Yet, somehow, he was shifting the air. He was calling the storm to him, but it wasn’t fast and furious. He was doing it in a natural way. My mind filled with questions as I watched him work. This wasn’t like any of the human magic I had seen up to this point.

  Serius cast spells in a clinical fashion, as though each was a puzzle which had to be assembled in just the right order. Many of Galbrecht’s and Lisella’s spells came off more as requests than commands. It was as though they implored their goddess to alter things for them. Then there was the very abrupt way that Modessa cast her shadow spells. Those were closer to abilities, and I supposed some of them might actually be abilities. That, of course, raised another topic for me. I probably should sort through the differences between skills and abilities versus spells.

  Now, though, I was too caught up in watching what Rizal was doing. Ten minutes became thirty and then I began to notice clouds gathering above us. The wind had picked up, too, as the temperature had dropped twenty degrees over the course of the past half hour. I wouldn’t even have noticed something like that in my natural form, if not for the attention I was paying to everything around me.

  “This can be done much faster, but by doing it slowly, I cause less damage to the area around us. When you wield the storm or simply work the weather, you must always be conscious of how it affects the world around us. It would be wrong of me to summon a storm rapidly just to test you only to end up causing an early winter blizzard to strike Forlay.”

  What he said stirred two responses within me. Firstly, being full of care was not the dragon way—we did as we wished and the world was expected to catch up. But in addition to that, my curiosity was piqued. This type of thinking implied how complicated the world was. Learning to master how the world worked would produce tremendous results for me. I wanted to be at the top, after all.

  Even as those thoughts ran through my head, I felt the storm fully taking shape. Rain started to fall and then there was the delightful sound of thunder. I gave Rizal a toothy grin, which didn’t seem to bother him.

  He shouted so he could be heard over the storm that was rapidly building to a crescendo now that it had formed. “Show me what you can do in the storm.”

  I shifted my weight onto my rear legs and then pushed off. My wings beat as I broke free from the ground. I didn’t really pay much attention to it normally, but I could see the threads of magic as I flew. I took note of them without thinking and there was absolutely no drain upon my mana.

  That didn’t quite make sense, though. I had watched Rizal work a masterful spell. Much of the power of it came with the slow buildup that he had generated from the sky, but even then a small part of the mana came from him. He had poured it out slowly for the entire half hour that he’d cast the spell—or perhaps it should be called a ritual, at that length.

  What I did when flying didn’t have that same effect. It was, as I said, the world simply complying with my desire to be in the air. Sure, I had to beat my wings, and they were definitely useful for guiding me as I flew, but there was no way—mathematically speaking—that these majestic wings could produce the lift necessary to move my massive body. Some of these terms were instinctual and some of it was simple logic.

  Still, here I was soaring up into the sky. A bolt of lighting arced from one cloud to another and then into me. It warmed me, tickled, and felt good all at once. This was what it meant to be alive.

  The power of the storm was all around me, and my will moved me through the sky. I beat my wings as I navigated the treacherous and rapidly changing air currents. This was nothing like long-range flying where I’d often ride the air currents. This air flow was as sharp as a knife as it tried to buffet me.

  It was almost as though the storm was angry at me for encroaching into its lair. Well, it had much to learn. I was no mere dragon. I was the most blessed of dragons—a blue. I would wield the power of this storm and tame it to become my own.

  That began a dance for dominance and I roared in response to the thunder, my voice carrying for miles. This was living!

  Chapter 7 - Storm Rider?

  The power of the storm buffeted me about as I tried to master its currents. The lightning couldn’t hurt me, not in the traditional sense, but I quickly realized that the sheer force of its impact could affect me. I was thrown out of whack a couple times by errant lightning bolts while at the same time trying to find my balance in the air.

  Never before had I experienced a storm like this. Sandstorms were something I’d seen. I’d even been caught out in one—which was not a pleasant experience. Sure, it cleaned my scales, but bits of the grit inevitably got stuck between those scales and took weeks to work their way back out. There had never been enough water in the desert for a storm like this.

  No storm I’d been exposed to had this degree of rain and wind. Even the storms at sea had been less… concentrated? I guess that was the right word. Yet, I was determined to master the storm. My will pushed my body to strive against it, but I kept falling short.

  It wasn’t until I finally realized that I needed to learn the storm before I could master it that I began to make progress. There was so much information swirling around me that my mind couldn’t take it all in at once. An increased Mind stat didn’t make me any smarter, it mostly increased my magical power. It did, however, give me the ability to process data faster. It was hard to put a claw on exactly, but I knew it was real.

