Savepoint Bar, the first bar and building built in town. Despite its historical significance, it is the lowest earning bar in the whole district. Struggling to average two customers a night. Most of its patrons either stumble in it thinking it was a whore house, buying a drink out of embarrassment, or they live on the second floor of the small bar.

It wasn’t famous for a lot of things. And it definitely wasn’t famous for its coffee. Jacked drank it anyway, though he would have stopped if the one who made it wasn’t in front of him, happily playing with the turtle.

“Where’s Sinta?” He asked Eeya, sipping the coffee in a way that it didn’t touch his tongue. He wondered how someone could screw up hot water and grounded beans.

“She’s at a meeting with all of the Pleasure District business owners,” she smiled at him. “How’s your coffee? Sinta usually does it for you, I just copied what I remember her doing. Hope you don’t notice a difference,”

“Oh, really? I thought she left a pot brewing for me before she left. Mmm,” it was hard for him to tell the truth. It tasted like hot muddy water.

The turtle rolled around on the table, limbs and head tucked inside its shell. It had grown since Dumog brought it back a week ago, but not as much as Jacked expected. It lacked the resources to reach its full potential. He wanted to talk to Eeya about it, but it had to be at a time when Amihan, Dumog, and Sinta weren’t in the bar.

And that time came. The rest of the group finally woke up and went downstairs. Dumog was still sad about being covered in shit the other day. Amihan looked as unmotivated as usual, though her bag could fit through doorways now.

“I’m going out,” she said without looking at the rest of them. That was two down for Jacked, one more to go.

“Hey Dumog, I’ll teach you magic if you complete this challenge.”

His depression gone in an instant, he ran up to Jacked waiting for the task. From his sleeves, Jacked pulled out a bright red rubber balloon. Confused looks from both Dumog and Eeya. In one breath, he blew it up to a size similar to a regular man’s body. He gave it to Dumog. Eeya clapped, amazed at the trick.

“Go outside and squeeze it using your body. Pop it and I’ll teach you something. You can’t use anything that isn’t a part of your body, like a needle. I suggest hugging it like a bear.”

“Okay! I’m on it, sir!” He ran out of the door with the red balloon.

That was all of them gone. He wasn’t worried about Dumog completing the exercise. It was an old training method he did when he was younger. The first time he popped it was when he was 17 years old.

He was about to start his talk with Eeya when the messaging stone from his master glowed. The last time Nox and him saw their master was when he left all of his students in the capital. His last words were that he was going on an important and dangerous mission. All of his messages since then were for tasks or chores to do. Jacked ignored it for now, thinking that Nox would grab him if it was important.

“So, you’re a druid,” he stated.

“Eek!” Eeya froze and dropped the plate she was wiping. “Please don’t hurt me.”

The turtle charged at his wrist and tried to bite him. He swatted it across the table without much effort.

“Sorry, and no, I won’t hurt you. You’re safe. I’ve noticed you having conversations with the phoenix. Weird form it chose this life cycle, a Forged Turtle,” he sipped on his coffee, forgetting that it was the one Eeya made.

“Yes, it’s still in baby form, so I cannot communicate with it well yet. But it can understand us,” she picked up the broken pieces, cutting her finger in the process.

“It’s not getting enough nutrients and quality mana.”

“But we can’t just let it go into the wild yet either,” she healed her cut in an instant.

Jacked brought out a cloth sack filled with gems and minerals. “Here, feed it with this. Ask for more when you run out. And give him a drop of this every morning,” he handed her a vial.

“What is this?” She peered into the bottle. It was a clear liquid, like water.

“Jacked’s Secret Sauce,” he puffed his chest out proudly. “You can appraise it if you want. It’s only supplements. I’ve been putting it in Dumog’s food the past two weeks.”

Her eyes glowed, observing all of the ingredients and magic used in the potion. “Seems fine, but won’t he grow too large?”

“That’s exactly what I want to see. I want it to grow the biggest and strongest it could possibly be in this life cycle.”

“We still don’t have a mana source for him to cultivate with.”

“I’ll think of something later. So, how did a druid end up in a nasty place like this? Never seen one work as a hostess,” there were a few more sips left in his mug. He didn’t have the heart to chug it.

“It’s not dirt! It’s cozy,” she pouted. “I ended up here, in this town, when I escaped from my kidnappers. They took all of the druids and killed the rest in my hometown. I got lost on this street and Sinta took me in before the pimps could trick me.”

“They still do that huh, kidnap druids. How old were you? You look younger than Amihan and Dumog.”

“I’m 21 now, it was three years ago,” she checked the coffee press. “Oh, no.”

“What happened?” He took in the last sip of his drink.

“It seems I have used the beans that haven’t been grinded yet, sorry.”

“Ehem, I’m going to go out now and see what’s posted at the Job Center,” he spat the drink back into the mug.

