Chapter 77: Azeroth 2

"We've arrived, young master." Mortic's emotions were hard to hold back as he showed Carl to the entrance to their Dragon Flight.

Carl landed next to Mortic and looked at his surroundings, faint memories surfacing in his mind from years ago. His wings were folded on his back and his tail swayed back and forth as he entered his old home.

The inside of the cave entrance looked like a natural cave at first, but once they passed the first turn, the walls took on a more crafted look. Carl wondered if they had left the entrance natural looking as camouflage, to keep it from being spotted so easily.

The artistic pillars with carvings of all kinds of animals and plants were interspersed around the cavern, giving one a feeling of exquisiteness. At the end of the entrance Hall, Carl saw a pair of large, ornately carved stone doors. The doors easily opened from just a word by Mortic.

"How has the Flight been since I left, Mortic?" Carl asked.

"It has been…difficult, Young Master." Mortic grimaced. "Many of us were captured in The Raid. Many more were killed. For years we feared you were among the captured." Mortic paused, and Carl didn't seek to interrupt the heavy air of grief. "There are only a handful of us left. And those of us who are adults were too old and don't have the strength to do much more than hold on. We've been surviving, but it has been difficult."

Carl hummed in response. He was reviewing what he remembered of the flight before he made a run for it. The more he remembered, the angrier he got. He knew, or assumed, these were implanted memories. But the moment he came here, to this world, they were made real.

He remembered his hatching, and how his parent Dragons watched over him and his siblings in pride as they learned and played.

He remembered growing up in the hatchling weir deep in a pocket dimension deep in the mountin. He rambunctiously played with his siblings and cousins, the human equivalent of tag and hide and seek, as well as dragon games, such as catch a wing.

As they grew older, they were introduced to games by the adults to hone their dragon traits. They played with mana, feeling and playing with it. They studied tomes and played with well crafted toys that taught them the basics of crafting.

He and many of his brood siblings would sneak around the crafting halls, watching the adult dragons in various forms as they crafted many wondrous and magical items.

Carl had no idea if the other dragon flights had schooling. But the Silver Dragon Flight that focused on Crafting wasn't going to leave their young dragonlings ignorant. They had various classes and training sessions.

That warm time in his memories ended in blood, when he escaped from those shadowy robed figures that were trying to capture him. He saw many of his siblings caught, and he could do nothing about it.

Carl's jaw clenched as he looked at the empty halls as he followed Mortic. He realized just how bad the raid had been. His memories had dozens of dragons flying or walking around these halls. Now, they were empty, leaving an echoing and hollow feeling inside him.

They finally arrived at one particular hall, which was actually lit up and warm. Inside the door, Carl saw two elderly dragons looking over and teaching six smaller Dragons that were less than half Carl's age and size. There were only 21 dragonspawn doing chores in the area.

The dragonspawn were like draconic centaurs. Their lower bodies were that of a dragon, four legs and a tail. Their humanoid torsos, arms, and heads were layered in scales instead of skin and hair. They were the same silver and blue color of the Silver Dragon Flight.

Carl looked over at Mortic after a moment of watching the young dragons learning. "When will I meet the rest of the Dragon Flight?" Carl asked the old dragon.

"This is the entire flight." Mortic whispered with a tone of grief and shame. "Aside from the few eggs we saved."

Carl's eyes widened in shock at the news. He had memories of dozens of dragons, and hundreds of dragonspawn.

"This is all that's left?" Carl whispered back in shock. He was finding it hard to swallow the news that there were so few of them. He had hoped that Mortic's previous reporting of numbers was only what he and the two elder Dragons had saved. He had hoped more had escaped and returned.

"We were only able to save two newly laid batches of eggs." Mortic whispered in a hoarse voice. "But that's it. The raiders came so suddenly, and attacked so fiercely, we were overwhelmed before we were able to organize a defense. They captured or killed so many of us. They smashed so many of our eggs. I couldn't protect them at all."

Carl body was trembling in extreme anger. He found himself doing some breathing exercises to keep from exploding.

