Xano looked at Gregory, he seemed to be excited about his growth. It wasn’t unexpected. Considering it was done in the equivalent of two years, Gregory had made very good progress toward becoming powerful. Gregory would need to figure some things out on his own, though he had learned a number of things about what abilities are strongest for him. Strength and constitution could be trained, but were very difficult to do so with. This is part of the reason why it was recommended he get at least 100 in both with his stat points.

Traits were always harder to make a decision on. Gregory had already gotten the best of them, but there were too many to make an easy ‘this one is better’ blanket statement on the others. Many people liked the traits that gave more classes at an accelerated rate, but there were others that gave bonuses to stats directly. Many dragons took the Trolls Constitution for 10 trait points, simply because it negated their horrendous constitution. The traits that improved stats this directly were the only ones costing more than one point, which is why it was always hard for people to choose those traits. Even though they were very strong, others had far more utility or usefulness. On top of this, they gave the most benefit to races that had a baseline or negative modifier. Dragons taking the Draconic Wisdom trait were often considered somewhat foolish. Another baseline modifier of five gave them a boost of only a quarter or less. Picking another class at twice the rate for a tenth of the cost was far more beneficial. There were other things too, the hidden Perk-Finder trait being one of them. It was a trait that allowed perks to be gained more easily; it either reduced the requirements, or opened alternate methods. The hidden perks were perks that could only be found if their name was searched exactly. Of course, certain races knew of them because their ability when first entering this planet was to have visible access to hidden perks for the first year here.

As they neared the palace, Gregory riding atop Xano’s back, Gregory’s team were making their way out to do some more exploration of the city. Xano made an announcement to the group, letting them know what would happen now that Gregory had finished his training here.

“Now that Gregory is done with his training, we need to go see Aurum. It is very likely that he will ask you to leave now. Gregory, that would include you. Even though you would all be welcome, it is common for dragons to experience life outside the walls of our cities when they are young. Exploring with a trusty party is the safest way, so asking you to leave with Gregory is a very high chance. I am sure you expected to be heading out soon anyways, but I just wanted to let you know regardless. Make sure you take care of Gregory too now. He will be very weak physically, and physical attacks will be able to hurt him to a much larger degree. What might hardly knock the wind out of you could heavily injure him. His scales will protect him to a degree, but his health is very low and will stay that way until he is able to level up some.

Now let’s get moving to Aurum so he can see the progress Gregory has made, and give you all a proper send-off.”

The entire group looked at Gregory, seeing the scales on his hands and the sides of his face. He was wearing a white robe that covered most of his body, with black leathery boots on. With this robe on, only the scales on his hands and the sides of his face were even visible. They also saw the tail that he had as well, but that was a given considering even a very long robe would do little to hide the full size of it. The changes that would happen to Gregory were nearly complete now, the time spent in the zone to increase the amount of time he could train pushing the changes along that far as well. The party he was a part of could feel that he was much stronger than before, and could tell that his movements seemed “lighter” than before.

As they moved to the throne room of the palace, following Xano, the entire party were wondering how much the changes had truly affected Gregory. Humans normally gained very small bonuses from merging with another race, but Gregory seemed to have taken to it in a much larger way than most. The one human they had met previously who had merged with another race was barely distinguishable from a human, despite being a mix with a troll. The few differences between him and a regular human were the slightly larger size, the larger arms, and the thicker body hair. While wearing armor though, it was almost impossible to notice any differences aside from the man being maybe a foot taller than most humans. Gregory on the other hand was covered almost completely in scales, had a tail that couldn’t be missed, eyes that were the same as those of a dragon, two long horns growing from the sides of his forehead like those of a dragon’s, and pointed scaled ears similar to a dragons.

When the team made it to Aurum, he looked up from what he was working on at the moment.

“Glad to see Gregory has finished his training. It seems he is ready to begin his journey that every dragon goes through, the journey to grow so that he can do what he sees fit. Normally, he would go with members of his own race, but since he was a human first, we are sending him with you all. I am sure Xano mentioned it, but dragons are very vulnerable at the stage Gregory is at right now. They have very low constitution and strength, and have no real way of protecting themselves from powerful threats. Assuming you all agree to this, I will be opening a teleportation portal to a linked location of your choosing. Since Gregory is part human and therefore does have some vulnerability in scale coverage, I recommend an area where overall level is slightly under the party’s capabilities. This will not be permanent, but it should be followed at least until Gregory is able to better hold his own.

Now, choose a location. There are links throughout the world to dragon havens, as well as major cities of all races aside from the humans. To top it off, there are links to locations in the middle of these areas as well. Some of these places have very high safety, others are places where danger is unparalleled and true safety is unattainable. There are only three locations I will allow though, one is in the middle of a large human zone, which will make it very safe for a party of your calibre. The second is in the center of a location that all of you aside from Gregory likely know of. It is where many go to originally train and gain levels should they decide not to go out into the world on their own; it contains numerous hordes of creatures that, although are stronger than the creatures in human areas, can be killed easily enough to gain levels. The one downside is that it is already sparsely populated because of others going there to train themselves. The last is a place far outside of areas used by the sentient races, but one that will offer a fitting challenge all the way until you make it back to civilization.”

