Xano led the group toward a large building in the center of the city. Elise, and the rest of the group were all marveling at their surroundings. As they continued on, the buildings kept getting more impressive, and they all realized that the buildings were indeed all made from precious metals and stones. These dragons had used their hordes to make this city, and that impressed all of them with how much it was worth. During this time though, Gregory was doing his best to take in the directions. This city was made for dragons, who had in their wisdom built it for those that can fly. It was like a labyrinth, and without a guide the whole group would have been eternally lost in this place without a perfect memory. Even with his wisdom and superb memory with the higher intelligence he had gotten, with the slides they had gone down it would be impossible to make it out of here without a guide. It had taken about three hours to make it to the palace that they saw, and they were even more impressed once they were up close. The gates were made using slabs of platinum, inlaid with jewels as large as a people. The edge of the door was gold, and it had massive golden hinges. The palace was made from gold, platinum, and countless jewels that looked to be the size of dragons. The sheer wealth of these dragons startled Gregory as they stared at the doors.

From inside the palace, two massive dragons pushed open the doors, holding onto chains that were made heavily out of a gold alloy with various other metals mixed in to increase strength. Xano then let the group know something that was mostly considered secret knowledge.

“There are two types of dragons, the mystic dragons which you all seem to know about and warrior dragons. Warrior dragons are dragons with greatly adjusted stats compared to a mystic dragon. They still have the powerful fire breath, but they don’t have nearly as much wisdom or intelligence. They instead rely on their outstanding physiques to win in combat. They are beings with immense physical powers, and due to their size and magical abilities can even defeat the most powerful physical specific creatures. In fact, it may surprise you to find out that most dragons are warrior dragons, and that we hide their powers so that they are a trump card when attacked. There are actually a few other races you don’t know about, that also fall into this category, though they are entirely incompatible with any flesh and blood race. Ents are one such race, an incredibly powerful race, whose toddlers could send many running and near death without a direct counter to them.”

As they neared the throne room, a dragon acting as the herald alerted the king to the presence.

“A party wishes to see you Lord Aurum, it is led here by Xano. The party has a varied composition, and obviously seem to want a meeting with you.”

A voice, one that sounded of royal grandeur, sounded from the room before them.

“Let them in then, I wish to know their request. It is not everyday that one as prestigious as Xano brings visitors to the castle, especially non-dragon visitors. It must be something very important, or beneficial, if Xano brought them here himself.”

The herald gave a small bow to the group, and Xano led the group into the throneroom. What awaited them was a floor made of granite, except where large diamonds marked the path to the throne. The walls were made of what appeared to be a gold alloy of some sort for added strength, and the ceiling was made entirely of some kind of magical crystal. The entire place was amazing, and Gregory could hardly believe that such a place could be built. Once they were completely inside the room, Xano went up to the king to make a silent recount of the situation to him. The dragon began laughing, looking directly at Gregory. It seemed there was more to this human than met the eye, he was perhaps even capable of becoming part dragon himself. The king decided to grant the request that it seemed Gregory wanted, but first he would again relay the downsides of what could happen.

“Even for a human, the process of becoming part dragon is a very dangerous one. Usually, humans hold a 50% rate of success for becoming half races. For dragons, that is only a 5% chance of success. You will die in 95% of the cases, or 1 in 20. You are a person who seems to genuinely care for humanity, and I’d hate to see you die for something like becoming stronger or to prove that you are not against other races. Even elves have a regular success rate to become one with. From what I’ve heard, only dragons and trolls have a lower rate of success than other races do when merging with humans. It is probably best to merge with an elemental or elf if you are considering becoming a more magically based race. A great part of a dragon’s power is in their size and being completely covered in scales. Being only half-dragon will take away any size advantage, and you will have places without scales. That will make you much weaker, as you will have a massive weakness to any physical combat.”

Gregory frowned, Xano had told him all this, but to hear it again and in such a somber tone told him that it was definitely realistic. He didn’t want to turn away from his resolve though, he had to persevere and hold by his ideals if he was to change this place. It was an inevitability that the worlds would merge together, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t ignore fear and do what he could to protect people. Even if that meant protecting them from themselves by using power.

“Yes, it is a decision I need to go through with. I need to remain firm in my decisions, especially if I am to prevent what the history books seem to unanimously decide is humanity’s hate causing this. Even if it kills me, it is something I must go through with.”

