Truthfully, the information I had about dragons in the empire was limited. I knew that there were still people called dragon riders and dragon knights. The thing was that Lisella got nervous every time I brought them up and always indicated that Serius was researching more information to tell me.

  What I did get out of them was that whatever passed for dragon riders today was not the same thing their legends were based on. My mentor’s reticence to answer the question had made it awkward. If I was going to settle into the university and truly learn what humans had to offer I could wait. What were a few months to a dragon, after all? I had also accepted that I wasn’t strong enough to rescue my sister and the more I thought about it, as long as she was alive that should be good enough. It didn’t mean I’d forgiven the adventurers and their deaths were still a goal for down the road.

  The net result, however, was that I had some curiosity about why there would be dragons at the university. “So, are there dragon riders here?”

  We had already reached the ground level, crossed the campus to end up on the far side of the academy, pretty much the opposite of where the dorms were. A rectangular building loomed in front of us. It was massive, being at least a thousand feet long on the side I could see and two hundred feet high. A large area was open around it for a good five hundred feet, whereas most of the campus was packed full of buildings.

  Terrance looked back when I asked my question. “You really don’t know anything. The university has a full wing of six dragon riders. Well, five and one knight, although what exactly they have to protect us from, I don’t know. No one would dare attack an island full of mages and future adventurers.”

  “Hmm…” I grunted noncommittally. “So we’ll get to see six dragons?”

  Even as I asked the question, my mind was racing. Six dragons might present a complicated situation. How did they all get along? Did they all stay inside of that building?

  “No, it’ll be good luck if a couple of them are here. One is always left, but most of them travel all over on missions to larger towns and cities as part of the universities recruiting drives. For some reason, the emperor opened enrollment to anyone almost ten years ago and so now every craftsman’s son who shows the slightest magical aptitude ends up here. Why else do you think they’ve been adding all the new buildings?”

  I shrugged. I certainly wasn’t an expert at determining the age of human construction. Either way, it didn’t matter that we were at the gates to the building. There were two guards standing outside, but they seemed rather bored from what I could determine. Terrance flashed the insignia showing he was a fourth-year student, and we were admitted without anything more than a warning not to stick our hands inside any of the enclosures.

  Just as the door had almost closed behind us, one of them called out. “Oh, Matilda is pregnant and in a particularly foul mood, so I’d stay away from the dragon enclosure entirely.”

  Of all that was wrong with that statement, the thing that hit me the hardest was the name, ‘Matilda’. What type of dragon would have a name like that?

  Terrance tried to show off his knowledge and showed me everything from large, wooly rhinoceroses, griffins which, as every dragon knows are just noisy birds with the habits of cats, and pegasi.

  None of that was interesting to me. Under other circumstances, I might have paid a little attention to the other animals, if only because it would have let me see with my own eyes the various types of food some of my ancestors had enjoyed. Right now, though, I was more focused on the fact that I couldn’t sense another dragon anywhere near here.

  The dragon dream brought knowledge with it but it was also a connection of sorts. It allowed dragons to speak to one another without the need for words. The range was pretty short for that although some of my memories suggested that it grew between a mated pair or in the rare circumstances that two dragons developed a friendship such as it might be for our kind.

  In fact, I was so worried about my inability to detect the dragon who was supposedly just a few hundred feet away on the upper floor of the building that I almost missed one last pen before we reached the stairs which led up. I glanced over and in the midst of all these various creatures there was a relatively small pen with two bear cubs in it.

  “Hold up a second,” I said. Then, without waiting to see what Terrance did, I walked over to the pen.

  Just as I had thought. I squatted down and reached my arm through the metal bars. “Patch, Rollie.”

  The two bear cubs must have recognized me because they came to me immediately and started licking my hand. “You two have grown. I wonder why they didn’t tell me you’d arrived. Cami will be so mad.”

  Then I looked at the sign on the pen.

  Two brown bears bonded companions of 1st year student, Cami Westfork.

  Mentor: Modessa Lonerat.

  I don’t know why, but for some reason I was upset that I wasn’t mentioned. I was the one who had found the cubs. I saved them. I helped feed them. If anyone, they should be my pets. A wave of fear went through me. Did this mean that the bond with Cami was going to result in a loss of my individuality?

  Dragons were, by nature, primarily solitary creatures. From the dream, I knew there were a few who formed lasting relationships with others, but even then, they spent most of their time alone. Exploring the dream for more information about bonding was going to have to be a top priority. That ancient ancestor of mine, Draconis, couldn’t be tamed and wouldn’t let anyone diminish him. I had only seen a single short memory of him, but even that was enough to make me sure.

