The first thing I sensed when I woke up was the sound of arguing.

"She left with you for a few hours and she almost died!" Elias shouted, and I could hear the sound of his hand slapping against my dragon's scales.

"Alaric had to catch her," came Kaelen's worried voice, "Do you know what might've happened if I did not summon him in time?"

"It doesn't matter," Hydra replied, unconcerned, but I could feel his worry through our emotion link, "My bond to her would have forced me to use my body to cushion her fall."

"That's not the point," Kaelen sighed, "But you went too far, dragon."

I forced my eyes open, and pushed myself off the ground. Night had fallen, but the moon had not risen yet. upon hearing the rustles that indicated my consciousness, Elias and Kaelen rushed to my side. The girl stared at me nervously, "How are you feeling?"

I cautiously moved my muscles around, feeling for any aches, but there was none. With a surprised smile, I shook my head, "No. Kaelen, your healing is powerful."

A flicker of conflict passed in her eyes as she replied, "Not powerful enough."

She guided my hand to my face, and I feared the worst. My vision was not impaired. Could it be my hearing? The reality was not as bad as I had feared, though. Kaelen traced my fingers over some bumps and lines on my face, but they did not hurt. She sat back down and explained, "I healed you, but they still scarred."

I smiled as I brought my finger back onto my face, feeling for the marks Kaelen had brought my hand to find, "It is worth the rewards I will get from this training. Charisma had never been my strong suit even before this."

"I told you she'd get it," Hydra's deep smug voice growled, earning glares from Kaelen and Elias.

The corrosion user shook his head, "That is not something to be proud of. This time, it is just some scars... What about the next time? She suffered more injuries training with you than in all our battles together!"

But... It all ended well, didn't it? That little voice whispered again. Kaelen could heal me every time I got hurt, and I would be as good as new. Like I had said, the pain is a low price to pay compared to the power-ups my wings had and will receive. This was the chance to practice without fear of true death, and letting the fear of something that would most likely not happen control my decisions was just idiotic.

I stood, testing my wings with a flap. Already, they were much more powerful than when I first started, generating a small whirlwind that Kaelen had to use her force field to block. Hydra grinned with his teeth, 'Good progress, hatchling.'

He recognized my efforts? My eyes widened and my determination to continue learning from Hydra strengthened. Elias sensed that and tried to stop me, "Terra, please stop. We can fight monsters together if you want to improve. Hydra doesn't know when to stop."

I thought about how I had been able to overpower our enemies and refused, "Sorry, but I want fast and targeted progress, and monsters won't provide me with that. We will still hunt tomorrow because we had agreed on that, but only Hydra can provide me with the tutorage I really need. Kaelen, why can't you just heal me if I get injured?"

She tentatively replied, "I can, but it takes a few seconds to build the force field and another few seconds to cast it, not to mention that the two of you spar in the sky, and we might not even be able to catch you."

I smirked, imagining being at the peak of the world and being able to defeat any enemy I find. The thrill of winning and the lure of growing stronger pushed me to brush her worries off, "No, it is okay. I trust you."

Kaelen clutched her head in frustration, and I could hear her grunt out under her breath, "I don't trust myself." as she aggressively crushed a force field ball in her hands. Elias sighed, trying to change the topic even though I could sense that he was not done with this matter yet, "Who's going to watch our backs tonight? I don't trust the dragon."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I offered, "I'll take first watch. I just woke up."

Elias gave me a suspicious look, "What if you just fly up to fight with your crazy dragon partner and leave us vulnerable?"

Kaelen pinched him, shushing him up as she spoke for me, "I'm still worried about Terra, but she won't do something like this."

I nodded, trying to look convincing. Expecting him to argue back, I was surprised when he just lay down and grunted, "Whatever. I'm going to sleep."

"I guess that leaves me," Kaelen patted me on the shoulder before lying down and closing her eyes too, "Wake me up in a few hours."

As their expressions gradually turn calm and their breathing rhythmic, a soothing silence set upon us. Hydra stared at me, as if waiting for me to do something, but I sent a message through our mental link to discourage him from trying to get me to do anything, 'I have some things to deal with so I'm busy for now.'

Hearing that, Hydra sent a wave of annoyance towards me, but he did not argue. Instead, he rested his head on his claws, closing his eyes. Any other person might have thought that he was sleeping, but from the periodic emotion wave I received from him ever so often, I knew that he was still awake and vigilant.

Trusting that he would keep watch for all four of us while I worked, I called out the Story Weaver book and the pen that came with it, before drawing a design I had in mind ever since Hydra had reprimanded me for not using my power to the fullest extent. It was time to test if he was right about using non-living objects to boost our group’s attack power.

I worked hastily but meticulously, drawing the rough outline of a gun before filling in the details. Back when I was still a hobby artist, I rarely drew guns, but when it was necessary to progress an character lore or when it was fitting to introduce a gun-wielding side character, I did research about their structures and the best way to represent them. I held the image of a gun reference I had used before as I sketched, taking about twenty minutes to get the details just right. I did not want to make it a low-quality work like my temporary battle monsters, since it would be reusable…

When I was finally done, I stared at the image of the gun that I had drawn and focused on etching it into the forefront of my brain. Once I had a nice visualization of how I wanted my Creation to look like, I let two balls of energy form, one representing a never-ending supply of bullets and the other durability, and threw the two at the ‘gun’. As the object absorbed them, I felt a small bit of mana leak from my mana pool. I did not include strength and fire rate because they should be automatically added in with the design itself.

However, when I tried to deposit it in the real world, an error message greeted me.

ERROR! System cannot create an Item as it does not have it in the System Database!

Mana Cost not refunded!

I grumbled incoherent words under my breath and turned over the page to an empty side. Even if the System did not know what a gun was, it should return the Mana I had used to try creating this item. It was not my fault that it did not recognize the machinery. Even so, I knew that complaining would not yield anything worthwhile, so I began drawing again.

This time, it was a weapon for Kaelen. I had three items in mind that I wanted to use my Skill to make for her: a dagger, a set of bow and arrows and throwing knives. I had decided to start with the bow and arrows set. I first drew a simple but firm bow on the paper, taking about ten minutes to sketch and fill in the details for this weapon. Then, I drew a quiver of arrows on the same page, before noting down the properties that I wanted it to have.

The bow would be strong and have auto-nocking capabilities, but I did not want to make it so sturdy that it was stiff, as I wasn’t really sure if Kaelen’s Strength stat was strong enough for her to handle the force needed to shoot that kind of bow. As for the arrows, all of them would be able to lock in and chase a target of choice and attack them until the arrows are destroyed. As soon as I generated the ball of energy for this quality, I felt a lot of Mana leave my reserves, and I grimaced.

I had wanted to give them elemental properties too, but I should probably conserve my Mana a little and not spend them all on this weapon.

With that thought in mind, I quickly wrapped up the creation process and dropped the bow and quiver of arrows in front of me. I picked them up and lay them against the fence wall carefully so as to not damage them. Then, I sat back down to make two more weapons, one for me and one for Elias.

I didn’t know what Elias wanted or what would suit him. His Skills required him to fight close-up, but he already had a sword and a pair of daggers from his loot drops… I sighed, and decided to ask him when he woke up in the morning instead of making something he might not even need. That left one last person to make a weapon for - me.

I hummed, thinking about what might be helpful to me but would also not cost too much mana. All of the ideas I had in mind for myself required some magical properties to pull off, but I did not want to strain my mana pool too much. Suddenly, an idea came to mind. I grinned.