  As I opened my mind to the torrent of data, I was gradually able to track the wind, rain, and even the electricity around me. The forest below simply endured, while I rode the dark clouds high above Ileria. I cheated a bit, because the storm was not entirely natural. There were currents of magic running through it, as well. They didn’t control the storm—rather, they simply set the parameters that constrained it. At least that was how it seemed to me.

  Still, my ability to see magic proved invaluable. By tracing the swirling threads of magic, I was able to eventually track the wind. Then, with practice, I was able to predict it. I rode the storm for hours. During the process, I received notifications about two different classes that I was offered.

  Storm Seer was the first, but it was only an uncommon class. It seemed to be centered around an innate ability to detect weather patterns. I scoffed at such a thing. Why would anyone want such a limited class? Then, it occurred to me that perhaps it was because of humans’ fragile nature. Storms could be a bad thing for them.

  Or maybe it had to do with their reliance on growing crops? Seriously, who would waste time growing food, when you could just go out and kill your food? I mean, my food ate their food—just another indicator of draconic superiority.

  As I rode the storm for hours, I was eventually offered a rare class. Hours had passed and by this point I was perfectly… well, if not perfectly, then at least excellently blending my control of the world around me. I flew with the chaos of the storm rather than against it. I took a second to inspect this class but then rejected it just like I had the other.

  Storm Rider - This class centers around the power of the storm. Your power will never be greater than when in the midst of a raging storm. This is a combat class with some water, wind, and lightning based spells. It possesses a number of abilities to make you the perfect representation of the storm. Chief among those abilities is Storm Strength: all your physical stats are boosted by 7% per level while you are in a storm.

  This is a rare class.

  Stat gains at each level are:

  Strength: +1

  Agility: +3

  Durability: +2

  Mind: +1

  Free: +2

  That was not who I wanted to be. I wanted to be more than just stronger than I already was; I wanted to be more of a mage. My natural body already gave me a tremendous amount of power. And while the physical boost would have made me massively powerful, it was far too situational.

  As I felt the storm weakening, I descended in slow lazy circles—easily riding the softer air currents till I landed just a few feet from Rizal. My mass hitting the ground, even lightly, set small waves of water rippling out in every direction from the puddles and saturated ground.

  It amused me to see Rizal jump back with a curse, snapping out his arm as he cast some type of barrier spell to protect himself from the blast of muddy water. That is, it might have been funny, but for the fact that my mass stuck a solid foot into the bog like ground beneath me. Pulling one foot up, I saw that I’d gotten mud all over me. It had even splashed my underside. This was not acceptable.

  It wasn’t that I had anything against Rizal. In fact, for a non-minion human, he had treated me quite well so far. He’d been a bit demanding a couple of times, but I supposed that was his role as a teacher coming out.

  Logically, I knew that this was the natural result of hours of hard rain pouring down onto the already soft forest floor. We were in an open clearing and the ground here seemed to be a bit lower than the surrounding area. This, of course, resulted in more water pooling here.

  It was simply that I’d never experienced this before. Knowing something from the dream, and knowing it from personal experience, were not quite the same thing. Experience with and knowledge of something were not equivalent. I think Modessa had mocked the latter as ‘book smarts’—though I could hardly credit inanimate ink and paper with brains. Could the same be said of enchanted ink, though?

  Once Rizal righted himself from the muddy wave, I sent in every direction; he laughed out loud upon taking a closer look at me. I started to growl a response, but he waved his hand and said, “Don’t we make quite the pair? The mighty dragon, a creature from myths, and the powerful storm weaver. Well, give me a second.”

  A moment later, he chanted a quick spell. I got a notification asking me if I wanted to learn it. This appeared to be a lesser version of the spell he had used before to enable both of us to travel.

  Do you wish to learn the spell: Hovering Nimbus? (Tier 2)

  I declined, since I didn’t have any spell slots to waste, but it was interesting to see how a small cloud formed under him, which was just large enough for him to stand on. Well, that is until he sat down on it cross-legged.

  Then he cast another spell.

  Do you wish to learn the spell: Streams of Water? (Tier 3)

  I declined again, but that didn’t mean I lacked an appreciation for the spell. Water blasted out from each of his hands. With a moment of concentration, he adjusted the force of the streams. One of his hands became little more than a minor spray of water, which he directed to himself, cleaning muck from his boots and such.

  Meanwhile, his other hand shot out a powerful stream of water. I felt like it might have been strong enough to cut down trees if he’d narrowed the focus to a finger’s width. That thought left my mind, though, as he turned the stream on me, quickly washing away the mud that was splattered all over me.

  It was impossible to get my feet completely clean, but it was the effort which mattered. This human was definitely growing on me. Once I was clean and the storm had died down to little more than a light drizzle, he said, “That was more impressive than I had imagined. It is hard to believe that a creature as large as you can maneuver so sharply in the air.”