  Terrance called out, “Are you going to come or what?”

  I looked over my shoulder at him and once again the thought of just killing him crossed my mind. I hadn’t seen any caretakers, but I doubted there weren’t some. Still, there was plenty of room in this building to change shape. If I ate the evidence, then they’d just need a new RA for my dorm. With a goddess protecting my identity, no one would ever find out anything about him. I shook off the thought, but still indulged in a brief bit of visualization. The look on his face would have almost made the trouble worth it. In the end, the deciding factor was that I really didn’t want to find out what human tasted like.

  I patted the cubs one more time and headed up the stairs. To be fair, they already were nearing the equivalency of being teenagers for bears, so I wouldn’t be able to think of them as cubs for much longer. Then, as I stepped up onto the top floor of the building, all other thoughts fled my mind.

  It was one large open floor with a few cots and roughly divided with partial walls into eight areas. Six of the areas each had a single cot in them while another area on one side of the building had an open air exit, which was large enough for me to fly out even at my new size as a dragon, but only barely. Then, on the far side of the room, was another area. I could only vaguely see into it because it was the most walled off of all the areas.

  What I did see confused me and took my breath away. A green dragon was visible, or rather her head and part of her neck were. The rest was blocked by a wall. The head was laying down like she was stretched out in what seemed an unnatural position. Untrustworthy greens were smaller than blues who, in turn were slightly smaller than fat, lazy reds. But what I was seeing didn’t make any sense.

  The guard had said that the dragon upstairs was pregnant. Dragon females didn’t seek a mate until they were at least in the mature adult tier. I didn’t know if even the smallest of dragons, the stupid whites would have been as small as this head suggested while being a mature adult. I knew I’d be a good fifty feet long by the time I reached that stage.

  Terrance continued walking up to the dragon when a woman stepped out and held up her hand. “Hold there, Matilda is close to giving birth. She isn’t in the mood for visitors.”

  That was enough to stop Terrance, but not me. I ignored the woman’s words. She was a good foot shorter than me and dressed in clothes I associated with human servants, even if it was of a very high quality. None of that mattered, though.

  The only thing I cared about was the fact that my eyes told me there was a dragon mere feet from me. Except the problem was that I couldn’t feel her through the dream. She was a green, so of course none of her memories would be there for me to see, but I should still have been able to sense her presence. Yet where she was, I felt nothing.

  Chapter 51 - Murder and Slavery

  The confusion was the only thing which held my rage in check as I stormed past the woman. When I could see the full dragon, I became even angrier. She couldn’t have been even twenty feet long. Her belly was rounded and swollen, which meant she’d be laying her clutch of eggs soon. But something had to be horribly wrong. She shouldn’t be this small.

  When she looked up at me, she stared for a moment. I saw my own confusion echoed on her face. One of the things about the Shape Change ability which dragons could use once their magic was activated was that other dragons always knew you were a dragon. It didn’t matter if I looked like a human or a tree, she should have known me for a dragon.

  The woman behind me grabbed my shoulder to pull me back, and I simply acted on instinct. I made this human body completely mine. In that moment, I was a human monk, not a dragon. Well, except I was a human monk with a portion of a dragon’s strength.

  Without even trying, I rotated my arm up and around while dipping my shoulder. Her arm was flung wide, leaving her chest wide open. I pivoted on the balls of my feet as my hips twisted around to bring all the power this body could muster to bear against her. Just an instant before my palm strike hit her chest, my heels hit the ground, providing me with a firm foundation.

  The force of my blow doubled her over and sent her flying into the wall. I felt bone break under my hand but pulled it back as I cast Identify on her.

  Shavi Torell Level: 15

  Class: Pseudo-Dragon Rider

  I stopped reading after that. She was powerful and looking at her she wasn’t dead but simply struggling for breath. Well, that and dealing with some broken bones. I’d seen all I needed to with the identification of her class.

  Another notification popped up and while I was able to shut out the scream of terror and outrage that Terrance let out, I couldn’t seem to suppress this notification.

  You have taken the next step forward in blending your dragon form into this human one.

  You may now claim the class and all benefits as your own including gaining stat points. Note the class has an available evolution. You may now evolve the uncommon class: Monk to the rare class: Dragon Disciple.

  Do you wish to accept evolution?

  I triggered yes, simply to get past this so I could focus on the world around me. The system was being more than a little inconvenient right now.

  Terrance had raced over and was kneeling next to the crumpled woman, the so-called dragon rider. Neither seemed a threat at the moment, so I walked over to the green in front of me. As I did, I made use of Identify again.

