Blood blade formed along the edges of my arms as the vorander on the ground helplessly wriggled before turning into motes of light that twinkled and dissipated in the air. More shrieks followed as the ground trembled again, and my blood sense alerted me to four bodies approaching me from my left. My newfound air affinity came into play as I propelled myself into the air without any support right as the voranders came charging into view, bellowing and howling to announce their presence as I lifted them all into the air, their attempts to resist doing nothing but annoying me...before I let go of them, with a singular earth spike impaling their heads as they landed, their bodies fighting desperately to hold on before I swiped their throats, decapitating them and watching them disappear like their tunnelling ally did.

I slowly descended to the ground, my unprotected feet squelching in the wet soil and making me wish my avatar could have boots equipped. My senses told me there were no more enemies in the vicinity, so after a mixture of water and air washed away the scent of vorander blood and sweat, I followed the tracks left by the deceased voranders, thinking they might lead back to the enemy spawning point. In the real world, how much intelligence a vorander had was always a gamble, as I had seen some displays of forethought that a vorander mind shouldn't have been capable of, while also witnessing idiotic behavior that directly contradicted their reputation of being cunning. Either way, following the tracks left behind seemed as good a course as any to find the remaining enemies.

The simulated jungle didn't miss many details that I could see, managing to accurately reproduce the environment in its entirety. Sight, sounds, smells, no sense was left wanting as the surroundings seemed as realistic as they could be. Even my own bodily processes were reproduced to an alarming degree, though that may have been the soul magic in play.

It seemed the voranders had all spawned in the same area, as I smelled them before my senses picked up on them, twenty-five, no twenty-six voranders, all fighting each other to tear off strips of meat from a fallen beast, something at least thirty feet long and very much dead. If I were to face this situation in the real world, I would pick them off one by one, draining the blood from each vorander on the periphery before making my way to the ones in the middle. Most of them would be too preoccupied by the feast before them to notice a few among their number dropping dead, and vorander intelligence being what it was, they would likely assume whatever was dead had been killed by one of the stronger ones currently biting off chunks of flesh and bone.

However, seeing as this was training, I decided to try out some new tactics with my new and improved core.

An hour later, I knelt beside a small mound of vorander corpses that were slowly disintegrating and disappearing, blood splatter and withered vines covering the ground entirely as I breathed heavily. Despite the infusion of essence to my body, it seemed the massive boost in performance I was expecting failed to live up to expectations, as I still grew tired after a short period of exertion. Granted, my stamina lasted longer than usual, and my muscles didn't burn as much, but it was still slightly underwhelming. If the illusion field was capable of recreating my body to this extent, then my physical functions in the real world were likely to produce the same results.

My magical capabilities, however, were noticeably higher than I thought. In terms of responsiveness, how quickly essence travelled from my core to my surroundings, and how quickly I could exert control over the essence in the environment, there was a marked improvement. I was also able to select which element I would use faster. Normally, there would be a small delay between me choosing the element, and the element becoming active from my reserves of essence. Now that delay was miniscule to the point of being negligible, it was microseconds at most.

When it came to the number of elements I had at my disposal, the list had gotten shockingly lengthy. Blood, nature, fire, water, earth, air, lightning, and something that I suspected was a latent spatial affinity that I would have to explore in private. In theory I was compatible with all of them and could use any of them with the same proficiency as the one I was most comfortable with, blood. In practice...I had just created my core, and so while my blood spells may have been slightly boosted due to the fact that my core was comprised of blood essence, the rest of my arsenal needed to be developed over a long period of time to prevent any overlaps and get the most out of the variety that lay before me. Thankfully, developing spells wasn't exactly a difficult endeavor, as I had a plethora of fictional works to draw inspiration from. Fireballs and lightning bolts were easy enough, but I wasn't imaginative enough to come up with something that would turn all the blood cells in a body cancerous, or subtly changing the electrical signals in a brain to disorient a foe and leave them incapable of trusting the evidence of their senses.

The jungle around me began disappearing just as my breath returned to an even level, and I opened my eyes to see the same dragonkin monitor that had introduced the illusion field to me in the middle of poking my arm with the tip of her claw, a blush creeping across her face as she realized that I was awake and cognizant of her actions.

