It was an early morning out in the forest, the morning dew was still prevalent within the area. It was a dead hour where not many living beings roamed.

“So, why did you two bring me to the mountains at like four in the morning?” Frank spoke in a tired tone, rubbing his eyes.

Of course, he did not do so out of drowsiness.

“You probably aren’t sleepy at all. Besides, don’t adventurers wake up early in the morning to do their training and stuff?”

Cale was wearing a padded vest of gambeson, and slung on his back was a heavy hemp sack.

“And here I thought I can finally get a proper sleep schedule. Oh wait, my body is that of an eldritch abomination.” Frank angrily grumbled.

“Haha, it’s fine, it’s fine. We just wanna bring you here to get used to your strength and all. I mean, we might be facing monsters stronger than a mountain troll soon. Have you ever fought a Viventum Crystal?” Cale explained.

“Viventum crystal, what’s that?” Frank asked, he had not heard of such a creature in all his years of being an adventurer.

Elizabeth chimed in, similar to Cale, she was wearing gambeson, only a lot more than Cale and was carrying a large bag. As usual, she had her 'soul weapon' up and running.

“it is a sentient crystal of highly concentrated mana found deep inside the earth in areas rich with mana crystals. You don’t hear a lot about them since they can’t dig out of the earth like young dragons. You could say that they’re actually the pre-evolution of a dragon.”

Frank nodded in realization.

“So a ‘Dragon’s Egg’? I’ve heard of ‘em, but I’ve never faced ‘em. I heard some tales of people encountering them while mining near the capital. Floating diamonds of death, they described.”

“Yep, and that’s why we’re here!” Cale affirmed, pointing at the towering mountain.

“Don’t tell me we have to climb all the way up there. We don’t even have any gear for camping and hiking.” Frank complained

“You don’t have any gear for camping and hiking.” Elizabeth corrected.

All Frank had with him was a shirt and some pants, as Elizabeth and Cale just visited the inn he was staying at saying they were going for a morning stroll.

Granted, he should have wondered why they were geared to go on a week-long trip, but he was slowly drifting out of touch with reality the past few days.

Cale laughed.

“Haha! Relax, we’re not going up there, just near the base of the mountain.”

“Well, you should have at least told me about it. Kinda unfair you guys get to bring some good stuff.” Frank sighed.

Cale quickened his pace, scouting around and sometimes taking a stop to examine certain spots in the mountain. They were hanging around an area reserved for hiking, but they were a little off trail now.

“Considering we’re normal humans and you probably have dragon-level strength. A Viventum Crystal wouldn’t be much of a training session if you fought with a lot of preparation.”

“So you want me to fight like a monster? You know I’m practically human and Louis told us I’ll never get the abilities of a fleshwielder anyways.” Frank reasoned.

Cale stopped once more, once again examining the rock at the base of the mountain.

“You have a good point, but most tools in an adventurer’s repertoire would be useless against dragons as you’d expect, and no weapon other than your soul weapon would be able to withstand your strength. Likewise, armor would only amount to deadweight with your level of durability. Magic is still useful, though.” Cale explained.

Frank shrugged, he did not see an urgent need to get used to his strength, it was not like a horde of dragons were heading to the capital.

“We have reached our destination!” Cale exclaimed, setting down the sack he was carrying and pointing to a section of the mountain. It did not look any different from the other sections.

“Is there a hidden entrance here somewhere?” Frank asked.

“No, but we’ll make one.” Cale pulled his soul weapon from his pocket, raising it to the air in one quick movement.

A golden light swirled at the wick of the lamp's candle.

“Did you know that like much like a person, a world also has a soul?” He waved his lamp in a wide arc, leaving a trailof golden sparkles.

He knelt to the ground, the glow in his lamp turning into a burning light.

“By communing with the world’s soul, one can cause natural phenomena!”

The light in the lamp burst, and with a brilliant flash of light; the section of the mountain he had pointed to had crumbled and received an open cavern.

Cale withdrew his lamp, purple particles scattered into the air; a smug look was plastered on his face.

