It was early in the morning but Evelyn had already been up for a few hours. She felt that today was the day when she would achieve her Dragon-form. Evelyn was busy gathering spirit essence in her room to ensure an easy transformation. Just a few minutes ago, her mother had found out and was exasperated at her daughter. Barging into her room Evelyn's mother asked: “Could it have killed you to tell us today is the day of your Dragon-forming!? It is an important day and now we can't properly prepare a celebration for you!”

Broken out of her attempts to gather spirit essence, Evelyn retorted: “I don't care about that! Dragon-forming should happen naturally and I didn't want Heinrich getting wind of this. Everyone knows he has been holding back his own Dragon-forming to try and complete that stupid legend with me: 'If two ascend the mountain and roar to the skies together, forever shall their destinies be entwined!' What a load of rubbish. Even if it is true, it should happen naturally and not be forced!”

“You're being just as stubborn as he is, you know? Besides, don't the two of you have a good relationship anyways?”

“Sure, but I don't love him. Not yet, anyways. I say to just let nature takes its course, no need to force things like he is.”

Evelyn's mother sighed: “Whatever, its too late to change anything anyways.”

Evelyn gave her mother a playful smile. “I think it is time for me to go, mother.”

Evelyn's father walked in at this point. “Come on, then. Don't keep us in suspense. Let us see your Dragon-form!”

Evelyn's smile broadened as she started running out of the house. Stepping outside, Evelyn was greeted with a wondrous sight. There were many types of houses made from beautifully carved wood covered in Nordic decorations. There were even houses so huge that you would think they were the home of giants. From those giant houses, you could see dragons slumbering behind the windows! There were plenty of patches of snow everywhere from the ground to the roofs of the houses.

A few rays of morning sunlight managed to pierce through the overcast clouds and fall upon Evelyn. She was wearing a simple yet beautiful dress the color of 'flaming sapphire'! The dress truly looked as though it was a window through which you could see a field of dancing flames the color of sapphire. The blue dress accentuated her vibrant red hair.

Evelyn waved to her parents, who were standing at the door to the house. Evelyn then turned to the mountain a small distance away. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes. Brilliant red flames suddenly covered her entire body! From the flames, a giant figure leaped out! The figure was a dragon covered in brilliant scales the color of ruby! Evelyn flapped her newfound wings as she sped her way towards the mountain.

It did not take Evelyn long to reach the mountain or to fly up its sides. Close to the top, there was an outcropping she could land on. She deftly landed and turned around, prepared to roar her declaration to the skies. She was dragon, and she would not yield to the world! Just as she was going to roar, the sound of something heavy landing sounded above her. It was then followed by a mighty and grand roar! Immediately turning around, she saw a sight that both enthralled her and made her scared.

Just above Evelyn stood a proud and mighty dragon with deep black scales the color of death! Surely such a dragon was evil! And yet... the tips of the black scales were colored silver-white, the color of life! Peering into the scales, one could see a very faint mist the colors of blue, red, green, and brown. The colors of water, fire, wind, and earth. Such a strange majesty, Evelyn had never seen before. Then there were the dragon's eyes. Filled with a luster of gold that was so strange and mystic, it was surely the first time this world had seen such a color as this!

The mighty roar from this dragon was as though it was proclaiming itself as king. Evelyn did not want to loose out against it and added her own elegant roar to his. “I will not be outdone by you! I will match you, measure for measure!”

After their entwined roars died down, Evelyn looked back at the black dragon with her sapphire blue eyes. To her surprise, the black dragon seemed confused and even frightened when he looked at her! A thought occurred to Evelyn that perhaps this dragon had no idea what was actually going on. She cautiously stretched out a thread of spirit essence to the black dragon and sent her thoughts through it. Evelyn asked: “Who are you? Where are you from?”

------

From the ruby red dragon before Adam, he heard a voice! It felt very similar to how spirits would speak! The voice sounded feminine and asked: “Who are you? Where are you from?”

