I continue thinking of ways to secure my future in the relative safety and creature comforts provided by my dragon acquaintance. My next idea is a hydrogen grenade within a diamond container. A small enchantment that starts the oxygen-hydrogen reaction a set amount of seconds after the pin is pulled. I shiver when I think about the explosion caused from 100 mL of water forming near instantaneously inside a fragile diamond that fractures into thousands of pieces and makes mincemeat of anything in line of sight of the explosion up to tens of meters. I dare not keep the grenades in their oxygen-hydrogen state so I have a few filled with just pure water waiting for me to start the enchantment which separates water into its base elements in the matter of minutes using mana from a 100ml carbon nanotube weaved bag which is filled with pure charged mana at 100x ambient mana pressure. This weapon I would say is comparable to a rank 1, maybe a rank 2 spell but all I have for comparison is the word of mouth of a dragon. I bet it is a few times more deadly than a modern hand grenade.

I can not help but wonder how do mages fight... Fast? Slow? Range? I need combat experience against a mage, or at least watch a mage fight to understand if my preparations are worth anything. From the dragon I hear mages of different origins have different combat styles, from cast times, magic affinity, range and tactics.

Methods of attack have been created, I look down at my clothes and decide to make armor. Using carbon nanotube weaved cloth I make pants, a sleeved shirt, gloves, boots, a good fitting long coat with hood that goes down to my calves with an opening front from the waist downward, a backpack and a vest for carrying my weapons. I even make a balaclava and graphene based goggles. Key parts of the body like elbows, feet, knees, groin, torso, neck and face have about double the thickness. The total weight of my new body armor is about 15 kg so compared to a simple bullet vest it is heavy but compared with similar performance full ballistic body armor it is light, as I am quite sure CNT threads outperform kevlar by far. Each item is enchanted with the following words:

'store mana at specified multiple of ambient mana pressure;

conceal mana signature created by stored mana by showing the mana signature of ambient mana;

user specify multiple of ambient mana pressure;

if over specified multiple of ambient mana pressure then expel discharged mana until within specified multiple of ambient mana pressure;

if over specified multiple of ambient mana pressure and under 1% of mana is discharged mana then expel charged mana until within specified multiple of ambient mana pressure;

strengthen atomic bonds 2x;

if current state not equal to the state at the moment of enchantment gather carbon from air and restore the state to the state at the moment of enchantment;

repel all material that comes into contact to a minimal distance of 10 times carbon atomic radius;

gather ambient charged mana;

enchant inscription affects item even if damaged inscription;

if enchanter specified spectrum,

reflect electromagnetic radiation in the specified spectrum by the enchanter and absorb all non specified spectrum electromagnetic radiation and transfer absorbed energy to discharged mana in storage,

if not enchanter specified spectrum absorb all electromagnetic radiation and transfer absorbed energy to discharged mana in storage;

if outer surface temperature over ambient temperature then cool outer surface to ambient temperature;

if outer surface temperature under ambient temperature then heat outer surface to ambient temperature;

'.

Is what I came up with after multiple iterations when thinking about the necessities and possibilities of enchanting my clothing. This armor will self-repair, have extreme resistance to erosion and getting dirty, is much harder to puncture and cut compared to its non enchanted state and keeps the surface temperature identical to ambient so it is very hard to spot in infrared. I tested this feature using an infrared shift filter on the goggles and the armor did stand out against the cold rock but I am sure it will work much better in an open environment like a forest. The most interesting and newest feature which I added was the conceal mana signature which shows the ambient mana signature so I can not see any difference between the object with or without an enchantment using my horrible vision. I redid the gun and grenade enchantment to include this concealing effect as well. I wonder why the dragon shows an absence of mana and does not show an ambient mana level like my armor, maybe there are other factors I may not be aware of yet. I can also select the color of the armor by specifying the spectrum of reflection, if not specified the clothes are an uncanny pitch black.

The dragons reaction to my mana storage found, for example, in the grenades was minor. I suppose I will probably need 100 or more of my grenades to grab his attention and probably many times more to be an actual threat to him. Forgetting about the dragon, now I have enough confidence to venture out into the world on my own thanks to my new equipment. From what I can tell the food the dragon has hoarded is slowly dwindling and he will have no choice but to venture out to restock otherwise I will starve and maybe he will allow me to come with him. I bring up the topic.

"Will you let me go out into the outside world?"

"No, you are too weak."

"What strength do I need to achieve for your permission to go outside?"

"Rank 3"

I nearly facepalm when I hear that, either this dragon has a very high opinion of me or just does not want me to leave at all.

"Then what about food? I can not eat jerky and dry bread for months on end. I have noticed the quality and amount of food is getting lower and lower."

After a minute of silence the dragon answers: "Tomorrow we will go together."

My eyes widen at the statement of the dragon, go where? Hunt? A human city?

"Where will we go to?"

"A nearby elven village."

I am surprised again, as the dragon has not shared any knowledge about the local geography with me.