Dragon's Tale 38

After the battle and the miraculous victory I somehow managed to pull through a collection of recklessness, mysterious abilities, and sheer luck, I just lay on my back, doing my best to resist the tendrils of unconsciousness. Ironically, the pain of the half-completed spell had worked well to push the unconsciousness away. 

It took me more than an hour to move even a finger, and I was lucky that the animals that lived in the mountain were quite sensitive to magic —due to their environment, they wouldn’t have survived without the said sensitivity— so they stayed away from our magical battlefield until I could start recovering, which took me much longer compared to the wound when I faced against the disaster class wolf. There, I somehow managed to summon lightning to cure myself, but this time, I didn’t dare to replicate the feat, not when the culprit for my current injuries was yet another lightning spell. 

Instead, I relied on the conventional healing spells, some of which designed specifically for Sorcerer-level power and capabilities, unearthed from the forbidden section of the library. I gathered my mana, trying to cast a slow-recovery spell that would slowly handle most of the damages. It wasn’t the most precise healing spell available to me, but compared to the others, it was more robust, not requiring finicky mana control. 

After I cast that, putting a majority of my mana to enhance its impact, a subtle warmth covered my body, blunting the worst of the pain. Pity that it only lasted for a few seconds, before the pain returned tenfold. My body was resisting the spell. “Damn it,” I gasped in anger, even though it wasn’t fair for me to blame the abnormal state of my body, as without it, I wouldn’t have survived the encounter long enough to use that last spell, and using that would have turned me into ashes and dust rather than just wounding me. I waited to gather enough mana, and repeated the spell with some extra power. 

Unlike my expectations, the healing warmth had survived even less this time, like my body was rejecting it. For the third repeat, I tried to use a different spell, but this time, I didn’t even feel the sensation of the warmth that indicated the spell was working. Instead, I felt a painful reaction from my body, like something was pushing the spell out, rejecting its control. So, for the next repeat, I only focused on my hand, casting the strongest spell I could manage while aiming at a small location. 

The jolt of pain that went through my body was even worse than the miscast lightning spell that gave me the victory at the end of the combat. I could feel my muscles twisting and my skin crawling as something in my body forced the healing spell out, forcefully scouring the remains of the healing energy from my body. 

When managed to open my eyes after pain reached a manageable point, I raised my hand once more, only to meet a shocking sight. Instead of my hand, I was looking at a claw. A large, threatening claw that was covered with silver scales, not unlike a snake… 

“Just what I needed,” I murmured, relying on sarcasm to suppress the terror that rose from my heart, as I was faced with an incomprehensible issue. Somehow, my body was transforming into an animal. It wasn’t impossible magically, as the strongest druids were famed for their ability to transform into superior animals. And while I didn’t know much about druidic traditions, everything I had learned from Astrid told me that it was a highly ritualistic achievement that took months of dedicated work to achieve, not something to be attained as a result of a botched spell. 

I knew what it was about, of course, but wished that I didn’t. Everything about dragon hearts, including their source and the effects, was wrapped in a mystery, so much that even their existence was half myths. I doubted that I would be able to find someone else stupid enough to eat one as I did rather than carefully absorbing it for years and decades. 

However, I didn’t have time to waste by generating useless theories about the source of my transformation, especially since I could see another part of my skin transforming into a scale. Since healing spells were not working, I decided to call the lightning once more. It was risky as a solution, but at least, it was a better solution than cutting my own arm —especially since there was no guarantee amputation would help in the first place. 

With great effort, I managed to sit with my legs crossed, and called the special lightning from the sky once more. The contrast with the healing spell was spectacular. Rather than soothing immediately, it stung rather badly at first, but even as my body switched, I could feel myself strengthening. The lightning seeped into my skin, flowing in my veins alongside my blood, repairing the ruins of the spell. Maybe it was because the damage was mostly from a lightning spell, or maybe my body was slowly adapting to this irregular healing method, but this time, my healing speed was even faster. 

The biggest change, however, happened on my arm. The silver scales burned brightly as they absorbed the lightning, stray bolts jumping between the tips of the claw. However, the bright explosion didn’t survive for long, and soon, the scales melted back to my skin. 

I had my hand once more, I realized with a smile. It did feel quite a bit different than the rest of my body, but I was afraid of testing it anymore. Whatever was happening in my body, I didn’t want to risk it. 

With the decision made, I walked back to the hidden city.

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     

Just like that, three months had passed, where my time was split between three actions, researching in the library, patrolling the perimeter to make sure the legionaries didn’t dare to send another team, and spending quality time with the girls. However, I avoided practicing magic as much as possible, because I discovered that whatever had happened my body was not even close to being complete, and the more I used magic, the more it progressed. The girls, not sharing my disadvantage, improved greatly in terms of magic, greatly surpassing my expectations. I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them stepped into the ranks of the Sorcery before the next year. 

Still, they weren’t Sorcerer’s yet, which was the reason I was standing at the main entrance of the city, with the girls looking at me sadly. “Are you sure we can’t come with you?” asked Astrid.

“No,” I answered sadly, as I really loved their company. “The legionaries are finally gone, but there’s no guarantee that the one behind them had stopped his search. If we travel together, we might get discovered.” 

“We can disguise ourselves,” Lillian offered, looking hopeful despite the several arguments we had on the topic. 

“No, impossible,” I said. “Even if you girls used magic to hide you from that man, and used more mundane disguises to hide your beauty, a man traveling with two women will get people’s attention, forcing us to fight to keep you two from their hungry hands.” 

“We will win,” Astrid cut in. 

“Oh, yes, we will win,” I said with a sigh. “But with every victory, we will get some more attention, until we finally get noticed by the wrong eyes. No, I need to go, while you stay and work for your ascension.” I was exasperated because of the pointless argument, one we had been repeating since I decided to leave the mountain to search for more information. 

After one last kiss, I turned and left, launching my journey. 

It was disappointing not to find the source of my problem in the library, but ultimately, it wasn’t shocking, considering the city was designed as a secret military base, ready to house an army. The information hidden in the library was mostly focused on enhancing people’s military prowess rather than examining esoteric magical conditions with weird mystic connections. I was already lucky that I managed to find some clues for my condition. 

The fact that I found some clues were good, but the same couldn’t be said for the destination of those clues. In the library, I had discovered some of the handwritten memories of Julius Caesar, and much to my surprise, some of the things he mentioned from his youth were similar to my lightning powers. 

Particularly, when he had been a priest of Jupiter —until his uncle Gaius Marius had lost a civil war against the dictator Sulla. After that, the only thing that saved Caesar’s life was her mother’s mysterious connections to Vestal Virgins, a secretive religious order, though they weren’t as mysterious as the priesthood of Jupiter. The priesthood of Jupiter was so mysterious that they were not allowed to sleep outside the borders of Rome, and they were explicitly forbidden from doing anything military. They were shrouded in the mystery. 

But Caesar, due to his sensitive political nature, achieved something impossible and was allowed to retire from the order with his life intact. His notes about that part of his youth didn’t include many details, understandable considering it was his darkest days —with his father and uncle dead, and his family power in tatters, forced to escape Rome just to make sure he didn’t fall victim to an assassin’s dagger. 

He didn’t go too many details in his memoirs, whether he deemed the details to be unimportant, or feared to commit the secrets of the Jupiter’s priesthood secret even in his own secret fortress city —and considering the great importance the temple of Jupiter held over Rome, the latter was quite likely— was unknown, but the casual description of several lightning-natured spells the high priests had used in his presence was similar to my spells. 

It was a long shot, but ultimately, it was my only hope…