Gregory displayed a resoluteness that the dragon hadn’t seen in any humans during his lifetime. It was enough to make even him see something new at his age. Well, nearly two thousand years wasn’t that old for a dragon, but he was still older than many dragons around here. The oldest dragons usually lived in isolation, so him being with other dragons at his age was rare. He would not deny the request of this man though, it was one that would help both races if it succeeded, and wouldn’t really hurt anybody if it failed. Dragons didn’t like needless death, so they would do everything in their power to make it successful, but they weren’t going to be especially upset if it didn’t.

Aurum let a small laugh escape before he prepared himself to initiate the process. It was a rather simple procedure, but, like he said, the success rate was incredibly low. Aurum gathered his mana, and then directed it toward and into Gregory. This was the first part of the process, the next part was something a bit different and quite strange. Aurum made a cut on his tongue with one of his massive claws, and then let the blood drip into a bowl. Aurum let Gregory know what the blood was for, and it was necessary for him to use it immediately.

“You must drink from the bowl, and if it is successful you will awaken part dragon. If it is unsuccessful, you will most likely die from rejection.”

Gregory did not hesitate to drink the blood, despite the fact that it was going to be dangerous and it seemed slightly wrong. The wrongness was assuaged due to the dragon’s willingness, and the danger was something that he knew about going into it and it was a risk he was willing to take. As he drank the blood, Gregory fell onto his back. The beginning of the changes had knocked him unconscious, and he wasn’t going to be waking up anytime soon.

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The rest of the group put up their guards as they weren’t sure what to expect, but it definitely looked like Gregory was in a dangerous condition. He was a new addition to the party, but he was a very good person; this was especially so considering he was a human. Aurum would diffuse their quick actions shortly though.

“The transformation process takes a very long time. I needed to use my own mana as a primer for him, and then use my blood as the basis for how to have that primer react. What he is going through right now will take at least a week before he has woken back up, and more than that before he is back into fighting condition. He will be going through an internal struggle, and the most we can do is keep him healthy and strong to help him win the battle and succeed in these changes.

Now, if you would all like to go to some rooms, we do have plenty of empty rooms for guests of your size.”

As they left, showed to some rooms by the gatekeeper outside, Xano glared at Aurum. Instead of rambling off in a rage though, he forced himself cool his head before he would describe how best to keep Gregory alive and himself.

“We will need to keep Gregory in perfect physical condition for the best chances at this being successful. We will also need to keep his mana filled all the time. You have read the texts, you know why the success rate is so low, they must face a dragon inside themselves. For him to have not already died is a great sign by itself, but we need to do all we can now to help him succeed.”

Aurum nodded, knowing that what Xano said was true. Dragons were creatures that stood by their word, and did what they could to help others despite stories. Xano likely promised this human that he would do everything he could to keep him alive, so it would be necessary now for Xano to follow through with that promise since Aurum had granted the request to become part dragon.

“Do what you can Xano, you are our most skilled at keeping people at magic so please keep him alive. I’d hate to see one so gifted fall so short of their potential.”

Xano picked up Gregory, and set him on the back of his neck. It would be the safest place for the boy, and he hoped that Gregory would be able to make it through this and become a ‘brother’ to the dragons. He was surprised though at how much mana a human could use in such a short time though, Gregory kept consuming massive amounts every second. It showed that the fight with the dragon he was facing, was definitely a magical one. Of course, only Gregory knew what was going on exactly, but Xano had read that a non-dragon creature trying to become part-dragon would face a dragon of whatever kind they would become. It was quite obvious he would be part mystic dragon if he made it out alive, but the colors were something he was curious about as well.

