I stared at the Princess as she slept, Mia chowing down on some more meat.
Looking up at me, Mia sent an image of the Princess waking up and then us with a questioning tone.
“We’re gonna talk to her,” I said back, sending her an image of us talking to her.
Mia yipped, altering the image to show the Princess shaking in her shoes.
“Ah. Good point.”
Mia giggled and curled up against me and made herself shiver like she expected the Princess to. I smiled at her antics and kissed her forehead, knowing exactly what Leah would say if she saw us : “SEE! I TOLD YOU THAT YOU LIKED SNAKES!”
After I kissed Mia, she squawked and looked up at me in confusion. I laughed at her and kissed her forehead again. She then giggled and sent me an image of me doing it again.
“You’re the weirdest little sister I’ve never had,” I responded, though I still complied.
~~~
Soon the girl began to stir and I looked down to her as I pulled my hood back on, Mia again asleep in my arms (Geez, this Dragon likes to sleep). The Princess sat up, shaking her head, muttering under her breath.
“Dragon… Prince… What was I dreaming about?” she muttered before looking up.
When she saw us sitting down in front of her, she froze in place. For about ten seconds, we stared at one another, one assessing the other. Then I lifted a hand up.
“Heya.”
She looked at me, confused. I waited. She then shook her head, stood up and poked my cheek. I frowned.
“At least ask before you touch someone. I’m pretty sure it’s considered rude to touch without permission.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s rude to spy on people, especially women,” she shot back.
I raised a brow. “Woman?” I looked her up and down slowly. “I don’t see it.”
Her face went red and she turned away. “Didn’t have to do that,” she muttered.
“Then don’t be an ass.”
She turned to glare at me and was about to open her mouth and say something when I interrupted.
“And if you go, ‘Do you know who I am?’ I will hit you over the head with a rock,” I said.
She snapped her mouth closed, embarrassed. Then she shook her head.
“Okay, sorry. I should introduce myself,” she said, clearing her throat. “I’m Princess Treia Kia of the Ghatha Kingdom. It’s nice to meet you, Prince Jason.”
“Jason.”
She blinked. “Uh, Jason?”
“Just call me Jason. I don’t like formalities. Plus, I’m supposed to be undercover,” I responded, waving my hand over my cloak. Mia then chirped sleepily. I smiled. “We’re supposed to be undercover, sorry.”
Treia Kia stared at me with her green eyes questioningly. “Why?” She drew out the “W” for a second, emphasizing the question.
“Why are you in the middle of a forest at Level 4?”
She blushed. “Good point. I’m out here to get my class. My aunt didn’t want me to Level until I found a husband. My dad and uncle didn’t like that, so they told her that if I didn’t find one by the time I was 16, I could start Leveling. I turned 16 a few days ago and came back here from the castle to Level as much as I could. But then I found out that ambient Mana has begun to start rising and the Levels of beasts are higher than usual. Then, my dad said I couldn’t leave because there was an Abyssal sighting.” She sighed. “So I snuck out and here I am.”
I nodded. “I think there’s more about this ambient Mana you’re not telling me. Do you think there’s going to be a-” I quickly made something up. “- monster outbreak or whatever you call it here?”
“You mean a Dungeon Break? Yeah. We think it’s underground somewhere. We just need to find it. It would also explain the amount of Earth and Stone attuned beasts around lately.”
I nodded. Dungeons. Good to know. “So, that must mean it’s harder to Level, huh?”
She shrugged with a downcast expression. I thought for a moment. Then an idea popped into my head.
“I can help you, if you’d like. Help you find monsters to Level with-”
“REALLY?” Treia exclaimed, leaning towards me and waking up Mia, who hissed at her. “I mean, I’d love that, and uh-”
I sighed. I feel like I’ll regret this very quickly.
***
With a high-Level guide, Treia felt like she could fight anything.
Well, that was until Jason said, “But I’m not going to help you fight anything. I’m just going to make sure nothing that you can’t handle tries to kill you.”
His Dragon, Mia, chirped her affirmation from inside his cloak, where he was holding her.
“Er, about your Dragon… why doesn’t she talk like us?”
He looked down to his Dragon and sighed. “She’s pretty young, around eight, from what I can gather. Doesn’t stop her from being terrifying when she needs to be.”
“Eight?” Treia said, disbelieving. “I would have thought she was older to have a human form! What’s her Evolution Level?!”
Jason stared at Treia until she realized how much she was prying. Her face went red again. “Er, I mean, sorry.”
He looked at her for another moment. “I’ve never had a Bond before, so I don’t really know what an Evolution is. It says she’s Evolution Level 1.”
“ONE?”
