by Charles Dean
“It’s this.” Jesse pulled out another creature, except this one was closer in appearance to what Lucas expected and looked just like all the other lizards that he had ever seen in his life. “Except, I shoved an Earth crystal into that little bugger.”
“What now?” Lucas asked, genuinely curious about what Jesse was doing.
“Look. Right here.” Jesse reached out and lovingly stroked the creature in Lucas’s hand on its lower jaw, causing the lizard to open its mouth and spit out a now-clear crystal.
“That . . . doesn’t look like an Earth crystal,” Lucas observed.
“That’s ‘cause, at the moment, it isn’t. He absorbed all the elemental energy that is normally contained within the crystal. Which is fine. Unfortunately, I only had the lowest grade crystal, or the effects would be more noticeable. This little guy is still a work in progress. He’s going to be much better than my last four,” Jesse said proudly as he petted the top of the little lizard’s head.
“Sorry,” Lucas apologized, “but I’m new to this. What exactly will he become?”
“A dragon, of course!” Jesse proclaimed boldly, almost as if it were obvious. “This one is finally going to do it. I’m finally going to make a mystical, amazing dragon! This one is practically guaranteed to sell way better than the other lizards I made.”
“A dragon?” Lucas repeated. He couldn’t see how the tiny, little lizard could turn into a dragon. Ever. At best, Lucas only had hope that it might eventually, with a lot of growth, become a larger lizard. “By feeding elemental attunement crystals to a tiny lizard?”
“Well, uhh . . . yeah?” Jesse looked at Lucas, his face twisted up in confusion. “Did you not even learn the basics before you got here?”
“No, not really.”
“That’s rough. You must really be a country bumpkin,” Jesse laughed, extending the lizard that hadn’t just spit out a crystal to Lucas. Most people learn the basics before they even show up for the first class.
Lucas looked down at the small lizard in his hand and tried to piece together how a magical rock was going to turn a chubby little lizard into a mythical dragon. “So, what’s with the crystals? Why were you stuffing the lizard with them?”
“Well, that’s how you get the monster, of course,” Jesse said, petting the lizard in his own hand.
“Huh?”
“Well, it’s easy. Take out the magic crystal your course syllabus should have told you to bring,” Jesse said.
Lucas blinked. I did not bring a magic crystal at all. Even though he knew it wasn’t there, he passed the lizard back to Jess and pulled out his backpack anyway. He might not have had a magic crystal on him, but he did have his beginner staff and two or three others that he had gotten from killing players in his dungeon. He didn’t really mean to carry them around forever, considering how they took up space and weighed him down, but he hadn’t gotten around to selling them yet. He just wasn’t the type of person who could throw away the bad loot in his inventory without feeling a tiny piece of himself die.
I guess it’s time to break one of these open and see what present I got inside. He took the very first staff he grabbed along with a giant hammer he had gotten from another player and placed them on a nearby table. He secured the staff with one hand and then brought the hammer crashing down onto it with his other. The staff, which was meant to be able to take dozens of hits in combat, didn’t seem to want to break.
“Ha! Battle-won crystals? I like your style!” Jesse exclaimed when he saw what Lucas was doing. “But you’re never going to crack it with a hammer.”
“I can see that,” Lucas said, frowning as he noticed he hadn’t really made any progress. Whoever made this damn thing did a great job, Lucas thought.
“Here, try this instead,” Jesse offered, pulling something out of his backpack. Rather than a single item, however, he produced an entire set of tools, including a pair of clamps, which Lucas used to fasten the staff to the table with half its end hanging out, and a horrifying saw with clearly visible circuitry and three red jewels poking out the side. The saw had a place on the handle for his hand to channel into it.
When he picked up the saw, Lucas read the spell that came with it: Bone Blazing Bastard Cutter. It required 100 Arcane Energy to start and 10 more Arcane Energy per second to maintain, and it seemed to have only one function: to cut everything underneath it. It could only be channeled for five seconds at a time, but Lucas had a feeling that would be more than enough.
