Caeden sat still, ignoring the cuts constantly pinging off his body. His focus was entirely absorbed in working on a new mnemonic. Obviously, building mnemonics in active combat was generally a stupid decision, but Caeden was using the experience to fine-tune his creation, so it worked exactly how he wanted it to.

"Need help?" Cat called from the back of her spectral pegasus high in the air. She remained far above the sand so that the current group of dragon-monsters couldn't reach her. "It looks like they're getting you pretty good."

Caeden ignored the taunting. He was in no immediate danger, despite the continual attacks. The monsters they had found in the desert on the other side of the mountains had the annoying ability to merge with the sand. It allowed them to move through the ground at absurd speeds that bordered on teleportation. Fortunately, while they were in this merged state, they had very little ability to attack. All they could muster were small, glancing cuts.

Once he realized these Sand Dragons were going for a 'death by a thousand cuts' approach, he used his Defense Form mnemonic. It raised the toughness of his skin to the point that he could ignore the bulk of the attacks, and his increased regeneration healed what did get through in moments. He could stand here until his shroud ran out and never be hurt.

That led to him building a new mnemonic. Cat wasn't the only thing in the air. Caeden also had hundreds of thorns formed. After the near-disaster of his first fight defending a nest, Caeden never wanted to be put in that position again. Overloading his Sharp capacity had threatened to damage or destroy his very soul. That said, he was unwilling to abandon his thorns and the limitless shroud they brought, so he required an alternative solution.

The last week and a half had been spent trying to form an answer. It was only when they moved through the mountain range that the local nests called the Dragon Spine Mountains that he started to see some success. Now, he felt he had the actual technique down. He was using this opportunity to do some fine-tuning and turn the technique into a mnemonic.

He hoped it worked. Half a week was far too long to take going through the mountains. Neither he nor Cat had taken the verticality into account when they thought about how long it would take them to cross the continent. Plus, they made frequent stops to feed the baby dragon (who continued to refuse to be named) and to help nests.

Fortunately, it hadn't been a complete loss. Caeden had finally received his much-anticipated supply of ether to do some trial runs on new, dragon-infused equipment. That alone was a major victory. It also led to a decision Caeden was still struggling with. He had all the elements necessary to perform some half-assed forging out here in the wilds, but any product he produced outside a proper forging environment would inevitably be inferior to his best. He didn't have a proper anvil or any of the advanced ether refining gear he worked with back at the Academy. He also had a narrow selection of ether, which heavily limited his options when it came to what he could produce.

So, working with his supply of dragon bones and scales now would almost certainly waste incredibly rare and valuable materials he was unlikely to ever get again. He was better off waiting until they got back to the Academy and working in a proper environment with all the advantages that entailed.

On the other hand, he really really wanted to smith again, and he had brand new materials to work with. The wait was killing him every time he looked at the Brute trailing behind them with piles of dragon parts and ether on its back. But his practicality was winning the fight so far. Barely.

But now wasn't the time to focus on that. He very nearly had it. With a last twist of mental effort, Caeden breathed out red mist as he spoke. "Blade Storm."

Instantly, a raging force of manifested Sharp started swirling around him at punishing speeds. There were fragments of all sizes ranging from small slivers no larger than his fingernail to three-foot long, half-foot thick streamers of crimson power. The mnemonic confined the manifestations to a sphere centered around Caeden with a radius of over a dozen feet. Within that zone was a never-ending stream of attacks swirling at a howling pace as they carved through the air.

Caeden's initial nest fight had got him thinking. It had very nearly ended in disaster and one of his own creation. His shroud almost overloading caused him to take a harder look at where his combat style had gaps and flaws. It was only after several more battles under similar circumstances where the problems started to become obvious to him.