After some time he gained control over his rampant emotions. When Carl finally gained full control once more, he realized that his dragon memories and hormones definitely affected him strongly. His new body felt emotions quite strongly. It made sense, because he was effectively a dragon teenager.

"Who were they?" Carl rhetorically asked. "Why did they attack us?" Carl asked Mortic in a low tone.

"Our Dragon Flight's specialty has been both a blessing and curse to us." Mortic sighed as he avoided Carl's gaze while looking over the young dragons learning from the old dragons.

Most of the young dragons were in their dragon forms, but a couple of the young students were shape shifted into their Night Elf form so they could crowd around the books they were reading together.

"We have a specialization of magic and crafting." Mortic began explaining with a sigh when Carl steadily gazed at him, silently demanding answers. "We always strove to push the boundaries of our skills. Like combining our crafting skills with magic. The magical weapons and armor we made were the best in the world. Blacksmithing, Tailoring, Leatherworking. You name it, if it was even vaguely connected with crafting, we made it, and we made the best."

"But in order to become better artisans, we committed two significant blunders. The first was that in order to gain more materials to continue to develop our crafting skills, we traded what we made in order to gain wealth and materials. This let everyone know just how good the products we made were."

Carl followed Mortic as they left the study and training room behind without interrupting the lessons. Mortic continued showing Carl around so he could familiarize himself with the mountain.

"When one has a treasure, others will covet that treasure. And we had a treasure that was desired by everyone." Mortic continued in a mournful and regretting tone. "We became complacent and overly proud of our skills."

Carl felt a chill flow down his spine and wings. He could see how the various unscrupulous factions would have wanted to steal the things they made. Treasures were always coveted.

"The other big sin we committed was that we focused too much on crafting. Slowly over the years, we spent less time on training to fight, and more time on crafting. So over the years we became weak. We were a soft target, easily overcome. We relied too much on our assumption that everyone else needed us to make tools for them, and assumed no one would dare cross us. Despite being able to craft the most exquisite weapons and armor, we didn't know how to use them to protect ourselves."

Carl joined Mortic in sighing at that point. It was a bleak look at how such a glorious race lost their ability to defend themselves and fell to the bottom.

"So who was it?" Carl asked again when it looked like Mortic wasn't going to continue "Do we really have no clues?"

"We don't know. They were in disguise. And they were already inside the mountain before we knew it. They somehow bypassed the defenses."

Carl growled at that information. It meant there was likely a traitor in their midst. Traitors deserved death. If he ever found out who it was…

"So we don't know who they were, and they are still out there somewhere, probably waiting for us to get just strong enough to raid again?" Carl summed up.

Carl was rewarded with a sad smile from Mortic.

"You've summed up the situation succinctly, young master." Mortic affirmed. "This is the old Lord's quarters. It is yours now."

Carl gazed at the large and ornate doors they stood in front of. He got the feeling that the only reason so much of the beautiful stone artwork remained was that it was not done in precious metals, but stone. If they were gilded with gold, for instance, then it would have been dug up and stolen by the raiders.

Taking a deep breath, Carl entered the previous quarters of the leader of the flight. Looking around the room, Carl realized there wasn't anything left over. It was a bare set of rooms, not even a desk or bed left behind.

"After the raid, we three elders gathered the remaining eggs, the few remaining Dragonspawn, and cleaned up as best we could." Mortic mentioned as Carl gazed at the empty room. "Most of our records were destroyed or stolen. We've been teaching the new hatchlings from our memories, but so much was lost."

Just those few sentences from Mortic let Carl immediately know the poor state of the remnants of his Dragon Flight.

Carl felt regret at that moment. While Mortic didn't know who their enemy was, Carl had a pretty good idea due to having picked three instances of the Hunted drawback.

He had picked three enemies in this world. The Iron Horde, Helya, and the Cult of the Damned. Carl had picked them as enemies because they didn't become the major threat of the world of Azeroth until after the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Carl had assumed it would limit his interactions with the factions, since they would basically be inactive.

But Carl had miscalculated greatly. Just because these three groups of enemies weren't currently strong enough to dominate the world, didn't mean they couldn't stage a raid on one single Dragon Flight that had grown weak. And now Carl's people had suffered greatly because he wanted to maximize his cp gain.