“Takes a while to get started, but you should be able to do it easily,” Jesse commented, not realizing exactly how deep Lucas’s mana pool was.
At level 30, Lucas had 2600 Arcane Energy, and it didn’t take him even a second to get the saw going. He lowered the edge of the bone saw-shaped tool to the staff and started the channeling. Lava-like Fire exploded out of the blade, catching Lucas entirely off guard as the saw broke the staff open with a loud hiss. The magic board and eight small crystals, four dark black and four yellowish-brown, tumbled out onto the ground.
“Ah! The Shadow Vortex staff,” Jesse noted. “Rare find. I haven’t run into one yet.”
“Well, let’s see what we have next,” Lucas said. He pulled out another staff and cut it open just as he had the first. This time, it was apparently a regular beginner’s staff that only produce one yellowish-brown crystal, one red crystal, a dark-blue crystal, and a purple crystal.
“That’s a common one. The Imperium’s Hope staff. Every good adventurer starts off with that one,” Jesse said. “But common or not, the crystals in it are just as good as the ones in the Shadow Vortex staff.”
The next two staves were exactly like the one Nick had bought for Lucas when he had first started down his road as a Mage. They contained four purple crystals and four red crystals. After he finished cutting his staves in half and harvesting all the crystals in them, Lucas had four black crystals, nine red and purple crystals each, five yellowish-brown crystals, and one dark-blue crystal.
“With this many, we can forcefully evolve a few of them! I wonder what we’ll get. Man, this is exciting. Dragon-making time!” Jesse exclaimed, obviously elated. He looked over at Lucas with a grin on his face and a glint in his eye. Impatiently, he asked, “Wanna find out? We should find out. Let’s definitely do it. Who cares if it fails? We should try!”
“Alright . . .” Lucas shook his head in disbelief at the other man’s enthusiasm, but since he didn’t see any harm in it, and the man had been helpful enough already, he agreed to give it a go. “But what do you mean ‘if it fails’? Does that happen often?”
“Well, not all the time. A failure isn’t even really a failure: it’s either just a monster that’s worthless or a critter that needs more crystals to evolve. But don’t be fooled into thinking the ones that need more crystals to evolve are better. They can be just as rubbish as the rest. With that many crystals, you should be able to evolve three, maybe even four, so you’ll see what I mean.”
“Alright then.” Lucas took one of the shadow crystals and pressed it against the thing’s skin experimentally. He was just about to ask how to make the creature absorb the power from the crystal, and he had just begun to channel a small amount of energy, when Jesse spoke up and stopped him.
“Wait! Don’t do that. Just . . . Okay, so, this method that I’m about to explain isn’t that difficult, but it requires some concentration. There’s a good reason most people throw it in the critter’s mouth. You need to make sure you channel a steady, even flow of energy into the crystal until it loses all of its color. If the stream fluctuates even a tiny bit, it can mess up the process, kill the critter, and crack the crystal,” Jesse explained. “After all, you’re not using a magic board here. There isn’t a regulator to keep the crystal protected.”
Right. That’s part of the function of magic boards. Lucas just smiled. NPCs had to work very hard to master even Arcanum distribution, but players didn’t. Players who could feel out their Arcanum and get comfortable with it coul
d just measure the rate of distribution with their Arcane Energy gauges. Feeling like a cheat, Lucas extended his hand toward the front of the room and released his energy. It took him nearly a full minute and over 500 Arcane points, but he was finally able to control the release of energy down to a science. By the time he finished, he knew exactly what 10 Arcane Energy per second felt like flowing out of his hand.
“Let’s do this,” Lucas said. He confidently pressed the black crystal onto the lizard and then began channeling his energy at the same rate that he had just practiced. The crystal glowed and emitted a deep black light that seemed to take up the space around Lucas’s fist and the lizard-like creature. Then, with every second that passed, the light became whiter and more translucent until finally turning completely clear, like sunlight spilling out of a window, before fading away completely. When Lucas finished, he looked up to discover that Jesse had taken several steps back, and he was holding up his own backpack as if it were a shield.