"I'm so sorry!" She hastily retracted her finger and backed away while rushing to explain. "I was just curious about you, since we don't get a lot of humans here, and you were occupied and I thought it wouldn't be a big deal and -"

"It's fine," I cut her off as I saw Elder Dusk approaching me from afar. "I don't mind, just trim your claws first if you're gonna do that in the future. As a general rule, humans are soft and can't handle dragon claws, or fangs...or scales. You know, it would probably be for the best if you just didn't touch me." While I wasn't trying to upset the monitor, who seemed relatively young based on her mannerisms, I also wasn't that keen on getting poked by sharp claws. I could easily see a scenario where she accidentally sliced my arm in half while I was in the illusion field and got traumatized as a result.

Thankfully, Elder Dusk interjected before I needed to, as he flew over to where I was getting up from the ground. "Hmm, perhaps you should be more mindful of your actions, little one. I think a lesson on human culture should help you remember how...fragile humans can be if treated without consideration."

"As you say, Elder!" The girl bowed before him until he nodded, which she somehow sensed as she rose and returned to her post without doing anything else, accepting her punishment without a word of complaint or protest.

"If you wish to come here in the future, you may do so with Reela, as she should be able to do so by now." The elder said without turning in my direction, glancing at his fellows still in the illusion field.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Elder Dusk," I began to ask, "Why is this called the illusion field instead of...something more accurate, or something related to soul magic?"

He actually sighed and shook his head, probably the most human thing I'd ever seen from him at that point. "Don't remind me. Its name was the result of a compromise between the elders and the team that developed it. Suffice it to say that they were reluctant to change the name of their creation, until...certain words were exchanged." He finally turned to me as he spoke. "In any case, just be glad its name is short and to the point. After all, nobody would refer to something by its more specific name if it took an hour just to say it all."

With the opening of a portal beside us, he brought the conversation to a close as we stepped through, returning to my shared cave dwelling with Reela, though it seemed she was gone for the moment. I knew she was taking lessons on her own, and Elder Dusk had hinted that the two of us would be working more closely in the future, hence the somewhat aggressive approach to teambuilding he took for us.

"Any strain in your soul from the illusion field?" He became much more informal when it was just the two of us, though he sometimes switched back and forth after convening with his fellow elders, or speaking with his elder status to other dragons or dragonoids.

"None that I can feel," I responded. Even if I had just undergone creating my core, my soul still felt nothing even close to pain. "Does that mean I can use the illusion field for longer next time?" Even with all the flaws and lack of user interface, the illusion field was still more engaging than the lessons and experimenting I was otherwise occupied with.

"Hmm...for now, stick to two hours per session, with one session every three days. If you feel fine even after one month, then you can increase your time spent within."

"Elder Dusk, there's an emergency! Elder!" a loud and anxious voice yelled into both our minds as a pale yellow dragonkin flew into the cave looking weary. I could hear sizzling coming from something eating away at his scales, and there were deep cuts and missing fingers that said he came directly from a battlefield. "There are new anomalies that -" The injured dragonkin clammed up as soon as he noticed my presence, before dismissing me entirely and turning his full attention to the elder. "The council is calling for you at once, elder."

"Sigh, very well. Rhaaj, reflect on your performance in training today before you rest. Remember to recover before doing anything else, your soul is still somewhat fragile from today's exertion." After leaving me with that advice, the elder turned back into his true dragon form and took to the air, rustling my clothes and raising a cloud of dust. The dragonkin sneered at me before taking flight as well and following the elder.

It seemed like Elder Dusk was being called to duty more often than usual. It wasn't uncommon for someone to interrupt one of his lessons, citing something urgent he needed to address. I didn't want to speculate, but was there something more urgent than the voranders that needed to be dealt with? That messenger mentioned new anomalies, so presumably it was either something I was unfamiliar with, or a type of vorander that required the presence of dragons to suppress.

Well, whatever it was, I was safe in my little cave. The only mildly dangerous threats here were when the draconic kids got too excited after I mentioned some stories from Earth and they did their best to recreate them...and when Reela hurled insults at annoying teachers or someone who proposed to her, or any of her fellow students who teased her for being a princess. The dragons had no king, per se, as the council of elders ruled over them all with equal stations, but being the firstborn daughter of the firstborn son of the elder placed her pretty high up on the hierarchy totem pole, and there were plenty of dragon teenagers who were content to drag her down if they could.