“Okay, have a nice day. It won’t happen again, I promise,” she had her head down.

Out in front of the bar, Dumog hugged the balloon until his face was as red as it. It pressed into his diaphragm, preventing him from taking deeper breaths. He stopped after a few seconds and gasped for air. Jacked power walked away before he could get a question in.

The Job Center was still filled with lowlifes and shady characters lounging around or arguing with each other. On two tables opposite of each other, the Straw Hat Boys and the Beefcake Boys stared and side-eyed one another. Their tough demeanor flipped when they saw Jacked walk in, giving him pats on the back and compliments. They went back to their hostile peacocking after he went past them.

He ate the free meal he had while watching the two groups insult each other. Jacked was at a loss, he couldn’t think of a way to properly train Dumog. If he were to teach him a spell in his current state, his body would explode from the pressure. Somehow, Dumog was still below average even with Jacked training him. A blow to his pride as the Muscle Wizard and a teacher.

Browsing through the job and bounty boards, he found nothing that would benefit Dumog or Amihan. Though Amihan wasn’t a student of his, he was still curious to see what she was capable of.

From what he observed with the Thousand-Year Tree job they did, she was proficient with the hammer. This led him to speculate that she was trained in various other weapons and fighting systems. His guess for now was that she was taught by an Orc Weapon Master that sided with the Anti-Mages.

Nont of the things posted excited him either. A whole lot of killing. There was a wild necromancer in town that raised his neighbor’s dead grandma. He’d rather let someone else deal with that degenerate.

Stepping out of the Job Center, he saw Nox leaning on her broom and smoking. Her hair was now cut shorter, near her jaw.

She looked at Jacked and hopped on her broom, it roared to life when she touched the handlebar. He hopped on the backseat and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Did you gain weight?” he asked, resting his chin on her shoulder.

Nox rolled her eyes and smacked his head with the spare helmet. They launched high up into the air, the blast from the broom kicking up dirt and dust all around. Once they got high enough where there were no more obstructions, they blasted forward. A crack in the air, they blinked out of existence. All the people nearby had to cover their ears.

Several thousand kilometers away from town was a monastery built on top of a snowy mountain. Without flight it was virtually impossible to reach because of the temperature, terrain, and the harsh winds that could blow a full grown man off.

Nox parked her broom on the steps leading to the building. She brought out an expensive fur-lined leather jacket and drank a potion to regulate her body temperature.

“Need one?” She offered.

“No, thanks,” he changed his breathing and adjusted everything inside his body to achieve a similar effect. “What are we here for? Didn’t know there was a place like this on Metham land.”

“Me neither. Wait, didn’t you receive master’s orders?”

“Ah, we’re out here doing chores,” he sighed.

“Basically,” she shrugged.

A robed man approached them. It wasn’t the same robes that the wizards wore, but a uniform of sorts. His eyes were closed and his hands hidden in his sleeves. No expression or any human emotion on his face. He seemed to be alone.

“You are trespassing on holy ground. We request you to leave immediat-,” Nox shot him in the chest without warning. His eyes opened as he looked down at his exposed chest cavity. They glowed a bright and vibrant red.

“So, that kind of chore. Was that Dragon mana I sensed from him, or is my nose stuffy?” Jacked sniffled.

“Not wrong,” she racked her gun, ejecting a shell out. “More incoming,” she shot another one that ran towards them.

“We’re just going to kill everyone? Is that what he ordered?

“Pretty much. Heads up, they’re charging up.”

“Will the violence ever end?” He hopped over Nox to intercept the incoming attack.

Three monks chanted and combined their mana into one spell. A ball of dark red energy crackled in front of them. With a shout, they released it.

He puffed and flexed his chest and stabilized his core, ready to take the blow. The ball of energy bounced off his pecs, returning it back to the monks. They disintegrated from their own attack.

“Damn, that stung. But their mana output seems to be disproportionate to their skill.”

“Looks self taught, or they have a terrible teacher,” she took a drag from her pipe.

A younger monk charged at her from behind. His first covered in the same energy. Nox blew her mist on him, instantly encasing him in a block of ice. Jacked struck his elbow on it, shattering the ice and the monk into pieces.

The others chucked smaller balls of energy. He caught and absorbed it into his biceps. Flexing his biceps a few reps, he returned it to them like he was throwing a ball. The flexing and the pure physical strength of Jacked doubled the damage of the spell. The monks exploded on contact.

“This is just pathetic,” he complained.

“I know, but he said to leave none of the monks alive.”

They walked up the steps of the monastery, shooting and killing the monks that approached them. Since there was no easy way up the mountain, they weren’t too worried about them escaping fast enough.

The monastery was an ancient building renovated by the monks to be livable. Jacked speculated that it was originally built before the Metham empire existed, nearly a thousand years ago.

