Chapter Twenty Three - The Grey Dragon

Waking to the smell of cooking rabbit made Noah's stomach growl nearly just as loud as a dragon's roar. Rubbing his eyes and sitting up on the wooden couch, twisting himself so his legs were over the edge.

His body ached, especially his chest. It felt like he was collapsing in on himself, his bones ached and his hands covered in blisters that were ready to pop. Grime was ingrained into every fold of skin on his face, arms and hands.

Master Quin stood at the side with three long metal pikes with rabbits impaled at the top of them, they were slowly roasting over the flames giving off a unique smell of crooked rabbit. Looking at Noah as he woke himself up, urging his magic over his eyes and casting a spell with barely a whisper.

Gazing at Noah's body with his eyes screwed closely together, he saw that Noah had his bones basically cracked from the earlier sparring. Even if he was using magic he seemed to only successfully use it on his sword rather than to protect himself.

Carefully placing the rabbit against the fires edged pit he walked to his personal chest and unlocked it with his magic, pulling out an orange liquid and handing it off to Noah.

"Use this to help yourself recover. We won't fight tomorrow as you need to rest your bones, we can focus on other things you will need to learn, more basic magic or writing and reading." Hiding the fact that Noah should probably not spar for at least a few months until he could see a proper healer to fix his injuries.

Carefully swirling the liquid in the glass container, he opened and sniffed the contents. It was like the smell of honey mixed with a fresh breeze in the morning hit his nose, making him smile at the thought he very quickly gulped it down, not even asking what it was. Only believing in his Master.

The orange liquid even tasted like honey, it was slow to go down his throat but it warmed him up like it was a gentle fire spreading within his body.

Shaking his head before picking up a rabbit stick and letting Noah take it, "This is a one-off, kid. You can hunt for your own meals tomorrow again, just nothing big."

Taking his usual seat opposite Noah, he joined in by eating a rabbit with a lot fewer manners than Noah. Even if he was previously a Dragon Trooper he had still lived alone in the forest for a long; long time.

Silence fell through the room, only the ravaging of rabbit meat could be heard with the occasional glug of water from Quin who had a spare container at the side of his seat to help the dry rabbit go down. No matter how he experimented with herbs he just couldn't cook well over a fire like this.

Quin thought back of some memories of him travelling in the Dragon Troops and how he never truly appreciated the cooks that were in them. They did know how to make miracles out of nothing.

Noah could only smile at, thinking about where he was and what he had accomplished over the last week was nothing short of a fantasy story. While thinking of all the events he had been through, he decided to ask his Master about magic objects.

"Master, how do magic items work?" Subconsciously letting his hand drift to his chest and rub the golden ring on the chain.

"... Well. There are many different types of magic items. From swords and bows to armour. Anything can be enchanted to use magic, it just depends on the practise and power of the enchanter. Most Dragon Troopers are taught basic enchanting to help them in bad situations so I know a little about it but without basic literacy skills there should be no reason for you to ask about this yet."

Noah continued to ask different questions about them:

- What do you need to enchant a magic item?

"A magic item is made up of two different things, the runes used on the item and the material it's used on. The material often has to be able to vibrate with magic particles and it is mainly metals that to this the best. That is why in the capital the magic items sold are normally Gold or Iron, the material we enchant is called the conductor."

-Why a conductor?

"Kid, are you that dumb? It is because it conducts the magic through itself."

- Is there only one type of runes?

"... No there are more than one different type runes. In the empire we use ancient Dragon runes, the emperor was the man who managed to translate the majority of these from the ancestral dragons that still wandered the world."

- What other kinds of runes are there?

"There are many, each of those has different effects and power but so far ... none could beat our dragon empire runes..."

- How can you learn them?

"Each country keeps its runes techniques secret, only Magi Academies share their knowledge on them, but they are normally the weakest runes made from humans. That doesn't stop them from trying to improve them but when you experiment with magic... you have to be careful anything could go wrong."

- What makes Gold and Iron the best conductors?

"We aren't too sure, there were many different materials trialled but that was the only two that did them the best other than a few secret materials the empire keeps under wraps."

- What material is the spire that was in my village made of? Or the material that was engraved with runes between rings of the capital?

"That is the secret material that the empire keeps hidden, I will tell you though that they aren't completely conductor material, it is exceedingly expensive to use so they just cover bricks or wood with it and use that to be engraved into."

- Can a magic Item suck in aura?

"Yes, that is the basic theory of magic items. They will take in a small amount of aura to do what the runes say too. If the runes are designed to fight in defence or something big like that aura is taken from the general area and sucked in."

- How does aura get stored in the magic item?

"That is a question for a professor in the Dragon Troops, not me."

- Can anyone enchant?

"As long as you know enough about the runes and which ones to use in theory anyone can. However, before you ever learn it you will need to learn basic literacy as I said earlier."

Using that to end the conversation, Quin stood up and moved across to the door. The moonlight shone through the windows by the end of their conversation. The fire crackling down to just a log left.

"Get some sleep, we can go over more tomorrow."

Noah lay down, the smell of the other rabbit making his stomach rumble as his Master had already gone to bed he decided to eat it now and sleep just like his Master said.

It didn't take long for Noah to completely devour the rabbit, laying down to rest and pulling out the ring from under his armour. In the moonlight it shined. Twisting it in his fingers and staring at the inscriptions, trying to figure out what they meant and how such a small object could eat so much aura.

Sliding it back under his armour he closed his eyes and soon fell asleep.

He dreamed of a grey dragon, standing 8 metres tall. A broad chest, it's scales varied in size, from the size of his palm to the size a small boulder. Along it's back there were spikes going from 10 cm to half a metre, between its shoulders a saddle with a small bag attached to the back of it. The Dragons head was the same size as the one he saw from earlier in the day.

It stared down at him, its mouth opened wide while it roared at him.

He felt that it wasn't to scare him but to try and tell him something. Slowly walking forward towards it, the dragon closed its mouth and lowered its head. Lying on the ground and slowly moving its head forward closer to Noah.

Putting his hand out, staring back into its wide eyes. The eyes felt endless. Like staring into the night sky. Moving slowly closer and closer...