Colors of a dragon showed their powers and history, depending on the color. Gold was the color of a powerful royal, while silver was the color of a weak royal. Anything in between those two was a variance of power in royalty. Green was the color of natural wisdom, or wisdom in regards to nature. The ‘king’ here was mostly gold, with blue and red streaks. Shades of red were representative of power in combat magic, and blue was the color symbolizing royal wisdom. Purple showed a disposition for non-combative magics. Pink symbolized magical wisdom, and demonstrated great knowledge into the inner workings of magic. Brown was a color that became very unpopular and uncommon after ending up on this planet, one that showed a vast understanding for things that were not natural or magical in nature. It had to do with technology and engineering, so something that was entirely useless on this planet. Gray was a color that showed a neutral base, one that could lean in any direction. All warrior dragons had streaks of crimson and yellow directly touching each other. The yellow showed a physical base instead of a magical base to the combative power it held. It was very common to see this combination of crimson and yellow in dragons, but very few knew what it meant. The two least common colors on the other hand were white and black. White was the color of pure power, a power that covered all types that the user had access to. On a warrior dragon it demonstrated immense physical power, speed, and constitution. In mystic dragons, it showed a magical disposition for any spells that the user happened to cross by and immense power in those spells with training. Black demonstrated an infinite understanding, just like space was infinite. In fact, many said that a black-scaled dragon was the wisest of the dragons.

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Inside Gregory’s body and mind was a fierce battle raging, one that was consuming his mana at a ridiculous pace. He had only caught glimpses of the dragon, but it was one he didn’t know how to fight. Even his most devastating spells were doing little to damage it, and there was no sign that it would tire anytime soon. The only advantage seemed to be the space in which they were fighting. It was a very enclosed space, in a tunnel system made of near indestructible bricks. It gave the dragon no chance to spread its wings to take flight, and also gave Gregory the advantage with being able to get around corners and blast the dragon with magic without even needing to worry about retaliation.

The dragon itself was mostly covered in white scales, but there were large sections of black scales as well. Most of the underside of the dragon was black, and its back legs also had large streaks of black running down the outsides of them. There were also two small streaks of crimson visible, running from the dragon’s eyes down to the giant feet of its front legs. The dragon was much smaller than any of the dragons it had seen, signifying that it was probably a very young dragon. Still, the dragon was plenty frightening despite its size.

Even using all his strongest magic together, Gregory was just doing very little damage to the amazing creature before him. He had combined gravity magic on the dragon itself with casting massive spheres of mana, and even using javelins of mana to try doing damage to the dragon. It seemed there was some outside influence granting him mana, because the amount he was using in such short succession was more than he had access to normally. The dragon in the meanwhile seemed like it had an infinite supply of energy that would never run dry.

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Elise and Lily were in the same room, having just gotten there. The rooms were designed to house two people the regular size of most races. Elise and Lily were simply the two that got along together best, and they decided to be in the same room together. Lily spoke to Elise this time, wondering what she was feeling about possibly losing the newest of their party.

“So, it seems he was knocked unconscious. That is definitely normal, but how long do you think it will last. Normally, it is alright to have others around the person during the process. For them to keep all of us away, it must be something different from what we know of as a regular transformation process.”

Elise looked up, her wolfish face betraying a very new sense of comradery for the human they had met.

“Yes, it is true that he will probably be out for a while. He is not dead yet though, which means he did not immediately suffer from rejection. It is a good sign that he may pull through this. It was definitely made very clear that people trying to become part-dragon are likely to die, but it seems they are doing everything in their power to help him survive it.”

Lily nodded, a grin on her face. She really didn’t have much preference either way about Gregory, but she knew that Elise had taken an instant liking to his honesty. It was something they had all thought previously impossible to find in a human, but that Gregory had proved more than once. He had even helped them in fighting another human, and was willing to put himself at risk to help them. Truth be told, his honesty and willingness to prove himself was something that very few people did in general, regardless of race. Of course, she got herself out of this serious line of thought with the quick throw of a pillow at Elise.

The two really were young, and despite the fact that they were an adventuring party of a respectable level, they were kids. In fact, the mentality of the non-human races developed much more slowly due to the fact that they all lived so much longer. Even the shortest lived race aside from humans, the orcs and ogres, could live to be up to 250 years old. The average beastkin lived to be 450, while the demons were completely immune to aging. It meant that they could afford to act like kids for a much longer period of time, even if they were already doing things that only an adult human would do. Adventuring was one such thing. Sometimes even, the youthfulness they displayed could save their lives in certain cases.

Of course, Elise dodged the pillow, before picking it up only to have another pillow land squarely in her face. The two continued this pillow fight for a short time, before they began musing to themselves what the wares dragons created would look like. They had to make money somehow, and they both knew that the portrayal of dragons as monsters was about as far from the truth as one could come. It left the question though, what did they make or do to get money. They both decided on going into the city the next day, with a guide of course, to see what they could buy.