This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

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In the beginning, Annie could barely tolerate 5mg of dragon dust, but after a month of regular training, she was already able to tolerate 250 mg. As for me, I was now capable of tolerating over 3500 mg which was almost double what I could deal with before the dragon dust training.

I was now also capable of using the telekinetic power to some extent. It was extremely difficult and strenuous, but if I concentrated hard enough, I could lift 50lbs up in the air as long as I was close enough to the object. The further away I was from my target, the weaker this ability became.

Now to return to the present day, I was currently eating breakfast with Rambo while trying to chase away the nervousness of what was to happen later. Today for breakfast, dragon sausage, fried potatoes with some fresh plums. Rambo was eating his usual lump of blue meat next to me.

Plums and potatoes you ask? Yes! Finally, our garden had begun to produce some vegetables and even some of the fruit trees in town had ended up producing some fruit. Seemed like they only needed the time to adapt to their new environment. Sadly though, it seemed like we wouldn't get to use our giant pile of compost since we were planning to leave the area in only a few months.

Just in case, we would need to carry some bags of fertilizer with us and create a new garden outside the red mist vortex we would live in. After all, we didn't know how long it would take for a vortex to be ready to teleport us. The reason for my nervousness was because today would be my first time flying a plane.

The plan was to take aerial pictures from the plane and note the locations of the denser vortexes around to help us select which one would be the easiest to move to. I was also considering the possibility of throwing a lot of red gold into a bath of acid and release a large amount of red mist into the air to accelerate the vortex's growth once there.

Fact remained that I needed to pilot a small plane over these foreign and dangerous lands. The chances for catastrophe were so high that I had prepared the entire month for it. I had a new watertight backpack loaded with tons of items I now knew were necessary. I had learned what was needed to survive in the jungle the hard way after my kidnapping misadventure.

I had tried to keep it as light as possible but my bag was now twice as heavy as before due to my careful preparations. Noticing that I had barely touched my breakfast, Rambo inquired. “Father not hungwy?” He asked with an oblivious expression. “Ha! No, I'm just lost in thought. Are you already finished eating?”

After the memory transfer thingy he had done with the king dragon, I was expecting him to suddenly speak perfectly, but it seemed that the transfer hadn't been totally successful due to the dragon having been dead for a while beforehand. This sadly meant that Rambo had only received incomplete pieces of information instead of everything the creature knew. He had nonetheless progressed drastically since then.

“Rambo full.” He simply answered while jumping off the table and going back to his toys. Well, at least one of us wasn't nervous. I was first planning to fly alone and leave him behind where it's safe, but since Rambo still hadn't learned how to fly, I thought that seeing the view from the sky would motivate him a bit.

I had spent the last days preparing a road to be used as runway. I ended up selecting the road in front of the hospital which was protected inside the fenced area, had four lanes plus parking areas which made it 6 lanes wide, and was as straight as Hugh Hefner. Then I spent a few days taking down telephone and electric posts, fire hydrants and everything else that I could potentially hit during the landing.

I was 99% certain to be able to take-off and fly safely, but the landing was the iffy part that gave me knots in the stomach. We had also brought the two small planes and placed them in the temporary hangar built alongside the runway, reattached their wings and did a full mechanical checkup.

Luckily, we had Marc who even though unfamiliar with planes, was still a mechanic and could manage his way around them well enough. With the two planes in perfect working order and the runway ready, now was the day for my first experience as a pilot. From what the booklet found inside the plane said, these planes could cover as far as 1200 miles at 10k on one tank of fuel. This meant that I could safely travel 500 miles before having to head back home.

I finished my breakfast, tied my katana and sniper rifle to my giant backpack, put my armour suit on and walked out with Rambo in tow. I crossed the parking area, then the small patch of long grass before reaching the runway. At the end of the road was one of the planes, in position and ready for take-off. I could see the others buzzing around it in a frantic run to complete everything.

I walked up to them and saw what they were doing. They were installing miniature cameras under the fuselage in hope of getting some good footage of our surroundings. “Hey! Captain Nate! Feeling nervous?” Asked Robert after noticing me. He was obviously trying to reassure me with his good mood but I had no intention of letting them see how nervous I really was.

“Nervous? Not really... Curiosity is what making me excited.” I answered in a confident voice which Robert obviously saw right through. “Just don't overdo it okay? Remember that we need you here.” He added in a caring tone. As we spoke, Camille had run up to me and started to inspect my equipment, take my pulse and ask me how I felt.

After some awkward minutes, she eventually stopped and backed away. “You better be careful alright?” She awkwardly said while avoiding eye contact. “Don't worry. Like I said, piloting these... Piece of cake.” I confidently walked up to the plane, placed my bag on the passenger seat, placed Rambo on top of it and turned around for an official goodbye.

As I turned around to salute the others, Emanuela ran up to me and forcefully kissed me on the lips. “Lucky charm! That way I know you'll come back safely.” She gave me a wink and giggled before mischievously running back to her previous position. I was troubled, this kiss had certainly been very enjoyable, but I didn't dare look at Marc or Camille, afraid to see their reactions.

“Alright, I'm off.” I quickly said before jumping in the plane and starting the engine before things got more awkward. Well this was the plan but after fiddling around the cockpit for a while, I eventually noticed there was no ignition key. These low budget planes didn't have electric starters and needed to be started manually.

