Training with the tree dragonlets continued, focusing on the practical usage of combat splitting. The darker two were already familiar with the concept, so Dallion had them do exercises in order to keep their instances for longer stretches of time. Meanwhile, the third was just at the point of learning how to perform her very first splitting. She had obtained the ability to see—at least to a degree—the splitting of others, but still had issues doing it herself. Thankfully, that was enough for Dallion to train all three at the same time, but continuously splitting himself: a dozen instances focused on practicing with the emerald and dark green dragonlet, while one went over the theory with the paler one.

“You just have to imagine yourself in two places,” Dallion said yet again. “You’re already doing it when you’re spotting splitting. Do that and also try to move.”

Easy for you to say, the dragonlet grumbled. Due to her nature, Dallion mentally referred to her as “Snarky.”

“It’s almost like making echoes.”

We’ve never made echoes. Snarky flapped her wings, annoyed.

Magic creatures can’t easily create echoes, dear boy, Nil said from within Dallion’s realm. There’s too much magic involved, and if it’s split in two carelessly…

They explode? Dallion wasn’t able to stop himself.

There was a brief moment of silence.

I think you should focus on splitting for the moment, Nil replied in the end.

That wasn’t a bad idea, although Dallion would have liked to hear the explanations why magic creatures couldn’t create echoes.

“Start small,” Dallion said. “Try thinking of your wings being in two different places at once,” Dallion suggested. Normally partial splitting was considered more difficult than the real thing, but with dragonlets, maybe it was the opposite?

Dallion could see effort building up within the creature, along with annoyance that she couldn’t manage what her two siblings were doing so effortlessly. For a full minute she kept on concentrating, wings expanding and contracting, until finally she stopped.

Curse it! Snarky shouted, followed by a series of far more explicit and very specific dragon curses.

The remaining two dragonlets deliberately ended their splitting, just to laugh at her—sibling rivalry at its best.

Dallion did wonder what the other four were doing, though. Ever since the old dragon had announced the changes, they weren’t anywhere to be seen. The only time he’d asked, the emerald dragon had mentioned that they were in another part of the realm to focus on other things.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Dallion said, adding some calm in his voice. “Took me a while to get the hang of it as well.”

You’re using music. Snarky narrowed her eyes, though Dallion could see the blobs of anger and frustration within her shrink.

“Let’s try something different,” he said. “I’ll split into instances and you try looking at me as I do.”

That’s stupid.

“Only rule: you can’t move your eyes and head.”

That’s still stupid. The dragonlet snorted, although the spark of curiosity betrayed her in the eyes of Dallion.

Moving directly in front of her head, Dallion added a new instance the next time he split. Unlike the rest, this one only took a single step to the side.

At first, there didn’t seem to be any difference. Snarky kept on looking straight forward, with no indication she was doing anything else. Not being discouraged, Dallion did a second step with his instance. Then a third. Slowly, the two instances moved apart from one another, making it more and more difficult for the dragonlet to see them both. Then, at one point, almost seamlessly Snarky’s head split into instances. One of them was looking at one instance of Dallion while the other was beside him. Back on Earth, Dallion would have called the sight disturbing—the thing that horror movies were made of—here, though, he felt joy and a certain sense of pride.

“That’s it!” he said. The moment he did, the second instance of Snarky’s head snapped out of existence.

Curse it! The dragonlet shouted, snapping her jaws. She had gotten the principle, but failed to maintain it. For the next ten seconds she attempted to repeat what she had achieved to no avail, at which point, her two siblings ended their own exercises and went near Dallion, forming a triable around him.

Hey, Emerald said. Like this! He split into two instances, one looking at Snarky, and the other at Dark. Moments later, Dark did the same.

They really learn fast, don’t they? Nil asked. Much faster than you even.

Yeah… There was no denying that. Dallion himself had been told that he picked up things remarkably fast, but compared to them he was nothing but a slowpoke. The really impressive thing was that they had reached their present level without the help of awakening shrines. As Nil had frequently reminded, it took a human decades to raise a few levels, prior to becoming a double digit. For them to have achieved the same, they must have gone though considerable training, or alternatively, been at it for so long that awakening skills had become second nature.

Before Dallion’s very eyes, Snarky managed not only to grasp the principles of a partial split, but also achieve it on her own. Within minutes, all three of the dragonlets had two head instances and were looking at each other.

“Very funny,” Dallion said, doing his best to sound amused. “You got the hang of it. At this point, all you need to do is practice.”

What about instance fading? Snarky asked eagerly, attempting to compensate for her lack of splitting experience.

“In time. First, you need to be able to achieve a full split, then increase the number of instances and the time you can maintain them.”

Yeah! Emerald said, creating seven more instances of his head. His attempt, no doubt, was to show how much better he was at it than her. However, the sight of a dragonlet with a cluster of heads made Dallion feel unwell.

“You’ll learn more tricks in time. Just focus on splitting for now. Half of your siblings aren’t able to do even that.”