Evidently, bullying wasn't limited to Earth, or even humans for that matter.

I let the idle thought disappear as I ordered some food, my stomach rumbling after being devoid of nutrients for too long, and I demolished the meal that appeared before me, only pausing to drink some water I had collected beforehand. For some reason, the water I created from essence didn't taste that great compared to the real deal, even if it would do in a pinch. Still hungry, I wiped my mouth with my sleeve before ordering more dishes from the formation, and just as my second meal shimmered into existence on the table, so did Reela. It was easy to forget that she was accomplished in spatial magic when I became accustomed to the elder portalling me around everywhere.

"So, any news on this emergency that called your grandfather away?" I tried to speak aloud whenever I could, afraid that I would totally forget how to talk once I left the dragon lands and their unique method of communication. Reela was amenable to my suggestion and spoke with me whenever possible, though she said she needed the practice, as she wasn't fluent in human just yet. I switched up what language I spoke to her just to annoy her sometimes, but she would retaliate by using soulspeak from then on. It was at times like that I was tempted to just give in to the devil on my shoulder and mesmerize her again, but that felt like a slippery slope to tread.

The scarlet dragonkin flopped onto her bed, which she had custom-made to be softer and larger than my own, before groaning. "Who cares about that! Nithellyn just said he would speak to my parents about formalizing our union! We don't even have a damn union! That little blue-tail has barely spoken to me since I've come back and he thinks he can slither into the good graces of the elders like this? He will wish he was dead by the time I'm done with him..."

I created tiny wind walls around my ears to muffle the sounds of my 'mentor' whining about her social life. Well, at least she had a social life to complain about. I spent all my time with her, her grandfather, or a bunch of kids. To compound the issue, my loyal companion Spearmint had gone catatonic since I entered the dragon lands, entering a kind of pseudo-coma where he didn't respond to me at all despite the lack of any visible issues. And my legion of voranders that resided in my space, well, they didn't exactly make for the greatest conversationalists.

I felt a lack of vibrations, and knew that Reela had stopped her rant, prompting me to 'unplug' myself, as it were. I placed the empty dishes in front of the formation where they first appeared and they quickly returned to where they had come from, the formation glowing as it retracted them.

"Have you tried out the illusion field?" I asked her offhandedly.

"Sigh, duh," she responded, making me wonder where and how she picked that up, "But it gets boring after a while. There's only so many combinations you can take on before it gets repetitive. It would be better if I could use it with other people, but the creators said they're still working on it, and that was twenty years ago. At this rate, I'll be dead before they come out with their next big --"

Something wet and sticky connected with the back of my neck, and I had no time to react before I was forcefully plunged into unconsciousness, finding myself in my soul realm once again, the Seed floating beside me and letting me know this wasn't something caused by the illusion field. Just as I was questioning what had happened and began trying to return my consciousness to my body, my focus was drawn by an unnaturally white blob flying towards me.

A transparent cube of air boxed it in, answering the question of whether or not I could use the elements in my soul space, and prevented it from moving any further....until it started charging at one of the walls and I felt raw emotions emanating from it. I backed away as a spider-web of cracks appeared on the side closest to me, and the white blob flew at me once more....before I stopped it in mid-air with a continuous lightning bolt, as it involuntarily twitched and danced in pain, going one step further when it was on the brink of destruction so I could truly end whatever threat this thing was.

"SURRENDER." I undid any shackles that restrained me as I let the alien blob feel the full force of my Control, my taming power brought to bear against its unprotected and vulnerable self. It lacked the capacity to even comprehend the meaning of resistance, to say nothing of the damage I had inflicted upon it. Sure enough, its aura changed within seconds, and I promptly sent it to my beast space, thinking I'd have to rename it eventually if I picked up lifeforms like that in the future, or I'd have to stick to referring to it as my inventory.

Without any obstructions, my consciousness returned back to the real world....just in time for a small red fist to rocket me through the air and affix me to the wall of the cave like a stuffed deer head, the wall itself keeping me in place. I barely had time to register the look of surprise on Reela's face, as well as the surrounding damage to the cave's interior, before I was once more rendered unconscious and my eyes closed of their own accord.