-Night. Nefiru POV-

I was planning to take a break from gathering mana until now and later inspect my body before filling the core as instructed, but the owner of the incoming light is a welcomed company since she knows about magic when her right hand is illuminating me like a flashlight. I narrowed my eyes at the white light and identified the girl wearing another black dress with some white lacework and sandals showing her toes while the hair is loose waving a little with the night breeze.

"Hey, sweet thing. Do you mind not shining that at a dragon's eyes?" I greet her then plead to turn off the magic that's making me uncomfortable.

Shaila moves the light beam to the ground and illuminates the way until she arrives next to me then turned it off and started powering her bracelet.

Much better to talk now without that infernal feature active restricting my control jeesh. I rejoice at having magic freedom.

"Sweet? You tasted me..." She puzzled while reaching out with her hands to find my lowered head in the dark.

"Un, what do you think? You were on my tongue and I'm not gonna lie, but you taste good. Also aren't you afraid not seeing anything in the dark? I could be taking a bite out of you right about, now!" I confess and do a quick lick on her face.

"Kyaa!" She flails her arms around closing her mouth and eyes then takes out a piece of cloth from a pocket to clean up before opening them again.

"Ugh, I'm tired of taking baths today!" Shaila protested and crossed her arms looking upset. "I came a little prepared this time." She waves the square piece of clothing used as a towel. "I'm sensitive to hostility...I knew you meant no harm even going inside your maw with pointy teeth, but you did hurt me at the end..." She groaned rubbing her right arm looking disappointed.

"Sorry, accidents are inevitable, and sometimes I'm afraid you'll break with just a touch, but that was indeed too risky for your fragile body..." I apologized and pointed out her thin figure.

"...Am I that fragile in your eyes?" She gloomily questions while holding her hands together with eyes half open.

"...It makes me sad for some reason, seeing you like this, and at least be healthier, even if you are not doing any activities since you never know when a situation calls for more out of you." I advised facing her then extended my left foreleg along the wall. "Come sit here to admire the starry sky tonight, and also can't you use red light to make your eyes adapt easier to the dark next time?" I request of her while patting the ground for her to notice where to sit.

"I can't yet." The girl shakes her head denying then extends her arms to the wall and after finding my limb slowly sits down.

So, the magic here have restrictions even without skill systems huh? I ponder while feeling the heat of the girl through the scales on my foreleg. Better ask her about the core before I make a mistake since Lester was probably fed up with my prank earlier and ran away before explaining everything.

"Hey, Why do beasts have a Core when anyone can learn magic?" I inquire from my point of view since learning magic manipulation merely took me a few days.

"Most Magic Beasts have smaller brains than humans, but the Core makes it easier to train magic control until they can discover their affinity and reach the first rank. However, without knowing what magic is beforehand, it could take a long time for them to get curious and learn about the core whereas we humans learn from each other, then practice control since early age until we reach the first rank." She explained while reaching out to me then rested my head on the ground right in front of her.

While feeling her hands move over the scales of the snout, I realize that my core might not be needed anymore since magic control has improved considerably and it will be a matter of time before the so-called affinities are discovered.

Dumb beasts-- Ouch... I slightly pull my head away startled at Shaila ripping out the broken scales by Lester this afternoon then she pulled me back. They would probably die before learning magic on their own, so a core was put inside to speed up the process huh? In that case, my core could still be useful.

"I'm pulling the scales that brother's magic arts broke today since they could rip off my clothes and earn me more sermons, but you'll grow them back." She informed me while storing the broken scales in a pocket after pulling them out.

"Okay, and how does this core thingy work? I've been collecting for a while, but it didn't look like Lester recognized my efforts, and was hoping you could tell me what's next before making a mistake on my own." I question her for the proper steps to take since errors might be fatal in this world where control is everything.

"After filling the core, squeeze the magic towards the center while steadily trying to control smaller strands and eventually the elementals of higher affinity with you will become known." She describes the process and reveals what's in the middle of the round thing.

I guess elementals are the little 'help' to produce magic that Guardian told me about, but he also said that 'it only goes so far' which means that at some point we can't rely on them... In my case that will take a while since I can't even feel them right now. I confirm my magic reserves not to be full yet and wonder if it would be enough to reach middle in one go.

"Why does it have to be full before attempting to reach the center?" I ask the reason before inspecting it out of curiosity to determine how close to the center I can get.

