. It was a spotty understanding, merely a few words.

But it was much better than before.

Even with my eyes closed, I could feel the scales on my arm disappearing one by one, turning back to smooth skin. However, with each disappearing scale, holding it back became more difficult. I was sweating under pressure, like I was carrying an enormous weight.

I took a deep breath and hissed, wondering just how long I could hold it. I would have tried that as well, if it wasn’t for hearing footsteps closing in. With my enhanced hearing, it was easy to detect the different footsteps. Lillian walked with the confident yet alluring gait of a noblewoman, each step showing the truth of her heritage.

Unfortunately, while that way of walking both looked good and conveyed confidence, it wasn’t exactly the ideal for wilderness, making a lot of noise. I would have noticed her even without my enhanced hearing.

Astrid, on the other hand, was able to move like a whisper, making her much harder to notice. With her approach, I decided not to test how much I could hold the transformation back.

And, the moment I let it go, the scales grew back almost instantly … and along with it, came pain. It wasn’t the worst I had ever felt, but with the life I lived, that was not a simple option. It certainly hurt more than a mere stabbing.

A loud gasp exploded despite my greatest effort to stay silent.