Adam looked at the dragon before him with more surprise then fright, now. The only other dragon Adam had encountered had gone crazy and attacked in a frenzy. This dragon was clearly not the same! Adam opened his mouth to respond, but only deep growling sounds were issued forth! Adam was extremely surprised and subconsciously looked down, as thought to find what the problem was. Even more to his surprise, Adam did not find normal hands holding him to the top of the mountain, but a set of beastly clawed paws! These clawed paws of his were covered in deep black scaled tipped in silver-white! Starting to feel scared from this sudden development, Adam quickly looked over the rest of his body, which was all covered in the same colored scales! He even had two wings stretching out from his back and a tale! Somehow, his body had become like a dragon!

The voice from before issued out beside Adam. “Do not be afraid! I can explain everything to you, you just need to calm down! Can you stretch some spirit essence out to me and talk?”

Adam looked back down at the ruby dragon that was staring at him with those sapphire blue eyes. Adam calmed, just a little. She obviously knew what was going on and he decided to try and listen to her.

Adam took a few deep breathes and closed his eyes to try and calm himself. Everything was just too surprising. Suddenly being able to see and finding himself in a dragon's body! After closing his eyes, Adam felt a huge difference. Before, he hadn't noticed but the sound of spirit essence that he was so used to was hardly present. As he closed his eyes, he could hear them clearer and he could even use his elemental sight with his eyes closed! Before, he couldn't see a speck of raw spirit essence . Just the colors that bathed the world. The ruby dragon before Adam looked like a flaming mass of spirit essence. While the other types had their presence, the dragon was clearly associated with fire essence the most. He watched as a small thread of spirit essence created a formation symbol and reached out from the dragon to touch him. The thread vibrated and shimmered as he heard: “Calm yet?”

Adam stretched out a thread of wind essence in a similar manner to the ruby dragon. Adam opened his eyes as he transmitted: “Yes.”

Evelyn was delightfully surprised. She had been unsure as to how long Adam would take to realize how she was communicating and for him to replicate it. “My name is Evelyn, what is yours?”

“I am Adam. You said you knew what was going on?”

Evelyn happily nodded her head as she said: “Yes, let me explain. You were a spiritualist before, right? The method to progress as a spiritualist is to strengthen your soul and to gain more power. At a certain point, your soul becomes so strong it could be likened to a spirit! Dragons are the closest beings to spirits with their bodies so full of spirit essence and their strong control over it. When your soul finally reached the point where one might consider it close to a spirit, it initiated your Dragon-forming! For you to become close to being a spirit, doesn't it make sense that you would become a dragon?”

Evelyn's words were surprising! Adam almost couldn't believe it, yet here he was in a dragon's body. He couldn't understand why this would naturally happen, though. Yes, he didn't know everything about the world but he thought he knew enough to know that there was something more to all of this. “You said it was our souls that made us do this Dragon-forming. To become dragons?”

Evelyn nodded: “Yes! Even we do not know much about the soul and its mysteries. No one knows why our souls change our physical shape into a dragon's when we reach this point, but it does.”

Adam started thinking over all the information he knew about dragons. Dragons, especially demonic dragons, would always appear after a powerful spiritualist disappeared... “Evelyn, are all dragons transformed spiritualists?”

Evelyn nodded once more: “Almost all are. There are an extremely small amount of guardian beasts who attained enough strength to Dragon-form, but most are spiritualist. When someone Dragon-forms, they are pressed to either reach this mountain in the north or one that is in the south. Something about the flow of spirit essence on these mountains helps us regain control of our souls after the sudden transformation. If someone is unable to reach one of these mountains or their souls get too lost in the transformation due to being unprepared, they will become twisted and insane! These are the demonic dragons that sometimes infest the kingdoms of man.”

Adam thought back to the dragon he had helped Clayton kill long ago. The dragon's mind was a mess, apparently from the transformation. Adam's interference with spirit essence during the fight seemed to have some how brought some clarity and helped whoever the dragon was fight to regain control. Still, the dragon had to be killed in the end...

Adam also thought of another thing he had heard. “There have also been rumors of people who could tame dragons... I imagine that is not entirely true?”