Carl realized that while each of the enemies weren't the major enemy faction of the Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King expansions, it didn't mean they had zero presence in the world. Obviously they had been in the world for many years and had many members, which made them dangerous.

Meanwhile, Carl's Silver Dragon Flight now only had three elderly dragons, six young dragons, younger than him even, 21 Dragonspawn, another six Dragon eggs, and 19 more Dragonspawn eggs.

Carl began furiously thinking of ways to secure the remnant of his forces so they wouldn't be snuffed out in a moment by the enemy.

But there were many variables that Carl couldn't account for at this time. Based on what he had seen already of the world by running into those player characters, and seeing that they had been to the instance dungeon of the Deadmines, Carl was unsure just how much of this world was like a game, and how much of the oddities was simply the expression of magic in this world.

Earlier in the day, after seeing the band of adventurers who sounded like player characters, Carl had looked over his self portrait in the corner of his field of vision that showed he was level 1, and had a green bar for Health, a blue bar for Mana, and a yellow bar for energy, which was the Rogue's usable pool of energy . He had felt a sense of magic from the visual construct, so he had sent a probe of magic to it.

As a result, his character screen had popped up, startling Carl quite a bit.

Was this world a game? Did this world's magic express itself in a game like way? What about the player characters that were talking about expansions? Was there some strange connection between this real world and some other Earth's video game? If he died here, would it be like a game and he came back to life after his spawn timer counted down, or if his spirit made its way to a graveyard? Or would death be the ending of his Jump Chain?

Carl certainly wouldn't test out the speculation that he could make use of the graveyards to spawn like the players could. Chances were that a death even here would count as a failure for his jump chain.

Carl had put aside his questions for the time being since he was only level 1 with no knowledge about the world. He had avoided the confrontation with the players because there was no benefit to him sticking around. He wouldn't get any answers from fighting random players.

After the chance meeting with Mortic, it had taken them a couple hours to fly from Westfall to the Redridge Mountains where the Hold was, and it was already evening.

Looking at the expectant face of Mortic, Carl sighed.

"Mortic?" Carl looked levelly at the old dragon. "I'm going to spend the evening thinking the situation over. I'll meet the rest of the dragons in the morning. In the meanwhile, let them keep to their routine. I'll have more orders on how we'll proceed in the morning meeting."

"Yes, young lord." Mortic replied, but continued standing there, staring.

"Was there anything else Mortic?" Carl inquired.

"No, young lord." This time Mortic got the hint Carl was giving him and excused himself from the Lord's Chambers to go and do whatever he usually did, leaving Carl alone in the empty chambers.

Carl took another long breath in and out while mentally cataloging the various things he needed to take care of.

After some time, Carl reached inside himself for his magic, and pulled on it just so. His large dragon formed shimmered with light. The light shrunk down to the size of a humanoid, before fading away, leaving behind the sight of Carl's Night Elf form.

Carl looked down at his heavily muscled 7 foot 2 inch form. His silvery hair fell below his shoulders and his long ears flopped behind his head when Carl moved his head.

Carl chuckled a bit as he looked over his Night Elf form. It actually felt pretty good to be over a foot taller than he usually was, more dominating, especially in a world that relied so much on strength.

The Orcs were likely to be about the same height as him, while the Tauren were likely to be taller, so he wasn't always going to win out on the height field, unless he reverted to his normal dragon form. Then he would tower over all the Alliance or Horde races.

Opening his character screen again, Carl looked over his specs. He ruefully shook his head at seeing the level 1. Carl assumed that since he only just now arrived in world, all the memories he had of hiding and fighting various creatures for survival didn't actually happen, since he didn't level up at all.

With the amount of magic and reality bending power of the jump chain, Carl couldn't be totally sure about that assumption. It didn't even really matter anyway. He was here, in the present, and had to do everything he could to salvage the situation.

Looking over his stats, Carl realized that he was much more powerful than a normal level 1, judging by his 2,000 hp and 4,000 mp alone. Looking at his Strength, Agility, Stamina, Intelligence, and Spirit numbers, Carl saw that he really was stronger than a normal level 1.

