Caeden breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of the forge. The familiar smell of fire and burning ether mixed with his own sweat and the ache of his muscles. Even with his shrouds, hours of endless forging made him ache to his bones. Caeden’s time forging had been far too intermittent over the last five months. The time spent away from the Academy had limited his access to a forge.

Which was why he was happy to be back. But he was even happier with the ship they had commandeered from the ancient sight on the dragon continent. It was heavily infused, the most notable feature being the spacial infusions that made it much larger inside than out. This allowed the relatively small ship to contain better facilities than some of the most extravagant the CA could make.

This included a fully functional etherforge. One that held better rendering equipment than he had ever seen. That was where he was now, in the forge of the newly christened Hearthhome. Named by committee, which meant Lily picked the name, and no one argued. Apparently, she was the unofficial name of their group now.

The gnawing sounds coming from the corner of the room made Caeden roll his eyes, thinking about how he couldn’t escape Lily’s naming conventions anymore. She named his ship and his bonded. Noodle, the half-dragon half-monster dragon, was in the corner, chewing his way through the dozenth monster corpse Caeden had gotten for him today. The little glutton ate them in batches of five and never seemed to be full.

Luckily, just like everything else in Central City, monster corpses could be bought for a price. Several shrouded had domains that could stop the monsters from discorporating once they were killed. So Caeden had taken Lily with him (Since he still had no understanding of currency) and exchanged some of his forging results for cash at a weapons shop. Even his failure commanded a decent price. He was a Master smith, after all. His worst creations were still around Intermediate level.

After that, it was a simple matter to find a place that dealt in monsters and buy some corpses in bulk. Caeden was mindful of the warnings he had gotten from several dragons and paid attention to what Noodle ate, as it could influence his growth. So Caeden made sure to get monsters with a high durability and speed. He didn’t want Noodle fighting any time soon, as he was still a baby dragon. Instead, he ensured that whatever influence his food provided would improve his survivability. Being around Caeden could be dangerous for the little guy, and he didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

The past week had born fruit, both for Noodle and his forging. The two-foot-long dragon had grown longer, gaining another foot in length, while his girth increased as well, though to a less noticeable degree. A few days ago, his brilliant emerald scales had started to dull. Caeden had been concerned that this indicated some kind of illness or nutritional deficiency, but that worry was put to rest when one of the scales fell off.

Noodle was molting or shedding. Which term applied was up for debate. Reptiles shed their scales, but that was done in a single move, losing the entire skin in one swoop. Meanwhile, only birds molted, but they did so one feather at a time, which seemed closer to Noodle’s ‘one scale at a time’ situation. Either way, the scale underneath was a blazing gold with deep purple edging. Obviously, Caeden’s shrouds were having some influence on the bonded half-dragon as he grew.

In etherforging, he had reclaimed some of his lost skill, knocking the rust off, as it were. Now, he was starting to look at all the materials he had gained on his trip across the dragon continent. Still, he hesitated. These were one-of-a-kind materials, actual dragon bones, and scales. He wouldn’t be able to do much experimentation if he wanted to capitalize on their special properties.

Caeden really wanted to talk to his uncle about it, but he hesitated. He had been avoiding his uncle ever since he returned. For stupid reasons. While he was away, Caeden had used Physical Enhancement’s ability to evolve shrouds again. Something he had promised himself he would only do to repair Unc’s injuries as soon as it was viable.

Objectively, he knew he had done it in dire straights where he would have almost certainly died, which would have deprived Unc any chance of recovery and lost him his adopted nephew at the same time. But he still felt guilty, leaving his uncle in a bed, crippled and incapable of doing what he loved. He had felt like that ever since he was injured, but the feeling was magnified and intensified all over again.

More than anything, Caeden wanted to damn the consequences and evolve Erik’s shroud, hoping it would gain increased healing abilities. To make things worse, Damon Vestigious had insinuated that he was aware of Caeden’s ability and knew he had used it on Cat. Which made the whole concept of not using it on Erik seem stupid. If the information was already out there, what was he hiding for?

Of course, it wasn’t that simple anymore. Caeden wasn’t just hiding Physical Enhancement’s evolving ability anymore. The extradimensional researcher had told him that using it had damaged his soul. It was so bad that doing it only once was enough to weaken his soul until simply overflowing his shroud reserves punched a hole in his soul. The only reason he had survived doing it again was because Cat had actively repaired his soul, and he took very little action until the researcher made more significant repairs.

All of this left him frustrated and guilty. So he hadn’t visited his uncle, even though he knew he should. Even though he knew Unc wouldn’t blame him in the slightest. As a result, the dragon materials were left alone, and Caeden was working his way through a new batch of weapons and armor for the Forged.

“Cae, you in here?” A voice calling from outside the forge room broke through his thoughts. It took him a moment to place it.

“Yeah, Erik. Just working on some weapons, come on in.” Luckily, Caeden was only at the rendering phase for this batch, and the mixture he was handling wasn’t particularly delicate. He was melting some Rock ether together with Steel, Fire, and Slag ether to make Molten ether. It would allow him to make more flexible and adaptive metal, which would make stronger weapons.

“Great. I don’t want to interrupt if you’re in the middle of something.” Erik slipped into the room, staying well away from the forge or the ether refining station.

While Caeden appreciated his prudence, something seemed off. Taking a closer look, Caeden noticed a certain lack of pep in Erik’s posture, a stillness in his stance. His roommate had been acting odd all week. Caeden had assumed it was due to his meltdown during the Academy invasion. But maybe it was more than that. Erik was a resilient sort; it was odd that he hadn’t bounced back by now. He was used to surviving dangerous circumstances, more so than anyone else Caeden knew.