“What are you doing?” Lucas asked.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jesse said, putting down his backpack. “I didn’t expect you to succeed. I kinda expected it to explode on your first try and that I would have to get you another lizard.”
“Oh.” Lucas looked down at the lizard quizzically, wondering what was different.
“Yeah. Most beginners lose their soon-to-be dragons very early on. Even me. It’s not pretty either. One named Biggle . . . Well, on the third crystal . . .” Jesse sniffled. “Well, he painted the entire classroom red.”
“Is that why no one is here?” Lucas asked.
“That . . . and everyone prefers the class taught by Professor Dakota. He’s really hands-on with his class,” Jesse explained. “Whereas, well, Mrs. Spitzl isn’t even here yet, and I don’t know if she’ll show all day.”
“But . . .?” Lucas wondered why Jesse himself wouldn’t be there with everyone else.
“But I was too busy eating to sign up on time. Lunch is an important meal.”
Lucas took a moment and nodded as if it were a perfectly acceptable answer. “Alright. I’m going for another try.”
“Good luck!”
Lucas pulled out a handful of black crystals and began feeding them into the reptile exactly the same as the first. The second, third and fourth were all absorbed just as smoothly, and as far as he could tell, not a single thing went wrong. Oddly, however, there was no change at all in the lizard. The magic was being transferred, but nothing was occurring. What the hell? Lucas was beginning to wonder whether or not he was just wasting the crystals at this point. Looking for a change of pace, he pulled out one of the yellowish-brown Earth crystals and began channeling that one next. The lizard absorbed it just as smoothly as the others along with two more.
“Isn’t something supposed to happen soon?” Lucas asked.
“Something should,” Jesse said, “but . . . honestly, I don’t know why it hasn’t already. I got no explanation for you. Sometimes, a dragon-to-be is a failure. It takes a lot more crystals than others.”
“A failure.” Lucas frowned as he looked at the lizard.
“You wanna get out another? I got more on me,” Jesse offered, digging around in his pocket for another of the small creatures.
“No, that’s fine.” Lucas shook off the suggestion. He was feeling rather stubborn since the thing had already eaten a full magic staff’s worth of crystals. At this point, he was determined to get a result one way or another. He picked up one more of the Earth crystals, channeled it into the creature, and then began working on the purples. After six of the purple crystals had been channeled into it, there was finally a reaction.
The creature looked up at Lucas with glowing swirls of Arcane Energy filling its eyes and stared right at him. It opened its mouth halfway and raised one of its front legs, and then Lucas could feel the energy that was beginning to pulsate from the lizard. He waited anxiously for any new sign of change, each moment dragging into the next. Finally, the small creature’s mouth opened fully, and then it burped. A tiny ball of energy puffed into Lucas’s face, harmlessly dissipating into the air. So, it really was a failure, Lucas thought, reaching over to set the lizard on the table.
“NO!” Jesse yelled before Lucas could do anything. “That burp was its binding. It is now bound to you, but you can’t let go of it. Don’t break contact with it while it’s transforming!”
Transforming? Lucas looked at the thing in his hands skeptically. He couldn’t see any changes. Then, as if a jack-in-the-box had been sprung, the small, fist-sized lizard exploded to the size of a small dog all at once.
Right. Even if the world feels real, it’s still a game. What game makes you wait years for your creature to evolve? Lucas thought as he looked down at the new monster he had made. Its scaly skin evolved into an interwoven series of black scales, each the same inky color of the original black crystals that Lucas had fed into the lizard to start the transformation process. Its shape was similar to before, but instead of four identical legs, it had six--and with some interesting variations. The two hind legs closely resembled a dog’s, but the four front legs were longer, more muscular and ended in long sharp-tipped talons. Its mouth looked much more akin to a European dragon’s snout, there was a tiny horn poking out above its nose, and its two front canines jutted out around its nose, even with its mouth closed. Lastly, and perhaps most noticeably because it looked so odd without it, the small dragon’s tail had disappeared.
