The final change was even bigger though.

  You have increased your connection with your bonded: Camille Westfork. Because the increase came due to the expenditure of DKP you do not gain any DKP from it. As a result of reaching the 4th rank of bonding you now share one another’s regeneration rate. Whenever you are within 100 feet of your bonded, both you and she combine your regeneration of HP and Mana. Currently, you are both regenerating 2 mana per minute. Meditation will affect the increased base. Currently you are both regenerating 45 HP per day as your base has increased with the changes about to take place.

  I didn’t even get a chance to wonder what that meant before I crashed backward. My body started to spasm. It was all I could do to try and minimize the shaking as new strength and power flooded my body but with it came a tearing and stretching sensation. Normally a dragon transitioned in size over many years but this was hitting me all at once.

  You have officially obtained your adult size. Your Fabricate ability has been tapped to expand your clothes so that they still fit. Your character sheet will now read as though you are 18 years old, if anyone examines it. You are now 6’3” and 202 lbs. You have gained muscle mass. Your size upon resuming your natural shape will also reflect this growth.

  Strength: +70 (+18 in human form)

  Durability: +4

  Chapter 27 - What Exactly Are You?

  I settled in to meditate and felt my mana returning much faster. The combination of our new bond level and the 4x factor from the skill was restoring eight mana every minute. At this rate, I’d have no problem keeping Lesser Regeneration stacked on Cami. As for the girl, she was still unconscious. Apparently, nearly dying and then being healed took a lot out of you.

  Lisella had said something about blood loss not being replaced as quickly as the other aspects of healing. Now, though, she’d be healing much faster. Effectively she was healing 8 HP every minute. It wasn’t like I could see the wounds closing with my own eyes, but the scars on her stomach were gone and even the deep cut in her neck was down to little more than an angry red line.

  Serius walked over to stand in front of me. He stood there, watching me meditate. With my eyes closed, I couldn’t see him, but the pouches of various magical ingredients he carried gave off an oddly cloying scent.

  He didn’t speak, so I didn’t either.

  I simply waited until my mana was completely restored. When I opened my eyes, I found he was staring down at me. We locked into what seemed like a staring contest for a moment, but finally he asked, “What are you?”

  I chose to believe that the goddess would honor her deal with me and the wizard wouldn’t be able to determine I was actually a dragon. “You keep telling me I’m going to be a student of the university,” I replied. “Shouldn’t you be the one telling me what I am?”

  “No, I’m serious. I had to resort to using a very high-tier divination spell, but I was finally able to see your stat sheet. But even before that, though the others may have been distracted, I saw what you did. You were leveling up and gaining class abilities—which was odd but not impossible, if your mother taught you the basics of a class.”

  He pursed his lips, studying me. “It would be illegal,” he continued, “but possible.”

  “How was I to know what these rules and laws you prattle on are about?”

  He ignored my question, as I’d expected he would. “None of that explains why you had a seizure,” he pressed. “Or why you are suddenly several inches taller than before, or why you added a good twenty pounds of lean muscle mass while trembling there on the ground.”

  He eyed me, waiting for a response—which I wasn’t about to give.

  “If those things weren’t enough,” he eventually continued, “I talked to Lisella. Not only did you copy Identification, but you also watched her cast a healing spell one time and then duplicated it.”

  I shrugged. “What’s so odd about that? I thought you said I was some kind of prodigy.”

  “You may be… err… you are—at least according to my crystal ball—but that still doesn’t explain it. Magic simply doesn’t work like that... not academic magic, not divine magic, not class magic, not even pact magic. You can’t simply cast a spell after watching someone else do so like it was an instinctive ability.”

  He threw his hands up in the air. “And even if you could learn magic like that, Lesser Regeneration is tier two divine magic—and bound to only two domains. You would need the blessing of one of those two gods to be able to learn that spell.”

  I just gave him a tight smile. I found that I enjoyed playing with him like this. Truthfully, I would probably have to kill him some day, but the more I traveled with these adventurers, the more I realized I had things to learn from them. This is what it meant to be human. I would be weak until my tribe made me stronger—but for that to work, I needed the people I surrounded myself with to be strong.

  Accepting Lisella as my mentor was still something I wasn’t sure about, though. I didn’t know what type of control that would give her over me, or what commitments I would have to make to her. I would have to be careful about any oaths or promises I made, so that if an opportunity for revenge came, I’d be ready.

  Luckily, as the old saying goes, revenge is a dish best served cold—and there are none more cold-blooded than dragons.

  “How am I supposed to answer any of your questions? I simply do what I do. Lisella started to explain what the images of my testing were, but she didn’t get far. Or, more to the point, she claimed not to know what the double wings image represented.”