'It's probably because of my race, being a dragon and all.' Carl thought as he looked over his character screen. 'The Strength, Stamina, and Intelligence stats are much higher than the rest. Probably also because I have three classes, instead of just one.'

Looking over his character and equipment screen, Carl saw what he would expect to see if he was playing the game. An image of his character and what he was wearing was surrounded by equipment slots. On the left and right were a vertical line of eight equipment slots, with three more on the bottom of the screen.

On the left were slots for his head, neck, shoulders, back, chest, shirt, tabard, and wrist. On the right were slots for his hands, waist, legs, feet, two rings, and two trinkets. On the bottom were a slot for a weapon for each hand and a third for a ranged item of some sort.

For a Mage, the ranged slot could be for a wand. For a Paladin, it could be a relic of some sort. For a Rogue, it could be a throwing weapon, bow, crossbow, or gun.

The only filled equipment slots were his chest, legs, and feet. He was wearing some normal looking linen clothes that were white in quality.

Generally speaking, the equipment quality started at grey color as utter trash, white was normal, green was uncommon, blue was rare, purple was epic, and orange was legendary.

Each of the pieces of equipment could enhance his main stats, as well as provide an armor bonus, and add to his secondary stats or effects.

The main stats were Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Stamina, and Spirit. The secondary stats were things like critical strike rating, hit, dodge, block, etc. And the effects could be anything that enhanced his abilities, like making him run faster to taking less time to cast a fireball.

Carl saw that his white starter equipment provided a grand total of five armor between the robe on his chest and his pants.

"Truly pathetic." Carl laughed at his starting armor. It was the next thing to useless.

Looking in the lower right corner of his vision, Carl saw a small backpack image. Sending a magical thought probe to it, Carl saw that it was his Adventurer's Bag that he had purchased for 100 cp. It had 20 slots, which was pretty good size for a bag, most of the player characters were stuck with only 16 slot bags at the start during this expansion.

Inside the backpack three slots were already filled. The first slot had his hearthstone (that wasn't set for anywhere yet), The Blue Orchid, which currently looked like Ashbringer, and an Artifact Forge.

Mentally interfacing with the Artifact Forge, Carl immediately knew how to use it to alter his weapon's shapes. In the future he could also use it to forge weapons and armor, as well as cutting and shaping gems and other such jewelry. He could use it as a medium to imbue his equipment with magic. It was an all around useful tool for any kind of crafting Carl cared to try.

'Well, at least the 0 cp I spent on this Artifact Forge was well spent.' Carl sardonically thought.

Looking at his magical HUD once more, Carl saw some icons just to the left of the tiny backpack. Probing each of them, Carl found that each icon had a specific purpose. One opened up his spellbook that listed all the spells he knew.

As a level 1 Mage he had rank 1 Fireball and rank 1 Frost Amor, a spell that enhanced his armor and slowed enemies by chilling them.

As a level 1 Paladin he had rank 1 Holy Light, a healing spell, and rank 1 Seal of Righteousness, a spell that enhanced his damage with Holy damage.

As a level 1 Rogue he had rank 1 Sinister Strike, a damage dealing attack with a melee weapon that adds a 'combo point' each time he attacks with Sinister Strike. A rogue could gather up to 5 combo points and use them in finishing moves that would use the number of combo points to enhance the damage or effect. The other spell he had as a rogue was rank 1 Eviscerate, a damage dealing finishing move that dealt more damage the more combo points he had.

He also saw there was a map icon. When he mentally selected it, a mini-map showed up in the upper right hand of his field of vision. Playing with it, Carl found that he could expand the map to fill up his vision. Carl could zoom out and see the entire world of Azeroth, or zoom in and see only his immediate area. He kept the mini map small and in the upper right corner of his vision.

Looking at the rest of the icons, Carl saw that there was an icon for his talents selection, which was currently greyed out. If it was anything like the game, he would get access to it when he got to level 10.

He would gain talent points as he leveled, which he could assign to the talent trees to enhance his various spells and abilities, or learn new ones.

