Zephyr looked at the little girl with a helpless expression, watching her continuously touch his scales. Honestly, shouldn't a cute little girl be more interested in cuddly stuffed animals rather than dragons?

He had checked his reflection in a pond; due to his juvenile state, he wasn’t as fearsome as an adult dragon but was far from aesthetically pleasing—certainly not the type children would adore!

There it was again!

Seeing the bloodstained marks on the girl's arm after she removed her gloves, Zephyr rubbed his eyes and looked again, still finding nothing. It seemed like an illusion, but this had happened twice now.

"Can you see them?" The little girl noticed Zephyr staring and waved her hand in front of him. As she moved her arm, the bloodstained marks reappeared—it wasn’t an illusion!

These marks were real but hard to see unless focused upon. They gave Zephyr a peculiar feeling—not quite dangerous, yet somehow extremely perilous.

Seeing Zephyr’s puzzled look, the little girl shook her head slightly, saying nothing more. Without resolving the language barrier, words were meaningless.

"What should I do next?" Bored, Zephyr lazily lay on the ground. After a night, the wounds on his limbs had healed enough to allow movement.

He must have been brought here by this mysterious girl. Surrounded by over two hundred armed men, how did she manage that? He also wondered why the town was now deserted.

While Zephyr was daydreaming, the little girl circled around him and eventually stopped by his left paw, examining the wound on his arm. She touched it with a slender finger without hesitation!

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"...What are you doing?"

The slight pain made Zephyr look up. His dragon body’s sensitivity to pain was high; even if the newly healed skin was broken, it felt like a mosquito bite.

Staring at the drop of dragon blood on her finger, the little girl seemed dazed. Noticing Zephyr’s gaze, she smiled sweetly for the first time. Just as Zephyr felt a bit relieved, her next action shattered it.

She put the blood-stained finger into her mouth, showing an expression of ecstasy, like a child enjoying the best candy.

Zephyr found her sweet smile gradually twisting, making him blink hard. Was it another illusion?

This little girl was truly eerie!

"What a... wonderful day," the girl said, pulling her finger out of her mouth and looking at Zephyr’s wound again. Under the influence of medicine, his injuries were healing rapidly, even regenerating some scales overnight—a recovery rate even adult dragons might envy.

Minor skin breaks were easy to heal, but scales took much longer.

No dragon aura, no inherited memories, and able to ignore her dangerous traits... The little girl considered a small possibility, needing further confirmation.

First, they needed to solve the communication issue. She had observed Zephyr during the chase, noting his unique abilities, especially his ability to physically grab magic spells.

Magic could be dispersed, absorbed, redirected, or countered, but grabbing it barehanded was rare. Controlling grabbed magic physically was even rarer!

It was magic, not a thrown weapon.

When Zephyr caught the fireball, he didn’t use any magical force, just physically squeezed it, compressing and enhancing its power significantly.

The principle behind this remained unclear.

What she observed was that when Zephyr held the fireball, it seemed isolated by something within his claws, a one-way isolation where external forces could interact with it but couldn’t escape.

In essence, it was a non-physical, high-level theft!

He completely severed the fireball’s connection to its caster and the world.

Even when she tried to interfere, her efforts failed until Zephyr threw the fireball back. Then, it behaved like a freshly cast spell, disconnected from its original caster, making interference easier.

She intended to reduce its power by about 5%, but only managed to lower it by less than 2%.

Such a unique ability—was it innate talent or something else? Touching Zephyr’s claw, the little girl pondered. While dragons were powerful, their innate talents were comparable to other beings.

Talents varied widely; some people gained extra power in certain elements, known as elemental affinity, while others could communicate with animals, similar to druids.

But such talents had pros and cons. For instance, druids could also communicate with animals.

Most talents allowed significant achievements in specific areas, but Zephyr’s case was unprecedented. His 'talent' seemed to involve both body and soul, affecting her interference with the fireball.

Noticing the girl’s increasingly ominous gaze, Zephyr instinctively moved away. Her look suggested she might dissect him!