When Alex woke up, his entire body ached. It felt like someone had taken all of his muscles and worked every fiber. He hadn’t been that sore since the first days training in the academy. Not only did his body ache, but his head was also killing him. He knew it was from mana overuse, he had to deal with that a lot in his magic class. He tried opening his eyes, but the bright light made his head hurt even more. He was so exhausted that he didn’t see the point of moving anyways. He had probably just used too much stamina potion the day before, and his body was still catching up. That and those rings must’ve drained him a whole lot more than he believed. He decided it would just be better to get more rest.

A bit later, Alex woke up again. He was still a little sore, but his headache was gone. He also found that his bed was a lot less comfortable than last night. It was much too hard. Also, he remembered closing the curtains in his room. It shouldn’t have been that bright when he woke up the first time. He slowly opened his eyes, and once they fully adjusted to the light, he realized he was no longer inside the inn. He was at the mouth of a cave, with trees surrounding it.

Alex suddenly remembered the dream he had last night. He was in the inn, it was pitch black, and he left his body.

It was then Alex decided to take a look at himself.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Alex screamed.

At least, that’s what he tried to say. What came out was a noise between a yelp and a snarl. He couldn’t quite form the words in his mouth. When he tried to speak again, he found himself unable to make the sounds he intended.

Before he was able to get a grasp on his situation, he heard a noise, and two goblins approached the entrance of the cave. Except, there was something off about them. The goblins he knew were only 3 feet tall, the size of a young child. These were different. They towered over him, nearly tripling him in height.

Without even thinking, Alex got up and ran. Running on all fours was new to him, but the action came naturally. He felt an uncontrollable primal fear towards the goblins and didn’t think it was the best idea to fight that instinct. He sprinted as fast as he could away from them.

After the hit of fear died down, Alex had a clearer head. Without stopping, he looked back and saw the goblins were a good distance behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief.

And then felt himself shoot up into the air.

A snare trap had caught his leg.

What awful luck. Alex tried to untangle the knot, but without real fingers to use, his efforts were fruitless. The goblins had plenty of time to approach, and when they did, one brandished a knife. Alex tried to brace himself for the hit, but instead of slicing him, the goblin cut him from the trap. He fell to the floor with a soft thunk. He immediately tried to run away but was grabbed by the goblin. It picked him up and began to say something to the second goblin. They were speaking in orcish. Goblins already had a language, why would they be speaking orcish?

Alex seized the moment and bit the goblin in the arm while it wasn’t paying attention. It’s flesh tasted both sour and bitter at the same time. It was the worst meat he ever tasted. He wouldn’t try that again if he didn’t have to.

The goblin gasped in pain and lost its grip just enough for Alex to worm his way out of its grasp. He immediately attempted to cast his haste spell, only to find nothing happened. He needed to escape without any magic. That wasn’t so bad; he was never the greatest at magic. However, Alex had little experience running from foes. He was always the one giving chase. He barely dodged another grab from the goblin, and sprinted away. He looked back to see the goblins had given up chasing him.

Alex didn’t care. He kept running until they were out of sight.

When Alex finally stopped to rest, his lungs burned like fire, and his legs ached with fatigue. He collapsed and took deep, heaving breaths. With the adrenaline gone, the exhaustion it was masking set in.

With no immediate threats, Alex laid down began collecting his thoughts. He knew something happened at that inn. He had been separated from his body and put into this… Thing. Now would be a good time to figure out precisely what kind of creature’s body he was inhabiting.

Alex looked at his arms and saw two short, black, and shiny scaled limbs with clawed hands at the end. The “fingers” on his hand ended after the second digit, with the third replaced by very sharp looking claws. Those would’ve been useful when fighting the goblins. His legs were the shape of a dog or cat’s and were covered in the same jet-black scales. He must be the size of a cat, too, given his proportion to those goblins. He felt around his head and felt a plume of thick hair, and two sets of horns on his head. A set of straight horns protruded from the top of his head and shot backwards. The second pair curved from the back of his head to right behind his eyes. Both were short, even compared to his size. He looked at his back and saw a pair of wings protruding from his shoulders and stretched them out. They were tingly, like when his leg fell asleep. He shook them around to wake it up, and after a few moments, feeling was normal. All across his back were rows of scutes, leading all the way down a long tail. He had taken the form of a dragon.

That innkeeper had done something to him. He was going to find him, and there was going to be hell to pay. As Alex got up, he noticed some acorns lying around him. He looked up and saw the tree he was sitting beneath.

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Shellwood trees were huge before, but with his new perspective, they stood as giants, reaching a height he thought shouldn’t be possible. The trees were a good sign; he must still be in the southern forest. If only he had his equipment. Then he would be able to make another stamina potion to get rid of his fatigue. Even running for such a short amount of time had left him out of breath and sore. All that physical training at the academy had gone to waste.

Alex then heard a rumble in his stomach. He was starving, and there was nothing around to eat. The acorns weren’t any good unless boiled, and he didn’t know if he could even digest them in this body. He tried to remember everything he had learned about dragons at the academy.