Realizing my mistake, I awkwardly looked out the window at the group of people who were laughing their asses off. Well excepted Marc who was visibly calling me a cretin judged by the movement of his lips and his body language. Eventually, Robert moved to the front of the plane and took a hold of the propeller with an annoying grin on his face. I pulled the choke lever and gave a bit of gas, waiting for Robert to give it a go.

The surgeon in his forties jumped in the air and used all of his weight to forcefully make the propeller turn. The engine burped a few time but I successfully managed to maintain it alive by playing with the choke and the gas. Starting this thing was the same as starting a lawnmower or an old ski-doo.

The engine eventually began to roar in a cloud of blue exhaust fumes and only needed to be warmed up a bit before take-off. “Fly! Fly! Father fly!” Kept repeating the little overly excited lizard. “I'll show you how I fly. Then you will have to learn how to fly, like it or not. What would the other dragons think if your father who's wingless can fly and you can't?” I mockingly said, trying to play on his pride to motivate him to learn.

“Guaaa! Rambo fly too!!!” Bingo! He was still a kid after all. Once the engine was warm enough and seemed to run smoothly, I waved goodbye at the others and pushed the gas lever to the max. The plane roared and vibrated as it slowly began to gather speed on the hard surface. We roared our way down the road and mid-way through the total length of the runway, I began to gently pull on the stick while correcting my trajectory with the rudder pedals.

Then, as if I had done this my entire life, the plane gently raised off the ground and nicely began to climb up and gain some altitude. “Guuuuuuaaaaa!!!” Rambo had calmed down and was staring out the windows in awe. As we gained altitude, my legs finally stopped shaking and my breath returned to normal.

Once in the air, I knew I could manage. All these years as an adept plane simulator player were paying off big time. I grabbed the compass, and aimed north. I was afraid of getting lost if I travelled aimlessly so the plan was to go straight north for 500 miles and come back. Next flight would be east, west, and south. Our goal was not only to find a suitable red mist vortex, but also to learn more about this world.

The knowledge of humans living in this world had since then been one of everybody's favourite subjects of discussion. We would ask each others existentialist questions like: Since their blood is of a different colour, can they still be called humans. Then another one would say: if we can crossbreed, then we are of the same species. Then if I remember correctly, the answer to that had been something along the lines of: Horses and donkeys can crossbreed, lions and tigers can crossbreed, modern humans and neanderthals could crossbreed, your point is wrong.

To be honest I was puzzled myself by that idea. They looked human, but we knew nothing of them. Maybe they were murderous cannibals with absolutely no emotions, we couldn't tell for sure until we met them. Some had argued that it was probably a bad idea to interact with them, giving examples of what had happened back on earth in the past. The Europeans coming to the Americas and accidentally and/or purposely decimating their populations with foreign sicknesses and viruses.

But in the end, if it was only looking from the sky, it shouldn't be a problem. As the town slowly became smaller and smaller, something else grew bigger. Tens of flying creature were trying to catch up to us and were quickly gaining terrain. As scary as it would have been a while back, I was instead calm and collected.

I had totally anticipated this to happen. These dragons had been following me everywhere since they had come to town after all. I apparently had my own dragon bodyguard squad. The young dragons who were now as big as the plane I was in, instinctively placed themselves in formation like migratory birds.

I took the time to count them and the total was 42. I repeat, 42 dragons were flying in formation through the sky with me, in a small yellow plane at the front acting as the leader. I couldn't help but show a giant grin on my face. I quickly took a few pictures with my cellphone before turning my concentration back to the landscape below.

After closely inspecting the ground for a few minutes, something immediately seemed quite obvious. There were no signs of recent circles in sight. I could occasionally see the mark of an old teleportation circle but the local vegetation had usually taken over and made the circle barely noticeable.

As for the red mist vortexes, there were quite a few of them, but none at the level of the one I had visited a while back. Up in the air, I was covering a lot of ground very fast, and I knew that I was already too far to even consider moving the mobile shelter up there. At this point, the flight had become purely for information gathering purposes.

Me and my crew flew for a while but eventually, the fuel gauge neared the half empty level, prompting me to turn around and start heading back home. During the entire flight, all I saw were forests, small mountains, rivers, lakes, ravines and some swamp lands. Very disappointed, I hadn't seen any sign of anything worth investigating. No trace of human activity, no smoke, no nothing.

During the entire trip back, I was plagued by swarms of butterflies in my stomach. A while later, the town appeared in the horizon, making the butterflies in my stomach go ape-shit and almost making me puke. Landing was the most dangerous part, the part I was the most nervous about.

I circled around the town and approached parallel to the runway. Then, I did a few practices by making low pass over the runway at low altitude. After building up enough courage, I finally approached for the real deal. With sweat dripping down my forehead and my nose, I swallowed my saliva nervously and white knuckled the plane in position.

I lowered the plane, lower and lower. Making my movements as gentle as possible, trying not to impact with the ground but graze it instead. The plane approached at the perfect speed, at the perfect altitude and perfectly aligned with the road, got closer and closer before gently touching ground.

The landing had been so soft that I still thought that I was in the air but as the plane kept loosing speed, it became obvious that we were back safely on the ground. Even a veteran pilot wouldn't have landed this puppy better than me. I gave a bit of gas and went up the road toward the hangars. As I approached, I saw the others rushing out of the hospital and running toward me. Robert and Marc had seemingly remained next to the runway and waited for me to come back.

Sadly for them, north was apparently not the place to go. All there was up there was endless wilderness. Maybe tomorrow, maybe west was the answer.