There was an icon for his Achievements, which was currently greyed out. In the game he could gain titles and prizes for completing Achievements. None of the titles or prizes increased his combat capability, they were just for fun.

Carl had no idea if the Achievement system here would continue being so useless or if it would serve a purpose.

Next he looked at his quest log, which was currently empty. Apparently he would be gaining quests to do things in this world.

Next he looked over a social tab that told him he had no friends and no guild.

There were two more greyed out icons, one for Player versus Player, and another for Dungeon finding. Would he be able to look for groups for PvP and Dungeon instances? Carl was wary about the idea of PvP instances. He remembered dying quite a lot in the various battle ground back in the day, and wasn't sure he wanted to try his luck any time soon.

There was an icon for his pets and mounts. He didn't have any pets currently, but Carl saw icons for three mounts. One was his Paladin charger mount, another was the Yamato, and the third was his Profound Ark.

Carl selected the Yamato, and was pleased to see it appear in front of him after a second of summoning. He was very relieved that he had access to his ship already. When he was in the dinosaur gauntlet, he had been forced to cultivate as fast as he could before he could retrieve his ship and make use of the technology.

Putting aside his ship for the moment, Carl looked at the remaining icons in the lower right of his magical HUD. One of them opened up his reputation tab. He saw that he was friendly with the Silver Dragon Flight, and neutral with the various Alliance factions. Carl speculated that since he had interacted with some Alliance players earlier, that was why he even had them on his reputation screen, since he had no other factions there.

The final icon opened up a list of his skills. At the moment, it showed Class skills, Weapon Skills, Armor Proficiencies, and Languages.

His class skills showed the nine proficiencies that he had purchased for the three classes. Fire, Frost, and Arcane for Mage. Holy, Protection, and Retribution for Paladin. And Outlaw, Assassination, and Subtlety for Rogue.

His weapons skills were currently sitting at 1 / 5 for the various weapons he could wield. Every level up his weapons skills potential would increase by 5. In the game there were calculations that determined hit rate against enemies based off weapon skill and level. A higher level enemy was harder to hit, especially with a low weapon skill.

Since there were no limits to what weapon he could wield, he had all of them listed. Swords, 2h (two handed) swords, maces, 2h maces, axes, 2h axes, daggers, unarmed, staves, polearms, bows, crossbows, guns, and thrown.

He saw that he could wear cloth, leather, and mail armor, and wield a shield. He guessed that he wouldn't be allowed to wear plate armor until he reached level 40.

And he had a 300 / 300 proficiency in Common, Dragon, and Orcish.

"Well, at least I'll be able to talk to both factions." Carl mused. "Although this is making me wonder more and more how game like the world is, seeing all these interface pages."

With all the various functions of his magical HUD looked over, Carl turned his attention to the Yamato. Mentally interfacing with his ship, Carl had it teleport him to the bridge. He was quite pleased that even though he was a dragon now, his ship still recognized him or his magic. He chalked it up to the magic of the jump chain.

Interfacing with the computer, he set it the task of scanning the mountain stronghold of the Silver Dragon flight and designing and building a warding system for it and the surrounding area. The first thing was to secure the remnants of his flight. The dragon flight that would be following him from world to world now was quite pathetic. But he could protect and build it back up, starting from now.

Not to mention that if his dragon flight continued to perfect their crafting skills, they would continue to run into jealous thieves in future worlds. So it was good to start laying a foundation for them to be able to protect themselves, as well as carry out assigned duties in whatever world they ended up in.

With the defense needs of the flight being addressed by the Yamato, Carl made his way to the medical facilities. Frowning at the small size of the ward, Carl instead made his way to the holodeck. He programmed a large space with medical recording equipment.

Stepping inside, Carl spent some time making sure that all the equipment worked properly. He had the Yamato VI set up a study and examination of his new body. He then transformed into his dragon body and began a series of tests and calisthenics designed to determine his capabilities.

