The ringing of the hammer on the anvil was a soothing sound to me. It was consistent, and each blow was measured. It was cause and effect in motion. Maybe, though, I just liked hitting things with a hammer. It was fun, that much was true.

I took the sword-to-be off of my anvil and placed it into the forge to once again heat up. Nick, Trevor, and James had been going off on one-day adventures looking for ruins to explore. Yesterday when they came back, they had brought with them some matte red stones that they asked to trade in exchange for new weapons. After I identified them, I jumped right on it. They were too good to pass up.

Flame Stone: A stone that keeps the heat and properties of the last magical flame to touch it, and produces that flame using ambient fire-attuned mana.

Gold dragons produced a mixture of ambient flame and dragon attuned mana, so I could power these rocks just by being in the room. I breathed some flame on them and threw them into a forge I constructed from pilfered forge bricks and refractory cement. With this, I could take full advantage of my dragon flame blacksmith class and also conserve mana for enchantments on finished gear. It was more than worth the cost of some entry-level weapons. I had wanted to give the guys a present for reaching the first rank anyway. It was an important achievement, and it felt worth celebrating.

I looked out over the training grounds again. We had to add another fence to keep adventurers from wandering in and disturbing me. The guild’s official opening was yesterday, and already we had fifty adventurers sign up. They came in all shapes and sizes, though most were beastkin or magic races. Surprisingly enough, of those fifty that came to join, only three were beta testers like me. I knew that there were a bunch of beta testers in Austin but was shocked that the vast majority of people coming to join were rank 0.

We had to set up restrictions on memberships to make sure that people knew what they were getting into when they went out on missions. We had plates made for each rank, and on those plates, we put a record of the highest level combat or magic skill. That way, we could keep track of who could do what. I knew that there would be lots of casualties of people going after things that they shouldn’t, but I also knew that it was unavoidable. The best thing I could do was make sure that when the adventurers went out, they would have good weapons and armor to protect them. I would save the most lives by simply doing what I loved, and that was fine with me.

I was using the Garcia’s store as a front for all of my gear. They would take requests and give a price, and I would make the supply of weapons and armor. If there was a particularly strange request, I would talk to the customer myself, but this let me work undisturbed more often than not. The Garcia’s had decided to forgo taking any old-world currency and instead decided to take only silver and gold found in dungeons or items in barter. It might be a stone-age method of commerce, but I was sure they were rolling in cash.

That was not a pun either, as I once walked in on Mr. Garcia rolling around in piles of silver and gold coins in his living room. As I hammered away, I chuckled at the memory. It wasn’t as weird as it could be considering that he was a fox, but it was strange enough to make me flee the room laughing. He couldn’t look me in the eyes the next day.

As I worked, I mused to myself and thought about my body and my changes. Six days ago, when the mental blocking fell, I realized something. I liked my new body. I was strong and fast. My scales gleamed like polished gold. If I sat still, I was often mistaken for a gaudy statue. I was tall, too. Before, I was right around 5’10’’. I was not confident, and it showed. Now though? I was going on 9’, and I was a fucking dragon blacksmith. Confidence was something that I had never had before, and it was starting to go to my head.

It was likely a combination of my new draconic instincts, as well as my appearance that brought it on, but every time I went somewhere, people would stare as I walked, and I liked it. There was this nagging voice in the back of my mind, declaring “Of course they liked it. You are a gold dragon; a perfect predator. Show them your glory.” I was trying to temper my inner desires, but it was hard. I needed a middle ground. My instincts wanted me to walk around people completely naked so they could balk at my scales. I first tried to wear full sets of clothes, but that didn’t work, and just made me feel depressed. I settled for just a pair of shorts. It was good enough that my instincts didn’t go crazy, but enough that I could gain some control over them. I guess it was just a part of being a dragon.

The confidence was one thing, but the other instincts were much more intense. One instinct in particular. One thing I learned about dragons from all of my reading was that they were very prolific breeders. They liked to leave progeny, and that trait had transferred over into this newly created world as well. Anything to pass on your genes as efficiently as possible, dragons could do. That meant that dragons were hermaphroditic. I could choose to be either male or female at will, something I had discovered not long ago. It wasn’t a skill, just a part of being a dragon. It was, needless to say, a very strange morning for me waking up as a different gender. Changing back was easy though, so it wasn’t a big deal. The real problem was what that caused. Every freaking time I saw someone even vaguely attractive, my weak reptile brain compelled me to jump them and get them knocked up or even get me knocked up.

The biggest annoyance was that it appeared attractiveness was based around personal power. For most people I could ignore it, but for people that were higher in the ranks the urge grew ever more intense. I could always tell just how strong someone was based on how horny I got when I was around them. The biggest offenders were Steph and Vic.