Caeden's Physical Enhancement shroud was both powerful and versatile, allowing him to enhance any aspect of his body to an extreme degree. But, as an infusion shroud, it lacked range. For any attacks beyond the length of his arms, Caeden had to rely on Sharp. Conversely, Sharp had amazing range, especially after Caeden had achieved his Incarnation and the range of his aura improved.

But Sharp was a shroud bent around modifying objects. Sure, it had some obvious uses in direct combat that Caeden knew he wasn't utilizing as much as he should. For example, changing the terrain around him into a mess of jagged edges was something he could accomplish easily with Sharp. But Caeden had spent practically every day since he was eleven learning how to use aura manipulation with Sharp's manifestations. It was hard to unlearn that preference. Instead, Caeden would rather lean into it and make his manifestations as effective as possible.

Which led back around to Sharp being a modifier shroud. Generally, object shrouds were the ones that used aura manipulation the most because it was energy efficient for them. Caeden had surpassed that gap with some inventive use of his shroud, culminating in the thorn mnemonic. When he first designed the thorn and realized its potential, Caeden had placed all his effort into refining the design.

That had led to some unfortunate gaps in his abilities. Caeden had started using thorns as both a source of shroud generation as well as a defensive and offensive tool. After so many fights against multiple opponents on open terrain, Caeden came to realize that was a mistake. Several times he had wanted to use his thorns offensively, only to stop when he realized he was throwing away his regeneration.

That realization had caused a shift in Caeden's thinking, and he was working to phase his thorns out as anything other than shroud generators. His Blade Wave mnemonic was already a step in the right direction. His new Blade Storm went even further. Because the thorn issue wasn't the only one Caeden had discovered.

He lacked wide-area attacks. His Blade Wave was close but still too small to have a significant effect in battles on the scale of hundreds of monsters. Once he thought about it, the problem seemed obvious. If he had a theoretically infinite amount of shroud and a huge aura, why was he limiting the range of his attacks? So, Blade Storm existed to solve three problems.

It stopped him from overloading his reserve, created a defensive and offensive option that did rely on thorns, and covered a large area. And it did all that by expanding on something Caeden had started to dabble in with the Blade Wave. Adjustable mnemonics.

Obviously, most mnemonics were adjustable in some way or another. Caeden could move his thorns around freely after he had made them, so it's not like his old mnemonics were static. But this was an entirely different level from his old designs like Bramble or Spike Trap.

When Caeden had first created the Blade Wave mnemonic, it hadn't been a single contained technique. Instead, Caeden had created a different mnemonic for every type of weapon he had and every way he could swing it. Since the Blade Wave's construction was as simple as it could get, that wasn't a long process. But after a while and a few dozen mnemonics created, Caeden noticed that his shroud started to adopt the techniques faster and faster. Finally, every attempt he made to make a new mnemonic worked on the first try. All his previous attempts combined together, and Blade Wave became a single, adjustable mnemonic.

So Caeden had a precedent. He knew that creating fully adjustable mnemonics was possible, especially after discussing it with several teachers. It was considered an advanced technique requiring a high level of control. Fortunately, Caeden met those conditions. So now he wanted to do the same with Blade Storm. But instead of a mnemonic that let him freely adjust the side of the attack like with Blade Wave, he wanted a mnemonic that let him adjust the size and the power.

Basically, Caeden wanted a mnemonic that he could dump all his shroud into regardless of how much he had accumulated. If it worked, it would act as a sort of relief valve or safety so that Caeden never ended up in a situation like last time. And right now, as he was feeding more power into Blade Storm, it seemed to be working.

A Sand Dragon poked out of the ground right by him, only to be ripped apart by a dozen shards of Sharp. Fortunately, it looked like the mnemonic would be powerful too.

{}

"Ok, are you two ready?" Lily looked back and forth between her bonded. She couldn't help but feel a tiny bit nervous. They had cruises over the mountain range in a matter of hours after being propelled by the natural storm but stalled in the foothills on the far side of the range. Here, Lily wanted to let them fight the last monsters that would finalize their transformations on their own.

