It was another dragon attack. But this time there were more than one dragon. Large holes were present on the walls of the royal museum Grandor took its pride in, probably created by the rather sturdy looking drakes. The drakes were guarding the museum, preventing anyone from getting in.

"Frost Blade!" Razor ran his Wyvern tooth shortsword through one of the drakes, forcing it to collapse on the ground with a loud roar. The drakes in the vicinity instantly noticed the silver haired dragon slayer's presence, and immediately started to act in order to get rid of the threat.

"Draconic magic: Saurian Beam!" A magic circle appeared in front of Eon, and a disintegrating beam shot out of the circle, piercing the head of a drake and the museum wall behind it. The beam looked like a weaker version of the one the Quetzalcoatl used. Eon had been practicing the move under Brute's guidance before coming to Grandor. "I sure owe that guy a lot." A smile flashed on his face which dimmed out soon enough, followed by a sigh. "But it's still unusable."

A horde of drakes charged at Eon, but were soon stopped by a giant stone wall appearing between them. Eon noticed Hotaz doing some hand gestures and realized that was the dry alchemy he was famous for. He also noticed Myera helping the wounded pedestrians to safety, while throwing alchemical solutions at the drakes nearby to stun and immobilize them.

The number of drakes weren't that large to begin with, and the onslaught caught them off guard. The dragon attack was about to fail before it started.

"Saurian Slash!" Eon charged at the drakes, only to get bounced back by a force field.

What?

"Stay away." A magically distorted voice loudly pronounced. A figure in a dark colored cloak came out of one of the large holes in the museum wall. The figure held a sphere identical but larger than the silver sphere under their possession.

"That'ss the gold ssphere from museum dissplay!" The Saurian alchemist pointed at the cloaked figure's hand.

"Shut up old bones!" The cloaked figure lashed at Hotaz, hitting him with a powerful lightning strike. The old saurian collapsed on the ground, laying motionless.

"You should never let your power distract you. The moment you lose your cool, the monster inside will try to take over you. And that will never result in anything good."

Eon leaped at the cloaked figure in blinding speed, attempting to strike the latter with a Saurian Slash. The cloaked figure barely escaped the move by jumping out of the way. Before Eon landed another one of his arcane draconic spells, the figure retreated to a safe distance as he (or she) rained curses on his enemy about him being an alimentary canal opening and about his canine ancestry, and lifted another silver sphere upwards. It was completely identical to the one in Eon's possession.

The sphere opened, and a semi-transparent portal appeared above it. All surviving drakes but one retreated inside the portal. The cloaked figure pocketed the sphere and fled, riding the remaining drake at full speed. Chasing after that beast was a fool's errand.

Eon, after completely exhausting his mana reserves, was slowly coming back to his senses. He noticed the giant claw marks on the roads and walls and gasped. "I've become a monster myself."

He rushed to the place Hotaz was lying unconscious. He found Myera and Razor treating the old saurian. "Will he be okay?" Eon asked.

"He will live. But we need to get him in the hospital now."

Eon and Razor rushed towards the nearest hospital.

***

"So what do we do now?" Razor asked, staring at the clear sky outside through the window.

"The dragon master is working fast, making steady progress to his plans. We need to get on it as soon as possible." Eon replied.

"You don't really think that kid in the cloak was the dragon master, right?" Myera asked.

"He very well might be." Eon replied. "He was certainly powerful. And the whole attack was neatly planned. He knew he wouldn't be able to counter the Royal Army. Being in Grandor, the Army would get ready to attack in half an hour's notice. The drakes were specifically designed for a raid and to flee from the spot in a short time window."

"And he could open portals with the silver ball thingy." Razor added.

"Your sphere can't do that, right?" Myera asked.

"I don't know." Eon deadpanned.

"We don't have enough time to get some professional mage's help." Razor said in a worried tone. "It has to be us two only, at least until Hotaz wakes up."

"Which isn't anytime soon." Eon sighed.

"What do you mean by 'us two'?" Myera asked rhetorically. "I'm coming along as well. I couldn't be much of a help against the drakes but I can handle forest monsters just fine. You know I'm no Damsel in Distress."

" But..." Eon looked at his two teammates. "How am I going to get my parents to agree to this?"

Razor and Myera looked at each other. They had no solution to that issue.

"Lemme handle those things." The guildmaster appeared behind them.

"Sir! How long have you been there?" Myera asked.

The guildmaster laughed Myera's question away. "Don't worry about your parents, Eon. I will take care of them. They wouldn't mind if they hear the merchant guild's head sent ya on an errand right?"

"Thank you!" Eon exclaimed.

***

According to the map, the nearest Jewel was further north, to the north-west of Grandor. "We can take a train halfway there, where human colonization finally ends. Rest of the journey will be through the dense forest." Eon spread out a bigger map than the book had on the table. He spent the night before pointing out the jewel locations.

"Then the travel card I issued for young Shiftblade would come handy." Myera flashed the shiny new card. "It's not necessary but always better for each of us to have their own card."

"Oh it's here!" Razor sounded very delighted. "Thanks! Gotta love how they manage to issue one of these in such a short notice."

"Only if you have good connections." Myera gave a smug smile.

The three planned to leave the city the very next day. They packed as light as possible and spent the day observing how the attack affected the city. Even though the attack was just a swift burglary if anything, doing minimum damage to the surroundings, it caused quite a bit of shock in the hearts of the people. Some people looked around for the three young mages who drove them away but no one had a clear picture of them to identify. They decided to lay low till they were gone far enough from the uproar around the city

"We could use some fame right?" Razor asked. "We did stop two of the dragon attacks. It's a big deal if you ask me."

"Media attention on us right now would only make it slower to get the job done. Do you really wanna publicly announce that you want to gather jewel signatures to summon the Elemental?" Eon rolled his eyes. "The dragon master doesn't seem to be too kind to Shiftblades either. Don't make it easier for him to look for you."

"I thought we were stopping the Elemental from being summoned." Razor asked with a confused look.

"We can't stop it. What we can do is to take control of it when it is summoned and send it back to the spiritual realm." Myera explained.

"Ah that makes sense." Razor replied. "And how exactly are we going to take control again?"

"By having more mana jewel signatures in our possession than the dragon master's. Simple and effective." Eon answered.

Next day they took the train through the cities and towns to the north of Grandor. The cities separated by lush forests and fairly large lakes in-between gave Primora a really captivating natural beauty.

"Do you think there are sapient wild species living in the forests?" Myera asked Eon.

"In these parts? Not really. Even if there were in the past, other civilized races like humans and elves banished them to further north. One can come across some semi sapient monsters such as goblins or lamiae there." Eon studied the wildlife around these parts from Leonhart's bestiary. He decided to carry the first volume of the series of gigantic books with him, which covered information on these woods.

"You look rather gloomy." Myera looked at Razor.

Razor absentmindedly stared at the window, looking at the trees the train was passing by. Myera's question brought his attention back to them. "No, I'm fine!" He smiled at her.

"Is it about Mr. Shiftblade?" Eon asked.

"Don't worry about it." Razor replied. "I'm sure he's okay."

Razor told that to himself more than he told it to his companions. He was really worried about his father. He had to go back to his town and check on his father as soon as he could.