Viktor finished appraising magic crystals when even more of them were said to have been found not too far from there. He and Yue walked over to get them and were taken aback by what they found.

Giant violet crystals had suddenly appeared and climbed up the structure of a building that was being rebuilt. The violet crystals were clearly very rare.

Yue looked like he was completely hypnotized by them. Viktor just barely managed to stop him from jumping up to take some of the crystals.

“Yue, Do you know what this rarity of Magic Crystal is called?” Viktor chuckled and hugged Yue’s waist.

“Huh?” Yue snapped out of it a little but he was still staring at the crystals.

“Dragon silver. Those crystals are most often found in dragon breeding grounds.” Viktor chuckled. 

“Oh…” Yue murmured and his cheeks turned a little red.

“Do you want it?” Viktor whispered.

Yue nodded quickly.

“I’ll buy it for you then,” Viktor said and kissed Yue’s cheek.

The other mages around weren’t paying attention to him but Yue felt embarrassed regardless.

—

The buying process was a bit complicated since the mages in charge weren’t really expecting it but it was quickly finalized and the first thing Yue did was pick a small chunk of the Crystal to hold in his hand. He didn’t understand his attachment to the Crystal but he couldn’t understand a lot of his draconic behaviors.

‘What a childish dragon you are..’

Yue ignored the incarnation speaking in his head and looked around the Crystal and reached to the larger original Crystal to break off another piece.

“Are you building a nest or something?” Viktor teased as he watched him.

Yue’s cheeks flared up a little and he stopped himself from taking more of the crystals. 

“They seem tasty…” Yue Mumbled with an embarrassed expression. Viktor had a confused expression but he seemed to get it after a second.

“Are these like sugar for dragons?”

‘More like catnip,’  said the incarnation in Yue’s head. Yue of course didn’t want to tell Viktor that so he just nodded a little.

“Wouldn’t all mana crystals be like that though? What makes this so special?” Viktor asked, observing the Crystal.

“Oh uh…I don’t really know—.” Yue mumbled but then he noticed that Viktor was using insight and he turned bright red, he had lied for nothing, now Viktor was definitely going to know.

Viktor looked at the Crystal in Yue’s hand and then at the original Crystal.

“Don’t eat that right now…or all at once,” Viktor said and patted Yue’s head with a small smile. He probably genuinely thought Yue didn’t know the actual effects.

Viktor used magic to extract the crystal from where it was and placed it in his storage ring.

“Let’s get going,” Viktor said and they continued on through the area.

They stopped at a giant tower that had appeared where one of the dungeons was. It was the dungeon that Elena had cleared. There wasn’t any magic coming from the tower but it wasn’t built by humans. No one knew why it appeared but I just materialized once Elena left the dungeon.

“My mother wanted us to look into this but…I get the feeling that we won’t find anything.” Viktor murmured, he still walked with Yue to the door of the tower. No one had been able to open the doors but when Viktor placed his hand on the door it burst open without him having to use any sort of force or magic.

“Uh…?” Both of them were very confused and the mages around were shocked. They had tried so hard to open it and Viktor just tapped it and it flew open. They went to try and enter the tower with Yue and Viktor but the door immediately closed behind Yue and Viktor.

“Um...This is a little worrying…” Yue murmured, the tower gave him a bad feeling.

He had a prophecy as he grabbed Viktor’s hand.

It wasn’t an eventful prophecy, just a scene of Viktor smiling brightly as he held out his hand to him. It was simple and not very eerie but some show it gave Yue chills. He looked at Viktor after blinking a few times to clear his vision.

“Viktor…?” He asked, worried because of Viktor’s silence.

“This place is loud,” Viktor murmured, taking a breath.

Yue gulped as he heard this, the tower was actually eerily quiet. And he was standing right beside Viktor so Viktor should’ve been fine.

 He moved even closer to Viktor and Viktor finally turned to face him.

“Sorry, I’m fine…” Viktor said and pecked Yue’s lips, Yue didn’t believe that but Viktor started walking with him.

