Chapter: 04

Ken-POV

He woke up late, peeling a sticky leaf from his face in an attempt to look less disheveled. Looking at the leaf he swept off his clothes straightening them out, thinking about the lines he knew were probably imprinted on his face for a few minutes.

It reminded him of the petals on the stranglberries bush, how they fused together creating the outer layer of the fruit.

He was thinking along these line when an idea popped into his mind. What if he could make clothes like that? It would be renewable, and a form of camouflage. He remembered how the circle magic welded the components together when it was created, and his idea evolved further. ‘Wooden armor maybe? It’s better than nothing right?’

He grabbed a piece of wood from the pile meant for firewood, which they still hadn’t made, and grabbed the bolo to carve with.

Sitting down by the doorway, he put the wood side by side. He inscribed regenerate, growth and speed by each other creating a long loop. He did some simple math and added the numerical values for the branches to simply thicken.

Pouring his magic into the runes was easier than before, and before he knew it the circle flashed and a pool of energy pooled in the center. Unlike before though, the energy had nowhere to go. It rippled like a pool, moving too and froe. The wood did grow a little, thickening to the size of his thigh before stopping.

After that, the energy just sat there. It was kind of cool, but did it serve a purpose? Nicking the woods edge, he was astounded when it immediately regenerated. The pool didn’t even use much power.

“Did I just make a regeneration spell?” He made a circle of bamboo to test something, and inscribed the same runes as before, but with the sole intent in the words to simply regenerate whatever organic material was in the center. Pulling out a clump of tall grass outside including the roots and all, he put it inside the circle after activating it.

The grass became nice and spry, and with a flick he cut a stem. The blade of grass grew back. He did it again, then again and again. It didn’t even dent the pool of energy. Taking the circle, he went outside to the stranglberries bush and looped it over a branch. Then he snapped the branch at the tip, seconds later it was back just as before!

This was awesome! If a frost came or an animal damaged a plant while he was gone, one of these circles could restore it to full health given it had the stored energy.

I hurried inside to wake up Lapillus and before I could reach her she tried covering her head using her purple juice stained wings. “No, go back to bed.”

I was surprised for a moment, before realizing something. The cave was usually very dark, yet now there was a soft glow. I looked at my hand, and the circle of swirling energy. My eyes grew further, if that was possible. “Yes! Let there be light!” I did a little nerd dance hopping around in glee. He literally just invented his first magic lightbulb!

“Lapillus, wake up I just created something remarkable!”

Suddenly she was partially alert, moving one wing out of the way to see me, squinting in hatred at the light. “What the hell merits waking me up this early?”

I looked at her a moment, then the sun outside well over the horizon and back at her. She noticed my look and rolled over groaning in surprise. *cough “It’s ok, I just got up a little bit ago, we both slept in. I guess that juice hit us harder than I thought haha.

Anyway, first of all I just invented a freaking lightbulb, so we don’t have to live in a dark cave anymore. Secondly, said light source is a complete regenerative spell. I already tested it on plants, and it hardly used any power. I even used it on two pieces of wood and it regenerated without any roots or leaves.”

This caught her attention, as she squinted at the bamboo circle in my hand. Her eyes widened in surprise, then she giggled a little. “Silly, of course it’s possible. We used that spell all over the cave when I lived at home. It’s a maintenance spell, used for simple stuff. I was gonna show you during your next lesson, but this works too.”

I felt my face flush red, realizing just how excited I got over a janitorial spell. But then I cheered up, remembering how many uses it had.

“Hey, let’s use a spell on the door. This way it welds together, and it’ll regenerate if the weather messes with it.”

“Or, we can make breakfast and wash up?” I looked over our purple splattered figures, especially Lapillus’ furry belly. By the end of the night she was just playing with her food, so she was really sticky.

‘Oh… ya good idea. Alright, let’s head out. I’d like to grab a few herbs again too while we’re at it.” She nodded and tried hopping on my shoulder lazily. I avoided the puppy eyes and walked outside to avoid the sticky menace.