Elizabeth clapped loudly.

“Actually, what he did was just a light show. During his exaggerated set of movements he opened the bag of mana crystals, to which I reached inside it to cast an offensive magic and broke open that part of the mountain. So you couldn’t see me in action, he made that brilliant flash of light at the end.

Cale winced.

“You help me and even cheer for me and yet you reveal it all at the end?!”

Elizabeth shrugged.

Frank’s look of amazement immediately turned into one of disdain.

“You damn 8^th grader.”

He would’ve punched Cale in the gut, but that was a bad idea as of the moment.

Cale coughed

"Aaanyways, let’s go inside now.

He quickly retied the sack of mana crystals and carried it once more; he briskly walked into the cavern.

Elizabeth and Frank followed behind.

“Don’t mind him, he does that sometimes.” Elizabeth stated.

Frank nodded in pity and understanding.

As they walked into the cavern, it looked to be a normal one like any other. Frank looked around, wary of monsters; places like these were always chock full of them.

However, there were no monsters, not even a single goblin.

“As you know, monsters are born from mana crystals, and the deeper you go, the stronger and more numerous the monsters birthed from them. However, sometimes the surface contains an unusually high concentration of mana crystals for the surface level, this phenomena is especially present within mountains. It leads to the birth of a single, powerful being A.K.A a ‘boss monster’. Elizabeth explained.

Frank relaxed his guard a tiny bit.

“So, is there a trick to finding places like these? ‘Cause never in my life have I found someone find a concentration zone by only looking at rocks.”

“Is there?” Elizabeth asked Cale.

“I wish I could say yes, but I just memorized a drawing that Llamiryl gave me.”

They walked further in, and the place was still completely devoid of mana crystals. At this point, even with a ‘boss monster’ in the area, there would at least be a few scattered around.

“Well this is going to be troublesome.” Cale spoke with an ugly smile on his face.

“What the fuck.” Frank spoke.

“He smiles like that when he’s excited, so the situation isn’t that bad.” Elizabeth explained.

Frank blinked his eyes in confusion.

“You’re fighting, not us.” Elizabeth reminded him.

“Oh.” Frank realized that it was he who should be worried.

He looked at the ceiling of the cavern, the rock appeared to be quite strong as it was holding itself together without any pillar as a support, but he was still slightly worried.

“What if there’s a cave-in?” He expressed his concern.

“There won’t if you finish it quickly.” Cale spoke.

“That is not reassuring.” Frank voiced out.

Eventually, the cavern grew bigger and bigger, they had reached a dead end, and within the dead end was a glowing mana crystal that was meters in size, the floating construct shook violently.

“There it is, it probably already noticed us since it uses magic to sense things. You’re up, Frank.” Cale called out to him before retreating far behind him

Elizabeth quickly followed after him.

“Good lord, not even a tip before throwing me straight into the boss fight, eh.” He shook his head.

The monster looked to be quite attractive for him, if only it was a little bigger.

‘Wait, why am I finding a floating crystal attractive? The fuck is wrong with my brain? That’s an enemy, Frank.’

Thankfully, he got his mind out of the gutter.

‘Welp, let’s do this.’ He drew his soul weapon; it was getting far easier to draw it without his mind acting up. He did not know if that was because of his monster physiology or because he was straying further and further from his second life by the day.

As expected, the weak point of the crystal was, well, the crystal. Since they were being born from those, shattering it would probably kill it.

‘A highly concentrated mana crystal would be extremely hard to scratch, but it would be brittle. It’s best I don’t actually use my sword and instead use a blunt object.’ He thought.

He did not have much time to think the plan through more, as the Viventum crystal rushed at him in quite the comical way.

He picked up a moderately-sized loose rock and threw it at the thing.

It was thrown right back at him, but luckily he had already moved from the spot.

‘It was thrown back a lot weaker than when I threw it, but that was because it had to negate the force.’

A Viventum crystal was indeed worthy to bear the moniker ‘Dragon’s Egg’.

