Chapter 10: Second Magic source and dragon nest

I carefully got closer to the stone, the blue stripe looked like the letter J upside down and I could see a face of Buddha deep inside it.

"So this is the magic source with element of light? Seems kinda creepy."

"Why would it be creepy?"

"Hm? Becouse of that face in the blue stripe, of course. Can't you see it Syl?"

"A face in the blue stripe? I can't see it…" Azu glued her face to the rock.

"I can't either."

"This is weird… um, Syl did you make a contract with the source in Mayaleensian jungle?"

"No, I was not granted permission to make it… do you think you can see that face becouse of the contract you have?"

"It's possible, don't you think?"

"It would certainly explained why either me or Azu can't see it. Do you want to go to form the contract right away?"

"No, I don't know what would happen if I did. Back in the lake the golden orb of the magic source turned dark and the pocket of air shrunk to nothingness."

"Alright, let's build a camp then… huh?!" Syl froze in place as she turned towards the forest.

"Oh, the dogs followed us."

"They are wolves! Stop calling them dogs!!!"

"Well, they are as smart as dogs, they found out that we could easily provide food for them and came after us. I'm sure they have hard time hunting with so many pregnant females."

"B-but they are Black wolves…"

"Oh, come on. See? They are not attacking even if I come closer to them see?" I got close to the dogs and knelt in front of them. Seeing this, the presumable leader of the pack slowly approached me. She was a female with black fur and white chest area that slightly resembled flame. Her red eyes were filled with fear and expectation.

"You guys must be hungry, wanna join us for diner?" extending my open palm to the wolf leader, I watched as she closed in and placed it's snout in it.

"What?!"

"Miss Syl is master a Tamer?"

"I honestly don't know, he seems like he can do anything…"

"I can hear you you know? It's not like I can do everything, I just am better suited to this kind of environment. Like, I can't even properly use most of modern technology back home…"

"Still, taming Black wolves is rather amazing in it's own right."

"Are they conscidered strong or something?"

"No sane person dares to approach them. I believe they were quite starved to approach us like that."

"Maybe some stronger monster appeared and they were chased from their home. And with reduced numbers… you had a hard time, hmm? Don't worry, I'll pat you enough to forget about all your bad time."

"Seems master likes wolves a lot, right?" Azu smiled a little worriedly.

"'Course I do! A dog is a man's best friend, after all."

"But these are wolves…" Syl sighed.

"Hmm… that may be a difference between our worlds, but in our world dogs came to be by domestication if wolves."

The two girls stared into distance, probably imagining the ferrocious beasts they knew as wolves getting tamed by people simmilar to me.

"Alright, enough daydreams. Azu start a fire. Syl prepare meat. And you wolves, those of you who can move will come with me to scout the area. The rest stays here, howl, bark or anything to inform us if something gets past us."

"Okay!"

"Sure!"

"Awoooo~!"

Seems like the wolves understand human speach. Given I understand both human and elvish languages I thought I had an ability to understand every language, but I can't make sence of dwarvish which Azu uses when she speaks from her sleep. Maybe it's the other way around and my words get out as the language of the other party… nah, scratch that. That sounds like some gamer gibberish. It's most likely that someone like me appeared in this world before me and taught his language. Though, the elvish sounds like french, or at least that's the feeling I get… three years of study didn't do much, eh? At least I can communicate with them…

In less then an hour, the food was done and we were able to sit down for some hot soup with meat and vegetables. The dogs on the other hand enjoyed their share of innards and lightly grilled meat.

Now that food was settled, it's time to name the dogs. After all, simply calling them dogs seems bad so I came with names for them. In total, we had twelve of them, five male and seven female. It appears that the leading female lost her mate in some kind of fight and the second lonely female is the youngest of the group and most likely last years cub.

The names I chose for the male dogs were Aru, Bert, Cyan, Dali and Elias. What? Calling them Dog A, Dog B, Dog C would be worse!

And the names for the female dogs I chose were Rose, Lea, Mimi, Pochi, Aon, Nora and the leading female got named Yuki. My naming sence is childish and simple and I'm not sorry about it.