  Serius took a deep breath and then nodded. “That is true. None of us know what it represents.”

  “Well, there you go,” I said as I stood up. “Maybe this ability has to do with that image? And if you don’t know what it is, then how could I possibly trust you to tell me what is possible and what is impossible?”

  He stared at me for a moment. “You should choose a mentor… and quickly. You represent things we don’t understand and that is a threat. I’ve decided that your value outweighs the risk you might represent… but others may not come to the same conclusion. The university can be a dangerous place. You will need a powerful advocate.”

  “Are you asking to be my mentor?”

  He smirked at me. It wasn’t at all a becoming expression on the older human. I wondered if I looked that silly doing it. Probably not. I was a dragon, after all, and that had to count for something.

  “No, I doubt we’d be a good match. Now, if you could talk your young friend into letting me be her mentor…” He raised his brows. “I will be able to teach her magic of the highest order. She has it within her to become a true wizard—perhaps even an archmagi.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that.” I shrugged. “I only met her a few days ago.”

  “So you say,” the old man snorted, “but I’ve got eyes. The two of you are quite close. Oh… and I suppose a happy birthday is in order.”

  “Happy birthday?” To be honest, I didn’t know the exact date of when I had hatched.

  “Of course, because you told the others you were seventeen before—but I’ve seen your stat sheet. You are eighteen now and an adult—not that your age is the most interesting part of your sheet.”

  I worried for a moment that it said something about my race, but he continued, “How have you reached level eight as a monk without any formal training? And how is it that you’re so proficient at magic, despite being a monk? None of this makes sense.”

  I realized that most of his questions were not directed at me.

  He shrugged and gave me a wicked smile. “Oh, well, Lisella will be glad to know that you’re officially eighteen now.”

  Why that would please Lisella was lost on me, but one thing did hit me. If I was eighteen, perhaps having a mentor wouldn’t be so bad. I could accept a mentor and still make my own decisions. At least that was how I understood it.

  I’d have to ask around to make sure. I started to ask Serius, but he had already bent down and was helping Cami to stand. She’d awakened while I was lost in thought.

  We hugged and it felt more genuine than I expected. She was still a small, pathetic human—all soft and squishy—but somehow, her warmth and softness were good things in my mind. I just wrote it off as my curiosity and fascination with the new and odd. Everyone knew that it was more natural to be cold blooded.

  Serius called everyone together.

  “Given what has happened, and the fact that we still have wounded, I’m going to teleport us to the city of Taleian. But I’ll only be able to take the wagon, so you all have to fit inside, and anything we can’t bring along will have to be left behind.”

  Cami spoke up immediately. “We aren’t leaving Patch and Rollie here.”

  Serius adopted a lecturing tone. “They will only get in your way once we reach the university, and traveling with them will be quite a problem. It will cost quite a bit, as well, just to find a way to keep them in Taleian. We’ll only be there for a few days while Liam’s arm finishes regrowing.”

  Cami shook her head. “No, I want to take the bears.”

  I smiled, not because I cared about the bears—well… not that much—but because my stubbornness was rubbing off on the girl. Then it hit me—perhaps this connection was part of why I was adapting so well to human life. As far as I could tell, I was practically a natural at it.

  Cami looked at Modessa. “If you become my mentor, will you promise to let me bring the bears to the university?”

  Modessa looked at Serius briefly before he gave her a small nod.

  I don’t think Cami saw the gesture, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but something tickled the back of my mind that it might be important.

  The rogue nodded. “Absolutely. We’ll still have to work out the details of our contract, which can’t be formalized until we reach Urgoi, but yes… I will agree to that. They’ll have to travel on their own after Taleian. I’ll hire a place for them in a merchant caravan going overland when we get to the city. Will that be acceptable?”

  “Won’t we be going overland, too?” Cami asked.

  Serius shook his head. “No, I’m only spending the mana to teleport us now because we are close to Taleian and we need a place for Liam to recover. After that, we’ll be booking a ship and taking a portion of the journey by water.”

  I nodded. “You aren’t powerful enough to teleport us all the way to the university."

  He chuckled. "You have no idea what a wizard of my caliber is capable of—and you'd do well to remember that. But, more importantly, you don’t know why I do what I do.”

  “I do know you were barely powerful enough to defeat a bunch of… what was it? Ogres?”

  Serius glared at me and his face went flat, but then a small grin crept across his squished features—as though something had just occurred to him. He ignored my statement and ordered everyone to the wagon. Galbrecht helped Liam up, while Modessa pulled Cami away from me to go sit with the bear cubs.

  Serius climbed up into the front and then said, “Lisella, if you need a hand up, you should let Nico help you. He’s just turned eighteen and will no doubt enjoy the chance to help a princess up into the wagon.”