Dragons are omnivorous predators. They prefer to live isolated from other dragons and leave the eggs of their young alone before they hatch. The academy recommended that if any adventurer comes across a dragon egg, they smash it. An adult dragon could incinerate an army single-handedly, and stopping them from reaching maturity was the top priority. The only person to defeat a dragon alone was also the only solo rank one adventurer who ever existed.

Well, out of all the things he could change into, a dragon wasn’t too bad. He could’ve been a squirrel, or a slug, or something worse. It was too bad that he would be chased not only by goblins but also by any humans he came across. Judging by his performance against the goblins, he wasn’t sure about his prospects against any rank adventurer.

Alex decided his first action should be to find his way back to that inn. There had to be some information there. Going back to the town would be dangerous, but it was the only place he could find any clues. The only problem was he had no idea how to find it. He knew he was in the south of the kingdom. Last time he looked for the town, he had all his gear, and he could use his hastening spell. Whatever the innkeeper did to him that stopped him from talking must’ve also prevented him from casting spells.

It was a silencing curse. Those took an enormous amount of energy to create. The curse prevented the victim from using any magical incantation, spoken, thought, or written. With this knowledge, Alex tried writing something in the dirt. He started with his name. When he tried to write, his mind went blank. It felt like what he was trying to write was just out of reach in his mind, held back by an invisible force. Looks like verbal and written communication were out of the picture. Luckily for him, silence curses were easy to break. Even the most novice of adventurers could use the basic countercurse to remove it. The issue is, if you've been cursed with silence, you can't cast any spells.

Alex decided to climb the tree. It would provide a good vantage point. Shellwood trees were easy to climb. Their trunks were surrounded by a crowd of thick branches, shooting out in every direction. After climbing the first limb, he found a problem. The branches were about 4 feet apart on average. That wouldn't have been a problem before, but now he was nowhere near reaching the next one. He could try jumping to it, but the higher up he got, the more dangerous it would get. Alex lifted himself onto his hind legs and pushed with all his force.

He cleared the branch by about 3 feet and landed face-first into the dirt.

Alex picked himself off and brushed the dirt from his face. That wasn’t the most graceful landing, but he had learned a valuable lesson. He could jump really high! With this, it would be easy to climb the tree. He climbed back onto the first branch, adjusted the force he used for his jump, and landed right on the mark. He repeated this a few more times until he slightly miscalculated and fell short of a branch, smashing his head into the unmoving wood.

Alex fell for a whole second before slamming down onto a lower branch. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt much. Crash landing must be standard for small dragons, so being seriously injured by one little fall would be a pretty big problem evolution-wise.

Climbing this tree wouldn’t be as easy as Alex anticipated. After a few more leaps, he was out of breath. This stupid little body had absolutely no cardio training. He was already spent, and he had only climbed a quarter of the way up the tree. This jumping strategy was very inefficient, but it was the only way he could think of.

Alex leaped to another branch, short by only a few inches. If he fell here, it would be a whole lot worse than the last one. He reached out with his arms and grabbed the tree limb as hard as he could. His pseudo-hands were much too small to wrap around the thick branch, but his sharp claws dug into the bark, giving him a firm hold. He reached up with his back legs and lifted himself up and over the branch.

That’s when Alex had an idea. While climbing the tree limb by limb was the best solution before, now he knew he could just dig his claws in and climb straight up the trunk. Using this strategy, he was able to scurry up the tree much faster. Even faster than he could as a human. He was quickly able to reach the top of the tree.

Once he broke past the thick mass of leaves, he was almost knocked over by the powerful stream of wind. Scents from across the forest bombarded his much more sensitive nose. His new dragon eyes could see much more clearly at a long distance. He smelled a hint of smoke and turned to face it. There was a campfire not too far away. Some adventurers must be coming from the town, so that was the best place to start looking.

As the wind blew towards him, Alex instinctively opened his wings and caught some wind. He needed to grab onto a branch to prevent himself from blowing away. Spreading his wings so high up in the air gave him a sense of fulfillment, like some hole in his soul had been filled. Before he knew it, he had fully spread them out and leaped our into the open air.

Alex immediately regretted this decision.

He had no idea how to fly! What was he thinking?

Alex didn’t have a lot of time to rectify this mistake. He would need to figure out how to fly, and fast. He spread his wings out as far as he could to catch the air, and immediately started diving straight down. He tried angling them up, but that only sent him into a tumble. It was then he felt something in his tail. He tried moving it, and two membranes extended out horizontally from his tail. He stuck it out and felt himself stabilize in the air. He spread out his wings again and entered a steep glide.

Just in time, too. Seconds later, Alex crashed down, leaving a trail of dirt and upturned foliage behind him. This crash was the worst so far. He was lucky he didn’t break any bones. It would also take him forever to get the taste of dirt and grass out of his mouth. He sneezed and blew out two small chunks of dirt.

Yet Alex was giddy. He had just flown. In the actual sky, without magic or anything! Just him and the open air. It was the most freeing thing he ever felt. Not only that, but he had made significant progress towards the campfire.

With a smile on his face, and dirt covering his body, Alex continued his journey.