Higher up in the Palace, the alert level was raised to the maximum and all the troops were deployed to search every nook and cranny of the castle.
Once the nobles and the guests were evacuated, the mages under Zachary's command only had to cast a location spell to find Isaac. Unfortunately, no sign of his presence could be found.
Wave of mana after wave of mana, no answer on the position of the signature so characteristic of the Elven Archmage reached them.
Zachary was puzzled and worried. The only people he knew capable of using draconic magic were the Reincarnated of the Draconic Empire.
What would they do to Isaac? What's more, Zachary didn't even know if Isaac could fight them and if they had spells that allowed them to hinder an Administrator's powers.
He had no information.
- "Excellency, what are we going to do?" asked a Master Mage.
The situation was worrying. They didn't know where Isaac had been teleported and who was responsible for this kidnapping.
They needed to find information as quickly as possible and just as Zachary was about to cast a locate spell again, a sudden wave of mana crossed the air.
A wave of mana out of the ordinary. Judging by its charge, this was one of the effects of extreme mana consumption. Just as a drop falling in water creates ripples on the surface, any spell casted by a mage disturbs the surrounding mana.
The more powerful the spell, the more disturbances will be. Judging by the mana intensity, the spell had to be a minimum of class 10.
At present, all the mages present in the Upper Town were gathered here, in this room. Because of this, there was only one other person who could have casted this spell: Isaac.
Without wasting time, Zachary focused and traced the path the mana wave took to locate its destination: Under the Palace.
- "Teleport!" Zachary yelled before disappearing.
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- "Brother? What's happening to him?" asked the green dragon.
The blue dragon didn't know what to say. They had shown him their memories, nothing more. Were the elves unable to bear the memories of a dragon?
The thought was starting to worry them. Did they just kill the person who was supposed to protect them? Oh no…
But to their relief, Isaac seemed to be recovering already. The small moans of pain transformed into short breaths as he tried to sit up straight.
It had been a long time since he was in such pain. The last time had to be when he tried to unlock the mana control administrator function.
Still, the pain was obviously worth it. The instant he had recovered, Isaac felt the difference. His once stoic and unyielding mana circuit was now like silk. The vessels like filaments that he could easily manipulate.
Without wasting time, Isaac hastened to test his new abilities and undertook to summon a fireball for the first time without the aid of his aura or a rune. He did it directly with his mana vessels like Rebecca.
The reaction was instantaneous. The moment the mana vessel left Isaac's palm and made contact with the air, all of the elemental fire particles within a five-yard radius were absorbed before a red dot formed in front of Isaac.
Then, a three-meter blue fireball proudly appeared in front of Isaac and two open-mouthed dragons. The summoning time was nonexistent. Even with a rune, Isaac needed a minimum of time to trace the arcane, manipulate the surrounding mana and then collect the elemental particles.
But with this method, things were much faster. Too fast to be honest. Why too fast? It is very simple.
The moment the fireball appeared, the air present was completely consumed creating a region of vacuum around the mass of heat. A moment later, a shock wave swept through the surroundings as the air rushed towards the fireball to fill the void.
Isaac was propelled back a few yards before he could deploy his aura to float.
In a few moments, the temperature of the cave went from a humid and cold environment to that of a desert or even around a river of lava. The few drops on the floor and ceiling began to boil as the rock itself began to emit a faint red glow.
"Fortunately, there are no more humans around," said Isaac to himself, still a little in shock.
The dragons or Isaac were not harmed at all by the effects of the fireball which still sat in the same place. Isaac seemed protected by his barrier while the two dragons did not appear to be hampered by the fire.
They even seemed more at ease. Maybe it was their natural environment? Isaac could do tests later.
For the moment, he was captivated by what he had just created. It was just amazing. The fireball cut from Isaac's circuit gradually weakened before totally disappearing, drastically reducing the luminosity of the cave.
Isaac therefore proceeded to continue his observations and looked around in detail with his mana vision. Surprisingly, the metal covering the cave walls had been reduced to black ash.
An incredible amount of mana seemed to have been absorbed into the metal and had simply overloaded it. Another thing that surprised Isaac was the elementary particles present.
In a once humid underground environment like this, the elements that should be predominant should be earth and water, but now only particles of fire were present and in great quantity.
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Had he succeeded in converting the elementary particles? It was not something impossible. After all, Isaac had not yet studied the elements in detail.
What was certain was that just like mana, elemental particles existed in perpetual equilibrium with their surroundings.
But unlike pure mana, elementary particles do not participate in the cycle of life directly. They influence the environment while being influenced by the environment. Just as mana influences living things and vice versa.
From this theory, it therefore becomes theoretically possible to create or modify elementary particles by drastically changing the environment. If that was possible, then the possibilities were incredible.
It was a new subject to experiment with.
While Isaac was busy admiring the success of his first spell with his new ability, a flash of light caught his attention. He immediately recognized the familiarity of the light and began to smile, but just as he was about to come forward to welcome his colleague Archmage, a strange presentiment ran up the back of his neck.
As if to confirm his premonition, as soon as Zachary appeared, two ice spears formed in front of him before rushing towards the two dragons.
Thinking that his two charges were going to die, Isaac was about to cry out in fear when the spears melted on contact with the dragon scales.
- "Wha--?" Isaac said in surprise.
Zachary was just as surprised, but not for the same reasons. He had scanned the area of his teleportation before arriving and had located two beasts, but never could he have guessed that they were dragons.
Although they had very different signatures from the beasts he had encountered so far, he did not expect to encounter dragons.
For his part, Isaac was shocked. Zachary had just cast two class seven spells. It was enough to be able to pierce the gates of a small walled town. Not very powerful compared to what Zachary is normally able to summon but still.
