The Dragon Egg

(An unborn soul that has yet to have a name continued)

As I am thinking about the future, I soon become frustrated, I want to make plans for the future but I have so little information about myself…including even when I will be able to hatch, if my egg theory is correct. I want to know about myself, I want to know my potential! I want to know at least my current state of being!

I scream inside my head as I am unable to talk aloud. Suddenly to my surprise there is a flash of light appearing, not through eyes (I am not even sure yet if I have them) but inside my head and much too vividly to be imagined. The light almost instantly takes form…I appear as the strongest ball of light in a galaxy of stars. I soon realize what it is I am seeing it is a stat window of some kind.

In my world humans and other hominids don’t have the natural ability to see their stats. All they could do was guess based upon comparing themselves to others and by how strong of monsters they can fight. Then some intelligent wizard somewhere invented the I.D. card. It was a device that once connected to someone by magic would display the person’s abilities via numeric data or statistics. Of course in my country I.D. cards were immediately made legal only for those of the nobility. Hero in fact had one…soon after picking me he had a mage connect me to it by magic to register me as his companion.

Although he didn’t really use his I.D. card for things other than its banking feature (where you used your credit with your guild to buy things and then paid the money you owed to the guild rather than various shop keepers) there then opened an option that showed my level and current health…but not much else except my name. I had always been curious about I.D. cards; if I could put a value on my strength then I could easily pick and choose what to aim for.

A nice quality that these cards had was the ability to convert your stats into not just numeric data but changeable numeric data, as you gain experience your body mind and soul gathers a special magic energy known as “potential” without the I.D. card eventually your potential would eventually out grow your current state and you would gain a “level” with a level magic would randomly strengthen your various stats usually what you had been training the most before. But an I.D. card acted as an interface and stop gate and prevented the potential from being automatically distributed…instead this miraculously handy device let you pick and choose what to give those so called “status points” to.

I had seen hero use it many times he usually added all his stat points to status like attack power or strength, when I saw him do this I always thought what a waste…I had heard through rumors that besides the basics like health strength and attack there were also often utilized by wizards such awesome stats as “magic power” or “intelligence.” If hero so chose, he could have added points to “intelligence” and change the hand he was dealt with but I think he preferred to be stupid, as he was the type of fellow to consider such things as smart decisions unnecessary.  

And as a hero he could cast magic through his physical attacks automatically. As a peasant if I got an I.D. card of such a high level and was found out I would probably be thrown in prison or executed. And it was easy to find out as there were skills that were enhanced by the I.D. card that allowed you to identify other people…and if you didn’t have an I.D. card your name wouldn’t come up but if you also owned one your name and some information about you would be shared.

Unlike humans and most other hominids monsters were different they had the natural ability to see their stats, as well as to tell time and other information depending on their intelligence. I had known about this from a few drunken demi human mercenaries who had bragged about it and shown everyone through illusion magic… (This is one of the main reasons demi humans are not widely accepted…besides the fact they are at least half monster and have many monstrous traits when monsters are often enemies) they also had access to a privilege the ones in rule wanted only nobles to have.

But I had heard that it was thanks to mage study and experimentation on demi humans that the I.D. card was able to be invented in the first place…so most people didn’t really have a leg to stand on. Even though it was only allowed to nobility not many people could get it even if it did end up being allowed to everyone as it required various rare and hard to find materials, and the formula is a deeply kept secret that only a few know and fewer can use and thus it was very expensive to make, or I might have even took the chance of being found out to make my own version of the I.D. card.

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In my prior life I couldn’t get much more information about monster stat sense as well as on I.D. cards…other than a few tidbits from several drunken half-monster merks and the small amount of sense I could pull from the hero’s bragging. But then towards the end of my life I had several conversations with the demon lord about it. The way he explained it besides allowing monsters to change their stats with stat points…their sense also told time, showed your limits in the form of stamina and health, and showed your various skills as data that could also be altered.

In the human land they have yet to get the I.D. card good enough to the point where it can show or alter skills. But with monsters they can easily power up their skills effortlessly without training or practice but of course if they don’t train or practice they won’t be as powerful as someone who does, and strength can be no good if it is followed with actual battle experience and knowledge on how to use in the best ways..

Obviously since I had a form of stat sense, I obviously must now be some kind of monster. Looking out into my own small galaxy of stars…I wondered how best utilize the unexpected gift of being a monster. First I needed to figure out just what kind of monster I was…according to the demon lord who had been born a regular demon and had worked his way up to lord some monsters got stronger faster than others…or even ranked up more quickly.

Ranking up was something all monsters did when they reached a certain level or did a significant feat or achievement, such as killing another monster that is much higher level than themselves and eating it. Eating someone stronger than them is one of the easiest ways for a monster to earn experience points and stat boosts.

Thus cannibalism is common for monsters, because even though there are many different races and variants or sub races, apparently other than hominids the creatures that give the most power are from your own race. The reason most monsters prey on humans is not because of revenge or justice for the monsters humans’ have killed it’s because humans are extremely good and healthy as a food/fertilizer no matter what type of monster you are.

However the demon lord mentioned that for many demons and other monster races that consider themselves “civilized” it is becoming more uncommon to eat people for food…though many of the warriors will still at least consume the heart of a human opponent they felt was worthy…I wondered if the demon lord ate my heart?

And if so I wonder if I was at least an ok power up…the heroic water is something that only affects the person who drank it so he should be fine if he did…any way ranking up is another way that monsters get stronger besides the level system…the monster that ranks up will evolve instantly and change into a powerful similar but different monster…for example a lessor demon might rank up into a lower high demon.

Or a zombie might rank up into an undead vampire. A small dog monster might rank up into a dire wolf monster. A giant snake monster might rank up into a lessor dragon (imugi). There were many possibilites and they usually followed a family tree sort of logic…it is rare for something to completely change its family tree branch when it ranked up…for example a goblin might eventually become a demon, but a mouse beast, probably will never do so unless it is a demon rodent.

I ask my small galaxy of stats what race am I, what rank? And instantly a dozen or so stars come falling towards me…I ‘touch’ one of them and information immediately floods into me which my mind makes sense out of the jumble by transcribing it into words.

Self InformationName:N/ARace:Gem DragonVariant:common, brown dragonRank:low ordinary, eggGender:neutralAge:3 weeks since laid