Van entered the room next to his own, surprised by how much it had changed. Where before there were a few beds to take care of the Annas, now there were many bunk beds in neat rows to take care of all the goblins that were now under his command, and even one large bed that he presumed must be for Kella. Inwardly he promised to remind himself later to make sure to get a proper room for her later.

Looking around, Van thought about perhaps trying to expand into the room further down, since everything here looked like it was just barely enough to hold all the goblins, and since he wanted to evolve them into hobgoblins and make more of them, he was going to have to make sure they all had space to sleep.

“Over here, master,” Isa said, leading him to the back of the room where a pile of eggs wrapped in soft clothing and placed on soft cushions in rows. “These are the eggs that contain goblins,” she said, sweeping her hand in a wide arc to encompass about two dozen of them. “And these are the few harpy eggs we have.” pointing to a smaller group of three.

“Fascinating...” Van couldn’t help but say. Looking at the many different sizes of eggs in front of him. Some as large as his head and even a few larger than that. They all except for the harpy eggs had a green-grey tint to them. But more importantly, they all had runes etched carefully into the shell that wrapped around them several times.

Taking a closer look, he noticed runes for increased mana absorption, runes for gathering a specific element such as fire so the goblin who hatches from that egg would be more resistant to it. Runes to automatically break the egg at a specific date so as to hatch the goblin and others to determine the size of the egg that was to be hatch, and a few more with a variety of effects.

While very rudimentarily, he couldn’t blame them for that since one probably couldn’t do much to things that weren’t even yet born. But to be able to so precisely choose and grow an egg and have it hatch at a specific time or when it reaches a certain criteria… well… that was downright impressive.

Isa then started to explain what was happening before him. “These runes help regulate the temperature of the eggs so we don’t have to, as well as harden the eggs to prevent them from breaking too easily. Then we have runes to help increase the absorption of mana to increase the rate of development and others to indicate the rate of growth. If you wanted to, you could even right now insert some of your mana to help fast track a specific egg to grow faster and hatch sooner. In fact… try that one…” she said, pointing to one of the smaller eggs of the group.

Van, a little unsure, did so. Gently placing his hand on the egg, while giving glances at Isa to see if that was okay. He slowly started to insert his mana into it. At first not much happened, but when he was getting around to his hundredth unit of mana he sent into the egg, it suddenly spasmed for a moment and grew two inches bigger. Surprising him and making him pull back his hand.

“You don’t have to worry about putting too much mana into it. That one was in need of a boost anyway, and if worse comes to worst, it would just stockpile the excess mana in case it needed to be used later rather than hatch unless by command or if it can’t sense other goblins for a long period of time.” Isa said.

Van gave a glance to Isa and back to the egg. Still fascinated by such a thing. Gently he put his hand back onto the egg and instead of putting mana to feed the egg, used it to get a sense or idea of what was exactly going on inside. To his surprise, he found a mostly fully formed goblin in miniature inside, that had just recently seemed to have gone through a growth spurt. The strange fluids it floated in seemed to act almost like a slime monster that devoured everything and turned it into more of itself. The slime thing then fed the goblins somehow and protected it.

Slowly pulling away, Van wasn’t sure what that was or how it worked. All he knew was that monsters, and monster-kin races, probably operated on a different rule than most races did. More importantly, it cemented the theories he read that some monsters were just as much mana or energy as they were physical in nature.

“Thank you Isa…” he said, slowly turning his head back towards her. “This has been very informative and will definitely help me in developing new techniques and better methods to take care and grow goblins in the future.”

Isa beamed, “I'm just glad to help master. And if you want, while we have no need for it since we are all taught it, there is a book that I can get you that teaches everything you need to know about creating a proper hatchery for goblin eggs, and another one for harpy eggs. Would you like it if I get it for you next time?”

“Yes, that would be very helpful, thank you,” Van said appreciatively.

“No problem, anything else I can do for you?” she asked, in a good mood because she was able to be helpful to her master.

“Hmm…” Van said, looking around at the slightly crowded atmosphere of the barracks. “Let's head over to my room, I still want to get a good look at that tattoo on your thigh.” turning then leading the way to his room.

Isa happily followed and upon entering the room told her to sit on the bed while he got some tools of his. Turning around to a very excited Isa, he gently put the tools next to her on the bed and addressed her.

“Before we begin, can you tell me anything about how you got that tattoo and what it does?” Van asked.