It was mostly a symbolic gesture, as she couldn't think of any real benefit they would get outside of a little combat experience. But it felt appropriate. Her little babies were changing, turning into something new and different. It just felt right to let them cross the finish line under their own power. They weren't grown up yet; each still had roughly a year left of their growth to finish before they could be considered adults. At the same time, she couldn't help but think of this as them finally growing up, even if it was much faster than she anticipated.

In response to her question, she got signals of affirmation from both of them. They would be fighting together. It just so happened that Snowball and Sky's abilities made for a powerful combination, so they should do just fine. Lily only let one more worry pass through her mind before she split off the section of cloud Snowball was standing on and started dropping him onto the grassy hills below. Sky didn't need her help getting down and dove off the cloud.

Beneath their stealth cloud-ship was a pack of some rocky fake-dragon monsters. Lily's investigative sense called them Slate Dragons. Both Snowball and Sky were only a couple of monsters away from completing whatever changes consuming these monsters had started. The pack they had found was much larger, with dozens of monsters. Lily tried not to worry. It wasn't working.

The cloud carrying Snowball dissipated, and he dropped to the ground with a massive thump. He hadn't dropped that far, but he was just so massive now that a fall from any height shook the earth. Sky remained far above, illusive and distant. Once he had touched down, Snowball ignored his normally lethargic speed and got right to work.

RRRROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!

The sound that came from Snowball's massive jaws dwarfed anything Lily had ever heard before. He was a truly massive animal now, taller than her when he was on all fours and completely dwarfing her when he stood. His pure white coat contained fragments of brilliant blue ice that clumped his immensely thick fur into spurs as sharp as any blade. His claws were over a foot long.

By comparison, the monsters that responded to his vocal challenge ranged from six feet at the shoulder to around eight. That is to say, they were all smaller than the half-grown Icecrag Bear. Lily couldn't imagine how big her lovable fluff ball would be when he reached his final height. But size wasn't everything, as the dragon-monsters swiftly proved.

They each opened their mouths, and hundreds of sharp rock slivers flew out. They struck heavily against Snowball's fur, digging in. They didn't seem to make it very deep, though. Snowball merely growled in annoyance as thick swaths of bright blue ice began to form around his eyes, protecting them from the shards. Undaunted, the baby bear marched forward. So maybe size was everything. Lily was suddenly feeling much less worried.

She was downright impressed when one of the dragons seemingly exploded for no reason. It was only because Lily had her aura sense focused on the group that she noticed the diving shape that slammed half-foot claws through the monster's protective rocky scales and injected inky black power into the wound that exploded out with all the force of Sky's dive.

But now, the monsters had reached Snowball, and they began to viscously lay into every inch of the bear that they could reach. But once again, it didn't seem very effective. Snowball grunted, letting their jaws clamp onto his limbs, and their claws dig at his furry hide. His bulk seemed to bulge and ripple as he flexed mightily. With another roar, Snowball surged onto his hind legs with a monster clamped to each of his front ones.

They dangled in the air uncomprehendingly, not understanding the herculean feat of strength the Icecrag cub had just accomplished by lifting two multi-ton stone-covered monsters into the air. They didn't have long to catch on either, as Snowball dropped back to the ground, angling his claws and feet so that his foreclaws punched down into the two attached to his thick furry wrists as he bore down with his own multi-ton weight. It was more than enough to crush the pair without even bringing his leg-sized claws into the equation.

Immediately following Snowball's double-slam, another monster exploded. Lily watched in awe as her pets demolished every monster that came at them. Snowball with impregnable defenses and unstoppable mass, and Sky with crushing force and overwhelming speed. They thoroughly outmatched their opponents by a huge margin. It was far and away beyond her expectations for the two.

She couldn't wait to see what new powers they would gain now that they had the raw materials to complete their transformations. It would certainly be interesting finding out just how much more powerful these two could grow.