Once he had run through the first set of tests, he then transformed back to his Night Elf form and ran the same set of tests. The tests were exhaustive, and Carl was happy once they were done. He planned to run each of the dragons in his flight through a similar set of tests in the near future to gain as much data as possible. With his years of experience in training Humans, he was sure that he would soon have a very efficient method of training for himself and his dragons.

With the testing done, Carl turned to the next thing on his list. He retired to his quarters on the ship and began meditating.

He had years worth of memories of running around and fighting outside stuffed in his head that he wanted to go through again. It would give him insight into how his dragon form moved and attacked so he could build a martial art for his dragon form.

Not to mention his new skills as a Rogue, Mage, and Paladin needed to be added in there, as well as the new knowledge of Crystal Artificing that he found in his brain when he looked at the page that had details about his professions.

After spending a bit of time organizing all his new memories and knowledge, Carl then began practicing his ki training.

As eager as he was to see how leveling up here in the World of Warcraft would affect his magic, and record that process with his technology to gain insight into it, he needed to get strong so he could survive. So a bit of the basic training before he ventured out was needed.

It was a world that was built on the very idea of everyone fighting in war. Two factions battle for dominance, and all that.

By morning time, Carl was reasonably satisfied with his progress. Getting up from his bed, he made his way to the bridge to see how the VI of the Yamato had done on designing a defensive wards for the Flight's home.

Looking over the specs of the defensive system the Yamato designed, Carl was pleased. He was even happier when he found that the ship had finished manufacturing the Ward Stones. Storing large amounts emergency materials in the Yamato's storage holds had been the correct choice, since it allowed the Yamato to make use of them to build the defensive ward stone overnight.

To experiment, Carl tried putting the six foot tall ward stone into his backpack and was happy to see it fit like a charm, taking up only one slot. Magic backpacks, gotta love em.

With everything in the Yamato done for the time being, Carl exited the ship and put the Yamato back in the mount summon space that he now had. He then turned back into his Silver Dragon form and exited his new chambers, a little surprised to see Mortic standing there waiting for him.

"Good morning, Young Lord. Did you sleep well?" Mortic asked with a bow of his draconic head.

"It was a pleasant rest." Carl deflected. "Take me to meet the rest of the flight. It's time to get to know them."

With a nod, Mortic led the way to a dining hall. When Carl arrived, he saw the six young and two elder dragons chowing down while the dragonspawn were serving large portions of food. Carl chose not to interrupt their meal, and joined them instead. He began the process of getting to know them over breakfast.

The two other elder dragons were named Fausic and Mauret. Carl could see that they, like Mortic, were only level 40. Truly, the Silver Dragon Flight hadn't kept up their martial strength.

He wasn't truly sure if there were limits to how strong the inhabitants of Azeroth could be, but if there were, then before the Burning Crusades expansion came out the level cap was 60. So he knew that the two old dragons, if they were indicative of the flight as a whole, had not maximized their level or strength.

The six cheerful young dragons were a stark contrast to the three elder dragons. The young dragons had only hatched after the Raid, so this life and the dragons around them were all they knew. They had heard the stories from the elders, but it really meant nothing to them. The fact that they were cheerful and upbeat actually made Carl impressed a bit by their good attitudes.

There were three girls, named Jayne, Joyce, and June. The three male dragons were named James, Jeff, and Jonah.

The edge of Carl's mouth twitched when he heard all the J names. He didn't know what to think of it, and just moved on while memorizing their names.

Carl spent the rest of the morning talking with the young dragons as he got to know them, what they had learned, and what they liked doing. Carl was taking mental notes of just what further lessons to teach the young ones to help them survive. At some point he would also have to work on leveling them up, since they too were only level 1.

He could already tell that he would have to figure out how to train the dragons in their humanoid forms, as well as coming up with methods of fighting in their dragon forms. Beyond that he would need to come up with tactics of how to fight as a mixed group, with the humanoid forms mixed in with the dragon forms. Their sheer size in their dragon forms made it difficult to attack together as a group.

One of the things Carl noticed was that he didn't get a sense of a specific class from any of the younger dragons, while Carl himself had the Rogue, Mage, and Paladin classes. Carl had the idea that once he had paved the way a bit with the Alliance, he would bring these youngsters to get a class and help them level up.