From the outside, the tower seemed to be only around 40 levels but Yue lost count of how many stairs they climbed and floors they circled. There was nothing that drew their attention. The tower was remarkably unimpressive aside from its endless floors. There were no rooms, no paintings, just an endless circular hall, and torches. There were no secret exits or entrances, it was just a hallway.

“Is it still loud? Can you hear what they’re saying?” Yue asked, wondering if they could get a clue from that.

“It’s just one person repeating the same phrase over and over again. I can barely hear it now that I’m standing closer to you.” Viktor explained.

“What is the word?” Yue asked.

Viktor stayed silent for a second, “It’s Russian, ‘you have wronged me’,”

Yue felt a chill go down his spine.

“Let’s stop going up...I don’t like this.” Yue murmured.

“...Alright,” Viktor murmured and kissed Yue’s forehead. He grabbed Yue’s waist and they fell down to the bottom floor. While they were falling Viktor turned to face the top of the tower, Yue noticed this and became nervous. When they reached the bottom he grabbed Viktor’s hand tightly and walked over to the door. He tried opening the door and panicked a little when the door didn’t open but luckily when Viktor touched the door, it opened, just like it had when they first entered the tower.

They walked out of the tower together and were both shocked that it was suddenly nighttime. The moon was high in the sky and the mages outside seemed extremely relieved to see them.

“How long were we in there?” Yue asked as mages immediately surrounded them.

“3 days!” The mage that supervised the area exclaimed.

“Oh My…” Yue murmured, it had felt like three hours at most.

--

They had to be interrogated for a while about what happened since they had essentially gone missing but they were eventually released. They had to rush to get ready to go to Russia to visit the military academy though, they had planned to leave 3 days later but now they had to rush and leave today since the three days had passed accidentally.

“Dungeons...Dungeon Bosses...Monsters in general...They’re all too mysterious..” Yue murmured as he changed his clothes.

“Yeah...It’s annoying to think that if my ancestor hadn’t kept his mouth shut we’d know so much more about them.” Viktor murmured with an annoyed expression.

The rumored Vikentiy Ivanov...Yue was curious about him, he seemed like quite the character from what he had heard about him from others. The Ivanovs seemed to think he was a nutjob but at the same time, they seemed to agree with him completely.

“I don’t know if your mother will appreciate us leaving the tower without finding anything…” Yue murmured. He had actually changed behind a partition in the room this time and he came out and sat beside Viktor on the bed.

“It’s fine, she’d probably be worried if we spent more time in there, especially now that we know there’s a disconnect in how time works in there,” Viktor murmured.

“Alright..” Yue murmured and snuggled up to Viktor.

---

Yue was dazzled by the clothes that were laid out for him in the Ivanov manor. He didn’t think that his visit to the military academy would be such a formal one but Elena had arranged very formal clothes for them to wear.

“We’ll be helping you get dressed today, My Lady.” A maid said and led Yue to a separate area of the room to get dressed. Yue usually would have stopped his transformation magic to get dressed but he was unfamiliar with the maids so he didn’t feel comfortable that way. It wasn’t like they’d see much of his body but he didn’t really have much trust in people he didn’t know.

“I’d prefer to get ready on my own later on,” Yue murmured as he was being dressed.

“As you wish, my lady.” The maids seemed slightly disappointed as they heard that but they didn’t dare to argue.

Yue’s outfit was a white and blue off-shoulder dress with a matching white hat decorated with blue roses. A decorative white ribbon was tied around his neck as a necklace and he wore the earrings that Viktor had gifted him to wear for his birthday party.

When Yue saw Viktor’s outfit he couldn’t help but smile, it was just like the uniform that he saw teen Viktor wearing when he slipped into his memories. He looked much more mature in it and it was a little different so he wouldn’t be mistaken for a student but he was clearly the same person. 

“The puppy is all grown up.” Yue giggled and Viktor rolled his eyes playfully and wrapped his arm around him.