Flight Training

Velios and the rest were just about to leave when Velios asked a question. "How do we get to the village the quickest, and what way is east?" Ragaja stopped what he was doing, hearing that Velios didn't even know which way east was. "Don't you know, it's to your current right. And regarding the fastest way, that would be flying. Dragons are known for their impressive speeds while flying." Velios checked over his shoulder to confirm the right way. "Could you teach me the basics of flying? Please, I'm trying to learn it, but it feels like I can't really get it right. I'm using air magic, but it's not only really draining, but I can basically only float. Please teach me everything you can." Velios was eager to learn everything he could. He would never be the kind of person to look down on anyone when it came to their individual knowledge and skills, which he would always utilize to the best potential. He was always eager to learn and listen to what Vadh suggested back when they were training all the time.

"So, the master wants to learn how to fly? But you're not a dragon." Ajagar had been summoned as she was superior at flying since she had been an inferior dragon for longer and since it wasn't Ragaja's strong side. "Listen to me, I want to learn how to be able to fly! Just tell me how you are doing it, what magic you use, how you stabilize your body and how you go faster. Anything will help, please!" Velios could drop his ego to tell them that he had struggled with flying but that was simply because he had taken the wrong approach. He had not thought about it hard enough to fully realize what flying means. "I mean, we just fly with our wings basically. The faster we go, the more stable we are, I guess? It's not like we use magic to fly faster." Ragaja talked about it as if Velios was a fellow dragon who was learning how to fly for the first time.

Velios backed up a few steps before entering a meditation-like state as he just stood there with his hands touching each other. "What is he doing?" Ragaja was confused but Velios didn't even hear it. He was fully concentrated. Of course! Why didn't I think of it sooner? The underlying cause of why objects can fly. Flying is just a means to overcoming the forces of gravity through thrust or lift. If drag is the wind resistance I experience when I fly, then I just need to focus my magic on negating that for higher speeds. If I don't use any forward momentum when I fly I will drain my mana by just floating. It will also be easier on my mana when I get to higher speeds. What can I do to guarantee flying? What is it that birds do? What is the reason that dragons are so effortlessly able to fly around? I'll have to find that out!

Velios's body started slowly lifting from the ground, a few meters into the air. Nothing was visible except for the light aura that emitted from Velios's body as he finally stopped at around twenty meters' height. Velios was still concentrating hard about what he was doing. He needed to make himself as light as possible, apply a steady amount of air magic to stay afloat and finally, condensing mana into finely made shapes of wings on his back. If seen from a distance, it would look like an angel with the way he was slowly yet gracefully starting to move around in the air, controlling his every move, every single part of finely condensed mana into a body part that he had never had as if he was controlling muscles he didn't have. Both Ajagar and Ragaja stared with amusement over their master's achievement.

"He's really flying! He even has wings! He basically looks like a dragon now as well!" Ajagar couldn't contain her excitement after seeing Velios quickly starting to improve, getting used to the different mechanics of flying, meanwhile Ragaja was left speechless, knowing that it could take multiple weeks for dragons to learn the amount of control he now had from scratch. But even he showed that he was impressed. Velios started flying east all of a sudden, leaving the two dragons behind. But the two superior dragons did not want to get outdone by a beginner in something dragons were famous for and quickly caught up.

Velios strained his brain more than he usually would. The amount of information and commands he would receive and put out every second only seemed to increase the further he progressed. Concentrate harder! Faster! Better! Velios was persistent, to say the least. He had kept condensing the mana that he had made into his wings so that with every motion of them moving up and down he could propel himself further and faster. Unconsciously, by making his wings so condensed to the point where they could be seen as solid, Velios added mana to the wings as if they were a part of his body, making them more effective with every flap. Not only that, but he had minimized the wind resistance with the help of magic to fly at optimal speed while using the rest to keep himself at the same horizontal plane and push himself further.

The dragons could no longer keep up. Looking at their faces, they were tired from having flown for 110% of their capacity for multiple miles without stopping with tired and exhausted looks on their faces. Velios's face was sweaty but fully concentrated at flying with no hint of stopping anytime soon. Velios did think about the superior dragons but he was too focused on flying faster and more effectively, so much so that he forgot to look around at where the others were. Only after realizing it, he stopped himself by just floating on a singular point in the air, looking to see that the two dragons were no longer flying but laying down on the ground tens of miles away.

Velios flew over to see why they had stopped flying only to find them on the brink of passing out. Once the two of them saw their master having arrived, they couldn't help but be embarrassed at how their master crushed them after barely an hour's training in one of the only things the two dragons were good at, but it was still understandable since they weren't using any mana. Velios was using tons of it to support anything he was lacking in, which means higher speeds for longer periods of time were possible as long as he had mana. "H-How are you so fast?" Ragaja was confused but also embarrassed and curious. "I basically relied on my mana and my ability to think really quickly. It's not that hard. The simplest you can do is to specifically enhance your wings with mana. Speaking of mana, I can already begin to sense it! The huge pool of mana far, far away into the distant. The city brimming with dragons at every corner!"

Velios didn't want to waste any time. The two superior dragons were far too tired to continue at an equal pace to Velios and were, therefore, summoned back in before he continued. He had also made sure that he was going in the right way, three times, before he finally started flying again. Not before long, he could start to sense the mana even more clearly and that was when it dawned on him. A massive and overgrown jungle which was seemingly uninhabitant with no signs of intelligent life, at least from the outside. Velios couldn't contain his excitement as he continued to fly over to the edge between the unforgiving desert and the new and uninhabitant and overgrown jungle. As he landed just short of the border to the jungle, the one thing that stood in between him and a city full of dragons was one of the strongest barriers he had ever seen, protecting the whole forest from every angle possible.