Vaquin'er cursed inwardly as his body began to tingle and itch, pebbles formed out of the aether and shot after him in rapid succession, soon he was being hit by a literal ocean of pebbles, but that wasn't his main concern though, no, what really disturbed him was the amount of aether that was pouring into his dome.

His species, dragons, always had a higher aether tolerance than some of the other races but there was still a limit to the amount of aether his body could endure, if one took in too much aether without using it at the same time nasty things could happen, from mutating into horrors not even a mother could love to simply vanish out of existence and if by some miracle one you did survive you'd be crippled forever as your body would permanently lose its aether conducting ability.

This ability was especially important who lived on the magical energy entirely, losing it would mean instant death.

With surprising speed, he dashed out of his cave and flapped his wings to stay airborne, Vaquin'er 's cave was located at the highest point of the small hill so he was very high up. Vaquin'er then flew up until he was touching the top of the dome and pressed his clawed hand on the transparent dome of magical energy.

Almost immediately information flowed and lodged itself into the young dragon's mind, information about the spell's thickness, size, and resistance all made themselves known, Vaquin'er had to be careful here, everything was working in synchrony, and if he disturbed the equilibrium the effects might be deadly.

Wasting no time the young dragon called upon his pool of aether and began pushing it into his [DOME OF PROTECTION] construct, willing his aether to move and repair the damaged sections while slowly adjusting the values in the spell construct.

Vaquin'er shuddered violently as massive amounts of magical energy flowed through him, he had never used his aether pool to the fullest before since there was no need, apart from the [DOME OF PROTECTION] hybrid construct spell and magical knowledge his draconic bloodline provided him with Vaquin'er never had anything to use the rest of his personal aether on.

Slowly, the small holes closed themselves up and the construct began sucking excess aether out, he then upped the thickness to prevent pebbles from simply punching through again.

Most of the damage was already done though, his cave had collapsed and its entrance was blocked by debris and magically charged pebbles anger flared in the dragon, all that hard work, all the countless seasons he spent engraving and imprinting runes and glyphs into every crevice and corner of his cave, what was supposed to be his future hoard was now a pile of useless rubble.

The feeling fled as quick as it came though, for he was a dragon, anger and such emotions were beneath him, only prey felt such emotions, and the great Vaquin'er Vellosapo was no prey, no, he was the hunter.

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Vaquin'er began flying in circles as he contemplated his next move, the dragon had initially planned to siphon off the excess aether from the aether storm and with the help of the runes in his cave channel that aether into his body in the hopes of forming a core.

Dragons awakened their innate hoard similarly, the only difference being that they didn't set up entire runic arrays and built constructs to trap the aether they simply burrowed deep underground and waited for the storm to pass over, the abundant aether would seep into the soil and eventually find its way to them.

This was the safest way to awaken if enough aether didn't pass through the dragon could simply sleep until another storm passed over until eventually the dragon gathered enough aether to kickstart the awakening process.

Vaquin'er found this process too slow, his dreams couldn't wait that long, the longer he waited, the more shiny things would be less shiny when he got them, and Vaquin'er couldn't have that, things that weren't shiny always seemed so dull and mundane to him, the young dragon couldn't to use his dragon magic to make all his scales and every part of his body as shiny as they could be.

'There's still hope, I could make a miniature aether gathering array around me at the highest points of aether density.'

All he had to do was expose himself to increasing amounts of aether until he found the correct amount that could kickstart the magical reaction in his body and go to sleep, later he would wake up, find a new spot and designate it as his hoard and start his adventures.

'Truly a genius idea Vaquin'er, sometimes my genius intellect scares me, huehuehue!'

Looking down, Vaquin'er spotted several spots of aether, all of different intensities, and density but still looked too strong for his current body.

'Not these' Vaquin'er thought as he flapped his wings and descended a little lower and started scanning the nearby area again, the aether density was still too high for him so he flew around the back of the hill and found exactly what he wanted plus more.

Along a strip of grass that miraculously managed to survive the rain of supersonic magic pebbles were small spots of concentrated aether, each spot more concentrated and dense than the next.

Vaquin'er quickly got to work, setting up a 10-layered aether gathering runic array, the prideful dragon roared and protested inside him as he drew the inscription on the pebble-filled dirt but he had no say in the matter, once again, circumstances didn't allow much wiggle room.

He finished up the last rune and lay down comfortably in the center of the array, with a pulse of his aether Vaquin'er activated the array and felt the cool sensation of aether washing over him all over his body, it was a relaxing feeling, he felt it pass though his skin and sink into his belly.

This continued for a while until Vaquin'er felt a sudden change, the coolness he felt was slowly fading away and a dreadful feeling of heat began to creep in.

Snapping his open he spotted the problem instantly, the runic line that dictated the flow of aether into the array was gone, burnt to ash, presumably from the aether burning it up, dirt wasn't the best conductor after all.

Before he knew it, the array burst open and aether began to pour into him uncontrollably, making more of itself to fuel a change that was happening inside him, soon a large amount of aether was trapped inside him.

It was truly a ridiculous amount, the more poured in the stronger the itching sensation became, it became so bad that he started to scratch himself with his sharp claws, scales broke and fell off as he dug deep into his skin in an attempt to alleviate the pain, golden ichor splattered on the grass below him as bloodied claw was pushed out effortlessly as the dragon's regeneration kicked in.

The great Vaquin'er Vellosapo had made a mistake, and he wasn't sure if he was going to survive this one.