Large and spacious, it had scales carved into its white stone walls. With the draconic powers that the monks that resided here seem to have and the hard to reach, magically hidden location, it was safe to assume that the building served a purpose to an old Dragon clan. The building and the small-time magic group managed to slip past the Metham Empire’s radar.

“Stop! In the name of The True Drag-,” another monk shot by Nox before they could finish a sentence.

“Hey, how are we going to figure out what their group is called if you keep shooting them down?” Jacked snapped a monk’s neck with one hand.

“We don’t need to know if we’re going to wipe them out anyway,” she shot another one. “The less we know about them, the easier it is to take them down.”

The rest of the monks got the idea that they were no match for the two Archmages. So they ran behind an older looking man with a different colored robe. A dark red, much like the color their power gave off. The two didn’t sense anything magical about his set of robes, not like theirs that served a purpose.

“You the leader?” Nox pointed her gun at him.

“I am the Anointed Son of the Dragons! I was sent to this world to save you all from the coming end!” He preached.

His followers went down on their knees and started chanting. They gave him the rest of their powers, filling him up with Dragon mana. Nox sent 4 shots his way, but the aura around him deflected it.

“Oh my! He’s delusional,” Jacked fake gasped.

“‘Sent to this world’? He might be an Otherworlder. Impressive that he managed to do all of this.”

All of the monks depleted their mana, some of them crashed on the ground from exhaustion. The leader’s skin had turned into the same maroon shade. A red aura enveloped his body making him float two inches off the ground.

“Now that’s just sloppy. You’re supposed to contain it within yourself. Look at you, you’re leaking!” Jacked criticized.

“You dare mock me and my skill!? I’ll show you what happens when you mock John, The Anointed Son of The Dragons!” He placed his hands on his waist and charged up. “Take my ‘Dragon Ray Punch’!”

Extending his hands forward, a beam of red energy blasted out of his palms like a laser. Nox stood behind Jacked, leaving him to deal with it. He took the attack full force, right at his chest and abdomen. The beam bounced off him like a light against a mirror.

He took a step forward, surprised that it didn't have any resistance. So he walked towards John. The cult leader poured all of his power into that one attack and screamed at the top of his lungs. Of course, screaming did nothing to increase the power of his attack.

Jacked was already in front of him. He grabbed John by the face with a single hand. Then, he slammed his head against the stone statue of a dragon, splitting his head open. John’s blood flowed down the grooves, carved to make it look like scales. His followers were horrified by the brutality of the attack.

Nox saw them all gathered in one spot and found an opportunity. From her sleeve, she pulled out a transparent grenade filled with crystals and the gunpowder she formulated herself. She pulled the pin and chucked it at the group. An explosion later, a bloody mist was in place of where the monks were. Jacked was unharmed but his face was covered in blood.

“You could have warned me,” he flicked the blood towards Nox. A small gust of wind came from inside her robes which prevented her from getting dirty.

“I found an opportunity, so I took it,” she shrugged.

They heard the large double doors creak behind them. There was one monk that survived, both of their legs blown off from Nox’s shotgun. She cried when she looked back to see Jacked walking towards her.

“Please, I’m sorry. I only wanted to get stronger,” she pleaded and weeped, knowing that they would still kill her.

“Don’t we all? You were unlucky and stepped on someone’s toes on your journey there,” he hesitated to deliver the final blow, she looked younger than his own student. Though he knew that if their master, The Alchemist, were the one to deal with them, it would have been a more long and painful death for all of them.

Nox was the one to kill the last monk, crushing her head in between the ornate doors. Dead in an instant.

“I told you it would be harder if you talked to them,” she patted him on the back. “You’ve always been too soft for this.”

“Or you and master are just violent. Alchemists that excel in killing. Why does everytime he contacts us it always leads to ending a life?”

“He has a lot of people he hates and people who hate him.”

They walked around and explored the rest of the building. Nothing of value to be found. The research papers and techniques they have rediscovered were ancient and outdated.

Behind the building was a small garden that had a simple greenhouse spell that protected the plants from the harsh climate of the mountain. Beautiful crops and flowers filled it, an odd site when compared to the pure white outside of the bubble. They heard a tea set clink in the middle of it. Nox had her gun ready, pointing it at the man facing away from them.

He had greying blonde hair and his face freshly shaven, he also wore a navy blue suit. The man was handsome, incredibly handsome that it made both of them freeze. Jacked guessed that he would be somewhere above sixty. The only thing that seemed out of place was the crude stone collar around his neck.

“Has it been ten years already?” His voice is smooth as velvet.

“So John wasn’t the real leader of this place?” Nox pressed the barrel of her gun on his forehead, she seemed to enjoy doing that to people.

“Would a leader be wearing a collar around his neck?”

“A prisoner wouldn’t be wearing a dapper suit either,” Jacked added.

