Wild Dragon of Rome 32

The next few days passed in a routine as we steadily traveled toward the border. Our journey slowed down slightly due to my need to … keep my mana build-up low, but otherwise, it passed in a surprisingly calm routine.

Then, we started to get near the Rhine, the border of Rome, and travel started to get more challenging. For multiple reasons. Reasons I couldn’t help but think even as we prepared another camp.

 The first reason was the military presence. Germanic tribes often raided the border to bolster their limited riches. That was something that was known even back in Britannia. And, as a result, there were a lot of patrols at the border, not just legionnaires, but also local auxiliary forces. They operated in multiple layers, making it difficult to pass them.

Unfortunately, that was not the biggest problem. The beasts were.

In most civilized areas, the beasts were not a big problem, their numbers kept low due to constant hunts. Unfortunately, the same didn’t apply to the border. A proper hunting expedition was difficult to organize when fearing the constant ambushes. So, the area near the Rhine River was teeming with second-order beasts, and third-order beasts were also common.

I would never dare to camp so near the river if it wasn’t for my enhanced senses.

“At least I could still use magic,” Lillian muttered as she used her water spells to dig a hole through a cliff to create a better residence.

“One advantage of beast density. The ambient mana is thick enough to conceal magic unless we use it as a burst,” I said. “Try not to widen the entrance too much. We are going to stay here for a while.”

“Until we could contact one of the tribes and arrange a trade,” I said, going over the plan. “Assuming, of course, we could convince someone.”

She smirked. “As long as we can take down third-order beasts for trade, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a trainer. I doubt anyone takes the risk of raiding the border unless they are in dire need. We should be able to come to a deal.”

“True,” I said as I fell silent, focusing on preparing our semi-permanent camp. I doubted that connecting with the tribes would be as easy as Lillian hoped, meaning we would have to stay here for a while, making some extra effort worth it.

Lillian interrupted the silence a while later. “Do you think there’s any fourth-order beast here,” Lillian asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “What I know about fourth-order beasts is limited, but I know they are smarter than the others. If there are any, they would stay in even more mana-dense locations to keep away from the soldiers. Or, they would have been hunted already.”

It was inevitable. If a third-order beast was a treasure, then a fourth-order beast was worth a king’s ransom. Even the weakest and smallest of them would be worth a lot, enough to mobilize a cohort or two meaning they were hard to find in easily accessible locations.

Like the edge of a river.

Therefore, even if there was any beast, they must be living somewhere hard to access, likely under a thicker cloud of mana. There were several such spots along the river, but we avoided them while picking our hiding spot, afraid that those would be watched by the patrols.

 “I can handle the rest. You should start meditating,” I reminded her once I saw she had finished digging the cave.

“I can help—” she started, but I interrupted her.

“I need you to consume the mana you have taken. The build-up is getting too much already,” I reminded her, and she blushed.

“Right,” she muttered, shy and frustrated at the same time. I could understand her frustration. As much as the process of draining the mana was fun, the speed my body regenerated was making it more of a challenge than we expected.

On the positive side, she was getting far stronger. With my mana easily converted into vitae, her power had gone through a qualitative change. While she still needed to work on her finesse, from a pure power perspective, she was as strong as the pirate captain we had dealt with.

Too bad it came with dangerous side effects.

The passage of a few days had been enough to make some radical changes in my body. I was even faster and stronger, with more endurance … but I also sported several more scales along my body.

Frustrating.

“I’m going for a walk,” I called Lillian even as I reluctantly walked away from the cave, leaving the work half-complete. I could always finish it later. I needed to clear my mind.

As I walked, I noticed a tree radiating mana. I broke one of its branches that looked straight, and started working on slowly whittling it away. I wanted to make myself a new weapon. It wasn’t strictly necessary as I had some bone daggers, but I liked spears as much as swords. More importantly, working on a weapon distracted me properly.

As my hands danced on the surface of the branch, I kept my eyes closed, focusing inwardly. For the first time since the accident, I was in a mana-dense location, and I could actually experiment on my damaged elemental cores.

There was not much change inside me. The crystal of the dragon heart was still embedded in my heart, radiating mana with every throb. The four elemental cores stayed in their place, deflated with no sign of movement.

It was the time to experiment.

I decided to start with the water core. Originally, water wasn’t my strongest aspect, but due to the unique medical intervention of Lillian to manage my mana, I developed more familiarity with water vitae with more than I had previously, particularly on the aspects of growth, nurturing, and healing. Considering my conditions, those aspects were beneficial.

I closed my eyes, focusing on channeling my mana to the water core, slowly repairing the punctured point. It was an expensive process, but luckily, one thing I hadn’t been lacking. It didn’t even cause a noticeable dip. Ironically, I would have preferred it to consume more, relieving the pressure I had been dealing with.

Slowly, the elemental core was repaired, being reinforced until the initial puncture point had turned much stronger. With that done, I channeled the mana to the core, while delving into the concept of water, trying to imagine a calm river, flowing endlessly as it nurtured everything around it, trying to create a particularly passive variant of vitae.

It was a softer variant than my original, but I deliberately chose it. Once successful, I would expand its features more, but, to start, healing and nurturing were the better options. I kept my eyes closed, immersing myself in the sensation to trigger the generation of vitae.

Then, just as the first drop of vitae had been generated, I felt the crystal in my heartthrob. At the same time, I felt the mental image change and transform. The calm, steady river I had been trying to keep in my mind shattered, replaced by a merciless, devastating flood, covering everything in sight, and wreaking havoc.

At the same time, I could feel the patched spot of my elemental core being destroyed, and the sole drop of the elemental vitae I had generated drifting toward the dragon heart like it was being forcibly pulled. I expected it to be devoured.

Instead, it had been evaporated.

My eyes widened. Not because of the destruction of the vitae, as while it was an incredibly important medium, the vitae was hardly indestructible. The problem was borne from a different aspect.

The destruction of the vitae created a flare. Thankfully, it hadn’t been a strong flare, and with the relatively dense mana radiance, there was a chance that no one had noticed it. All I needed was some luck and —

Then, I heard a howl. It was loud enough to reverberate in my bones, telling me that my hopes of going undetected went wrong. The howl was strong, magically charged, too strong not to belong to a third-order beast.

A wolf, in particular.

I grabbed the primitive spear I had just completed. It looked like it would see combat sooner than I had expected.