Path of Dragons

Elijah leaped from his balcony, his large, full-size mirror under his arm. He landed in the grove, reveling in his increased attributes. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten them over two-hundred, but there was a difference between getting there with the benefit of buffs, equipment, and his various forms and attaining those heights as a human. He felt lighter, stronger, and more coordinated, almost to the point where it affected his balance. But thankfully, his attributes were so evenly distributed that he adjusted quickly.

Soon enough, he was strolling through the forest surrounding the grove. It truly was a perfect environment, with trees growing to nearly twice their normal height, and the rest of the vegetation being far lusher than would have been possible in the old world.

And that was with fall tightening its grip on the region. In summer, it would be truly magnificent.

The wildlife was just as impressively developed. Some – like the population of hares – were much larger than normal, but others hadn’t grown physically bigger. To the senses associated with Soul of the Wild, Elijah could feel just how densely packed they were with vitality and ethera, though.

It was odd, knowing that if he’d met the current version of his island’s squirrels in his first year, he would have been grossly outmatched. But that was just the reality of his chosen environment.

Sure, there were powerful creatures and areas with incredibly dense ethera in the rest of the world. He’d encountered a few during his travels. But nothing could even begin to compare to his island. For better or worse, the thickness of the atmospheric ethera had transformed everything around his grove, and to the point where it scarcely resembled the forest of the past.

But even more impactful was the sense of harmony hanging over everything. Some animals hunted the other beasts on the island. Others would happily tear through as much vegetation as they could eat. There was conflict even among the trees as they fought in a slow-motion war for sunlight. Yet, it was all connected, and there was a sense of belonging that permeated everything on the island.

In short, it was a perfect ecosystem, and the effect of that was more than even that descriptor implied.

That was why Elijah didn’t bother hurrying across the island. Certainly, he had a hundred different tasks threatening to pull him in just as many directions. Yet, he knew that his time on the island was coming to an end. He’d accomplished his primary goals, and as such, he was very aware that he would soon leave. For how long, he had no idea, but he recognized that it would not be a short trip. So, with that in mind, he resolved to appreciate the island while he could.

Barefoot and carrying his mirror, he probably looked a bit odd as he strolled across the island. Certainly, the animals all looked at him with more than a little curiosity. They didn’t scatter or run from him, though. Instead, they simply noted his existence, then went on about their day. It was a glimpse into the natural world that was rarely afforded to human beings, and Elijah did not take it for granted.

Eventually, he reached his destination, which was a clearing where he’d often practiced yoga while in his guardian form. Back then, the disparity between its high Strength and middling Dexterity had caused a lot of problems. Some of those issues were still present – especially when he was forced to rapidly shift between one form or the other – but he’d slowly grown accustomed to it.

Even now, he periodically needed to spend time adjusting, especially as he grew more and more powerful. During the Trial of Primacy, his frequent forays into the wilderness helped with that, but it had been quite some time since he’d really buckled down and put his forms through their paces. And what’s more, he knew that if he kept going like that, he would develop some bad habits. It was so easy to just do whatever came naturally, but that was how people grew stagnant. If he truly wanted to maximize his potential, he needed to train hard enough and in such a way that felt uncomfortable.

The clearing was perfect for that.

At one point or another, he’d toted a handful of the largest boulders he could find into the dell, and it was large enough to allow him to reach full speed at a sprint. Still, Elijah knew that it wouldn’t be long before he outgrew the makeshift training grounds of his island. In all likelihood, he already had – especially considering his latest surge in power.

Even so, it would prove useful, because it provided a baseline from before the Trial of Primacy. However outdated that information was, it could still give him some context for how much he’d grown.

To that end, after placing the mirror in one corner of the dell and propping it on a tree, Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Master. Once he had, he took a look at his reflection. The shape was largely unchanged, though he could see a certain iridescence in his skin that had not been there before. When he moved, it looked like tiny waves of flame traveling up and down his limbs.

The Shape of Thorn was similarly affected, though instead of flames, the vines and thorns around his arms and shoulders had simply grown thicker. In addition, he found that his control over them felt more intuitive than they had before he’d reached the level of an Ascendent. It wasn’t a groundbreaking change, but it was definitely noticeable.

When he shifted into the Shape of Venom, he saw that it was the same size and general shape as before. However, like the other two forms, it had changed in subtle ways. In the case of the blight dragon, his scales were much darker than before. Though the biggest change was that his form looked almost like the shadows around it had grown unnaturally deep.

It wasn’t immediately noticeable, but Elijah recognized it after only a few seconds.

The Shape of Sky remained largely unchanged, though Elijah did notice that his scales held a luster that they hadn’t before. What that meant, he wasn’t sure, but it fit the theme established by his other forms.

After shifting back to his human form, he cast Wild Infusion, then Aura of Renewal before taking on the Shape of the Master once again. Once he’d regained his shape, he checked his status:

Name	Elijah Hart
Level	136
Archetype A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.	Druid
Class	Primal Lord
Specialization	Connection
Alignment	N/A
Strength	378 (220)
Dexterity	364 (206)
Constitution	387(229)
Ethera	292 (232)
Regeneration	324 (234)
Attunement	Nature
Cultivation Stage: Expert
Body	Core	Mind	Soul
Iron	Drakyn	Jade	Student

Fully buffed, his attributes were a little insane. He knew that his Strength and Constitution would grow even more potent in Shape of Thorn, as well. But the Shape of the Master gave him a nice baseline. In any case, Elijah had come to his makeshift training grounds to put his new attributes through their paces, so he quickly got to work doing just that.