“I’m not particularly busy right now. This mixture is stable. Once it renders down, it’ll remain in that state until I take it off the heat.” Caeden gestured to the vat of ether he had on a heating plate. The vat and the heating plate were far better than anything he had ever worked with and were both more efficient and safer than typical modern equipment.

“Good. I’d hate to walk in and make something pop off unexpectedly.” Erik winced at his own words.

“Erik, what’s up with you, man? You’ve been weirder than usual ever since we got back. Or I guess I should say you’ve been weird differently.” Caeden asked, his concern growing.

“Ah,” Erik shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Ok, spit it out.” Caeden fully turned his focus toward Erik. Whatever was going on was far more serious than he had expected. He’d never seen his friend so…subdued.

“Yeah, well…I don’t know how to put this. It’s super awkward.” Erik rubbed his hands together nervously. “But I’ll try my best.”

Caeden listened as Erik vented his feelings and concerns, even admitting to essentially using Caeden for safety when they first met. His words were rambling and chaotic at times, and Caeden distinctly felt that he had no idea how to vocalize some of what he was feeling.

Despite that limitation, Caeden felt he understood very well. Erik’s guilt over the effects of his ‘bad luck,’ something he didn’t seem to acknowledge in himself, shone through. Now that he was beginning to feel friendship and camaraderie, that guilt was amplified and tied in with a growing sense of uselessness.

“I, I want to help more. You know?” Erik rambled. He had sat down on the forge floor, thoughtlessly deflecting the sparks that unerringly drifted toward him. “I just don’t know how, you know? I’m not used to any of this, you know? I just wish there was an easy answer, like I could just snap my fingers and ‘poof’ be stronger, you know what I mean?”

“Ok,” Caeden cut him off, feeling like he had let them both suffer through this conversation enough. “If you say ‘you know’ one more time, I’m going to smack you.”

“Ahh,” Erik stared at him blankly. Obviously, the words had been passing straight out his mouth without registering in his brain.

“Look,” Caeden paused before letting out a heavy sigh. “Look,” He started over, his tone much lighter, “I get it, I really do. There’s been plenty of times over the last week that I’ve wished I was stronger, faster, just better in general. Every time I think about that Etherman flying off with the suppressor, I just…” He clenched a fist. “So, I get it. I also wish I had a good solution for you. Especially because it would mean there’s an easy solution for me. But the best we can really do is keep improving as best we can. You really want to get stronger?”

Erik nodded emphatically.

“Well, apply yourself more! You said it yourself; you’ve never really tried to push your skills in any direction other than medicine!” Caeden huffed. “Which is pretty fucking galling, since apparently you not trying is still enough to outstrip all of us when it comes to martial arts and Ki. Seriously dude, not fair.” He glared at his friend, hands on hips. “Seriously, just put in the effort, and stop acting so mopey! It’s not like you at all, and you have no reason to feel bad. Sure, you’ve made some mistakes, so have we all! Join the club. It doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got your back, and you’ve got ours. Despite what you said, I’ve never once seen you waver when it came to backing me up. So, I trust you, Erik.”

Staring into space, Erik’s tall, skinny figure seemed to deflate into itself. “Ok. Ok. I can handle that.”

He laughed. “But man, I wish there was an easy improvement button I could hit. All three of you have definitely outstripped me now that Cat has her new shroud. Heck, even Asherta can kick my ass nine times out of ten.”

Caeden rolled his eyes. “Well, the obvious answer would be to evolve your shroud. I just don’t think I could live with myself if I did that, and we didn't immediately heal Unc. So, sorry about that. Honestly, I’d totally do it with Cat supervising since she could prevent anything too bad from happening to my soul, and it’d be nice to know what the damage is before I’m forced to use it in a situation like what happened with Cat. But I’m not doing it again until we can heal Unc. I just can’t.”

Now it was Caeden’s turn to feel guilty. He felt caught. His evolution ability was potent, and not using it was a potential waste. Especially now that the secret was more or less out in the open. If the Headmaster knew, it likely wouldn’t be long before the Council discovered his power. So that concern, and the main reason he hadn’t used it on Erik, was gone. But now he had the added concern of soul damage. Which was also neatly solved by Cat’s ability to heal him.

The more he thought about it, the less reason Caeden had not to use it. At this point, it all boiled down to the uncertainty around the Headmaster’s intentions. Caeden was very aware that Cat’s grandfather held Caeden’s life in his hands. It made him hesitate to make any drastic moves without a better understanding of the powerful shrouded’s intentions. What if he didn’t want Caeden to use his ability at all? Evolving Erik’s shroud could put him in a bad position.

“Actually,” Caeden thought out loud. “I haven’t really had time to think about it since the attack, but all of this depends on the Headmaster. I just assumed he was going to be opposed to me evolving shrouds, that he and the Council would use Unc as a tool to leverage me into not using Physical Enhancement like that. Damon told me he was grateful for my helping Cat, but I never thought about what that meant.”

“I think I need to talk to the Headmaster.” Caeden decided. “Because as far as I know, he’s the one you’ll be making the decision about whether or not I’ll be locked up or left alone and what I’ll be allowed to do.”

“Hey, Cae, you in here?”

Caeden looked toward the door as Cat poked her head into the forge room.

“Oh, good. Hey, Gramps wanted to talk to you; got a moment?” She glanced around the forge, looking for any ongoing projects.

Erik laughed. “Well, it looks like you might be getting your answer right now!”