He didn't want his dragon flight to be vulnerable and easily attacked in the future, so they would all have to become strong.

"And what's your name?" Carl asked a nearby dragonspawn who was waiting to see if there were any orders for him. He looked quite surprised at first to hear that one of their Lords wanted to know who he was.

"Goram, my lord."

"You seem to be in charge of managing the dragonspawn, Goram. Is that correct?" Carl asked, ignoring the looks of confusion on the dragon's faces over why he would talk to a dragonspawn for anything other than orders.

"Yes, my lord. I'm the oldest of those remaining and am in charge." Goram respectfully answered.

"Good. I want you to gather up all the dragonspawn and join us. I need everyone who is a member of the flight to be present when I set up our new defenses, otherwise they will be evicted or even hurt when the defenses become active."

"Does that mean we need to bring our unhatched eggs, my lord?" Goram asked.

"No. If they are hatched inside the wards they will automatically be recognized as a member of the flight." Carl smiled at hearing Goram's question. It meant he was a decent thinker. It's too bad he was only level 34. He couldn't exactly be a great guard of the flight yet. Another thing to do, level up the dragonspawn as another layer of protection.

So many things to do.

Goram bowed and went to make sure all the dragonspawn were present. Once everyone had gathered, Carl led them to the room the Yamato had designated would be the new ward room. It was the nearest room to the center of the mountain hold, and it was close enough to the magic ley line that the Yamato had sensed to hook into the magic flow and power the wards.

Just to be certain that the wards didn't lose power, there was an expanded wizarding space inside the wardstone that held a large Potentia power array. The magic from the ley line would constantly flow through the wardstone and ensure the power array remained fully charged. That way, if there was any disruption to the ley line, the wards wouldn't fall and could remain for many decades before needing a new power source.

The dragons shifted to their humanoid forms before filing inside the newly designated ward room. Carl was pleased to see that all the dragons could pass for Night Elves. That would make it easier for the group to travel incognito outside their mountain when it came time to go level up and gain strength.

Carl pulled out the ward stone and placed it according to the Yamato's calculations. He first placed his drop of blood and used his magic to be recognized as the owner with the highest clearance.

Once done, Carl began gathering blood samples and magical signatures from those present. For the time being, Carl gave each of them resident status. This identity didn't give them any power to make changes, add new residents, or visit security areas without special permissions. The only level of security lower than resident while still being allowed inside the mountain were Guests. Once Carl got to know them better, ensured they were loyal, and increased their strength, he would raise their security levels and privileges so they could be the pillars of the Flight.

With the new defenses in place and backed by over 100 Potentia power cells, Carl knew it would take an extraordinary amount of force to hurt his people, so he felt quite relieved for the time being.

He encouraged everyone to go about their normal daily routine while he and Mortic adjourned to a meeting room. Carl had to work hard to ignore the almost worshiping gaze that Mortic now leveled his way. Every one of the Silver Dragon Flight was especially sensitive to mana. So they all had felt just how powerful their new defenses were, provided by their newly returned leader. Mortic especially was feeling hope for the first time in years.

Mortic was just an average low level blacksmith, so he felt completely unprepared for the role of leader and protector that he had been thrust into. Seeing the returned young flight leader having already done so much gave him immense faith in Carl.

In their night elf forms, Carl and Mortic sat down across from each other at a stone table.

"Mortic, with the disaster of the Raid, you did well to protect what you could and keep them together." Carl started with some encouragement for the old dragon's deeds. "It really is a miracle you were able to do what you did, and you should remember that with pride in your deeds."

"Thank you, young lord. That means a lot, coming from you." Carl ignored the sight of tears as the emotional old dragon felt like all his efforts were truly worth it.

"Now, that said, I need you to continue to work hard here in teaching the young ones." Carl continued. "I'm going to be leaving within a week's time."

"Young Lord!" Mortic desperately looked at Carl with pleading eyes for him not to abandon them.

