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------Jared’s Dream Realm------

Hmm, it seems I’m back here again, hopefully I didn’t mess up anything or cause too much trouble. Hah, somehow my mind wanders towards such things like ‘Early bird gets the worm’ when I should be looking around for the old wise bird. Speaking of wise bird if there were a Talonbane on Earth I could just imagine something like Owlbane preaching ‘The pen is mightier than the sword!’

But I digress, walking for a few minutes I finally feel the tyrannical presence of the owl counterpart that holds my dreams in the palm of his hands—er—talons.

In a clearing a tree that rivals Yggdrasil towers over all of the other trees, daring me to attempt to climb it. Well lucky for you I don’t have an axe the size of the Empire State Building nor a WMD else you would already be destroyed and served as fuel for my Dream Realm Campfire Version 1.0

As I walk near the tree I spot a small doorway previously unnoticed. And it’s exactly where Talonbanes aura is exuding out of. I enter the tree while mystified on how the hell a super-sized bird could squeeze through, and get my answer immediately.

Leaning back on a wooden chair is an elf with gray skin and red eyes staring at me with an amused expression. It’s probably due to my mind processing how an old bird could look like a humanoid. Even though I’ve read fantasy novels talking about powerful monsters that can transform when they desire.

{Authors note: It’s easier to just look at this pic to imagine what he looks like. Even though this shows he’s in battle just use your imagination and put it to the current setting}

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KSFm-GVxvW4/U7-I7BnLMhI/AAAAAAABIZo/XDBqdqCQ_Hs/s400/640x448_8894_Dark_Mage_2d_fantasy_fire_darkness_mage_dark_elves_picture_image_digital_art.jpg

Reading my mind like always he starts talking,

“That was worth seeing your amused face, kid. Master Bane was surprised the first time I transformed in front of him a long time ago too. I was making small talk with some of his women and he walked in, pissed that someone was ‘flirting’ with his beauties. Before I could say otherwise, he challenged me right on the spot. Right as he was going to attack I went

back to my Talon-form and scorched his hair hohoho. Anyways do you have an idea why I brought you here?” [Talonbane]

Nope not at all.

“Um, actually I was expecting we would be in a nest on a tree when I met you again. This place is interesting.”

“Well that is no place for visitors, even though you’re not really a visitor since it’s technically your dream haha. So back to the topic, the reason I have visited you is to warn you of the dangers that come with fighting mages and warriors.

When I was watching you fight the stealth warrior group, you probably asked yourself why it was too easy. That’s because the warriors and mages in the group were each rank 3. If I was to put your strength into a warrior’s ranking system you would be at rank 5. However because they use mana and you use ki it’s not an exact estimate.” [Talonbane]

I figured I would be a higher rank and stronger than that. It’s kind of shocking but makes sense at the same time. I have only just unlocked the second layer of my 5-layer DNA. Also the fact that I only know two actual techniques doesn’t help my case either.

‘Gliding Steps’ and ‘Elemental Ki’ are the only techniques in my repertoire currently. Maybe I can build off of ‘Elemental Ki’ and create an upgraded version, but I have yet to think of anything.

Injecting ki into people when using ki presence doesn’t count. This is because when doing it in the middle of a fight there isn’t enough time to focus on completing the action. Furthermore, to inject ki into a warrior or mage while they are awake is not possible at my level of skill. This is because their mana can unconsciously block out that kind of attack while fighting.

The only way to succeed in this is to disrupt their concentration with a physical force. This is how internal strikes are executed. Punch a part of your enemy’s body at the same spot you want to pass your ki into and scramble their organs like eggs. Well you would have to be very strong to scramble them, but bruising or tearing can occur easily.

Talonbane continues,

“You have great strength but you also need to keep upgrading your defense. ‘The only defensible war is a war of defense’.

Something I wish I could have told Master when we were still roaming the world. Alas, we were both hot-blooded back then and didn’t give a rat’s ass about what dangers lie ahead. If there was a dragon, we would kill it and take the treasure. If there was a pompous noble we would punch him. Also if there was bar fight, well, usually we would be the ones that started it so…

Anyhow, some advice I can give you, is to think of a dragon’s defense and you’ll be fine.” [Talonbane]

Dragon? That advice is kind of cryptic but I’m starting to understand what he means.

“Okay thank you for the advice, and don’t worry about your daughter-“

“Megg?” [Talonbane] He looks amused, so that’s better than what I thought would happen. Part of me expected to turn into a vegetable after enduring hours of dream-horror, but it seems I was graced by Lady Luck. Oh thank you my Lady and may you bless me again tonight with melody hehehe know what I mean? Ugh, Talonbane read my mind again, I can see it on his face.

“Erm, yeah that’s the name I chose, and if you don’t like it I can chang-“

Before I can finish my sentence he boots me out of his ‘tree house’ and my mind fogs, then I wake up from dream land.

Time to start another day of hunting humans, right after I play with some ‘self-plastic surgery’ of course.

-----Two hours later-----

The last two hours I have been using my second layer in meditation to rebuild my skin to be resistant to elements. I’m not sure how well it will do in an actual battle since mages vary in strength.

Now I am going to heed Talonbane’s advice on replicating a dragons defense. First I will start with my torso. I take off my shirt and begin morphing my skin, stretching out straight about 7 inches in 10 rows from the top of my chest, down to my navel. It makes it look like I have 10 thin shelves extending from my torso.

Then I morph all of the ‘shelves’ to lean downwards like how dominoes would fall, making them lay on top of each other. Similar to a dragons scales.

{Authors note: looks like this pic, except his human skin scales only have one on each row. http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/inheritance/images/e/ef/Scales_Background.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20101216134534}

After my morphed human scales are made, I make sure and curve the ends and sides of each scale so when someone attacks me it will slide off of my skin. Similar to a knight’s armor. However it would only slide off if the person isn’t infusing mana into their attack, otherwise the curves would only lessen the impact by a small amount.

This should help my defense increase by a substantial amount. It kind of looks weird though, I feel like an old man with wrinkles on my body. Oh well, if it works I guess I shouldn’t complain.

I continue to do this on other parts of my body, back, thighs, arms, etc. Explaining it shouldn’t be a problem since my morph suit looks like leather even though it’s black. Most people would just pass it off as a guy who likes to wear leather on his whole body.

Now it’s time for the Deviled Eggs to go hunt some eg—uh—teams.