A Dragon's Curiosity

Within the volcano mouth that the dragon usually used as a place of relaxation - though it was doubtful if anyone else could treat a pit full of molten metals and burning stone like that - the elf squatted on the ridge next to the surface.

Keeping a carefully schooled neutral expression, Nisha brandished the improvised branch weapon and observed the lava lake.

Suddenly, the upper portion of the floating armor dove up and tried to escape the torment of being bathed in the fiery volcano mouth, yet the stick wielded by its master came down like heavenly judgement and pushed Eisen back in the lake.

In most cases, the branch should have burst into flames and then turned to ash, but thanks to the carefully controlled fire aura circulating inside the wood, it temporarily gained strong fire resistance.

Nisha had other things on her mind right now, or it would have occurred to her that her control and skill with [Ember‘s Touch].

Normally, the skill only added a layer of fire aura on top of the weapon to give additional elemental damage, yet the dragon combined the fire enhancement with the methods for [Shadow Clad], another skill that imbued a weapon with dark damage instead.

Because each method employed different approaches to enhance a weapon, Nisha managed to combine their effects and improved the overall performance of the combined method, creating an inner flow and an outer coating with fire element at the same time.

The branch in her hand had some orange glowing embers on the surface, yet it did not burn down at all, working as a weapon just like the girl intended when she decided to punish her contracted elemental.

Eisen had increasingly large patches of ash and deformed metal on the armour that made up its body, proof that the heat inside the metal lake was greater than it could. Bear.

However, Nisha was the unilateral master in their contract and could easily grasp its condition at such a close distance.

She promised after all, that she would not beat Eisen to death if it let go of her treasures, the chess pieces.

Even if she beat the familiar to within an inch of its life, the elf was determined to keep her word.

When the life and death elemental barely had the power to break through the surface of the metal lake anymore and the elf got the feeling that it might really die according to their contract, she fished the soot covered and cracked armour out of the volcano mouth and returned to the detached place of the hut where she found it before.

Although Nisha was very much angry about the elemental arbitrarily coveting her precious treasures and was going to teach it who made the rules around here later on, it also intrigued her very much that Eisen was able to imitate the bodies of several elves based on the template of her chess pieces.

It was unclear whether this was a new skill that the floating armour acquired by itself or if it was some sort of heritage.

The situation needed a closer investigation to reveal the truth.

Tossed on the ground like a wrung out rag, Eisen took the time to recover from the injuries sustained by the molten metal and burning stones.

Even most fire-attuned creatures did not dare to casually submerge themselves in such a scary place, with one of the exceptions currently staring at itself.

Initially, the sentient armour was fairly confident that its master was going to be delighted from surprise when it managed to talk and greet her with the new body form.

The preparations and practice took a long time to succeed and it never gave away hints either that it was planning something.

Rather unfortunately, the surprise went perfectly, but the master was far from pleased.

Thinking about the scary pressure coming from the dragon, Eisen started to suspect that the plan went wrong somewhere in a place it overlooked, so it did not have the guts to blame its owner for the beating it took.

Quietly absorbing ambient mana, the armour that made up its body mended most of the tiny cracks and straightened out, although the soot stubbornly stuck to its form and did not vanish in the short term.

Nisha did not have to say anything at all.

The scary glint in her eyes conveyed her desires perfectly to her contracted elemental, which finally managed to float after recovering for a good amount of time.

Carefully inspecting the mood of Nisha, the living armor turned towards the table and chess pieces and considered taking one of them to demonstrate its ability.

A chill descended on its back, which should still radiate heat from being submerged in lava, and the painful memory of being pushed deeper by a mana clad stick returned like a flash, making Eisen give up on approaching the chess board.

Nisha had inspected the figures and thankfully found no damage on them, then she had placed them back on the board.

If the silly elemental learned nothing from her painstaking effort to teach it a lesson, she would not mind giving it another round of education, lest it extended its thieving hands towards her precious treasures again.

Unsuccessful in securing a suitable medium, Eisen gestured towards the hut, specifically at the chess figures, then at its own body before trying to convey some meaning.

Without an explanation, the dragon failed to guess the intent behind the pantomimic gestures and only stared harder at the armour, determined to get to the bottom of this issue this time.

Perhaps an unknown instinct convinced Eisen that only a dead end awaited its fate, if it approached the hut again under Nisha‘s eyes, it turned around and floated to a nearby tree.

Unable to communicate with words in its current state, it had to gesture for quite a while until the elf helped it to cut down an even sized portion of the tree trunk.

Inspecting the log of wood, the elemental peeled away small branches and broke the bark in some places to shape the wood.

Once it was done with the preparations, the floating armour put its gloves on the trunk and concentrated.

Nisha looked forward to the changes and accurately spotted a thread of mana connecting the palms of the living armour with the log.

Exploring the medium, the mana thread wound in circles several times inside the trunk and gave her the impression that it looked for a suitable spot.