“Of course. I got it by spending a bunch of points. It was a very difficult tattoo to get and cost me over a year's worth. You see.” She then lifted her skirt a bit. “This is a very special tattoo with an active feature.” She then got up on the bed to make it easier to see. Then with some concentration, the tattoo seemed to have taken a life of its own and formed a shadow wolf not so dissimilar to Van’s own and formed up next to her.

“I always wanted one of these, but as a goblin or even a hobgoblin, it was close to impossible to be a mage. But I never could forget my dream of riding into battle on a black wolf steed! Or for that matter just riding on a black wolf in general. Sadly, it's not very tough, nor does it last very long. Ten minutes at most because that’s all I could afford to sustain it. It has its own very small mana pool, then It runs on my own mana pool when it runs out you see, and we goblins aren’t well known for having a large mana pool so it doesn’t last long... But at least I can still ride it!” she said, now straddling it and ordering to move, which it did, jumping down and then slowly around Van.

“Well, since I have no talent for magic, I have to use this tattoo to create this shade right? As my body naturally feeds on the ambient mana, so too does this shade feed and sustain itself, when pulled out like this it will run on its small mana pool first before it starts on mine.”

“Very impressive! Very interesting…” Van said and meant it, thinking about the amazing amount of applications such runecraft can do to augment his goblins. “What else can it do?” he asked.

She stopped and gave a wide grin. Then all of a sudden the wolf disappeared and slowly seemed to merge with Isa. her legs and arms gaining a shadowy attribute and becoming sharper. A shadowy wolf’s tail flowed out of her tailbone area, two shadowy ears on top of her head followed after, and finally, her sclera turned black leaving her greenish-yellow pupils alone. She also seemed an inch or two taller.

“Tadaa! With this, all my physical abilities are increased by like, twenty percent! I see better, hear better, react faster, and everything! The only downside is that now I only have half a minute of time left. It consumes mana almost twenty times faster than normal. But I think it’s well worth it and looks fucking cool too, don’t you think?” she said, puffing out her chest in pride.

“Wow…” Van said, amazed. He had to agree, it did look pretty cool and more importantly badass. Not to mention the versatility of such a tattoo and what it had to offer literally made him salivate at the endless possibilities. “Most impressive…”

Isa grinned and slowly her form disappeared, but she still stood tall and looked proud.

“Can you please sit on the bed, I would like to get a closer look at the tattoo you have. Also if there is anything you can tell me about the tattoo and how it was made, that would also be very appreciative.” Van said in full scholar mode.

Isa looked a little disappointed but did as she was told and sat on the bed. “May I move your skirt?” he asked and got a nod in return. Lifting it up, it really shouldn’t have been surprising but she wasn’t wearing any underwear. He decided to ignore it and focus on the tattoo and what secrets it may hold.

As he did so, Isa told him what little she knew about the tattoo and how she believed that there was a book in the library that probably held more information than she did about it. Van thanked her absentmindedly as he looked and prodded her thigh, taking his tools and inspecting the runic inscriptions. He knew he probably could learn more from a book, but he really wanted first-hand experience with this.

After half an hour of this, much to the boredom of Isa, he finally asked her to remove her clothes which got her excited. Taking them off, she revealed she had some decent-sized breastif you want to see this scene, please visit my Patreon or scribblehub.

--- end

He slept for a few hours in a surprisingly deep sleep afterward. His mind felt like it was taking its time to come to terms with a few things, so when he was gently woken up by Luna, he felt both refreshed and a little embarrassed, perhaps even a little guilty. But if she cared it didn’t show, instead her expression was one of love as she gently caressed her hand through his hair as he rested.

“Sleep well sleepy head?” Luna asked him

Van’s sleepy mind slowly woke up and he immediately realized he was still naked and that Isa was hugging his side, still asleep. “Uh, sorry… I’ll get changed,” he said, looking for his clothes.

“Take your time, I just came to get you for lunch. By the way… how was she?” she asked, as if genuinely curious.

Van hesitated, but he should know by now that Luna probably wasn’t jealous, if his knowledge about women told him anything, it was she was probably genuinely curious and perhaps even something more.

“She… was great… amazingly tight…” he confessed awkwardly.

“Nice,” Luna responded, almost as if she was very proud of Van for what he did. Making him feel even more embarrassed. “Come on, let's get lunch.” moving to the door she looked back. “Also… whatever you did to her… I expect you to do double for me later…” she gave him a perverted grin and then left the room.

Van felt already regretting going all out on Isa because if he had to do double of that, he probably was going to die, or at least if he was a normal human. Sighing, he changed and left, prepared for his death to come by snu snu after lunch.