Lone scooped up the remaining mana orbs that he hadn't been forced to use while restoring the Rock Dragon's leg, and he then straightening his spine and popped his back.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Lone nodded in satisfaction as he looked at the massive infant slowly standing up and testing out its new limb. "Yup. I can definitely heal you completely. It's a shame I don't have many orbs right now."

"How... is... possible?" the dragon asked with heaps of confusion in its voice.

Lone frowned. "What? I told you I'd restore your leg, didn't I? Did you think I was lying?"

The dragon slowly shook its head. "It's... just... so... unbelievable... Rockuncle... severed... it... from... existence..."

Lone chuckled arrogantly. "Like I give a fuck. If it existed before, I can make it exist again. I don't give a shit if 'Rockuncle' removed it permanently. Like that can stop me from bringing it back. What, did he tell you that it was impossible to restore?"

The baby Rock Dragon slowly nodded its head. "Yes... but... I... don't... know... much... and... my... family, no... my old... family... are... reclusive... so... maybe... they... were... wrong?"

Lone shrugged. "Maybe. Anyway, your speech is pretty annoying. You said you needed rocks, right? Feel free to eat the walls or something. After that, do you think you can fight?"

The infant hesitated for a moment and then answered, "I'm... not... sure. I've... never... been... in.. a fight... before."

Lone held his chin. "Oh well. We'll have you try. If Sophie is overwhelming you too easily, then we'll have a rematch when I've fully healed you."

With that proclamation, Lone and Sophie patiently waited as the Rock Dragon lumbered over to the canyon's walls and very slowly opened its jaw and began munching on the brittle rocks that it managed to knock loose.

Once it was finished, it carefully stretched its limbs to make sure that it could fight to the best of its ability. "I think... I think I am able to fight now."

"Oh! Your speech is much smoother. That's cool. Rocks, huh?" Lone commented as he wore a fascinated expression.

Sophie ignored him and stepped forward. She drew her two shortswords and got in an appropriate stance. "Come at us, Rock Dragon. give us everything that you have. We shall not die, so act as if you will, and do not hold back."

"I shall try," the infant responded.

Lone got himself comfy on a chair that he'd pulled out of his Dimensional Storage. He then created an ice-cold fruit drink and happily sipped on it as he watched his lover battle with the baby dragon.

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Lone focused his best on the fight with his eyes, and not with his soul-sensing abilities. Of course, he was doing this to farm his new skill, Night Vision.

Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Night Vision] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 9.

Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Night Vision] has levelled up! It is now Beginner Level 10.

Congratulations! the host's passive skill [Night Vision] has levelled up! It is now Intermediate Level 1.

'Sweet. Three levels after only ten-minutes?' Lone asked himself in pleasant surprise.

It had been a while since he'd had a skill level up so rapidly. To be fair, this canyon was perfect for this skill since it was pitch-black and nigh-impossible to see even as far as your nose.

'Please have a cool new effect,' he prayed as he pulled up the skill's details now that it had ranked up from beginner to intermediate.

Passive Skill: Night Vision

Makes seeing in areas that lack light 15% [+10%] easier.

[New!] Passively creates a very faint outline of stationary objects that have very little or no light reflecting off of them if the host focuses intently on their surroundings (can be targeted for an enhanced effect).

Cost: N/A Mastery: Intermediate Level 1

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Lone grinned. 'Sweet! I mean, it's a very specific and kinda useless new effect, but a new effect's still a new effect. It's been ages since I've got one after the first skill rank-up, hasn't it? I wonder how this skill will develop in the future? I'm kind of interested in how oddly specific it is about the absence of light. I should invest some time into farming this skill.'

He dismissed the skill's information and focused as hard as he could on Sophie and the Rock Dragon. A full minute later, he had no success. 'I guess it does need to actually be stationary for the enhanced version to work, huh? I was kinda hoping I could loophole that with the fact that they are stationary for a stupidly small fraction of a second. Oh well. Then again, it might not work on people, and just work on inanimate objects.'

Lone continued to think about this skill and experiment with it as he drank his fruit juice and waited for the dragon and Sophie to finish their fight.

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"It's my defeat," the baby Rock Dragon claimed as it collapsed onto the ground with trembling limbs.

Sophie frowned as she sheathed her swords. "You are weak. Too weak." She then glanced at Lone who was currently reading a book with extremely narrowed eyes. Clearly, he was struggling to see the words in the darkness.

"Lone, we're done here. We may return to the count now. We are looking forward to how you deal with the fact that we have not slain the dragon," Sophie said with a tinge of joy in her tone.

The foxkin creased his brow and shrugged lightly as he tossed his book and chair back into his Dimensional Storage. "Fuck 'em. We did the quest, more or less. Sure, this big fella ain't dead, but it won't be a threat to the county."