Being in the same room as Steph was almost intolerable, and power just seemed to bleed off her. To most, it was obvious that Vic was the strongest, but I knew better. Steph was almost twice as strong as Vic was even after all of her magic training, and that strength continued to grow every day. Something about her powers was inherently broken. I knew for a fact that she was well on her way to the third rank. Unfortunately, her powers were still a complete mystery. Everyone trusted her, and she had given us no reason to do otherwise, but she didn’t trust us explicitly. All I knew was that her ability had something to do with life energy, that she could fly, and that she could fire death lasers out of her hands. She would tell us things she could do, but never the why and the how. It was a problem for another day though, and there wasn’t anything anyone here could do to stop her in the first place.

Vic was perhaps even more annoying. After she had finished her magic training, I could tell that she became far more powerful, and so could my obnoxious lizard brain. I worked with her for a long time in the coffee shop, and after I asked her out, I still carried a torch that she would change her mind. It wasn’t meant to be, though. She was invested in school and wasn’t looking for anything. I understood that, but it didn’t mean my feelings for her vanished right away. I sort of gave up after a while, and we were able to just remain friends. I was fine with that, and I got used to it. Eventually, I stopped looking at her as a romantic interest, and started looking at her as just a friend I could rely on.

Now though, she was like a beacon. Any time she was in the room, I just froze. All of those pent-up feelings and annoying urges just hammered into my brain again and again, and she just kept growing stronger, so the urges got worse. I could still suppress them, but damn, it was not easy. The fact that her charisma was well over 15 was not helping either.

Charisma seemed to work based on the user’s ideal of beauty. If you believed that bright eyes and wavy hair were attractive, when you increased your charisma, you would slowly gain bright eyes and wavy hair. Guys would get more toned, or skinny, or handsome. Girls would get thinner, or have better figures, or more symmetrical faces. It was all passive, and unless you were around people who were getting those increases, it was hard to notice. My new instincts helped me figure it out fairly quickly, much to my chagrin, and I could now with some accuracy guess what someone’s charisma was.

As Vic’s charisma increased, she looked more… like Vic. She always had this almost rugged outdoorsy look going for her. More amazon than supermodel, I guess. The charisma just fortified it, and now she looked positively badass. She was not someone to pick a fight with, ever, and you could tell with a glance that she would subject you to violent murder-death if you did.

On one hand, I wanted her away from me. It was a pain in the ass to keep a handle on my instincts, and I was concerned that she would turn me down again when I could no longer contain them. At the same time, when she wasn’t here, she was out there. Fighting, killing, maybe even dying. If she was here, I could watch out for her. Protect her, even if she didn’t need it. Dragons protected their treasure, and I did treasure my friendship with Vic. I always had. It was like I wanted friendship, while my instincts wanted a strong mate. I seemed I was of two minds. Or was I?

With a sigh, I looked down at the sword in my hands. I had been working away at it while I thought about everything subconsciously. Somehow, I managed to sand and finish the blade without even paying attention. It was a fantastic kangor short sword and would sell for two gold pieces at least. The blade was polished to a bronze mirror-finish, and it was inscribed with runes that would fortify its hardness and allow it to hold an edge better. There had been some strange stuff going on with the weapon systems of the world, but they made sense to me and seemed much more intuitive than the damage numbers that were there before. I was both happy that the system I lived in would have quality of life updates and terrified that the world as I knew it was constantly changing. It was a strange state to be in and only went to show that when the world worked like a video game, all hell would break loose.

Finishing my work for the day, I sat the now finished sword down in a place where one of the Garcia kids could come down and pick it up. I guess it would be more accurate to say that they were the Garcia kits or pups, now. I was still adjusting to how much things had changed since the first wave, and my mind was still trying to catch up. It had been a long day, and I needed some dinner and a stiff drink. Lucky me there was a bar and tavern right next door.

I cleaned up in the filtered pond and walked into the tavern. The place was lively. 20 or so adventurers were sitting around, each armed with guns, swords, or bows, drinking, chatting, and enjoying themselves. I could also see the occasional magic staff peeking out here and there, but staffs were much rarer, and becoming a mage when you weren’t a beta tester was a great deal of work. Needless to say, though, this was a world now where refusing to wield a weapon was just asking for a quick death. Most people were rank 0, while even the weakest of monsters were rank 1. The only advantage that people had was weapons with mana conductivity, and the class system that let people train in virtually any skill they wanted for free. I sat down at the bar and was greeted by a beautiful lizardkin girl I recognized from the rescue at the junkyard. I could tell she recognized me too. My instincts weren’t screaming at me, and the company was nice, and we got to chatting as I ate and drank. It was nice to forget about my problems, and the drink helped to suppress some of my draconic urges.

I ended up talking with the girl, who’s name was Mina, for much longer than I expected to. She had deep green eyes that were slightly bigger than normal, and her hair was glossy chartreuse to match the scales of her hands and tail. By the time I bothered to check, it was already dark, and many of the adventurers had already left. The tavern was closing soon, and I had lots of orders to fill the next day. I got up to go back to my bedroom when I heard something metal clatter onto the counter behind me. Turning, Mina had disappeared. In her place was a napkin with a room number scrawled on it, and a key on a key ring. Maybe this would be a night for instincts after all.