"Wow, you named them and look at how much they enjoy it…"

What Syl was reffering too, was that each of the dogs was standing next to writing of their names I made with a stick, looking proudly. Hey Elias, why are you giving the rest of the boys such a snob look? That's not nice, you know?

"Yeah… Anyway we should break of soon and go to sleep. Should we decide night watch?"

"Yeah, let's do that. Though I honestly don't think there are anyone who would willingly approach Black wolves…" Syl shrugged and lay down.

The night felt incredibly short as no monster approached us. Well, one four eared rabbit tried, but seeing the dogs, it fled without a second thought. And once the morning came, it was time to enter the Magic source.

Standing before the stone, I looked at the face of the Buddha, feeling as if he was inviting me inside. Now that I think about it, how the hell am I supposed to get to the Source? Lift the stone? As if I'm that strong!

"Well, let's see…" running my hand on the surface of the rock, my hand went over the blue stripe— and sunk in.

"Whoa… this feels like soaking in a hot spring…"

"Hot spring?"

"A place where hot water came out of the earth," I explained to Azu who was not fammiliar with the term. "Well, I'm going, wish me luck."

As I smiled at the two behind me and the dogs lined up behind them, I took a deep breath and entered the blue stripe, that opened up, as if to welcome me.

Once again I felt as if I was floating in the water, that warm feeling spread all over my body and I submerged to the core. Unlike the first one which shone with golden light, this one was more akin to silver. After spotting the core, I half swum, half float to it.

"Grrrrr…" looking over my shoulder, I noticed that Yuki has followed me here.

"You came too Yuki? Isn't power of light poisonous to mosters?"

"Woof!" Yuki made a face that as if said 'It's alright.'

"Well, do as you think. Now, let's get to the contract."

I extended my hand and the mermaid, in form of the snake coiled around it and we touched the core at the same moment.

"Keep up… my knight…"

A weird voice, that actually was the same as the one I heard before, spoke to me once again.

The core turned dimmer again and I returned to the surface once again, Yuki closely behind me.

"Tarumi!" Syl was first to notice me and run up to me, "Are you alright?"

Why is she looking so worried?

"Yeah, I'm fine. Yuki was with me too."

"I see," looking relieved she let out a sigh.

"Did something happen?"

"Yeah. Once you and Yuki entered, the stone broke in half and a massive amount of energy got released, I honestly never experienced anything like this. It was simmilar to Mana storm, but much more violent."

I took a look over my shoulder and noticed that the stone was indeed split in two parts, with the blue stripe painting both parts. Yuki was sitting next to me, but now on top of having the flame like pattern on her chest, she had a white stripe on her forehead too. Somehow, she looks more… majestic, is the word? Anyway, why is she smirking at the remaining dogs?

"Um, what is a Mana storm?"

"It's when a large amount of magical powers naturaly present in the air accumulate in single spot. When something like that happens, it get's easier to cast spells, but at the same time it's much more likely for them to go out of control."

"And that's what you felt?"

"Yeah, but I said, it felt worse, right? With this kind of outbreak, I wouldn't be surprised if monsters started to act out of control, look at the… wolves… why are they so calm?!"

The wolves who were supposed to be guarding, were lazying around, some even snoring.

"Maybe it's becouse of Yuki? She was with me after all."

"Yeah, her… Why do I get the feeling she's doing this intentionally?"

As we spoke, Yuki was rubbing her head against my leg so I patted her. And for some reason she showed same smug face she was showing yesterday, while looking at her written name, to Syl. It felt as if she was saying to her 'Yeah, I'm the one getting patted here, not you.'

"We should start going. We should arrive at the place you talked about as soon as we can so we can prepare a camp."

"Yeah, let's do that. Azu prepare yourself for the departure."

"Aye aye, Ma'am!" Azu saluted and collected all things that were scattered around.

***

If one would ask what is the strongest species in this world, everyone, without exception would say Ancient Dragons. These beasts while not being numbered over one hundred in their entire population, it was widely believed that if all of them went on a rampage at a single moment, the world would cease to exist in less then ten minutes.