Evelyn chuckled through the maw of her Dragon-form. “It is not true at all. Sometimes we want to go out and explore or to get some experience. Some of us go in our Dragon-form. Others of us go in our Human-form!”

Before Adam's eyes, Evelyn's dragon body seemed to burst into flame which condensed down! Out of the flame stepped an enchanting young woman in a flaming sapphire blue dress! Evelyn took one glance at Adam's stunned look and burst into laughter. “You should see the look on your face!”

Still stunned, Adam asked: “How did you do that!?”

“It's easy, if you know how. You basically have to take the spirit essence of your current physical form and condense it into your soul. You then use the memory from your human body to once again expand the spirit essence from your soul into its shape! I have a set of formations which you can use to accomplish this.”

Evelyn waved her hand causing fire to suddenly appear and start to form a complex shape. After she finished, she said: “This is the best way I can show it right now. If it is not enough, we can go down to the village. There are better examples there.”

Adam stared at the formation. He felt almost nothing from it. Through the sound of the spirit essence in the formation, he could kinda tell what was going on but it was not enough. He looked back at Evelyn: “Formations are more or less useless to me. That is not how I control spirit essence. Can you show me how you transform again? I might be able to pick something up that way.”

It was Evelyn's turn to be surprised. “You don't use formations? Then how?”

“That's a little complicated. We can talk about it later. Can you show me how you transform?”

Evelyn was truly curious about how Adam could control spirit essence without formation, but put it aside for now. Adam closed his eyes and concentrated his elemental sight on her as well as listening to the spirit essence. Evelyn was suddenly enveloped in fire essence as the spirit essence in her body retracted into her soul. With almost nothing else in the way, Adam could get a good look at her soul. It was strong and vibrant, full of fire! The soul was larger than any human's could possibly be. It was clearly the soul of a dragon. From the soul, fire essence once again spread out with a combinations of the other types forming the physical shape of a dragon. After another moment, Evelyn then transformed back into a human using the same process.

Adam frowned inwardly. The process looked simple, but was actually incredibly hard. Adam could control most the spirit essence in his body, but he was unsure of if he actually had enough control to move everything into his soul. He was also unsure of if the life essence in his body would cooperate, since he couldn't actually control it. Evelyn expectantly watched Adam as he thought to himself. Adam finally decided to try and form a cycle of spirit essence between his body and soul where it was mostly being enveloped by his soul. If he mixed everything together in a similar manner as lightning where even life essence would join in, maybe the life essence would also follow the cycle.

Adam once again surprised Evelyn. She was almost expecting Adam to transform through a mist of death essence. The color of a dragon's scales indicated which type of spirit essence they were the most associated with. Even though Adam somehow had a very unique mix of all the types in his scales that she had never heard of before, it was still primarily the black color of death essence. Never did she expect that Adam's Dragon-form would give off a shower of lightning as it transformed! Blue lightning completely enveloped Adam before shrinking down. Just as Adam was ready to expand out, a sudden thought occurred to him. “What is my body like anyway? The body I have been using was never mine in the first place and I hardly even remember my original body. I don't even know what it truly looked like.”

It seemed Adam did not have to worry, however. The spirit essence in his soul seemed to have a life of its own as it expanded out into a human form! The shower of lightning receded to show a new Adam! He looked to be in his late twenties with a head of deep black hair and a trimmed beard to match. The hair had a sheen of silver-white and the irises of his eyes where that same luster of gold that his Dragon-form had! It seemed that it was decided his features would closely resemble his Dragon-form!... and he was naked.

Adam excitedly looked at his hands and arms. Then he realized the present state he was in. he looked up to see Evelyn was hurriedly turning around with blushed cheeks. She stuttered: “I-I forgot that you are not from the village. Of course you wouldn't have prepared any clothing specially made to follow your transformation... It's probably best that you change back.”

Adam was also feeling uncomfortable so he simply said: “Yeah.” before turning into a shower of lighting that grew into a black dragon.

Evelyn turned back around. She couldn't help but still be awed by Adam's unique Dragon-form. Adam felt a little uncomfortable at her staring, though. Evelyn asked: “Why are you fidgeting?”