The crystal crashed into him, and pressure the likes of the bottom of the ocean fell upon him. His clothes were immediately ripped to shreds.

He had to get out of there, but he could not. Luckily, the force was not strong enough to crush his body, and he could not feel much pain. But it still felt like his brain was being squeezed, and a screech rung in his ears.

He smacked at the crystal with the pommel of his sword and his free hand. The blunt force would be enough to kill it, but the pressure that fell upon him was redirected into repelling his blows, before falling back on him.

From the narrow passageway at his back, another Viventum crystal approached, violently vibrating.

‘Shit, did it follow us here?!’

He was worried for Elizabeth and Cale, as he considered them very much innocent victims of whatever transmigration process he had also gone through.

Cale untied the sack he was carrying and threw a bunch of fist-sized mana crystals on the ground.

Elizabeth quickly picked up a crystal, directed her palm to the Viventum Crystal and yelled:

“Eldritch bolt!” A crackle of force came from her palm; it struck the Viventum crystal clean in its gemstone, cutting a hole through its protective forcefield. The crystal shook, clearly shocked, it even paused for a moment.

It was a moment of weakness

Elizabeth picked up another, then another, then another. She directed them all towards the diabolical geometry.

“Eldritch bolt! Eldritch bolt! Eldritch bolt! E̷l̵d̴r̵i̶t̷c̴h̸ ̷b̶o̶l̷t̴! E̵̺̝͋͊l̶̩͆͜d̶͖͔͂̔r̸͓̓i̶͍̮̅t̸̜̙̑̉c̷͉̬̒h̷͖͌ ̵̺̗͒b̵̝͂o̷̱̫͋l̶̠̂̉t̶̳̘̍̅! È̶̡̠̞͈ľ̸͍͈̠d̷̝̜̿̋r̵͚̩̗͉̿̍͌͋i̶̡̪͙̻̓́t̸̫̳̟͇̂͌͆c̵̤͚͇͓̀ȟ̷͕̲̈ ̷̹̻͝b̸̧̹̀̀͂͐ó̵͇l̷̮̿͘t̵͉̪̼͉͘̕! Ȇ̵̹̫̠̰̭̈͛̎̈́͝l̵͉͓͓̎̑̌̀̊̑̉d̶̰̮̥͚̘̀̆̈́̐̐̋͒ṟ̶̺̦͌́͛̒͊̇͝ͅḯ̴͔̅̀́t̶̨͈̯͖͓̜̀̉̋c̵̢̫̩̝͚͖̈̈̆̌̔̍͠ḧ̵̗̬̲́͑͂͋͘͠ͅ ̶̦̩͇̞̭̘͑̄̄̉b̶̢͚̮̰͉͉̮̒͋̉͠o̶͉͉̠̝͆̈́͒̅̃̇l̸͍͚͔̑̄̎̚ͅẗ̸͎̱́̎͌͗!”

She casted the spell so many times that the crackling sound started to drown out her voice. Each beam of force seemed to crackle more violently than the last. By the time she repeated it for the sixth time, the protective force of the Viventum Crystal was pretty much gone.

It had retracted all of it, realizing resistance was futile. Eldritch bolt was a spell that distorted space, the perfect counter to its primitive reliance on it. It let out one last defiant ‘roar’, in the form of a violent pulse of force.

Cale was already prepared, as he had a mana crystal on one hand and a silver mirror on the other.

He let go of the silver mirror, and while it was still in the air, he crushed his mana crystal.

“Force Ward!” He exclaimed.

The pulse of force was easily reflected.

“Eldritch bolt!” Elizabeth let out one more spell, which finished off the crystal, its remains scattered into the air.

Frank, who had been the events while pummeling his own enemy, came to a realization.

‘This fucker’s a giant mana crystal, and I can touch it!’

He didn’t know much about magic aside from offensive spells, but he did know one warding spell that was essential to any adventurer worth his salt. With his body, he could cast it at the highest level without fine control, and simply endure the backlash.

He put his palm on the crystal, and before it could repel him, he channeled all of the magic within it to cast a spell.

“Counterspell!”