We reached the creek fast, and I washed my shirt hanging it to dry as we searched the underbrush for specific plants. We were lucky, and by the time my shirt had dried enough to wear, we found two plants I identified from my studies. A wintergreen patch grew further off the stream in a little clearing full of random flowers and grasses. The second plant was called Canada Violet, used in poultices on sores. The wintergreen was good as a poultice on sores, bruises, and insect bites. (True facts)

Hiking back to base camp I planted the new herbs in a line near the stranglberries bush, and put growth circles around them. They reacted immediately, and to my surprise grew to prime condition without using all the energy present. I covered the circle to block the light from giving away the camp, then went inside after restocking on berries to eat.

“You know, I was wondering if we really needed to visit the stream so often. Isn’t there a word for spring or water in draconic?”

“Hmm, there is one for a water ball. It’s not earth magic though, and I only learned it from another water dragon. Here, I think it goes like this.” She drew some swirling marks in the dirt completely foreign to the earth spells. I looked it over a moment memorizing it, comparing the markings with the ones he knew already.

From his excellent ability to decipher new languages and discern patterns fast, some of the markings even made some sense. From there, he discerned which rune meant what, and set to trying it out once.

The style was different in that it had to be written in a line, and when he inserted the energy, he had to say an incantation. “Summon water ball!” the stick absorbed at least three times the normal amount and a basketball sized water orb materialized from nowhere. Then it shot off at high speed, splashing against a tree down the hill.

“Cool… I think I might faint now?” Ten minutes later he woke up to Lapillus licking his face to wake him up… or not. She just wanted the berry juiced smeared over his chin.

“Ugh, my head feels like crap… Water spells suck, did you know that?” She sits up and nods in understanding, before falling back into her pile of leaves she was sleeping in.

“So… what if we use the water and regenerative spells on each other? If I made a bowl or something, we could engrave it. This way you just add power, it refills and you take a drink without passing your limits.”

I didn’t really get a response, but she shakes her shoulders so I assume my plans a go ahead.

Locating a large rock at the back of the cave I leaned it against the wall so I could use the flat side like a table. ‘Well that was the easy part.’ He thought while huffing from the exertion.

Recalling my short crash course in human mage powers, I concentrated on the rock creating a layer of earth magic over my hands. Then I came up with an idea. At first he was just going to guide the power with his hands, distributing it evenly before giving the stone the order to bend to his will.

But what if he told the power what to do instead? What if it was something as simple as ‘mold rock’? He first tried the original idea, and as expected the stress was too much. The spell failed and the smaller rock crumbled.

Then he tried the second idea ordering the mana to repel and mold the rock. When he touched the stone it gave slightly. The surface rippled at his touch but nothing more. Pushing harder, his hand sunk a little further. He pushed harder and fed more energy to the glove. This time the rock gave way like putty.

Elated at his success, he started smoothing out the sides of the rock making a roughly triangular shaped pedestal. When he finished that, he scooped out some stone and made a little arch from each corner making a pyramid at the top. The sides were left open, for obvious reasons.

Engraving the runs for the regeneration on each corner with intent directed at a water rune at the top of the pyramid directed at the bowl he thought over the work as he took a break. It was decent, but it could use some art work possibly.

As he waited, his energy slowly increased and as usual he felt a slight cap increase from stressing his limits. He smiled as the refreshing feeling of reaching full energy filled his body.

He immediately walked over to the runes and gathered a grapefruit sized clump of energy before directing it through the runes. When the spell finished, a stream of tiny water balls were constantly summoned creating a stream as they fell into the bowl. When it topped off he cupped a handful of water and drank a little. It tasted ok, and it filled up again. The dirt he washed off in the bowl dissipated as the regeneration ability removed the impurities returning the water to its original form. So it was self-cleaning too! He needed to make dishes and silverware like this. He’d be rich!

Suddenly though, as he watched the water regenerate he felt stupid.

Water tasted bland right? Well the fruit already provided a sweet tangy juice with a good amount of hydration value to it, why not just make a juice fountain? He got to work immediately, creating another pedestal with a deep bowl. His proficiency with molding was increasing, so he had a new pedestal carved and ready within an hour instead of three.