“So, is that it? Is this thing officially a monster?” Lucas asked, not sure how to check. He didn’t have to contemplate it for long though, as the system answered his question before Jesse could.
Congratulations. You have officially created a tamed monster: Monster Unnamed [Please select a name soon.]
Monster Type: Ant-Dragon.
Due to the method of creating the tamed monster, it is bound to you and cannot be transferred. As you are both its creator and its master, its loyalty cannot be reduced.
Evolutionary options for Monster Unnamed have been generated.
So, that’s another reason he is making his little dragons evolve by eating the crystals. He doesn’t want them to be permanently bound to him, Lucas thought, remembering that Jesse had mentioned he had traded lizards out before.
“So, what are you going to call him? Dragon Number 471? Dragon McDragon face? A Tale of a Tailless Dragon?” Jesse started suggesting names, but there was no way Lucas was going to accept any of them.
“I think . . . I think I’m just going to call him ‘Bob.’”
“Nope. Not acceptable. I did not give you one of my prized Ant-Lizards just for you to name it ‘Bob.’ Try again. And respect your teacher when making the name!”
Teacher? Is he just saying that because he was the one who walked me through the process?
“Fine. I’ll call the little guy ‘Pizza pizza,’” Lucas said, reaching out with his free hand and scratching the dog-like dragon across its scaly head.
Jesse’s face twisted around. “It’s . . . uhh . . . It’s not a male. You’ve got the sex wrong.”
Lucas shrugged. “We’ll name it Eri then.”
“Better. I think.” Jesse gave Lucas a strange look. “Now, do you know how to evolve it further?” Jesse asked.
“Feeding it people, right?”
“Well . . . that’s . . . one way to go about it,” Jesse agreed hesitantly. “Once it sets up its lair, though, that’s the only way to go about it.”
“What do you mean ‘once it sets up its lair’?” Lucas asked.
“Monsters are restricted to a smaller, utility-based role at first,” Jesse explained. “This is to help them establish their zones of control and their territory. In the wild, this is sometimes as simple as flying to an area or finding a cave. Once they have this territory, they don’t leave it. They restrict their fighting and roaming to the immediate area. They might move you around or give you other small assists, but something in their nature prevents them from ever helping you fig
ht outside their territory once they finish their evolution.”
“Wait, what do you mean ‘finish their evolution’?” Lucas asked. “Is this going to eat more of my magic crystals?”
“Not so much crystals as . . . well, people. It’s not like they’re evil, though!” He quickly threw his hands up as if in protest to a comment Lucas didn’t even make. “It’s just that, once they start growing, you gotta feed them living people so they can munch and get big and strong.”
“. . . Big and strong?” Lucas wanted to roll his eyes. His excuse for needing to feed people to a monster is that they need to get big and strong? Are people like a glass of milk?
“Yeah. First, they’ll grow on their own a little. They’ll gain some size, but they need people. And it’s not unethical! I promise! It’s just the circle of life. It’s only natural to feed . . . umm . . . you know . . . people are a monster’s primary source of food.”
Lucas was somewhat tempted to argue with Jesse, but he didn’t really care enough to get into a debate with a nerd on the other man’s topical home turf. That was the type of colossal mistake that could lead to a four-hour conversation, which Lucas did not want to do with an NPC. Although . . . I bet Nick would be just as likely to watch ridiculous nerd movies, and Bonnie would join us just to punch him when he tried to talk over the actors. Lucas actually liked the idea of throwing a movie party with his group in real life one day. Not that it was likely to happen. The wall between the Internet and his actual life had already been crossed enough times, especially considering how much they knew about his role of a grieving husband and his relationship with Liu.
