POV Vesuvius:
A small ring fell upon the burned, muddy ground. It rolled for a while before stopping before the white-haired old-looking man in heavily damaged armour.
The man grabbed it and put it on his finger. His body changed, his long horns vanishing, with his irises returning to their human shape. Even his skin wrinkled as if he had aged years just in a second.
“You know what to do, my minion. Go and fulfil your official duties. As for your dead guards? They were all killed by a monster. Only you have managed to escape.”
The dragon above him flapped his wings, the dark clouds covering the whole swamp and sky above it, hiding his body from all prying eyes as he slowly rose higher and higher.
‘This will not work. I can’t just convert everyone by myself. Someone will notice sooner or later. I need some better, more covert way.’
He knew that the only way was through good old poisoning, ‘I lack too much. I need highly trained covert operation minions that can infiltrate into secure places and turn someone quietly.’
It was easy to say, but he knew that training such capable individuals was extremely hard and would take at least years.
Yet that was only if he was a human, ‘Why do I need to train them by myself when I can brainwash already trained ones.’
The images of the despicable thief that infiltrated his lair vividly appeared before his eyes.
‘Someone like him.’ he remembered the ring with large onyx embedded within it, making him realise that there was likely some organisation behind him, ‘If I could get to them, it would likely solve my problem in one go.’
He long planned to let his minions investigate it, but with all the stuff that happened in quick succession, there was no time for that.
The landscape under him quickly changed as he glided forwards, using powerful wind currents around him to move faster. The tall white mountains on the horizon were quickly getting closer and closer, his black tower already in sight.
POV Captain Anaphoras:
A man wearing a decorated long blue coat that went all the way towards his black leather boots stood on a board behind a helm. A close-fitting armour, made of perfectly overlapping metallic strips covered in runes, glinted under his coat.
He was old, with a gently looking face and monocle on his left eye. He was hunched, looking into an expansive map.
The massive, sharply shaped ship, with a length of two whole football fields, sailed through the skies. Its long hull was thoroughly battered in glowing plates of enchanted steel. Massive chains connected it to giant blue balloons keeping it in the air. A huge azure crystal rotated in the ship’s centre, brightly glowing.
The ship smoothly sailed between the clouds, its whole board covered in magical arrays with its shiny hull reflecting the sunlight.
The crew constantly swarmed on its board, and robed mages stood around the crystal, constantly pouring mana into it.
“Captain, we have crossed the border of Amalisia county!”
“Start landing procedure. We will recharge our mana reserves before the battle while we wait for the rest.”
𝒪𝐯𝐋xt.𝗇t
“Yes, sir!”
POV Vesuvius:
The dragon rested on top of his tower. He could already feel it in his bones. An enemy was coming, closing towards his territory, ready to trample over his authority once more. Everything was quiet, like before a storm. Only the winds howled and squealed around him.
He was confident and ready to face enemies who dared challenge him. He could have run away, with no one able to catch up to him. But he refused to chicken out from just a bunch of mortals.
As he rested, he started to realise more and more problems that needed to be fixed, ‘I need more humanoid minions that I can send into town without causing panic. Also, some mental magic to communicate with them would be more than just useful.’
At that time, he realised something he had missed until now. It was highly frustrating, ‘I still have knowledge of some magic from my previous life. It just needs slight modifications to work with extra potent dragon mana.’
He submerged deeper into his memories, his high intelligence stat helping him to see his memories as clearly as if it was tomorrow.
Finally, he found what he was looking for, and his eyes flashed in emotion as he felt slightly nostalgic. It was one of the first spells that he had ever learned.
‘Mind Channel’
It was a simple spell that allowed people with an existing connection to communicate at large distances, and convey their thought, words and even images. This connection varied. It could be a family connection or a connection between lowers. For players, it could be simply having that person in their friend list.
It was a simple yet frowned upon spell, as it went against the instincts of mortals to open their minds. It was an uncomfortable feeling to have someone touch upon their very own soul.
‘They are so scared that they will rather use the inferior version, Message.’
It was a different spell that worked in a very different way. It didn’t even create a channel between souls. Instead, it sent a mana pulse with an encoded message, so it didn’t require any connection. However, it could only convey simple words and could be intercepted or faked. It also consumed much more mana with a growing distance.
An image of the circuit formed in his mind. It was simple, consisting only of one circle with only twenty or so symbols connected by lines.
He knew the exact amount of mana needed. However, it was different with his super potent and unstable dragon mana. He had to recalculate it from the ground up, so he dived deeper into his mind, numbers flying and moving before his own eyes. Thanks to his high intelligence stat, it was like having a calculator in his head.
Finally, he grabbed a thread of his mana and started to weave the circuit in his head, letter after letter. It looked different from the original. Each line was thicker and more robust, with some letters replaced by their equivalent from the draconic magic.
‘Still, it is too few. I lack the knowledge needed to replace all of them.’ it was immense, profound knowledge. He hardly knew the meaning of a few letters, and he lacked knowledge of why each letter worked in that way.
‘Is it about angles, or is there some pattern that I can’t see?’
It was like programming in an exotic and complex language. He guessed what some functions did and could call on them, maybe even slightly poke them and change them; however, he couldn’t figure out how they worked.
The circuit was dim, only slightly glowing with the mana it was made of, as it lacked the fuel. The dragon pushed a single drop of his mana that radiated like a small star and fed it into his spell.
The mana flowed through the lines, igniting letter after letter. The draconic ones held, slowly pulsing in light while the others started to tremble, with small cracks spreading through them.
‘It should hold for a moment.’
A channel opened in his mind, the light whirling in a giant vortex.
He felt an unknown force blocking his path. It was an invisible barrier shielding one’s mind. He could knock, but something in him felt like he could just pry it open.
Vesuvius pushed forwards, the barrier before him opening and letting him in without resistance as if he had a key. The vortex soon stabilised, forming a hazy image.
‘This is different. There was no need to even ask for permission. Is it because I have master status in this connection? Can the dragon god do the same and see through my eyes?’
The image slowly cleared up, but it was still hazy. He could see only marble and a ceiling made of polished red granite.
‘No, it isn’t a hazy connection. There is just steam in the air.’
The vision suddenly shifted, the owner of the eyes turning her head downward. There was water, and also her. She was fully naked and submerged in water with lots of foam. She just lay there, bathing while oblivious to being watched.
The dragon stopped, feeling like he had done something weird. He didn’t feel anything when looking at her, but he was worried that it would scar his minion.
‘Would she forever live in fear of being watched? Or is my blood influencing her so much that she wouldn’t care?’
The connection abruptly cut as one of the magical symbols finally burst, shattering the whole circuit into thousands of shrapnel. Vesuvius slightly flinched, feeling as if a needle had stabbed into his finger. It differed from when he was weak, and a single collapsed spell sent him into a sea of pain.
‘At least I know that it works. Maybe even better than I originally thought. Well, let’s try it again. This time I will ask for permission.’ Vesuvius decided to continue, pretending that this blunder had never happened.