And he was incredibly impressed. The boulders that would have taxed his Strength in the guardian form were now simple to lift. But it went further than that. He could move faster, and with far more coordination than ever before. It was more than just the attributes, though. More than his cultivation, even. He felt that progressing to the Ascendent tier had given him a level of power that exceeded his expectations. Not by a lot. Probably not more than fifteen or twenty percent, if he knew his body and attributes. But still, it was significant.

It also meant that reaching that point was more than just getting a few extra attribute points with each level. Not only would it give him access to more and varied spells, but everything about him had become qualitatively better. That just told him how much further above him high-level ascendents, demi-gods, and deities really were. He felt like a superhero now, but next to them, he might as well have been a toddler.

Still, Elijah couldn’t deny that the increase in power was both addictive and intoxicating. As such, he spent quite some time training, and in various forms. He didn’t really accomplish a goal. He didn’t push himself hard enough to make any real strides forward. Indeed, if he was honest with himself, it was more like playing than anything else.

For hours, he switched back and forth between various forms as he leaped across the training grounds, lifted multi-ton boulders, and wove between the trees surrounding the clearing. Eventually, though, he couldn’t contain his anticipation for testing out his newly evolved spells.

So, Elijah shifted into his human form, then planted himself in the center of the clearing. Once there, he took a deep breath before casting Blessing of the Grove. At first, it manifested almost identically its predecessor, Healing Rain. However, it only took a quick look into the senses granted by Soul of the Wild for him to recognize that it was far more powerful. He couldn’t be sure, but if it wasn’t half-again stronger, he would have been surprised.

But it didn’t stop there.

After only a few seconds, a flower sprouted at his feet. At first, it looked no different from a run-of-the-mill sunflower, but within a couple of moments, it had grown to the size of a basketball. A few seconds later, it was four feet across. That’s where it settled, and when its growth stopped, Elijah felt a pulse of ethera as the entire area for almost thirty feet in every direction was bathed in dense energy. Some of it congregated around his body, and when Elijah looked at his arm, he saw a thin and ephemeral green barrier.

It was a shield, not unlike he’d seen used by Sadie and Lamar, though he could sense that it wasn’t as strong. After a little testing – which involved him banging his arm against one of the boulders until it cracked – Elijah managed to burst the shield, and to his surprise, it renewed after only fifteen more seconds. In fact, after another cast of the spell, he determined that the shield would continuously renew, adding an extra fifteen seconds to the cooldown, each time it was broken. So, it wouldn’t be persistent, and if it was broken a few times in quick succession, it would take quite a while to return, but that didn’t really matter to Elijah. The spell had far outperformed his expectations, and he was already thinking of instances where that shield – weak as it was – could have made a huge difference for him and his allies.

Because after all, it wasn’t just on one person. It would affect every one of his friends as well, so long as they were within range of the sunflower.

So, with that success fresh in his mind, Elijah was more than excited about testing out Nature’s Design. After letting Blessing of the Grove run its course, he sat in the center of the clearing, closed his eyes, and embraced his new spell.

And immediately, he was disappointed because it didn’t feel any different than its predecessor, Nature’s Bounty. Sure, it was a little stronger, he supposed, but there wasn’t anything to truly differentiate it from the old version from which it had evolved.

He took a deep breath. Then, Elijah looked a little deeper.

That was when he sensed it. There was another level to the spell, and if he only pushed a little, he could unlock it. So, that was what he did, and only a second later, his mind blossomed with information. If he hadn’t experienced the effects of Soul of the Wild, he might have been overwhelmed, but in comparison, it was nothing. All around him, he could feel the plant life, right down to the individual blades of grass. He focused, homing in on one particular bundle of vitality, and when he did, he felt something he couldn’t really explain.

He understood it, but he definitely could never hope to make sense of the mechanisms that he knew would allow him to guide that blade of grass’ development. If he wanted to enhance its fire affinity, he could. Or cold. Or wind. He even felt that he could nudge it toward earth.

Elijah focused on that, and slowly, he felt the ethera flowing out of his core, into the channels of his soul, and into that blade of grass. The stream wasn’t debilitatingly fast, but it wasn’t slow, either. In any case, it took almost an hour before he started to dip below the halfway point of his store of ethera. So, he cut off the flow and opened his eyes.

There it was, sitting amidst all the normal – if much larger – grass blades. He’d focused on earth, and that had affected it in an odd way. Specifically, the grass blade now had a metallic sheen. When he felt it, it was like running his fingers along the surface of an aluminum can.

It was absolutely fascinating.

However, he quickly surmised that there was an unexpected problem with using his new spell – at least to change a plant’s affinity like that. The blade of grass didn’t look all that different from all the others around it, but when he focused on it with Soul of the Wild, he immediately realized that it was entirely out of place. If he left it there, it would have detrimental effects on the ecosystem.

So, without hesitation, he plucked it from the ground and crumpled it into a little ball before tucking it into one of his pockets.

Suddenly, he understood why Nerthus hated when Elijah messed with the grove. There was a delicate balance between everything on the island, and it only took a little carelessness – or in his case, a lot of it – to foul the entire thing.

One thing was certain – he needed to be careful if he was going to use his new spell.

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