But, I really can—

The ground beneath Snarky shook, then sunk down slightly. Likely, her father knew she had reached her limits at present and had indicated there was no point in her to continue.

With a snarl and a tail-snap, the dragonlet flew up, then jetted away to the horizon.

“She didn’t seem to take it well,” Dallion said, looking in her direction.

She’s just annoyed she’s slow. Emerald laughed. I was the same when I first started splitting.

She’s no reason to complain, Dark grumbled. She’s cheating. There wasn’t anyone to explain things when we were learning.

“You have a head start. As long as you keep practicing, it’ll be difficult for anyone to catch up. Besides, you get to learn how to stop combat splitting.”

Yeah. Dark wrapped his tail around his legs. Still. She’s cheating.

After a few more minutes, the training continued.

It took two days for the dragonlets to be able to maintain echoes for a reasonable amount of time. At that point, Dallion considered that they had reached the point at which he could finally teach them the ability they so much craved for. Given how easy the trick was, he thought that it would be a quick lesson. After all, all they had to do was get the timing right and break the splitting as it happened. To his astonishment, that turned out to be extremely difficult for them. It didn’t matter how many times he explained or demonstrated; the dragonlets kept missing the moment time and time again. Days passed without success. And the more Dallion tried to figure out the reason for their failure, the more he became confused.

It wasn’t a matter of speed—the dragonlets had reactions far exceeding what he had been when he had learned combat splitting. It wasn’t a perception, either. It was almost as if there was some invisible barrier made them slow down for a fraction of a second—just enough to miss the moment.

On the third day, Emerald gave up. Determining that it would be more beneficial for him to focus on increasing the time of his instances, he flew off to the horizon. At that point, only Dark was left. The old dragon said nothing, neither then, nor during the night following the dragonlet’s departure. That most likely meant that he approved of the decision. From here on, the focus was solo training.

“There are other things I can teach you,” Dallion said, after another day. “That’s not the end all.”

I want to learn that, Dark said in a cold voice. His smoldering anger was only surpassed by stubbornness and determination.

“I’ll need to think how to explain it better,” Dallion said, adding a bit of calm in his voice once more.

Don’t do that, the dragonlet grumbled. We can tell when you use music. It’s not helping.

“I can tell you how to combine splitting with your empathy trait.”

Initially, Dark just grunted, though just for the sake of it. Dallion could tell that he was intrigued, even if the dragonlet was doing its very best not to show it. Strictly speaking, Dallion wasn’t even sure that was a good idea. If Dark was to start using that efficiently, and there was no reason he wouldn’t, he would become a formidable opponent, not to mention capable of defeating a whole lot of hunters, possibly even mages, with minimal effort.

“You haven’t tried combining them, have you?” Dallion continued. What was done was done. Besides, for some reason, he felt that the dragon deserved to know.

How?

“I’ve seen you talk to guardians. Try using instances to do that.”

Why do that? Save time?

“You’ll save a bit of time, but more importantly, you’ll save tries. Some guardians like to be addressed with respect, some can be intimidated. Same as people, pretty much. However, if you try one, you can no longer try the other. If you combat split while talking to them, you can decide which conversation you want to continue with.”

The dragonlet’s tail and wings stirred. It was as if watching someone presented with a groundbreaking concept that changed their entire world explode. Dallion knew that from this point on, nothing would be the same. The funny thing was that anywhere apart from the wilderness, such a discovery would be seen as obvious. Being locked in a realm with no guardians and only one’s siblings—and the occasional imprisoned hunter—to talk to hadn’t allowed for experimentation of that nature.

“You can try it with me,” Dallion said. “Try having several conversations at once. Normal things. No cursing or intimidations.”

How do you come up with those things? Dark asked, in awe. You don’t have magic, you’re not strong, you’re not fast, and still…

“Maybe because I thought of them precisely because I started out weak,” Dallion replied. At this point, it was better not to mention his knowledge from Earth. If there was one long-term cheat, that was it. “I also got a lot of help and experience. You can too if you go into the real world, you know.”

Sure. Let’s try this out! Dark ignored him completely.

Mentally, Dallion bit his cheek. He was so close to planting the seed of escape, and through that, fulfilling the Moon’s promise. Alas, that was going to have to wait for a while longer.

The instanced conversations were clumsy at first. While the dragonlet had developed the stamina to maintain his instances for over two seconds, thinking of different things to say simultaneously proved difficult. Initially, he was only able to maintain a conversation and half. With enough practice, though, his confidence developed and by evening he was easily able to talk simultaneously on three different topics, be it a bit slower than usual.

Things didn’t end there. The creature was so eager to keep on talking that Dallion was forced to leave his hammer with Onda. Part of him trembled at the thought of what might happen as a result of leaving two teenagers alone for, but in the end, even that was better than not being able to sleep at all.

You know they’ll be at it for hours, Nil said.

“At least it’ll tire him for tomorrow,” Dallion replied. Maybe then I’ll have a chance to get him out.