System Change

Edward and the amphithere clashed over and over, neither giving the other any leeway or backing down. Even with the crown prince’s lack of power, Derek had to admit that he was still very fast. It was no wonder that the royal family had chosen the lightning element to pass down—however they did that. Derek wondered how close Edward, Edwin, and Edgar’s classes really were to one another while he watched Edward try to tame the winged serpent.

For well over half an hour, he watched the two collide in the air. But, slowly, Edward was getting the better of the amphithere. While the winged serpent may have been physically stronger than the young crown prince, Edward had the edge in speed. He also had what seemed like an unlimited supply of mana and stamina potions to drink.

Derek made sure to note down that the man’s potions were working perfectly even after going through Void Travel with Derek. That meant that as long as the rings were covered in his void armor, then anything inside of them should make it through the journey just fine. If only I could find a way to keep the Time Prison or my Void Storage covered as well. Next time he went through, he decided to cover himself in the void armor made by Void Creation and move through with another beast inside his Time Prison. Maybe that will be all that it will take. He shrugged and continued watching the fight above.

He knew that Edgar’s abilities far outstripped the three other members of the royal family that he had met. According to Silvi—because of her nicknames—Edward was the weakest of the three males. He wasn’t entirely sure how strong Elouise was, but based on what little aura he sensed from her, she would most likely be called Littlest Sparky by Silvi. Or maybe she’d call her Sparkette.

As he was thinking this, Derek finally saw Edward make what looked to be the deciding move in the fight. The crown prince flash behind the amphithere and stabbed his sword into the back of the beast—right in between its wings. He had faked going for a move that the beast had countered multiple times, then used whatever movement skill he had to surprise the beast. From there, a massive amount of lightning pulsed through his sword, and the winged serpent went limp. Soon, the two were plummeting toward the earth.

He’s not bad in a one-on-one fight, Derek thought as he watched the man and beast crash into the ground. From what he knew of the times he’d had to be rescued, they were because he was ambushed or had to fight off multiple enemies at a time.

Once the battle made it to the ground, Edward didn’t let up. He sent pulse after pulse of lightning through the beast’s body—keeping it locked in place through the paralytic effect that lightning had. It reminded Derek of himself when he was fighting the wyverns back in the raid. He was able to keep the beasts stun locked just as Edward was.

Slowly, Edward moved towards the dragonkin’s head—making sure to keep his glimmering sword touching the hide of the beast the whole time. When there was any reaction from the amphithere, he made sure to send out another pulse. Derek hadn’t believed that the man would have any problems with one of the lesser dragonkin, and he had been correct.

The prince hadn’t been as good or as fast as Avery was against Lyra, and it didn’t look like he had held back like Avery had. The archer had to make sure he didn’t accidentally kill Lyra, while Edward had gone all out at the beginning, then caught the beast by surprise attack to gain the advantage.

However, now was the hard part—making the beast accept Edward as its master. Because of how close the fight actually was, Derek expected the process to take more than one try. Thinking about that, Derek couldn’t help but think about Trent. The young elven man had pretty much dominated the drake during the fight and contracted the beast very quickly. At least, that was how it seemed, but Derek knew the young man had walked a tightrope with his illusion skills. One bad hit could have created a much different ending.

On top of Edward’s fight being closer, his lightning may have stunned the beast, but it didn’t look like it had injured the beast all that much. And when he pulled out a scroll and activated it, Derek’s thoughts were confirmed. Almost as soon as the crown prince activated the scroll, it disintegrated in failure. Derek laughed, then turned back to everyone else—his eyes finally landing on Alanah.

“You ready for yours?” he asked.

“What about the crown prince?” Tara asked from the side.

“He’s got the kingdom backing him,” Derek replied to her. “There’s no way he doesn’t have dozens of contract scrolls on him. Sooner or later, the beast will agree. I don’t want to sit here and wait for that.”

“Oh.”

“So, what do you say?” He asked Alanah, who was frowning. “Are you ready to go get your wyvern?”

“I’ll tame it,” she finally said after a long time of hesitating. “But I’m not bonding with it.”

“Why not?” Derek asked, confused.

“It’s complicated,” she replied. “But I’ll at least tame it to help finish this war. After that, I’ll figure something out.”

“Okay…” Derek shrugged. “Follow me.” He decided not to pry into the woman’s affairs. If there was a reason she didn’t want to bond with the beast, it wasn’t any of his business. If nothing else, after the war, there may just be an extra wyvern to bond with. I wonder how breaking the contract and stuff works, he thought.

Derek led Alanah to where they had trapped and confined the earth-based wyvern. In the short time that he’d been gone, Tyron had actually created a proper muzzle for the beast instead of the makeshift one he had wrapped around its maw before.

“There it is,” Derek said. “We can have Tyron let it loose, then you can do your thing.”