  I shrugged, wondering why it should be hard to believe that the world should move around me.

  “I couldn’t detect any spell,” he continued, “yet, I could feel you weaving the essence of the world around you. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen—I can only try to relate it to the way that I weave a storm. It isn’t like you forced anything… rather, the air and the storm itself began to move to accommodate you. I even felt it affecting the threads of my spell.”

  “Does this mean that I passed your test? I find that I’d like to learn more about this storm magic of yours,” I rumbled.

  “It does. And truthfully, I’d like to learn more about dragons—that is, if you’re willing to share. Like, for starters, why did the system just give me a quest to help you obtain a class?”

  I grinned. Yard long teeth or not, Rizal seemed to understand I wasn’t threatening him. He continued, “I thought you said that dragons ranked up through age categories, so why would you need a class?”

  “I don’t really know,” I admitted. “I don’t know if it’s because I’ve spent such a prolonged period of time in a human form. I can’t share everything about how, but I know many things from my ancestors which leads me to believe that, while many dragons have changed shapes, it is typically for the shortest amount of time possible. Then again, that may not be the reason at all. But whatever the case, I have the ability to gain classes.”

  “Classes? As in a class and a crafting class?”

  “No, as in two combat classes. I haven’t discovered yet if I’m able to gain a crafting class.”

  He tapped his chin with his finger as he thought of something. “Do you already have a class?”

  I told him about Edgar and the class that I had obtained there. I even went into detail about how I needed to synch my expectations. There was something about Rizal that made me feel it was okay to give out more information than I normally would. Never once did my instincts suggest otherwise. So, either he was deceiving me and I didn’t realize it, or I had finally met a human worth interacting with.

  Cami was great, of course, and Edgar was decent—though his devotion to his clan worried me a bit. I got the feeling that the clan almost worshipped dragons and was nervous how he would react if he knew for sure that I was a dragon. More than that, they seemed to cherish the concept of the bond between humans and dragonkind.

  “This would be your second class, then.”

  “Yes, and it’s important that it be a magical class. I need to be able to deal with magical threats to be more versatile. As much as I want your storm related spells, I also want to be able to deal with a variety of different issues.”

  Rizal sat there on his floating cloud, not saying anything. Much like Edgar, I appreciated that he wasn’t one for quick words. I chuckled. I imagined the two of them would likely get along quite well.

  “Hmm… well, it seems the better the class I help you to obtain, the better my reward from this quest. It is clear that you have a very high instinctive ability to deal with the magic. I wonder, though…” He stopped, sucking on his teeth. “May I ask what your Mind stat is, including any gear you are wearing?”

  I thought about it for a second and then decided there would be no harm in sharing my Mind stat. “It is currently 158, though I don’t have any gear to boost it.”

  He smiled. “Dragons really are powerful.”

  I knew there was a reason that I liked this guy.

  “That is a truly impressive stat, especially without a Mind based class or a bunch of magical items. I can’t wait to see how far you can go with some help. Heck, I might just go commission an item just to help you along. Still, as good as that is, if you want to be certain of getting an epic mage class, you’ll want to get your Mind stat up over 200.”

  I nodded while listening. The air was cool enough that my breath came out almost like a warm mist from my nostrils.

  He continued. “Common and even uncommon mage classes are fairly easy to obtain. Hybrid classes which use a combination of magic and melee are much harder to obtain, but all of that pales in comparison to what it takes to obtain a high-level magic class. Your priestess mentor got her epic class by dint of skill, but also because the goddess helps her faithful.”

  “What would it take to get a legendary mage class?”

  Rizal whistled. “Glad to know you don’t set your sights low. I admire that.”

  “I already have a path to a legendary upgrade for my first class,” I admitted.

  “Then you understand that legendary classes are more than simply a step above epic. If it weren’t so, the Empire would have more legendary classes. The only publicly known legendary combat classes are those of the Emperor and the headmaster, but I suspect that the high priest or priestesses of at least some of the gods have legendary classes.”

  I didn’t offer that Galbrecht had just obtained a legendary class. It seemed like his thing to share—or not—as he wished. Nor did I mention Cami’s legendary crafting class.

  “I can’t tell you the exact path to something I haven’t achieved myself,” Rizal explained, “but I believe it has to do more with refinement. Sure, you’ll need to have a high Mind stat, but you’ll also need to refine it… or perhaps to ‘evolve it’ would be a better term. By that, I mean you’ll need to find a way to focus it, along with a concept to work that focus around.”

  My attention split as soon as he said the word, ‘evolve’. Could it be that simple? Perhaps my Mind evolution would provide me that path forward.

  As I thought that, Rizal added, “One thing to keep in mind. The storm is bigger than even you. Sometimes you only find victory through surrender.”