A bolt of lightning cracked next to Treia’s face and she flinched. He looked down to Mia, who had poked her head out of his cloak and glared at Treia.
“Ah. She wants you to stop yelling,” Jason said, patting his Dragon’s head.
“Right, right, sorry,” Treia said to Mia, who nodded.
What an interesting pair.
***
“You got this!” I yelled to Treia as she hit a boar over the head with the hilt of her sword again and again.
“You’re not helping!” she yelled back.
“Try hitting it at the base of its neck!”
She did so, and the boar yelped, making an attempt to buck her off of it. She then stabbed down in the same spot with her dagger, easily getting through its defenses.
“Level 7!” she called as she killed it.
Grinning, I blurred over to her, something I loved doing. Running around fast enough to become a blur was something I could get used to.
She flinched as I appeared next to her, Mia riding my shoulders again.
“What’re your Stats, if you’re okay with sharing them?” I asked as I skinned the boar quicker than she could keep up with.
She seemed to think for a bit. “Uh, 10, 14, 9, 10, 10, 10. Why?”
“Just wondering what type of Class you’ll get.”
She smacked her forehead as if she’d never even thought of it. “Right. Classes…” She scowled. “My Classes are going to be affected by my stupid title : Next In Line. I don’t know why royalty is like this for Humans. It’s also only humans.”
“Man, I guess I have it good,” I said smugly, looking at her. “How does it affect your Classes?”
“It’ll probably give me a Class that is focused on me being Royalty.”
“Hm.”
“I don’t want to support people. I want to be at the front lines fighting, not throwing spells like some sort of coward. I’m supposed to fight, not sit around in a castle acting all high and mighty.”
I nodded. “I don’t like being a Prince, but I’m forging my own path. I want to be a Battlemage.”
Treia looked at me in wonder. “That’s a hard Class to get. I don’t doubt that you can get it, but why? I mean, they’re all amazing and powerful…”
“You have bad experiences with Battlemages, huh?”
She nodded as I stored away the boar. “I mean, some skills that Battlemages can get can affect their mental states. I’ve met some who can’t live without fighting. I mean, in terms of being stuck up, Void Mages take the number 1 spot but Battlemages are a close second.”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“I think you’re getting a bit off track.”
She blinked. “Oh, sorry. I meant that-”
“It’s fine. You’re just wary of them, right?”
Treia sighed. “Oh, right, I got a new skill. It’s called [Storm Eye]. It lets me create a circle of wind around me that deals passive damage while pulling projectiles around me instead of into me. The damage is based on the Mana per second I feed it. Every 2 Mana add 1 Damage with a base damage of 20 every three seconds. It says the Max Additional Damage is 50.”
However I wasn’t paying attention, due to the fact I’d just found a way to shorten the Status screen.
Status
Name : Jason Andromeda (Bonded)
Level 45 | Tier 3
Race : Voidborn Abyssal
Health : 84160/84160 (4208 Health/Min | 70.13/s)
Mana : 84160/84160 (6312 Mana/Min | 105.2/s)
Class : Voidborn Abyssal Prince I (Unique)
Bond : Miana ???
Stats
Strength : 526 (Base : 263 Effectiveness : 200%)
Dexterity : 526 (Base : 263 Effectiveness : 200%)
Endurance : 526 (Base : 263 Effectiveness : 200%)
Vitality : 526 (Base : 263 Effectiveness : 200%)
Mana : 526 (Base : 263 Effectiveness : 200%)
Intelligence : 526 (Base : 263 Effectiveness : 200%)
Free Points : 24
Bond : Status
Name : Miana ??? (Bonded)
Level 45 | Tier 3
Race : Lightning-Ice Draconic Serpent (Humanoid Form)
Health : 134656/134656 (6733 Health/Min | 112.31/s)
Mana : 67328/67328 (5050 Mana/Min | 84.16/s)
Bond : Jason Andromeda
Stats
Strength : 421
Dexterity : 421
Endurance : 842 (Base : 421 Effectiveness : 200%)
Vitality : 842 (Base : 421 Effectiveness : 200%)
Mana : 421
Intelligence : 421
I grinned. “Yeah, that’s pretty nice.”
Treia, having no clue I wasn’t talking to her, brightened. “Yeah! I like Passive Damage more than straightforward damage. Though, with wind, I can have a bit of both. Jack of all trades, master of none.”
I blinked, just processing what she’d said. “Passive Damage could be amazing if it scaled exponentially depending on the amount of enemies there are.”
Treia looked at me like I was insane. “expo-what-ly? What’s that?”
I tilted my head at her. “Exponentially. Like when each instance of Damage does more when there’s multiple targets in a certain distance from some other variable?”