Alanah snorted, then, without a word, she began walking toward the beast.

“Wait,” Tyron started. “Don’t you need me to…”

Alanah held her hand up, and the smith went quiet with a shrug.

“I’m sure she knows what she’s doing,” the smith said.

“I’m sure you’re right,” Derek agreed.

They all watched as she approached the angry beast. The massive dragonkin turned its head as much as it could and saw the half-elf woman walking toward it. Fury blazed in its eyes as it watched her approach. As she drew closer and closer, she started to transform into the same form she’d been in when Derek joined the battle against the army. He knew exactly how powerful she was in that form. And soon, she was standing directly in front of the beast with her tainted aura unleashed.

Instantly, a scroll appeared in her hand, and she placed her other hand on the side of the wyvern’s snout. She spoke some words that nobody could hear, and Derek saw the eyes of the beast go distant. It was the same look that most others got when they were controlled by her voice. Soon after, the beast’s eyes changed back, and it looked around in alarm. Huh, that didn’t last as long as I thought it was going to, Derek thought. The beast was only out of it for seconds. But he didn’t have time to think about it, because what Alanah did next caused his jaw to drop.

Alanah said something else. Then the contract glowed. Instead of crumbling in failure, it was a success. To everyone’s surprise, even Avery’s, Alanah had tamed the wyvern with little to no effort, and she had done it while it was already under constraints of another person. It went against everything Derek knew about taming.

Alanah turned back and released her form before walking back over to the group. “You can release it now. It’s done.”

“Y-yes,” Tyron quickly said, then hurried over to the trapped beast and began to remove its constraints.

“What the hell was that?” Derek couldn’t help but ask. “It wasn’t even that easy for me to contract with Silvi. And how did you get around it already being constrained by someone else?”

“Overwhelming power,” Alanah said. “Dragonkin are smart beasts,” she continued. “And, since they are currently free and no longer trapped in a dungeon and forced to be aggressive, I imagine they are much easier to tame than they were when Avery and Edgar contracted theirs. So, when the wyvern felt my aura, it automatically knew it couldn’t beat me, then, with a little convincing and demonstrating my power, it accepted. This was even with the Great System forcibly breaking it out of my abilities, so I couldn’t just control it to accept the contract.”

“I… see,” Derek said. “I didn’t know any of that was possible.”

“It is much more difficult that way, but since my class is of the same rarity of the beast, and my power was much higher, the usual process could be somewhat ignored. I doubt anyone would be able to do the same if their class wasn’t at least the same rarity or higher—even if they had overwhelming power. You’d most definitely have to prove your worth in battle. It probably wouldn’t be possible in a dungeon, either.”

“That’s good to know,” Derek said. Maybe Brandi and Thomas will be able to train… tame their dragons sooner than I originally thought. I need to spend more time with them to see how they’ve progressed. I especially want to know the full extent of how Brandi’s class has grown.

“That’s two dragonkin down,” Derek said, then looked back to where Edward was still trying to coax the amphithere into contracting with him. “And soon to be three, hopefully.” Once Edward tamed his, there would be six lesser dragonkin and a single wyvern left to be tamed. He was sure that with the two lesser dragonkin being contracted right now that Lyra would already be having an easier go at keeping them all in check.

Actually, Derek really would like Lyra to go with them to Astrus. No offense to Blitz, but Derek found Lyra to be much cooler looking and more intimidating. Maybe Blitz looked more intimidated initially, but seeing the combination of Lyra and Avery made Derek lean heavily toward that combo instead of Blitz and Edgar.

“Avery,” Derek said.

“Yeah?” the archer replied.

“Ask Lyra if she thinks the lesser dragonkin will go crazy and kill each other if we load them up in the open area of my Time Prison. I think it would be best if the two of you joined us in going to Astrus. I’m sure Alanah has already filled you in on all the details,” Derek said, then looked at Alanah, who nodded.

“She has, and I would very much prefer doing that over staying here and babysitting… no offense, Tyron.” Avery laughed. “Let me see what she thinks.”

Tyron rolled his eyes. “I would much rather babysit the remaining wyvern than ride countless miles on the back of one of your beasts again.” The giant of a man shivered at the thought.

A few moments later, Avery said, “She said that it shouldn’t be a problem. She’ll push some thoughts into them, then, you just need to adjust the time in your space accordingly so the time they spend inside doesn’t seem as long to them as the time that passes out here. She said she didn’t think they would hurt each other to begin with. Like Alanah, Lyra thinks that they are much less aggressive now that they are out of the dungeon. It’s why she hasn’t had any problem controlling them so far. They are happy to be out.”

“Great!” Derek said. “That just leaves Edward. Hopefully, we can be up in the air by the end of the day… or no later than tomorrow.”