“Hahaha, you two have grown into great wizards to have reached this place. Though, I thought The Alchemist would have been the one to rescue me. How is he? Haven’t seen him in five years.”

“Wait, you’re the Dragon that needed rescuing?” Her shoulders slumped.

“We’ve met before, but you may not recognize me in this form. Can’t really do anything Draconic with this collar on.”

Jacked remembered the first time he and Nox first encountered a Dragon. They had both just turned twenty and their master brought them to a Dragon’s lair. Their master’s pet goat was stolen from him by a Dragon, so they went to its lair to take something back in revenge.

It ended with Jacked getting smacked with a tail and flung into the nearby sea. Nox had her hair singed off in a single breath, balding her. It took both of them months to recover from it. The Alchemist still won in the end, taking all of the Dragon’s treasures for himself.

“I was bald for months! Do you know how hard it is for a young woman in her twenties to be bald!” She wanted to pull the trigger.

“Yes,” Jacked answered.

“Your baldness was your own fault.”

“Hahaha, yes, your master has told me all about you two during our adventures,” ancient eyes stared off into the setting sun. “How about this, I’ll each give you anything that I can for the troubles I have caused in the past.”

“Deal,” Nox lowered her gun. “I want that necklace you’re wearing,” she pointed at the beautiful metalwork beneath the collar.

“That was quick. How about you?” He turned to Jacked.

He thought about it for a while, there wasn’t anything that he needed or wanted. But there were others close to him that needed a little help. His face flashed in his mind.

“Give me Dragon mana, two liters of it,” he brought out two gourds to put it in.

“Odd, but okay. I need this collar removed to do it.”

Nox removed the collar on his neck, it was simple but it perfectly sealed all of the Dragon’s powers away. They expected him to change shape right away, but he just stood there with his hand extended, necklace in hand. He took the two gourds and filled it to the brim.

“How the fuck did you get captured by the cultists back there?” Nox asked.

“Oh, John and his friends? They weren’t the ones to put me in that collar, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he brushed off his suit and stretched, letting the mana flow through his body. “It was your master.”

“Did he leave you here as punishment?”

“No it was a prank, he would visit to laugh at me. Then, I guess he just forgot that I was still here while he was doing stuff. No harm done really, a few years isn’t long for Dragons.

“Then what was John doing here?”

“Oh, he sort of just got here. Came from a different world I think. I gave him a bit of my power to help him get down the mountain and survive. Next thing I know he’s a cult leader and started calling himself my son. Though, he did teach me how to garden! Is he dead?”

“Yeah,” Nox answered.

“Oh well. That was a nice vacation actually. My name is Tunggak by the way. See you when I see you,” he stepped off the mountain and disappeared.

“So, that concludes our errands.”

“Yep, got this nice necklace though. Pretty, I think there’s magic in it too,” her eyes sparkled.

“Is this how you teach your students, with violence?”

“You having trouble teaching your homeless man? Remember, most of the things we learned from The Alchemist were self-taught. We learned from studying him, not him teaching us.”

“But isn’t that a form of teaching as well? Do I have to do that to mine? I’m in a rut with Dumog, he just doesn’t have the talent.”

They strolled around the monastery until night fell. Eating dinner with the food that the monks had and some fruits from the garden, they had a picnic in their training grounds. Where they would duel using magic, Jacked saw the marks on the ground.

“How’s your student? The creepy boy genius,” Jacked asked her.

“Doing excellent for his age, better than most that are a decade older than him. But,” she stopped.

“But?”

“The problem I have is more behavioral, I guess.”

“Spoiled? He think he’s the chosen one too?”

“No, nothing like that. He would kiss my hand whenever he greeted me and would give me a lot of gifts, expensive ones. Like an adult courting someone.”

“Creepy, but I think that’s normal. I thought I was in love with my babysitter when I was his age.”

“True, poor boy, to have such a beautiful teacher like me,” she sighed. “His behavior still seems off though. Does he get it from his father? His compliments sometimes sound like something a perverted old man would say.”

“Maybe your ego is too big and you’re delusional. Most people wouldn’t like you.”

After they ate, Jacked walked around the arena. He imagined what their training and sparring looked like. Anything to give him inspiration on how to train Dumog. Considering the problems Nox had with her student, finally got one.

“How about we make our students duel? If Cletus loses to an adult maybe he’d be humbled. Or maybe he can beat a below average man, which is still impressive. Either way it would be a learning experience for them,” he was excited about the idea.

“I thought your boy couldn’t do magic yet? Or is that why you requested Dragon mana?” She laid down on a bench, eyes closed. “I’m fine with that.”

“The Dragon mana? Oh, that’s for the house pet, the turtle,” he grinned.

Back at Savepoint Bar, Dumog was still outside, unconscious from the lack of oxygen to his brain.