A Dragon's Curiosity

Initially, the teleportation attempt worked just like always.

Dissolving like a block of sand washed away by the ocean waves, the black silhouette of the wolf spirit body changed into countless tiny motes of dark mana, passing through the otherwise impregnable barrier protecting the noble district with comparable ease.

In her [Inner Space] the elf had performed this method more than thousands of times, requiring little more than a thought to arrive at the place she wanted to be.

This left Nisha with a modicum of pride and joy, she had surmounted the obstacle before her right away. Originally, the mana and aura suffused in the stone wall and extending into the air would have prevented the spirit body projected by the [Eye of the Obsidian Wolf] from moving through, it did not distinguish between magically transmitted messages, curses, attack spells or innate abilities from beasts seaking to sneak into the capital.

Hence, it was a great success to pass through a barrier more than three ranks above her own level.

Thus, the elf might argue that the rush of joy led to a lapse of attention or the like, when the gut wrenching wave of pain shattered the construct out of mana containing a portion of her consciousness.

Like a piece of paper ripped apart countless times, the motes of awareness rapidly converged back at her own room, at the Dharnas estate.

Her originally motionless body gasped and a trickle of blood suddenly ran from her still closed right eye and both corners of her mouth.

Accalia noticed that something was wrong with her master, too, but lacked any targets to protect her from and winced at the sight of the sourceless injury.

Nisha herself needed to take dozens of deep breaths to suppress the mouthful of blood she was about to spit out.

She lowered the hand above her right eye and wiped away the traces of blood around it and her mouth.

The broken blood vessels already showed signs of healing, her body showing excellent regeneration capabilities as usual. Even at the height of the dragon’s fighting history to secure a piece of territory for the [Dragon’s Den], injuries like a torn wing, missing scales or bone deep lacerations never bothered her longer than several days.

Though not to the point where the healing speed was visible to the naked eye, only the most grave wounds had the chance to stay longer than a good night’s sleep.

At the same time, the elf also judged that the rebound from failing to end the spell in the correct manner and having the constructed spell body shattered from outside sources would at least cost a human or elf an eye at least.

Only the sturdy structure of a dragon’s body endured the punishment with minor consequences instead of a permanent disability.

A great power must come with a great risk. [Eye of the Obsidian Wolf] grants the user a powerful scouting tool, with more unknown uses, through an advanced magical spell, while the burden on the body part used for the projection is equally great in proportion.

Just executing it once already inflicted some damage, potentially molding it in turn to be more suited for the [Wolf God Tome], while failure would turn the user into a One Eyed Wolf Sage instead.

Sitting on the bed and petting an agitated Little Lia until the contracted beast returned to a peaceful sentry guarding her master allowed the elf to make a judgement regarding her new spell.

The information on the leather piece had not mentioned much regarding the details around the spell, only mentioning that the user had to be at least at the third rank as a magician before an attempt to cast it could succeed.

Furthermore, there were more additional changes at the sixth and ninth level respectively, granting the [Eye of the Obsidian Wolf] more power.

Instead of three different spells, the versions built upon each other, a powerful concept regarding spells and skills that Nisha had not encountered yet.

This opened another door to think about, maybe abilities could not only be chained, but also developed beyond the normal limits with sufficient understanding.

From studying the [Wolf God Tome], other fragments of the entire book existed, whether they appeared as a reward in the Dungeon, were already recorded in the library associated with the guild or passed down as an inheritance by a more primal tribe or beast line.

Venturing a guess, the full tome might allow an ordinary human transform into the successor of the wolf god, a spiritual entity with a beast like body and powerful magical and physical abilities.

Hence, it was also impossible to say it was a strictly harmful process to practice the [Eye of the Obsidian Wolf].

All in all, Nisha could only defer the judgement for now and keep an eye open in the future to acquire more of the legacy skills mentioned in the [Wolf God Tome] fragment she possessed.

When she finished thinking everything through, the damage to her body had mended by itself.

Perhaps only this dragon would disregard the damage brought by a rebound in cultivating a spell for the first time with nothing more than ignoring it. Other magicians would need a lot of precious medicine to heal from the crippling pain and numbed senses combined with careful care and in the worst case a temple visit.

Not a lot of beginner mages had the leeway to easily spend a lot of time in recuperation and experiment with spells on their own. The careful guidance of a senior did more than just provide the correct direction for cultivation, they imparted their experiences and past mistakes when their charges attempted to master a new ability.

As soon as one of the disciples under their care showed signs of deviating from the correct path they could take advantage of their superior cultivation base to prevent the energy from running out of control.

The instructors at the academy offered the same services in exchange for contribution points, it just had not come up yet in a formal discussion in the classes Nisha attended since everything still consisted of the basics, only the more advanced students who had at least reached the second rank as a magician or warrior and mastered one or two abilities had to worry about cultivation deviation for high ranked spells and skills.