"Losing insights during practice because magic ran out is a frustrating experience since it could take a long time to regain and gets worse the higher the rank, which is why we recommend filling your body to the brim before practicing none stop. I heard that lost insights for a Divine could take even hundreds of years to experience again which is why the divine of our kingdom trains deep under a mountain and hardly comes out, but he does have mana crystals to recover magic faster." She shivers explaining the part as if experienced losing those sensations herself.

Hundreds of years she says... we'll see about that, but I should saturate my body with magic every time before practice huh? I realize the reasons people were not using Magic everywhere is because refilling takes time and effort, so they need to be full before practicing since not everyone has access to the mentioned mana crystals.

Although mana regeneration might increase with control, I wonder if it would be better to train in isolation, without distractions and away from other spirits to clash against. Some insurance for Spirit clashes would be nice, or Dragon crashes since we practically are vehicles and who pays if I go on a rampage demolishing houses? I entertain the possibility of someone covering damages in this world.

"Nothing will happen if I just probe around right? Also, does the core only help to reach Rank 1?" I seek confirmation and ask about other possible uses for the structure innate to beasts.

"Uh... It should be okay since your magic density is quite high already and the Core size fits inside the elementals that you can control but doesn't always apply." She nodded then elaborated before revealing some aspects that need further explanation.

"Since the cores are so great, does that mean humans rip them out of magic beasts to use them or do people have no need?" I scoffed a little bias from reading how monster cores are used in fiction.

"We were told at school that Cores are personal for each beast since they grow inside your bodies and can take more advantage of it than humans could while we humans train Magic with our bodies until we perceive elementals. People use a different system since we don't have great strength like you beasts, so we can't afford to have all magic concentrated in one place, and instead, we spread it all over the body to enhance it which is also more comfortable to hold it with the Spirit while unconscious or sleeping. However, you beasts have more unfair advantages with a higher magic capacity and regeneration which allows you to practice magic arts for longer or at higher intensities." She denies my assumption while describing the benefits of human magic system.

"...That sounds like fun...give me a moment." I informed her before retracting my magic from inside the collar.

I started controlling the magic gathered since nightfall and rushed all of it to probe the round thing in my chest. I felt the little sensation of magic rushing on my insides until the torrent arrived at the core then surrounded it like a spherical cloud as big as a football spinning around an axis and feeling every part of its surface. Small and porous... I observe in disappointment the grape-size completely encased inside another ball of flesh slightly bigger and connected to the rest of the body even with veins.

For my body size is rather small, but there is a weird feeling of connection to my core as if another part of me is here... I hope not to find other important parts of me this small on the body inspection after. I began investigating the porous structure located in my chest through the bigger holes.

I found on the surface and going deeper the tunnels split into smaller ones with random rooms forming a complex structure like a three-dimensional labyrinth. Though, it's not like I'm gonna get lost or trapped inside because my magic is always connected like a magic thread weaved from mana and spirit... The channels and rooms become smaller approaching the center until passages smaller than the gaps of the flesh stopped my advance, and losing control caused the Mana to strip away from my Spirit then quickly retracted back to a comfortable layer.

Ugh, it feels as if the thread I'm using is much bigger than the hole in the needle and it seems I got a little ahead of myself when the center is not as close as I thought it would be, but the gaps are still bigger than solid structures like metal or stone. I recall the difficulty to permiate solid materials with magic.

Truly a training device for dumb beasts since all you have to do is force magic through smaller passages and worry about replenishing the lost mana, but what is it made of or how does the body build it? This thing looks like a Magic-based CPU made inside of a ball instead of a flat square silicon chip, and I wonder if the collars use them for computing since my magic does get trapped inside fueling it, but the senses within are fuzzy as if something like magic metals from fiction is interfering.

I finish the Core inspection and slowly took all the magic outside before spreading it throughout my body and permeating all the possible places, but the increased perception of the unexplored area caused a torrent unneeded conscious information that made an old headache return.

Well, that backfired just like the time I tried inspecting my human body back on earth and became aware of many things that the mind is not meant to be conscious about, but the good news is I'm sure of my sex now. The brain filters a significant amount of information from all senses, and we become aware of what is considered necessary for our daily lives, but that only works until we ignore the warnings of our body telling us we might be sick or injured.

After filtering out the unneeded information, I indulged in the pleasant sensations of my muscles and organs more cohesive giving off a greater strength than before.

This is the effect of magic permeating all the muscles huh? I feel like Roaring with my neck high for all to hear, but let's suppress that feeling since it would only cause trouble at this hour, and I'll roar all I want once I'm back in the wild, though when magic is used up, the body will feel weak again. I confirmed my plans to return to the side of the mountain to feed on the stronger predators once I'm a higher rank, then retracted my attention from the body and powered up the collar again.