If the scales of the two dragons can defend themselves from such a fate, who could kill them? But come to think of it, who could cause an administrator, supposedly the most powerful being in existence, to worry for their safety?
That was a question to be answered in the future. The dragons were going to respond to Zachary's assault, Isaac had to prevent a confrontation and quickly.
So he took a deep breath and then screamed.
- "Stooooooop!"
No need to infuse mana into his voice, all of them suspended in their movement before turning to him.
Fortunately for Isaac, Zachary, Green and Blue, seemed to be listening to him. Unable to endure the tense atmosphere of the cave, Isaac continued.
- "Zachary, they are harmless" said Isaac before looking at the two charred bodies. "Sort of, they're kind of harmless!"
Zachary didn't seem convinced by the end of the sentence but decided to suspend his next attack. Despite everything, his guard remained alert.
Seeing that Zachary seemed to believe him at least a minimum, Isaac turned to the two dragons who did the same and slowly backed away keeping an eye on Zachary.
Isaac sighed as he saw them relax slightly but stayed alert just in case. Zachary took the opportunity and walked slowly towards Isaac while increasing his barrier to protect himself from the boiling hot ground.
- "What the f*ck is this? Are you sure everything is okay? I feel like there was a fight and…" Zachary said looking at the slightly shiny ground. "Let's say most of the time we talk about dragons, we think of fire breathers."
The reasoning seemed logical, and Isaac understood the misunderstanding. Although in truth, even without the traces of a fight, Zachary would surely still have attacked the two dragons by reflex. After all, Isaac had been kidnapped. His instincts screamed at him that it was an enemy attack.
- "Who are they?" Zachary asked, pointing at the dragons. "Are they from the Draconic Empire? Maybe it would be better to lock them up," he said, preparing to cast the imprisonment spell just as Isaac put his hand on his shoulder.
Isaac shook his head.
- "They are under my protection for now. Consider them as my pets… in a way" he replied then simply.
Zachary was speechless for a moment, unable to understand for a moment before pulling himself together.
- "Are you mad?! They are dragons! You want to adopt dragons, are you serious?" he asked before thinking about it.
Even in their world, people have a dog or a cat because they're harmless… sort of. Adopting a dragon would be like adopting a tiger or a lion. While this type of person does exist, if a friend came to tell you that they were going to adopt a tiger, the first thing you would ask them would be if they were okay.
Zachary was in the same situation, but the situation was not comparable.
- "I would understand if you wanted to use them as guinea pigs, but as pets?" Zachary asked seriously.
Dragons are proud beings in legends, masterless and independent. Real wild beasts, according to the stories, even their parents find it difficult to raise them without a minimum of strength.
Isaac wanted to take them as pets!? It was just madness. But to his surprise, as he was about to turn to the dragons, the latter started to walk and came to sit next to Isaac before lying down quietly.
Zachary watched them move carefully then gave a slight gasp of surprise as he saw them lie down next to Isaac as if nothing had happened.
For his part, Isaac watched them quietly, amazed by their slender, slender figure. A biological jewel, their silhouette was sharp, almost like that of a fighter plane. Their body was perfectly aerodynamic.
- "Don't worry" answered Isaac simply looking at Zachary with a small smile.
That pet story aside, Zachary was totally lost.
- "Where do they come from? And what is this place ?!" he asked, looking around.
Remnants of a teleportation rune were visible. The marks were still intact despite being burned, Zachary could probably decipher them and deduce the position of the twin rune.
But for now, the two dragons in front of him were much more important. Zachary looked up at Isaac for an answer.
- "From a distance ... no idea" Isaac replied quickly. "I'll explain it in detail later. The amazing thing is that you don't know of their existence when you are the Magus of the Court" he then continued.
It was indeed strange. Zachary wasn't sure what to think about it and was thinking seriously.
- "Who are they?" he asked, pointing at the two corpses.
- "No idea, but a priest and a lady were there. They teleported I don't know where" Isaac replied.
Zachary came over to frown at Isaac's answer.
- "A priest?" Zachary asked. "What would a religious come here to do? Do you have a name and a description?"
Just as Isaac began to describe the priest's face, a memory suddenly flashed past their vision. It was a souvenir of one of the dragons showing them the faces of the Queen Mother and the Cardinal.
Shocked by the strange sight, Zachary questioned Isaac who pointed at the dragons.
- "Eleonora and Frix, I was sure of it" Zachary said after a few seconds of shock and surprise by the vision he just had. "I'll take care of this… in the meantime, were they the ones who casted draconic magic?" he asked pointing at the two dragons.
Isaac answered him with a hesitant nod of his head.
- "I see, so I guess there's nothing to worry about… for now. What are you going to do with them? There's no way you can walk around with such beasts in public."
Zachary had a point and Isaac had no solution to this problem. What should he do? As if to answer this dilemma, the two dragons suddenly glowed with a pink light.
The two Archmages were taken by surprise and stepped back a bit to walk away before the light completely dissipated.
Instead of the two mythical beasts was now a miniaturized and much cuter version. A soft version of a baby dragon you could say.
- "Oooh… much less suspicious, indeed" Zachary declared with interest. "People will have questions, but not as much as if they are in Draconic form."
The problem was quickly resolved visibly. These dragons are resourceful, it almost seems like they don't need any help to survive.
Seeing that everything seemed to be settled, Zachary looked at Isaac.
- "The Upper Town is on high alert, your audience with the Papacy has been postponed due to security risks. I will teleport us directly to my mansion" Zachary announced without delay.
Without further ado, a teleportation rune suddenly dawned beneath them before they all vanished in a flash of light.