Most of the group upon hearing this thought that the first option would be the best choice, but decided to let Gregory make the decision. They knew that the second option was a bad choice, only because all the areas were picked over and would never allow him to grow stronger without getting into more dangerous zones surrounding the areas. The third area on the other hand was promising, and likely very worth doing, but they didn’t want to be away from civilization for as long as Aurum made it sound like they would be. Considering it would be a fitting challenge, likely meant they would become stronger than they thought they could in the given amount of time. They would have no way of procuring new armor or weapons though, and would be at a disadvantage once their gear fell behind what they were capable of.

After some soft words between the original group, Elise stepped forward, her greyish fur moving slightly from the beating of Aurum’s wings.

“We have decided to let Gregory decide where to go. It is after all for him that we came here, and for him that we need to grow stronger in one of those places.”

She looked over to Gregory, giving a gentle, albeit seemingly feral, smile. Gregory stood up, at these words, elated that his party had decided to give him as much confidence as they did.

“Even though I am new to this place, and do not know much about where I’ll be going, I have decided to go with the third option. I trust you would not give us anything that would put any of us in danger, and hope to someday make it back to thank you for this opportunity.”

Aurum gave a “bow” to the party upon hearing Gregory’s words, pulling back one of his massive front legs, and bringing the other low. His chin was resting on the ground, and his face was barely before Gregory’s body. This was a symbol of respect that dragons used for anybody who spoke highly of them, but only if it was done with honesty. The fact that he took such note of Gregory’s words caused the entire party to give out a soft and mostly muffled sigh of relief. Aurum stood back upon on all fours, before making one last announcement.

“Now, I have a gift for Gregory to accept, it is a more permanent robe for him to wear. It is formed from a very magical plant that was spun into cloth, and has the property to permanently apply magical effects cast to enchant it. I hope you all enjoy the adventure you are about to embark upon.”

At these words, Aurum handed the robe to Gregory before opening the portal. As the portal opened, the entire group began to move toward it. Upon stepping through, they were nothing short of breathless. The area was a large hill in the center of a forest, green stretching as far as the eye could see. The portal closed almost immediately after the last of them had made it through, shutting them off from easy access back to the dragon city they had left. There were mountains visible in all directions, and even as far as the eye could see, there were no cities visible. What was visible was that they were on a very large island in the middle of one of the oceans, and that they were likely expected to face heavy threats before making it back to any mainland. One unexpected thing about this planet was also that when Gregory looked at the map, he realized that there was much less water on this planet than on Earth. Earth’s surface was 71%.

The levels and strength of the creatures in this area were not as low as the group was led to believe, the first encounter they saw being with a group of large bear like creatures with steel feathered bodies. They resisted the bladed and weapon attacks of the party when they began attacking. There were 5 bears in the group, and all of them had a level in the 60s. Since weapons and physical attacks weren’t working, the members of the party began attacking with magic. This time though, Gregory was actually able to do something with his magic to help in attacking. He first covered himself with the barrier, and then threw a fireball at the group of bears. It exploded in the center of them, causing some damage, but their steel feathered bodies protected them from much of the damage that Gregory had seen previously with magical attacks. He switched his offense to frozen lances, hitting each of the bears with one. What he saw made a small grin cross his face. The creatures were slowed immensely, the steel absorbing the cold and doing far more substantial damage to them despite the ice shattering into tiny shards upon hitting their bodies.

The creatures were difficult to manage, lunging with deadly force and precision. Despite their reduced speed, and the damage they had already taken, the group of them were still making powerful attacks. Gregory had been hit a few times, taking some damage even through the barrier he had around himself and the scales that seemed to stop almost all damage. The rest of the party’s armor protected them for the most part, but still became slightly damaged upon taking repeated hits from these bears. Even Gregory’s newfound power was not enough to keep completely safe. This slight fear of death though was the thing that he had learned to embrace for power, not weakness. It was only under the knowledge that death was around the corner with any mistake, that a person did their very best to stay alive and gain maximum experience from an encounter. Still, to put them in an area like this was unexpected and putting strain on the entire party. It was at this point that one of the bears died, followed by another two bears after a couple more spells.

The entire party felt a wave of relief now that they were only facing two bears instead of five. Gregory had gained four levels, boosting his status by some with the added health and mana from leveling. In fact, the added health saved him, as a swipe of claws slammed into his side, throwing him several meters into a tree. He took damage, enough to put him at just a few left. Gregory had little enough health that he would have been dead had it not been for the recent level ups from the three defeated bear-like creatures. He got up with difficulty, and then threw more frozen lances toward the creatures. With renewed vigor, the entire group attacked, spells flying at the creatures while they continued to move quickly and violently to attack the group. Elise was using a small blizzard like spell, reserved only to those with a level in the spellsword class. It was a class that was unlocked through a combination of five levels in knight and wizard. That she had achieved such a thing in such a short time and at her level was an impressive feat, but the entire group had similar feats. It was something that races aside from human had, base class levels above level 1 and sometimes even 2. Not to mention, training could improve the classes as well with enough of it.

When all the bears had been eradicated, Gregory was panting heavily, he managed to reach level 10 and gained another trait point. He had slumped to the ground, and turned off the barrier that had been previously protecting him.