After quite a few rotations, the mana thread ran out of strength and collapsed, dealing damage to the internal structure of the log at the same time.

Unable to understand why it failed, Eisen took back its gloves and touched the log all over, wondering what went wrong.

A new cord of mana gathered on its palm, scouring through the body of the log with more urgency, trying to take control of it.

Nevertheless, the second attempt still failed and more of the wood‘s internal structure collapsed.

Frantic to succeed, Eisen did not hesitate a third try, but the ravaged interior proved to be a significant hindrance, Nisha could observe that the second attempt was already much rougher than the first due to the damage.

No sooner than it started, the third attempt‘s mana thread did not even go all the way inside the log before the damaged interior structure of the log collapsed and the tree trunk turned into wooden scraps.

Flustered at the failure and afraid of being punished again by its master, Eisen was frantic to prove itself and clear its name.

Nisha was no longer quite as enraged as before and understood something after observing the operation of the mana thread by the elemental.

She remembered that she should have heard about such a method in the past, although the elf did not manage to put all the pieces together right now and find a complete answer.

Turning towards her familiar, she slowly spoke.

“You want to show me the skill you comprehended, right?“

If it allowed the floating armor to take possession of an item and form another appearance, it was rather unlikely that it inherited the ability all of a sudden.

The dragon herself shared the life and death element with the familiar, and among the spells and skills she had seen so far, none of them were particularly suited for transformation among them.

Light, darkness and water were far more likely candidates to have such capabilities, so Eisen had to have obtained it somewhere else.

Strictly speaking, she had a guess already what it could be, but the circumstances did not quite match up either, so it was hard to confirm.

Luckily, the question allowed the familiar to calm down and think of other ways instead of tormenting the broken trunk even more in a frenzy to get results.

After being burned once, the familiar firmly branded a warning in its mind, vowing to never overstep its boundaries with its master ever again.

Despite being submerged in a burning metal lake, it did not perceive any killing intent from the dragon - at least from its perception - so the punishment was more about warning it than truly trying to harm it.

If the elf ever made its mind up to dispose of it with serious intent, Eisen did not even begin to fathom how scary the situation might turn out to be.

Convinced that it managed to weather through a major disaster, the floating armour turned around to face its master and gestured to follow as it took off in the direction of the island‘s core.

Nisha took a look around one more time to make sure that her precious artefacts were securely stored in their proper spaces before soaring after the familiar.

Due to the territory being her [Inner World], moving from the air only needed a thought rather than proper flight in her dragon form and it was also possible for the elf to teleport to some degree if she split up the incarnation of her thoughts into tiny strands and sent them to the target location at a fast pace.

It was still a degree away from true teleportation, but even the downgraded version of the skill offered precious insight in the peculiarities of space and distance, preparing the dragon for true teleportation once she mastered the auxiliary details.

Once they arrived next to the underground cave housing the throne room and seven springs, Eisen did not continue to head forwards and ignored the treasure piles.

Floating to the side, the two of them arrived at a rather spacious clearing devoid of items except a single feature.

In the middle of the trees, a small group of saplings bearing some resemblance to stumps with runes carved on top of them stood firmly, exuding a tranquil atmosphere.

As Nisha had guessed, she looked at the culprit with a wry smile.

When she traded with Bael, one of the twin goddesses in the past, the green haired lady left these weird plants behind, as it contained the [Golem Control] skill and more advanced techniques.

The elf had tried to study the mysteries hidden in them before, but even the most elementary introduction exceeded her abilities at the third rank.

It placed high emphasis on the control of energy, where aura was needed to shape a suitable body and mana had to operate in a closed system to exert control over the golem.

Another step up was [Golem Creation], but the dragon did not manage to grasp what the skill was about without the foundation of picking up [Golem Control].

Due to making a breakthrough in cultivation recently, her familiars similarly enjoyed benefits and ranked up as well, whereas Eisen must have frequently studied the information left behind by Bael.

The floating armour stopped in front of the first plant and pointed at it, eager to show off the source of all troubles.

As a long term resident of the [Inner World], only the central area worked normally whenever the incarnation of Nisha‘s thoughts scattered and she began her day.

While the area looked endless and the dragon was still far away from exploring the different sceneries, the space was not truly endless in practice.

There was simply not enough energy in the body of a fourth rank mage and warrior to sustain the operation of a boundless space, not to mention the difficulty of the rules needed to create an independent plane.

For now, two major sources of mana and aura existed inside the [Inner World], allowing their surroundings to function normally.

Nisha‘s incarnation was similar to the sovereign over this space and constantly interacted with the space around herself.

Wherever the elf‘s thoughts went, the area around the incarnation obtained energy and operated normally.

Once the figure left and explored other areas, the places left behind fell into inactivity again and were practically frozen in time. Plants would not grow, water would not flow and nothing was consumed or created, effectively ceasing to be a burden on the [Inne World].