To the east of the Arken continent lies island nation of Antima which is the most western part of the Eastern continent where the Dragon Emperor, the Supreme Dragon, lives. Antima is ruled by Supreme dragon's younger brother, Dragon King Azurion, who is believed to be second strongest dragon in the world, after his older brother.

Antima lacks same class system as other kingdoms and empires and everything is decided by meritocracy, which gives them enormous boost in advancements of their citizen's livelyhoods.

And in this place, a young looking demon with single blue horn on his forehead and same blue eyes walked up to a giant body of his ruler, the dragon king.

"Your majesty…"

"Hm? What is it?"

"There was a Mana Storm that your wife, her highness Amazia, have not predicted."

"Oh? Was it artificial? Where was it."

"Our magic observers claim it came from Forest of Death. Specifically from the [Light] Magic source."

"Oh? It's over ten thousand years since someone made a contract with that source. The spirit guarding it, is quite a picky old man… So, who was it?"

"We don't know, sir…"

"HM? Weren't you observing with magic?"

"We were, however, something blocked us from seeing close enough to determinate who it was. They were completly disrupted."

"I see… the church does posses an ability to block our magic eyes, but complete disruption is impossible for them. They are only humans after all… could it be? No, the spirit queen died long ago, she can't resurrect without a specific body. Anyway, do we have any informations on those 'heroes'?"

"I'm sad to report that no informations have been collected so far. Apparently the ritual for summoning them will take a long time and the priests have closed themselves behind many walls, even our spies have not been able to get that close."

"Aaah, it's alright. Let's send my son, Augold to investigate. Bring him that message as a royal decree."

"Understood sir. Should I prepare him some escorts?"

"Please do. He might be strong, but he's an idiot. Make sure no one from the Inheritence faction will enter it."

"As you wish sir," the demon bowed before leaving.

The dragon king looked at the three moons in the sky and they reflected in his blood red eyes, that stood out against his light blue scales.

"I wonder what you would do, Aria…" with those words, the Dragon king returned to his slumber.

***

It was soon after lunch time when we arrived at the glave Syl was talking about. The entire place seemed out of the world. There was a giant hole filled with water in the middle of it and from what I could say, it was at least one hundred meters wide. To the north the lake overflow and formed a creek going further to the forest.

"So you think it's safe for us to build our camp here?"

"Yeah. To east from here is one of the dungeons and two days from that place is ocean. That creek in the north actually makes a cressent like line and flow into the ocean in form of amazing waterfall."

"If there is a waterfall, then that means there is quite a steep cliff."

"Yeah, but if we go stright from the dungeon, there acually was a cave in of an undersea cave many eons ago that makes it possible to reach the coastline without any climbing."

"Hmm…"

"What is it, Tarumi?"

"I just thought, that if we manage to secure a safe place at the coast, we could use the salt water of the ocean to make salt. It would be safer then count on rock salt for cooking… what's with that face?"

"You can… extract salt from ocean?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"This is the first time I've heard about something like that."

"Hm? And how do you usually get salt."

"There is a earth magic spell developer by the first king of the Bartmaira kingdom called Nacl."

So he was from earth. NaCl… At least I know where the language came from.

"I see, well, my technique does not require magic so we will be able to get the salt no matter what happens."

"I would like to look into it, if you don't mind," Azu raised her hand and her eyes sparkled.

"Yeah, sure. But first, we need to secure a safe place to sleep. Spirits of earth heed my call! I order you to create a moat around us with square shape."

As I ordered the spirits, the magic started flowing around me and the spirits with it did as I said.

"Oh wow. That was faster then I thought it would," Syl smiled and started preparing kitchen, "But what are you going to do with all that excavated dirt?"

"Well, it doesn't look like it would be much for anything, but given how much space I got here now, I may use it for fields. Ah, before I forget about it, I should start preparing a place to sleep in."

After that I went to the forest to cut down some trees with magic, used wind and fire spirits to dry the wood and remove the bark. Using wind spirits to cut the wood into planks and beams was just as easy. Magic's amazing!!! This would usually take days to prepare, not to mention that drying wood alone takes years.

Though magic is really convenient, I could not make the spirits carry it all the way to the camp so I just stuffed it all in my bagpack. Way to go [Space expansion] enchant!