Basic courses hardly had any difficult spells or skills that could potentially run into a catastrophic failure, where mana and aura would wreck apart the body parts used to execute the ability, also called cultivation deviation, anyway.

Reflecting on the mistakes that occured when Nisha rashly attempted to teleport in the same fashion as she was used to in the confines of her [Inner World] yielded a mixed result.

The attempt itself had worked out in the end, the many tiny dark particles passed through the barrier maintained by the wall quite easily.

Furthermore, this ultimately happened in the outside world, where the energy of the world did not follow the elf’s whims with merely a thought.

A difference of such scale must have quite likely influenced the final outcome greatly, and hinted at the reason why her attempt ended in failure.

Nisha acknowledged that she had been too rash and was more than lucky that it was a spell construct that shattered into countless pieces upon failing to teleport.

Even among the two literal goddesses that she knew, the pair had praised one of their followers - who was the only one - that had grasped the secrets of space and knew how to teleport.

This showed how rare such a power was, and how dangerous the consequences the price of failure could be.

Nonetheless, the steep difficulty and harsh price did not deter the dragon from giving in to her own stubbornness.

She condensed a significant amount of mana and raised her left hand again to cover her right eye, in the exactly same way as earlier into the night.

Following the chant and condensing the runes into her right eye again to project her awareness, the elf executed the [Eye of the Obsidian Wolf] right after recovering from the rebound of the first time.

A pitch black wolf once again condensed out of pure darkness mana and safely contained the dragon’s consciousness, with one major difference though.

The black flames, golden iris and vicious claws and fur appeared right away, without the need of cracking apart the structure of the spell this time around.

Having conformed to the shape of Nisha’s soul, the inky projection repeated her route from the Dharnas estate to the wall between the districts.

Coincidentally, the female servant that had unknowingly encountered the wolf spirit before when she hurried along the dark streets returned from her engagement at the same time as the elf departed.

Intrigued by the story behind this encounter, she controlled the mana construct to walk closer to the servant and observe her from the dark.

Apparently something good had happened to the woman, her smile was wide enough at least, coupled with a slightly glazed and content haze over her eyes.

Additionally, the ability to see in the darkness allowed Nisha to observe her disordered clothing, which seemed to clash with that happy image.

Unable to see through the mystery, it ended with the elf following the maid for the length of a street before the original aim of her second outing overpowered the waning curiosity towards the story behind the female servant.

After a short stroll, the spell construct projected by the [Eye of the Obsidian Wolf] arrived at the stone wall again.

The barrier continued to warp and fix the tiny rifts that appeared as fast as they were repaired, revealing the flaw that gave the elf the confidence that her idea was viable.

Nisha opened her senses to the energy flow of the world, observing as the darkness attribute mana and aura that naturally existed floated through the rifts.

Compared to her [Spirit Sight] the current spell the elf used lacked in versatility and utility, one element alone failed to show the overall picture and anyone else would not be able to see through the barrier.

Fortunately, Nisha had enough experience to piece the missing areas together by deduction and reached out with her mind towards a cluster of dark attribute mana in the shadow of a building in the common district.

Usually, such an action would be deemed useless, as extending her senses to the other side did not mean that it allowed the dragon to conquer the obstacle before her.

But the failure to teleport and the insight obtained by fragmenting the spell structure due to the size and shape of her soul gave the elf an idea to bypass breaking the enchantment and inscriptions by force.

Exerting her mental control on the wolf spirit body, Nisha severed one of her paws from the wolf form and dispersed the mana in the same manner as her spirit always did in the confines of her [Inner Space].

A spring shower of dark particles danced in the air and dispersed without a sound.

At the same time the darkness concealed in the shadows of the buildings on the other side of the wall congregated and reformed a wolf paw, leaking energy like a severed limb would while the elf’s spell body rapidly lost density and flickered rapidly.

She still retained sensation in the teleported limb and tried to move it, yet before the displaced paw had a chance to move, the spell projection shattered for the second time in a row.

Back in her bedroom, Nisha took a deep breath and suppressed the damage from the recoil, since she already experienced it recently.

Instead of spitting out a mouthful of blood, the dragon only wiped away two streams of bloody tears and concentrated on the circulation of energy inside her body to accelerate the healing process.

Despite being injured twice and experiencing a compounding effect from repeated spell failure, she still smiled happily.

Even if it was just a second, the elf had conquered the obstacle before her and accomplished her goal.

In retrospect, it was not a true teleportation and only partial too, yet that paled compared to the experience she made with the experiment.

Nisha might not master it in a short time, but personally going through a complete warp in the real world with a spell body, although it failed, and putting down a beacon to transport part of her consciousness bade well for the future.

It might not be a dream to truly master space, a rare discipline that not even the two goddesses she knew treated lightly.

Determined explore this avenue in the future, the dragon promised herself to work hard and ignore the sting from damaging her body in the process.

Pain never stopped a top predator like herself from pursuing a goal, especially not a delicious and juicy target like a super rare skill.