He countered nothing, but that was not his goal, his goal was to drain the monster of his mana.

The Viventum crystal shattered.

With nowhere to go, the abundant mana ripped Frank to shreds, or at least tried to.

“ARGH!” He screamed in shock, as everything went dark.

He awakened to find himself completely healed, with Elizabeth and Cale in front of him. He stood up from the cold stone floor.

“How long was I out?” He asked with a wry smile.

“50 seconds, Elizabeth had to cast a healing spell on you to speed up your natural healing process. That was one hell of a way to take out a Viventum crystal, though. Please don’t actually try that on an actual dragon , you will literally explode.” Cale spoke.

Frank sighed, he tried to convince himself that he was completely human, but his body seemed to disagree with him on every turn. He had also realized that he found a literal animate object a potential mate.

“By the way, your hair is pink again and you’re completely naked.” Elizabeth added.

Frank placed a palm on his face.

“Sudden wardrobe destruction happens sometimes in the battlefield, but damn, I have to dye my hair again, what a pain.”

“I can sympathize on the hair part.” Elizabeth responded nonchalantly.

“Anyways, Quin, Nana, got any male clothes for me?” He put special emphasis on the ‘male’ part.

Elizabeth fiddled around her bag, taking out a neatly folded white shirt and black pants.

“Yep, here you go.”

“Thank you.” Frank smiled, taking the clothing and hastily putting it on.

“By the way, do Viventum Crystals have some sort of magic that makes people attracted to it?” Frank asked.

Cale shook his head.

“No, why’d you ask?”

“Ah nothing, guess it’s just my greed as an adventurer.” Frank convinced himself.

“Well, we’re done here, time to head home.” Cale clapped his hands, picking up the slightly emptied sack of mana crystals.

The trio headed out of the cavern.

Once they got out, Frank deemed that it was time to ask a few questions.

“Damn, so dragons can do all that shit? Seems overpowered.”

“Nah, they can’t use that force thing anymore since it breaks apart their own bodies. Young ones learn to use destructive offensive magic, adult dragons can do it to an extent, along with many other spells. I’m afraid elder dragons won’t even need it.” Cale explained.

Frank nodded in understanding, there were a few goblin corpses on the road, and he took a glance at them. He still found him repulsive, but the fact that he found that some were less repulsive than others immensely bothered him.

He asked more questions to keep himself distracted.

“How come sentient crystals become dragons?”

“They usually live around dragons, so it’s natural to copy the form of those they look up to once they’re strong enough. Those that don’t however… may turn into something else.” Elizabeth answered.

“Do you think spirits are evolved Viventum crystals?”

Spirits were legendary being rumored to be made of pure mana, lacking even a mana crystal. They were said to rival dragons in power.

Elizabeth shrugged.

“Oooh, that makes sense! The crystal explodes and in turns into a being of pure mana, maybe a powerful one will collapse into some sort of mana black hole?” Cale rubbed his chin.

“That is terrifyingly plausible.” Frank spoke.

"Anyways, how can Nana cast Eldritch bolt so many times? It takes a lot of strain on the brain to cast Control spells." He continued.

Elizabeth pointed at the purple earphones she was always wearing.

Eventually, the three found themselves back in Acetia, they were let in with no problems, as Elizabeth had helped Frank turn his hair to its ‘usual look’ outside of the city.

“See ya around, Frank.” Cale waved his hand in goodbye.

“See you.” Elizabeth spoke.

“Yep, we had a nice trip, let’s do this again never.”

They all chuckled.

Frank absentmindedly walked back to the direction of the inn he was staying in. He had payed so much gold up-front that he seriously considered just buying the place out.

In front of the inn though, he found a Windmill, the person kind of Windmill.

“Frank! I was waiting for you; I invited Otto along with me to for some tea. Care to join?” Robert spoke with a friendly smile.

Frank remembered Louis’ words:

“Very well, you do not have to accept then. I will just say this – they have committed enough crimes to be worthy of being stripped of their title by the kingdom's law.”

“Sure, I would be honored.” He responded.