I will work on filling the core as instructed once I'm done talking with the sleepy little girl here that seems she wants to talk about something serious when she didn't tackle me. I turn my attention towards the little girl.

-Almost midnight. Shaila's POV-

I had thought he would be asleep after everything that transpired today, and approached in silence not to disturb him, but to my surprise he's been practicing magic until now.

You like magic that much huh? Not wasting any time and probably thinking why should you sleep when there's magic to learn, and that reminds me the excitement when I achieved my first rank. I think back to those nostalgic times.

"Alright, I just checked my the core, then the rest of the body and confirmed I'm a male!" He announced happily to have found his manhood inside the body.

Fwueh!? You don't say such a thing to a girl who's sensitive to that!! Perhapa this kibd of thing is of no importance to him... I become depressed recalling bad memories then place my hands on each side of my body on the forearm almost as thick as my waist and reclined on the wall of the granary.

I'm happy he has enough magic to talk now, but it makes my throat sore talking so much after a year. Though I did catch my breath a little, we still haven't talked about what I wanted... I recall the reason for my sneaky visit.

"Are you sad because I'm not a Dragoness and want to throw me away? It was hard for me doing business as a girl while thinking I didn't have male parts, you know?" He wrongly assumed the reason of my visit to be related to his gender while lamenting the uncertainty.

"It's not that...wait, what do you mean doing business as a girl when you were born not long ago?" I dismiss his doubts while being unable to make sense of the last thing he said.

I know he's intelligent, but why is he so obsessed with being male after just being born? I recall brother explaining earlier that dragons have different genders despite looking similar from outside because they can change during mating seasons.

I ignored it before because it was an uncomfortable topic for me, but if what brother said is true then there's no reason to bother that much with what gender he is now or how dragons do their businesses. I realised an incongruity in his behavior.

He suddenly started sniffing around then brought the head in front of my face to stare at me with his left eye which it's visible now that mines adapted to the dim light of the stars shining above.

"Will you pledge to never betray me even if I become evil?" He solemnly requires a vow of me before revealing something that might explain the earlier inconsistency.

...Will I be able to stay with him by accepting? I remember the reason I came to talk to him besides getting to know each other was to ask if the dragon could take me away from this enclosure once he decides to leave.

Ugh, there's trouble looming again and I'm a burden to Brother who is always protecting me. The life of a useless Light magician with high-talent like me doesn't have a bright future, but perhaps with him in the wild, I could find happiness and allow my family to be free of danger to find theirs. I try to imagine how my life could be beyond these walls.

"As long as you don't kill my family and take me to the wild when you leave...I accept." I propose a condition while recalling how angry brother got from our prank.

"No killing...understood, but pranks and fights are still okay, right?" He affirms then requests confirmation to misbehave while lowering his eyelid.

"Ugu, I received sermons for various things though..." I nodded while hoping he won't be too unreasonable including me on the pranks.

"Uh huh... Shaila, I have already been reborn a few times...I think...this is my seventh life, and you can come find me if I die again." He reveals the weird secret while unsure on the number of lives he had before.

"Huh? I think the bracelet or the collar malfunctioned again." Unable to make sense of what reached my ears from the device in my right hand, I inform him of its imperfections.

"Haha, that's a reasonable reaction, though it's not as rare as you think, and I have to pay the price of forgetting almost everything experienced to be born as a dragon somewhere else again." He affirms my skepticism while nodding.

Is this his real secret? He told us the collar broke him and we thought he was an Ancient's child or a rare bloodline and even Alphonse who is knowledgeable only saw these two options. He said it's not that common, but that's not possible when it has been confirmed that souls leave our world when the individual dies and Divines can have theirs destroyed since it's different from mortal souls.

"Are you...not lying to me?" I grabbed his head with the left hand over, and the right below then stared into his eye... interrogating.

"I was a tiny creature first, followed by a wolf, then a half-dragon, and three human lifetimes before becoming the Dragon in front of you, and if I die again, you could find my egg that takes long to hatch, but I will not be able to remember you." He describes his lives proudly instead of affirming or denying my question.

Well, maybe his soul is different, but how envious...to forget everything and start anew in a different place. A year ago I experienced something that made me want to end my life, but my family strongly wished for me to live on and did everything they could to keep me alive until my mind was changed. If only it could work for me too...end it all then start over like him...I never wanted to accept that fate...why only bad things happen to me? I recall the sorrowful past while tears form and narrowing my eyes made them come out then roll over my cheeks.

"Why are you crying!?" He questions my appearance in panic.