"You are right. Huryole has plenty of books, but its vault is limited and before I made my escape there wasn't much left. The Headmaster granted Orichalcum and crystals only to the best students and our magic is outdated since we never shared our discoveries among ourselves. We treated each other as food." Jakra said.

"That's why I decided to not rebuild Hervor." Thrud said. "Jiera is a dead continent and to take care of my subjects, I wouldn't have the time I need to prepare for the final battle.

"We'll use my city to train ourselves and stockpile the resources we need. During my time as the local Lord, I discovered plenty of hidden mines of Adamant and mana crystal. They will give us everything we need."

"You did?" Jakra was flabbergasted.

"Okay, fine. I actually just bought the information about their location from the black-market smugglers and the clerks of the various countries." She admitted with a chuckle.

"I couldn't make use of this information before because there was no way to mine much by myself without getting caught. I couldn't afford to blow my cover nor could I face entire armies alone.

"Now, however, I'm the only one who knows where the mines are and the members of Jiera's Council lack the manpower to check the whole territory. I've already singled out the mines they aren't aware of and dug out enough to make your equipment."

Thrud shook a necklace made of dimensional rings, making a mountain of Adamant appear out of thin air, right next to another of violet crystals.

"Making a suit of armor for a Dragon is a waste of metal. It takes a powerful artifact to hurt me." Jakra would have bit his own tongue, but the slave spell forced him to be honest.

"Then my creation will make you invincible." Thrud said.

"I'm not up to date with the latest Royal Forgemastery breakthroughs, but between what my mother took away before our escape, what I learned by injecting my puppies inside the bodies of Forgemasters, and what I learned on my own I doubt that there are many on my level." Thrud said.

Jakra nodded, realizing that her plan could actually succeed. It had taken him just a few weeks to teach Thrud everything that he had learned in his centuries of unrelenting study of magic while he was captive inside the Golden Griffon.

After a few months of practice, Thrud had managed to master her newfound abilities, and then she had taught him modern magic. Not only did she help Jakra to realize how outdated his knowledge was, but she also improved all of his techniques beyond his wildest imagination.

The process had allowed Thrud to find the best way to write the books that would convey all the information about the modern world and magic that her subjects would need once freed from the array trapping them inside Huryole.

Once she brought her immortal army up to speed with the latest magical breakthroughs and provided them with cutting-edge equipment, stopping Thrud would take the strength of a Guardian. On top of that, the worst had yet to come.

Between the knowledge that Arthan had entrusted her about fake Awakening and that passed down the Emerald Dragon bloodline, Jakra was close to understanding the secret of Awakening.

"Why don't you wait for me to complete my research? Once you Awaken, your powers will be incomparable to now." He said.

"That would be too risky. You might survive Awakening if Mogar helps you, but I'd die for sure. I forbid you to Awaken until we unlock the Golden Griffon. Once we get there, we'll share the secret with the others and we'll use the arrays of the academy to make sure that everyone Awakens safely." She replied.

"My Queen, I'm not worthy of your attention. Why do you care so much for me?" Jakra's logical mind found it absurd her care for his survival. An Awakened Dragon would serve the cause much better than his current state.

He knew the risks that Awakening implied for someone with a bright blue core and Jakra actually wanted to live, but the slave spell made him willing to throw his life away for her.

"Because you're my first true friend, my loyal general, and the father of our child." She gave him a deep kiss before bringing his hand to her womb.

"It will be my final battle, but I can't let my lineage disappear in case of failure. Someone must carry the torch and learn from my mistakes. Besides, aren't you curious to see how our baby will look like?

"How powerful a being who carries both the blood of the Griffons and the Dragons can be?" She asked while making a spark of Life Maelstrom appear above their heads.

After her body had stabilized from the last cycle of Arthan's Madness, Thrud had discovered that her body had gone beyond the limits of humans. Tyris's blood coursed so thick in Thrud's veins now that she had the mass of a magical beast.

Jakra feared that she only needed a few more cycles to become able to use true magic if not even to shapeshift into a Griffon. To make matters worse, pregnancy didn't make a mage any weaker.

Quite the contrary, it temporarily gave them power beyond belief.

***

Blood Desert's Fringe.

After Nalrond's failed attempt to get some answers from Mogar, the group needed to rest for a few days. Nalrond to overcome the trauma of having his personality almost overwritten and the others to recover their strength before making another attempt.

None of them was an Awakened so they needed to get plenty of food and sleep to return to their peak condition. Quylla used that time to keep Nalrond's life force in check, to practice her cooking skills, and to research Light Mastery.

"You don't have any cracks, but if you don't take it easy for a while, you'll end up worse than Lith. The shattering of your mind went this close to spread to your body. If not for us treating your life force, it would have already been permanently damaged." She said.

"Thanks. Please, whatever you do, don't leave me alone." Nalrond half grunted and half said.

"Wow. First Morok and now you. I never thought that smart women could be this hot."

"Don't flatter yourself. I just don't want to eat anything cooked by Morok again or to have any more visitors." Nalrond had tasted better poison and he was starting to hate the Dewans.

It hadn't taken him long to understand that they weren't really worried about his health so much as of losing the knowledge of Light Mastery stored in his head.

"Would it have killed you saying that you enjoy my cooking and company? We don't need to be friends to be polite with each other." Quylla said.

"You are right, sorry. I'm an ungrateful jackass. I promise that as soon as the voices in my head disappear, I'll make it up to you." Being inside the Fringe didn't make the healing process faster.

The constant pressure that Mogar's will applied combined with the strain caused on his cores by the high-density world energy made Nalrond hear and see things that he hoped had never existed.