Regrowing the bush outside, he collected the fruit and poured all the juice into his new bowl. When he finished, he focused the regenerative powers on the juice completely and nothing else. When the spell finished, the juice seemed to clear a little as if it became a little cleaner and a green hue enveloped the entire bowls surface. The blue liquid was cast in a minty green light and even absorbed some of the power actively for a moment.

Taking a stone cup he molded beforehand, he dunked it into the thin juice to take a test taste. The juice was perfect, like there were no chunks in it before and the viscosity was like that of a cola on earth.

It was a refreshing cold as that was how it was originally, and surprisingly his power regenerated much faster after consuming the cup full. The juice as expected refilled and he rejoiced at the success! When he showed Lapillus, she became frantic and dunked her head in the bowl slurping the rich liquid down like a cape buffalo in a drought.

They talked excitedly for a while until he was forced to replenish the stored power once from drinking so much. Lapillus hugged my shoulder the rest of the day in gratitude. Evidently, dragons had a sweet tooth, who knew?

When that test went successful, he continued long into the night making a better version of the juice generator. He made a small flask with a belt loop and simple screw cap. For the cap, he wrapped a strip of wintergreen in a groove to stop leaking and add a minty smell. Around the base of the cap, he inscribed tiny regenerative runes to keep the flask in good shape. Then he filled it with juice and made a regenerative circle for that too.

Feeling a little snackish, he made a little box and clipped a branch from the stranglberries bush, with a single long berry on it. The case was thin and split down the middle. At the top I molded the box around the stem of the fruit and carved a set of regenerative runes over the interior as well. He hung the box on his belt as well right next to the flask.

The stone was a dull red with little specks of black interspersed, so it looked ok. Whenever he needed a fruit to eat now, all he had to do was open the box, pick the fruit, then close and wait for it to finish Regrowing.

It was like a lunch sack he couldn’t run out of. He was so proud, he sacrificed one of his keys from earth for each to form them into a thin band of silver crisscrossing the surface like a cross with his name engraved on the side plate.

In his opinion it was the coolest thing in existence.

Reattaching his bolo knife to its sheathe he posed for Lapillus for her to observe the newest additions. “So, how do I look?”

“Oh… like a kid with a fanny pack growing off his waist.”

“What! That’s preposterous, I look epic. Just imagine it, your hiking in the dessert and your nowhere near any water or food. Then you reach to your waist and low and behold there’s a full refreshing drink and fresh fruit. I say we’re lucky as all hell.”

“If you say so, can we go to sleep now?” she yawned cutely, blinking her cute little eyes at him.

There were plenty of projects at his fingertips now, but instead he gave in to the full powers of puppy eyes and headed to their makeshift bed.

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Kens Parents-POV

“What the hell! Is that even a thing? Why can’t I do that yet?” Mrs. Reyes looked at the screen like she wanted to pull her hair out, while her husband was in the middle of an aneurism from current events.

His son just became a total cheat! Was he proud? Sure, but more than anything he was aggravated how much his son could come up with and he could barely survive. The image wasn’t clear enough to read the runes his dragon was teaching him, but just hearing how it worked was infuriatingly simple compared to other methods.

Not to mention, how the hell did his son pick up sculpting and molding skills so fast. The first try he watched, the rock shattered. A moment later he’s working it like it’s made of playdough! He was a total monster in disguise.

Thankfully there was a big event going on far away from Ken, where a group of humans fought over an old cabin with an aggressive group of orcs. Nobody really noticed what Ken was up to thankfully, so he didn’t gain the ire of anyone yet. If anyone did see anything, they were too uncaring to make a fuss over it. Anyone else would probably make a big deal over it attracting attention to Kens feed channel.

Trying to ignore a returning sense of foreboding, Ken's father wandered off to eavesdrop on some other mages conversations. It'd been so long since they'd interacted with anything on this side of the barrier, there were bound to be a few things he missed.