"I'm sorry to trouble you..." The baby didn't trust Lone nor Sophie, but it still felt the need to show that it was grateful for the promises of safety and healing that it had received.

Again, Lone shrugged. "I don't really care. In fact, we should make a show of it."

Sophie got a bad feeling upon seeing Lone's smirk with her Mana Sensing. 'He's awfully carefree of late... I suppose this is how he has always wanted to act, but his lacking strength had forced him to act more submissively and more carefully. Now that he is powerful beyond reason, he feels no need to hold himself back? Hmm... An interesting mindset...'

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Count Lorton closed his eyes as he cracked his neck. A painful moan eeked out of his throat as a maid entered his study and gracefully refilled his cup of coffee.

Worry filled her face as she looked at her lord. "Your Grace... I know it to be unbecoming of my status to question your actions, but is it wise to push your body so far? This is already your third day without sleep..."

The count sipped his coffee and exhaled deeply. "I do not mind. You are absolutely correct. I don't doubt that after this dragon fiasco is over, that I'll be forced to pay a ridiculous sum to a stuck-up healer to repair the damage to my body."

The maid looked like she wanted to cry as she watched her tall and rotund lord get right back to work. "You should delegate some of this work to Baron Fiscus. Even if he can't do it as well as Your Grace, surely you shouldn't be exerting yourself like this..."

Count Lorton didn't stop moving his hands as he read and dealt with the paperwork before him. "No. That baboon of a man is part of the reason I'm doing this. The damned Rock Dragon hasn't done any harm yet and is just sitting at the bottom of a canyon, but no, all of the peasant rabble have decided that it's an omen. It hardly helps that half of the lesser nobles and knights under me seem to agree. Foolishness. Pure and utter barbaric foolishness."

He sighed softly before he added, "I agree that it must be dealt with, but panicking and causing our local economy to haemorrhage itself is hardly the answer."

The maid looked disheartened, but she bowed her head and made to leave when suddenly the door to the office swung open.

The knight captain who had rudely barged into the count's study looked horrified, and sweat covered his face. "Your Grace! We're under attack!"

"What nonsense is this now?" Count Lorton muttered under his breath as he stood up. "Under attack? By whom or by what?"

"T-The SS-ranked adventurers and the R-Rock Dragon, Sir." Seeing his lord so honestly furious chilled the knight captain's racing blood, and served to immediately calm his anxious nerves.

"Of course. One thing after the damned other..." The count roughly ran his fingers through his oily hair as he glared at the knight. "Take me to them, now. If they truly are attacking me, I will publically denounce my claim to the county. This is foolishness on your part, no doubt, and nothing more."

The knight captain didn't dare to even try to refute his lord's words. He swiftly nodded his head and drew his sword as he began leading Count Lorton through the mansion.

'Hmmpf. As if that adventurer would attack my county, let alone my estate. If there's anything that I know, it's people. He is not the type to act without provocation. His interaction with you in the courtyard was proof enough of that. Fools. Fools everywhere. Clearly, he's managed to cajole or trick this dragon into following him here.' The count wasn't entirely correct, but he was certainly far wiser than the people around him were.

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It wasn't long before he, his knight captain, as well as the maid, had all arrived at the scene of the 'attack' in the estate's back garden.

Forty knights surrounded a large pile of rocks that had two people sat atop of it. Ten of these knights were trembling in fear while the other thirty were foaming at the mouth as they lay on the floor.

Count Lorton had to squint his eyes to focus on the pile of rocks since it was still the middle of the night. "As I thought, it is the dragon, but I see no signs of an attack from it."

"But Your Grace-"

"But nothing." Count Lorton's voice was harsh and unyielding. "Those knights weren't taken down by the dragon. The first thing I did was research Rock Dragons upon learning of this one's invasion into my territory, so I'm confident that I'd recognise an attack from one."

The count walked forwards and looked at the two people who were sat on top of the massive creature. "Lone and Sophie, I presume? It is hard to see at this hour."

"Yup. It's us." With a casual greeting, Lone jumped off of the dragon's back while Sophie remained up there. "'Sup?"

"Did you do this to my men?" the count asked.

Lone happily nodded. "They were being idiots. Sure, we teleported here with a dragon, but I specifically shouted that it was docile and under my control. I just knocked out the ones who went nuts when they saw it."

"Hmm..." Count Lorton did one final check on his surroundings before he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Wildren, take care of your men. If they truly were the ones to attack first, expect your pay to be docked this year for training them poorly."

The knight captain's face paled, but he otherwise saluted respectfully and vowed to accomplish the task that he had been given.

Count Lorton then spun around and began walking back towards his mansion. He turned his head to glance at Lone briefly before saying, "You, come. Keep the dragon here. I assume the girl can keep it under control. If not, we will all lose our heads, myself included. We have a lot to discuss it would seem, Adventurer Lone of The Wanderers."