  Modessa laughed, while Cami frowned. Even Galbrecht and Liam seemed mildly amused, while Lisella was all smiles.

  I didn’t know what was going on but I climbed up into the wagon without waiting for Lisella. She was a level twenty adventurer after all. She hardly needed my help getting into a wagon.

  That made Modessa laugh even harder, while Lisella’s smile suddenly disappeared.

  I felt my connection with Cami suddenly swell. Turning to her, I sent telepathically, “Cami?”

  “Yes, can you really hear me?” the girl replied in my mind.

  “Obviously.” I sent her the equivalent of a mental snort.

  I felt a brief wash of shame across our connection, but then that stubborn determination that I found so appealing in her reasserted itself. “I just upgraded our bond, in case you didn’t get a notification. Did it give you back a DKP?”

  That was where the extra DKP came from? This was completely unexpected. Why would Cami spend something so valuable on me? There must have been several other things that she could have selected that would improve herself. For some reason, that she had done so both warmed my heart and frustrated me immensely.

  Eventually, I said, “Yes, it did. Thank you. You did well to increase our bond, but did you not have other choices to use your DKP on?”

  When she explained about the other choices she could have made, I growled at her in her mind. “Human, you must seek to protect yourself. I may not always be close enough and… well… I find the idea of you dying to be… unacceptable. You must promise me that you will prioritize gaining more strength so that you will be safe.”

  Suddenly, I felt the magic swirl around us, but didn’t have the faintest idea what it was doing. The patterns were moving so quickly that I might as well have been looking at ten different types of paint all swirling into a bucket at the same time. Whatever tier magic this was, it was far beyond my current capabilities.

  I heard Galbrecht say, “Brace yourself. The first time can be a bit rough, and if you get sick make sure you do so outside the wagon.”

  I scoffed, but then felt like I was being twisted and pulled into a thousand pieces. The entire world bent around itself and my pieces spun out again in a whole. It was horrifying to feel so completely out of control.

  When we reappeared, I found myself leaning over the side of the wagon and retching. It was mortifying. I hadn’t done anything like that since I was a hatchling.

  Cami also looked sick, but the others all seemed to take it in stride. Well, other than the bear cubs and the horses which pulled the wagon. All four of the animals seemed wobbly and had trouble standing up straight.

  When I looked up after vomiting, I forgot all about the animals, though. My breath was taken away as I saw what had to be the most massive city in the world. The wall rose at least fifty feet up. And while they would be no barrier to a dragon, I could see how they’d be quite a barrier for the landbound, lesser races.

  I smiled as I wiped my lips clean with my sleeve. I’d done it. I’d made it to a human city. Now the future could begin.

  Interlude 5 - Raw and Primal

  Much of what happened felt like a dream to Cami. She felt the were-tiger’s breath on her neck just an instant before the pain. It was a searing pain like no other. Claws dug through her back and burst out her gut, tearing holes through her insides. Something inside her felt like it was shredded, but she couldn’t even say that was the worst of it.

  There was no way to describe the pain that occurred when a chunk of her neck and shoulder were ripped out. She felt the magic which had been cast on her activate, and knew that the blow should have been fatal. Her thoughts possessed an odd clarity in that moment, as everything seemed to slow to a crawl.

  Death had been her fate, but the blessing of a goddess cast from her servant had saved Cami’s life.

  Yet, with just as much surety, she knew it was a onetime boon. It wouldn’t stop the follow up blow that she knew was about to fall. She didn’t bother to look back at her killer, she didn’t want his or her face to be the last thing she saw… but the blow never came.

  Cami fell limply to the ground. The impact hurt terribly, but a rush of emotion helped her ignore that agony. He had come for her! Nico had stopped her killer before he could land that final blow. More than that, she could sense his fury—Nico was ready to tear the monster apart. He was prepared to expose his secret to the world, if that’s what it took to save her.

  Her dragon was a jumble of emotions. Nico was afraid of the adventurers. He wouldn’t admit it to himself, but she could feel it. They were all strong, maybe stronger than him. The dragon in him couldn’t admit that, but he knew with a certainty that he wasn’t yet strong enough to deal with the party of adventures—at least not all at once.

  He knew that if he exposed his draconic nature to them, he’d be done for. As soon as they finished with the trolls and ogres, they’d be on him. Despite that, she sensed his willingness to transform—if that was what it took to kill this monster. The idea of transforming and carrying her off to live alone in the desert with him seemed to run on a loop through his mind.

  Cami couldn’t so much read his thoughts as get a feel for his motivations and interests. His dragon mind was so much more raw and primal than her own. There were powerful instincts at play, and yet he could be cold and conniving too. She also knew the only reason that he wasn’t escaping by flying off was because of her. She was too injured to be moved.