"Don't worry! The defenses will continue to hold while I'm gone. And I'm not abandoning the flight." Carl reassured the old dragon. "But there are some things I need to do that can't be done while sitting in my room. I need to go out and get stronger. There are bound to be great events that might negatively affect our dragon flight. I need to be aware of these things, so I need to make allies."

Seeing that Mortic had once more calmed down, Carl continued.

"Not to mention that I need to find those of our dragons who were captured. I need to find some word or hint of where they are. Then we can see about attempting to rescue them. But that is a longer term goal. For now, I need to get stronger. Then, I need to make the rest of us stronger. Once we have strength, many problems can be solved that didn't have a solution before."

"So, while I am traveling, getting stronger, and gaining allies, I need to know that our home is well ordered and working hard. Can you do that for me, Mortic?" Carl asked.

"Yes, young lord. I'll ensure everything is running smoothly here." Mortic nodded firmly. He would live up to the expectations of their young flight leader!

"Good. Now, I want you to be especially aware of certain things while I'm gone. First…"

Carl spent the next hour explaining to Mortic what he expected of him, asking questions to get to know their situation better, and settling Mortic's fears of not being able to fulfill his responsibility.

Once the meeting was done, Carl returned back to his room and once more summoned the Yamato. Teleporting inside the ship, Carl made his way to the medical facilities and once more went through the series of tests. He had run out of time earlier that morning, and needed to gather data now that he had advanced in his Ki training.

Thinking about the future training of his Dragon Flight, Carl ordered the Yamato to manufacture another holodeck, or Room of Requirement. He would install it in the mountain. It would also serve as a means to gather all the data on his dragon and dragonspawn's bodies so he could formulate training regimens.

Once that was done, Carl began training again. If there was anything he learned from his time in the History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi world from his martial arts masters, it was that training was a continuous effort. Never stop training!

The next morning, Carl installed a computer and communications device in his room, before finding a suitable room to install the Room of Requirement. It took some time to get it set up, but once he did, Carl took great pleasure in showing the room off to his flight.

The dragon and dragonspawn's excitement soon disappeared as Carl ran them through a series of calisthenics and exercises to determine their body's foundation and abilities.

Carl smirked a bit at their cries of despair the harder he had them work out. It was music to his ears, and nothing compared to what they would experience in the future.

After two weeks, Carl had set up everything he needed to at the Silver Dragon Flight. His people had defenses, food, and assigned responsibilities to carry on in his absence. It was time to get out and begin leveling up. Time to explore Azeroth.

Carl left in the morning while his flight saw him off. Once out of sight, he pulled out the Yamato and boarded. The cloaking technology should keep him from being detected. He flew the ship towards Elwynn Forest, where Stormwind, the city of the humans of the Alliance was located.

One of the things that was different in this actual world, despite the game elements present, was the size of the world. The map was exactly the same as in the game, it was simply proportionately larger than the game world he had played in previously. Which also meant that there were many more features and thing around than there were in the game. Carl spotted many farms that provided food for the Alliance in the forest below as he stopped near the capital city of the humans. Many of these farms were not present in the game, but they were needed for a real life kingdom to feed itself.

Finding a remote place where no one was present, Carl teleported down to the ground. Instead of putting away the Yamato like before, he ordered it to hover above his location in stealth in order to monitor and record the changes in his body when he began leveling. Carl then made his way to the nearby Northshire Valley.

If he was going to become a member of the Alliance, no matter how temporary, he decided to start in the Human starter area. Based on his magical HUD, quests were available in this world. So he would start doing quests to gain reputation with Stormwind while leveling up.

With his neutral reputation the guards around the valley didn't attack him, though they did eye him warily. After some time running, Carl found himself in front of Deputy Willem. Carl spent a moment eyeing up the shiny golden armor the Deputy had. For only a level 18 he sure had some fancy equipment.

Seeing the golden exclamation point above the Deputy's head, which indicated a quest, Carl sighed. He wasn't sure if he was more relieved that there were quests, or disturbed at the evidence of more game like elements in this world.

Whatever, he was here to grind. Carl opened dialog with the Deputy and accepted the quest to speak with Marshal McBride inside the nearby building.

It was time to get immersed in the World...of Warcraft.