She stared. I looked at her nervously as I continued “I mean, when there’s one enemy, it does 10 Damage, with two it does 20, three 40, four 80, and so on?”
She frowned. “I think… I need to see this on paper.”
She reached to her hip and pulled off a Spatial Bag. I Eyed it.
Spatial Bag - Tier 5
These bags can hold much more than they look like they can due to Spatial Magic, somehow fitting things that are larger than it’s opening into it…
Storage : 80’ x 80’ x 80’
How did these people not notice exponential growth yet? I wondered, shaking my head at the bag.
***
Sometimes, I wonder how stupid people are too, Systie said, most of her attention on Integrating the final amount of new planets. It can be baffling sometimes. The fact that some people figured it out before Integration says a lot about the post-Integration ones.
The Manager snorted at this, wondering if a relationship between the System and this boy may actually be possible. They both had big ass egos, though they both tried to hide it by saying dumb things, Systie more so because she got annoyed by the Manager.
He shoved another handful of popcorn into his mouth and took another look at Mia, who looked very bored as she watched Jason struggle to explain exponential growth to Treia, while inside, she was thinking about how warm and cuddly his chest was. Especially when she slept on it.
Maybe this would be a love triangle? He thought, looking back to Systie, who watched Jason with rapt attention while absentmindedly chewing on a Rope of Infinite Licorice, something that the Manager planned to give to Jason later on. Probably two of them, seeing how gluttonous that Dragon was.
***
After a short demonstration that completely changed how Treia viewed math in of itself, we continued on. Mia followed us, running circles around me at a blinding speed and crawling into my arms when she got tired while chewing on a piece of boar steak. I was a bit behind Treia, as to not scare off any beasts with my aura, as Treia said.
Speaking of Treia, she had gotten to Level 9 and was excited to find the final beast she needed to Level. I slowly looked around, searching for something for her to battle until my eyes landed on a Bear that was stalking her.
It was Level 24 and I could tell it was at the brink of Tier 1. I grinned, running a bit so I was about forty feet from Treia’s side and facing the bear at her other side, though it couldn’t see me.
Mia automatically shot an ice bolt at the bear and it hit it in the ear, causing it to roar and dash towards Treia as she yelped, unsheathing her sword and throwing a blade of wind at it. She activated her [Storm Eye] and leapt at the bear, not realizing it probably had ten times her health.
***
Treia swung again at the bear and was taken aback at the toughness of its skin.
It’s like it’s a Tier 1! But Jason promised he wouldn’t let a Tier 1 attack me!
She jumped back away from the bear and used [Identify].
Earthen Brown Bear - Level 24
A brown bear that is attuned to the Earth Element. Has nearly made a breakthrough.
She was hardly able to scowl before the bear lunged at her again. She was barely able to dodge as its claws swiped over her head. She retaliated by stabbing into its left paw and rolling away as it pounced at her, enraged.
Huffing, she jumped at it again, slicing at its belly and opening a cut nearly a foot long. However, it was only a flesh wound. Well, at least she excelled in flesh wounds.
Jumping over its next swing, she kicked off its snout as it tried to bite her out the air and landed on the bear’s back and began to swing rapidly, opening half a dozen cuts with a few more opening up from her Skill. She shut off [Storm Eye] as she jumped off the bear, noticing her Mana growing low. Then she was hit by its paw.
Pain exploded in her side as her skin was carved out and blood ran down her side. It was pain like she’d never experienced before.
She screamed, rushing the bear for one final attempt to kill it. She rolled under it, wrapping her sword with her [Wind Blade] and drove it into its stomach, ripping upward.
She then stumbled onto her feet, blowing herself onto the bear’s back with her [Wind Manipulation] before driving the blade into its skull. Finally killing it.
She fell to her knees as she rolled off it back, rummaging through her Spatial Bag for a healing potion. Once she finally got it into her shaking hands, she poured it all down her throat before fainting, hoping Jason would protect her.
***
Shooting to the second bear that had been stalking Treia, I sliced it open, killing it in a single hit as Mia blasted another with lightning, killing it as well. I then ran over to Treia, picked her up, letting Mia swing onto my back, and rushed from the scene.
About a mile later, we found a river and stopped there. I then dunked Treia into the river, causing her to wake up flailing.
“ARG! WHAT THE-” her words fell off into unintelligible burbles as I dunked her in the water again.
Once I finally washed off all the blood on her, I dumped her onto a towel and stared at her as she spit out water. She shook her hair out and waved her arms around while glaring at me.
“What was that for?!” she hissed at me, clearly in a great mood.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want blood all over my things. So I washed you.”