  “Matilda” Tier: Peak 3

  Race: Domesticated Dragon- green

  Length: 19’4” Weight: 6,894 lbs. (plus 300 lbs. related to eggs)

  I pushed for more information, straining to make the spell do more work and pouring more mana into it. It offered me information about her attacks and armor levels, but I didn’t care about that. I wanted racial information about her. I’d never cast Identify on myself, but I didn’t for one second believe that it would have read as ‘domesticated dragon’.

  More information flooded my mind.

  A domesticated dragon is one which has been bred in captivity from captive parents. They may have once started out as the offspring of free dragons, but by the time they receive this racial designation by the system they are at least three generations removed from their wild progenitors.

  Domesticated dragons are not recognized as full dragons by the system. Instead, they are treated as other monsters and given a Tier, rather than an age category. They also do not have dragon names, but only the names given to them by those who have raised them.

  Their development is stunted in many ways and they will typically never grow larger than 25’ long. They also have no access to the Dragon Dream and thus no magic beyond that which is subconscious and aids with such functions as flight and breath weapons.

  I sucked in a deep breath. That information hit me like a sledgehammer, causing me to pull my hand back from her head.

  She looked over at the fallen rider and then back at me. For once, a bit of emotion flared, and I saw her eyes narrow to slits. She bared her teeth. This was how a young dragon or one without proper training showed they were about to attack.

  I surged forward and put my hand on the side of her face. “It’s okay. I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but I’ll help you.”

  Rather than speaking aloud, I tried to project my words through the dragon dream. It felt like I was hitting a blank wall, or rather more like I was shouting into an endless void. She simply didn’t have any presence in the dream, or at least not one which I could feel.

  She shook her head and sucked in her breath. I might be able to survive her poison attack, but didn’t want to risk it. So I did something I never would have thought of doing against another dragon, but I was more and more coming to realize she and I weren’t the same at all.

  Dragon Fear

  I projected it as powerfully as I could even burning more DKP to level it as I pushed it to level 6. Matilda took a step back and I cast Adoration of the Fearful. The spell struck some type of barrier, but she was still being affected by my fear. It must have hit Terrance and Shavi as well, because I heard them whimpering.

  I looked back at Matilda. As reluctant as I was to use that name even in my own mind, I had no other to call her. It was then that I realized there was a slender silver band around her neck. Runes were inscribed into it and I could sense the magic coming from it. That explained why I felt magic around her even though the system said she had no access to magic of her own.

  It had to be restraining her in some way. I wondered if I could free her by simply breaking that collar. It seemed to be easy, but I was so angry right now that I’d try anything. I didn’t want to have to fight her, but also wasn’t sure that Dragon Fear would be enough to keep her cowed for long.

  I looked around and saw a shovel in the corner. From the look of it, it was used to clean up dragon messes. Next to it was what I now knew was a pitchfork with several bales of hay. Looking around the room again, I realized that there was, in fact a bed of straw laid out.

  These monsters were making her soil straw as a way of relieving herself. Dragon or dragonkin, such an action was an offense at every level. My stomach lurched at the idea. I bolted across the room and grabbed both tools in my hands as I triggered Fabricate. The magic in my bones and blood made the wood and metal in my hands shift and reform into the object I desired.

  The wood was allowed to fall to the ground as so much chaff, but the metal formed into a hooked metal bar which I envisioned as an improvised dragon claw. With it, I was going to pry that collar off of her neck.

  Matilda was still shivering and while I hated to do it, I hit her with another blast of dragon fear. Then raced back to her. I slipped the crafted iron claw in my hands between her scales and the collar. Then I began to pull.

  The collar resisted.

  I would not be denied, though. My rage was too great.

  It was only a slender band of metal, but my discussions with Daggin as well as the dream let me know that enchantments could add durability along with many other aspects to the object. I had to trust that it was just the natural durability of magical items rather than one specifically meant to be nigh unto indestructible.

  I pulled and felt one of her scales starting to loosen and the band was stretching, but it wasn’t working yet. Worse, she was starting to overcome the effects of my fear. I realized I had stat points to assign from the monk class. An uncommon class up to level eight should give me 48 stat points. I accepted without knowing exactly how they’d be distributed.

  Strength: +12

  Agility: +12

  Durability: +8

  Free Stat Points: 16

  I immediately plopped all 16 of those free points into Strength and felt my body grow. That wasn’t what was important. What mattered was that the extra 28 Strength was just enough. As one, the enchanted silver band broke and my crafted claw bent to the point that I’d have to reform it.

  A scale around her neck also pulled free, but I knew she could regrow that.

  With the silver collar broken, I took a chance and dropped my dragon fear. Matilda stumbled to her feet.