“... I'm still technically naked, you know.”

Evelyn's cheeks once again turned red as she looked away. She also said one word: “Perv!”

Something about this seemed nostalgic and warming to Adam. Before Adam could figure why he was feeling like this, Adam had to quickly leap off the perch he was sitting on! A dark golden-brown dragon fiercely landed where Adam was sitting before! If Adam had not moved, the dragon surely would have done everything it could to knock Adam down. The dark golden-brown then roared a loud declaration. Not one to the skies, but directly at Adam! It was clearly some form of challenge!

The dragon looked over at Evelyn and sent out a thread of spirit essence to her. Curious, Adam listened in with his ability to hear spirit essence. A male voice spoke: “Evelyn, are you alright!? This evil dragon didn't hurt you did it?”

Adam inwardly frowned and thought: “Evil dragon? Why am I an evil dragon?”

Evelyn spoke up for Adam: “Heinrich, Adam is not an evil dragon! I know it looks like he is a death dragon, but he is not! There is much more to it! He is a normal person and hardly knows anything. Why don't we all go back to village? I am sure the others would like to see Adam and everything can be explained.”

Adam chimed in: “I'm fine with that.”

Heinrich snorted indifferently at Adam. He lowered his head by Evelyn. “If you wish, I can give you a ride back to the village.”

Evelyn gave Heinrich a weird look, like she couldn't believe what he was doing. “I can fly on my own, Heinrich.”

Evelyn Dragon-formed and took the lead in going back to the village. Heinrich quickly took off and followed close behind Evelyn while giving a disdainful look back at Adam. Adam looked at his wings. He instinctively knew how to use them. He calmly flapped them and took off. By utilizing wind essence, he quickly and effortlessly caught up with the other two.

It did not take them long to get to the village. The beautifully carved wood gave a very pleasant and welcoming feeling to Adam. Adam thought the village was rather large to still be called that, there were hundreds of houses dotted around, but who was he to judge what they called their home. In the center of the village was a plaza that Evelyn and Heinrich started veering into for a landing. In the plaza there was already a small crowd there to welcome them. A few in the crowd were even in their Dragon-form!

After landing, Evelyn and Heinrich resumed their Human-form. Heinrich looked buff and well tanned. It seemed very out of place given, the cold of the north and the snowy feeling the village gave.

Evelyn and Heinrich were warmly greeted by friends and relatives. Quickly, though, everyone turned to stare and whisper about Adam. Who was this stranger in their midst? At the edge of the plaza, there was a rather large building. Large enough to hold more than a few dragons! From within, a dragon that gave an ancient feeling walked out. An old voice echoed out from the dragon to Adam: “Who are you stranger?”

“My name is Adam.”

“Adam, why have you come to the north? No one in this village practices with death essence. You belong in the south!”

Adam was surprised by this remark. “I don't actively practice death essence-”

“Don't lie to me! Your scales show the truth! Death essence is surely the type you studied the most!”

Heinrich smirked and Evelyn looked worried. Anyone could clearly see the elder dragon had been angered. To everyone's surprise, Evelyn stepped forward. “Chieftain, I may be speaking out of turn but don't judge Adam by his scales! Looker deeper, you can see all the types of spirit essence in his scales!”

The chieftain rebutted. “Quiet child! My eyes can see this enigma, but death essence has still surely been the most influential thing in his life! While we might accept hotheadedness in this village we will not accept those who have a penchant for death!”

Adam spoke up: “The reason why death essence has colored my life is because I was dragged into the plane of death when I was young! I don't know what they intended of it, but I managed to escape after many years of residing there! Since then, a significant amount of death essence has always existed within my body and my life changed as I tried to deal with it! When I was young, I may have wanted revenge for the death of my father and sister but I do not have a penchant for death!”

The chieftain quietly pondered Adam's words. The few words Adam has spoken were far fetched and hard to believe. However, the chieftain had lived for many years. He knew how to tell when he was being told the truth or being lied to. Before, he hadn't even given Adam the chance to speak. Finally, the chieftain asked: “Tell me your story then, young one.”