“I DIDN’T BRING ANY EXTRA CLOTHES!”
I shrugged. “I have clothes; I raided a closet before I left.”
She froze, her glare boring through my skull. I deflated. “Fine. You can have them, but beware; they’re all too big for you,” I muttered, pulling out an extra pair of clothes and turning away, pulling Mia onto my lap.
Mia poked my cheek and waved to the river questioningly.
“You want fish?”
She nodded as I showed her an image of her fishing and she immediately shifted into her Dragon form, which was still the size of a train but 50% smaller. She laid by the river, occasionally snapping at fish as they passed by. I shook my head and patted the end of her tail as Treia finished changing and sat next to me.
She cleared her throat and I looked over to her. “Hm?”
“I’m… not sure which of my Classes I should pick,” she said. “Can you help me out?”
I stared at her, waiting. She frowned. “...I’ll pay you a Tier 5 Mana Crys-”
“So what’re your Classes?” I asked, looking directly at her, giddy.
Mia looked back at me and snorted with a mouthful of fish. I threw a rock at her and she flicked it away with her tail as she swallowed and reverted to her Human form. Curling up on my lap, she yawned and closed her eyes, resting. Treia gave Mia a longing look and sighed.
“There’s two I’m most excited about. One is a class that is focused on speed, giving me eight points to Dexterity, six to Endurance, four to Mana and Intelligence, with 15 free points per Level. It also gives me a 50% Wind Damage Bonus. I like it, but it seems so…”
“Basic? Simple?” I supplied.
She tilted her head but nodded. “I would say bland, but that works as well. The other class is a bit more… limiting, but has pretty good abilities. Four to all Stats but Dexterity, which gets 6, and 5 free points per Level. Gives a 25% Wind Damage Bonus for each teammate I have, including me, to 75% and it has a passive Wind Resistance shred to enemies of 4% for every hit, which it says is additive to 20% for every teammate I have, including me, to 80%. It’s a… Unique Class,” she said in nearly one breath.
“What’s stopping you from getting it?”
“It’s restricted to me being in a Party.”
I frowned. “Meaning?”
She looked at me nervously. “I need someone to work with who I trust. And that’s not exactly common as a Princess.”
I frowned. Party… I was assuming it was a group of people who shared their Statuses with one another, giving them insight to one another’s current state of being. “And, if I’m right, you want to do that with Mia and I?”
She looked down. “I mean, I trust you and you’ve helped me a lot. I’d like your help more in the future.”
I thought about it for a moment. Having a Princess of this Kingdom around me (as a friend, of course) could help me avoid a lot of things that I normally wouldn’t be able to. It could also get me things that I can’t without her.
Come on, Jason, I thought. Don’t try to use her. Be her friend first.
After nodding my head, I looked at her. “That’s okay with me,” I said, watching as her crestfallen expression began to lift. “However,” I continued. Her face began to fall a bit. “You have to swear something.”
Treia gave me a confident look and nodded.
“You must never reveal anything that you see on my Status unless I give you permission,” I said to her, completely sure this would backfire in some way.
“I swear I won’t,” Treia said. “I swear on the Great System.”
Treia Kia has accepted your oath and she will not physically be able to break this oath.
I blinked and looked at her. “Okay then, Princess. I agree to become part of your ‘Party’ along with my Bond, Mia.”
***
Party Established!
Current Members : 3
Jason Andromeda (Voidborn Abyssal) - Level 45
Miana ??? (Lightning-Ice Draconic Serpent) | Bonded - Level 45
Treia Kia (Human) - Level 10 (+5)
Treia froze in place as Jason grimaced.
“I didn’t think it’d be that straightforward,” the Abyssal grumbled. “Well, that’s one way to reveal things, huh?”
Mia chirped her confirmation, waving her arms, clearly wanting to be picked up.
Treia, however, stared in horror at the Party screen.
He- he- he’s an… ABYSSAL? Treia’s mind screamed and she shuddered. This… this is bad. I didn’t think…
“You’re… an Abyssal,” she said quietly.
“Yep,” he said casually, letting his Dragon nuzzle her cheek against his as Mia cooed.
“How… why are you-?”
“Ran from the stupid Valkyries,” he responded. “They broke into the Abyss and attacked the palace. Auntie wasn’t so happy about that.” He chuckled at this. “I ran off with Mia to get away from the Kingdom for a bit.”
Treia was dumbfounded, going silent. Then, after a few moments, she shook her head.
“I’m just…”
New Class Acquired!
The Leading Whirlwind (Unique)!
+20 Strength, Endurance, Vitality, Mana, Intelligence
+ 30 Dexterity
+25 Free Stats