"So, do you have any experience with building houses?"

"Not at all. What about you Syl?"

"None."

As we confiremed our suspicion looking at the pile of wood, our eyes locked on Azu who was standing between us.

"Wh-what? You think just becouse I'm a dwarf I know how do everything?! All I know is how to smith and carve!" Azu got angry looking at Syl, clearly noticing her look first.

"Yeah, I figured… Well, we can't have anything really fancy right now so we should aim for one multifunctional room."

"Wh-what?!"

"You want your own room Syl?"

"W-well it's not like we can really spurge on materials right now, but a little privacy… could help," Syl turned beet red as she said that.

"Yeah I think so too, Master!" Azu raised her hand next to Syl.

Wait, what have I done thinking like that! We spend few nights like that becouse we have to! It's not like we sleep like that becouse we wanted to! Syl likes to tease as much as I do, plus I'm sure they need a place to do their own private things! My sister was like this too, after all! She didn't even call me 'Big brother' for almost six months too…

"Okay, let's change it. We will still do the same type of house, but we will add a floor. That way we all can have our own room!" I could feel my cheeks burning as I said it, but I decided to ignore it for now.

"Y-yeah!" Syl, still red behind her long ears was the same and quickly agreed with me.

And so, we started building our house. I first commanded the spirits to make six holes in the ground in which we would later sunk the beams meant for pillars. Once that was done, I placed the pillar beams next to the holes and used another two beams to hold them together. Now, I raised the two halves and sink them in the holes. Of course, I used the spirits for this too. Once this was done, I get up to the top and had the earth spirits lift me two aditional beams for fixing the structure in place.

"Alright, now that the frame is done, I should start with the supporting beams. And then…" I looked at Syl and Azu who were collecting wild grasses. Once they would be done, I would mix it with the excavated dirt and sand from the shore of the lake to make a something resembling adobes which I would dry with fire spirits and then place them between the wooden planks which would be secured from both sides to keep the temperature steady.

I mean, it's not like I know how harsh the winters here are and I don't want to freeze to death.

"Maybe I could build a cellar… or rather not, need for light is one thing, but if mold spreads it would be game over for anything I would try to keep there. Let's keep it realistic for now. Mm-hmm!"

"Are you talking to yourself?"

"A little."

I replied to Syl who came to me after seeing me from afar.

"We found some herbs so I came to borrow a shovel to dig it out. How long do you think it will take to finish this?"

"Hmm… If I use spirits to mix the adobe components, dry them afterwards in chunks of the same size and place them between the walls… it should take three hours at best to finish the base floor. Sorry but we will have to sleep like that for today."

"It's fine, I'm used to camping anyway and I bet that Azu as a former slave doesn't mind too."

"I see. Then that's what we are going to do then. I'll make sure to make a house that will cover all our needs!"

"O-okay…" Syl smiled a little and went back to Azu with the shovel I took out from my backpack.

Turning around, I saw Yuki with a knowing smirk on herface.

"What?"

"Grrrrr–Woof!" her growl-slash-bark was almost as teasing as some of my jokes.

"You want to sleep here too? You can, we have a lot of space right now, but I'm gonna build you a dog house reall soon," I smiled a little mischieviously, already planning to go all out on that one.

And so, the evening came and we could feel like being halfway there.

"So, Master made those abodes and strenghten the base floor already, plus he made a ladder to second floor?"

"Yeah, I left enough space for proper stairs, so I will start with them the next thing tomorrow morning. I already sanded this dark reddish brown wood that looks nice and all that's needed it to put it together."

"Still, to build the house this quickly… I applaud you master," Azu bowed to me slightly.

"Okay, out with it. What do you want?"

"I would like to ask if it will be possible to set some wood asside for charcoal making," Azu answeared instantly in single breath.

"Charcoal… that's a good idea. Let's take a look at the trees tomorrow and have it started."

"Yes master!" Azu beamed a happy smile and leaned on me.

Seeing that, Syl did the same, under pretext of tiredness. Yuki, why are you smirking at me… and the rest of you, don't join her! Bad Dogs! That's a no-no!

With my inner turmoil starting once again, the night started once more in this to me new and strange world.