Over the past week, Rein had made rapid progress, surprising even himself. The immense number of grade one wood or lightning-aspected aurae infusion vials was incredibly effective in tempering his body. He had already consumed five dozens-- ten dozens still remained unused within inscribed wooden boxes that protected the potion from losing its effectiveness.

As for what ‘grade one’ meant? Rein himself had obtained a clear explanation. It simply meant that it was beneficial to advancers that had yet to develop the ability of aurae skin.

‘Grade Two’ meant, of benefit to advancers that had yet to develop aurae tendrils to interact with the environment.

‘Grade Three’ meant, of benefit to advancers that had yet to develop telekinetic abilities. And so on.

When Rein returned to his cave that very night, he had raked his eyes across the pages of the booklet on draconic magic penned by Gent in much closer scrutiny. He compared the forms within the booklet to the human-adapted style he had learned from Master Yirn. The set taught to him by Master Yirn was completely different to the one within the book, but only on appearance.

When Rein guided the flow of aurae within his veins as per the instruction of a random skill within the book of draconic magic, it meshed perfectly with the forms taught to him by Master Yirn.

All of this only pointed to one indisputable fact: Master Yirn had developed an unique dragon fist art that to anyone, would appear similar to the human imitation of draconic art. However, it was actually compatible with channeling draconic arts.

To be able to create such a masterful art, Master Yirn’s knowledge of advancer magic must be as deep as the ocean, not at all surprising considering his ancient origins.

Effectively, this meant Rein would be able to use draconic magic without arousing too much suspicion, provided there wasn’t some unknown expert of draconic magic observing closely… which further increased the value of the booklet penned by Gent within his hands.

The book described a few different pathways that would further branch out when said dragon ascended in strength. Rein was astonished by this new information pouring into his mind. He had long thought the beastkin would be rather straightforward in their magic. To think they had long developed their own progression pathways…

His primary focus was on the body augmentation pathway. It was a magic that spanned many realms. Based on the text, he should be able to form aurae draconic scales as his shell if he ascended to the shell advancer status, providing his body with a true dragon’s defense!

Then there was this pathway that focused on form dancing. It had specifications as to how a dragon could switch between a full dragon form, into human, into something in between, using the constant change in size and body to crush an enemy.

Rein laughed to himself. He definitely would never have a full dragon form, and thus this beastkin art was useless to him. The draconic metamorphose bead might have changed the root of his magic, but it did not give him a true dragon body the size of a mountain. At least, tales communicated that to be the size of a dragon-- Rein himself had never seen one in full dragon form.

Another pathway focused on nature magic. The dragons supposedly had a strong influence on nature, and could learn to create storms, tornadoes and other ‘natural’ disasters to strike at enemies. This elemental pathway branched into more specific elemental disasters. Rein was already aware of this in lesser detail from the visions he had experienced.

Rein could not deny feeling a hint of fear at dragons that might have mastered this pathway. The sheer flexibility of this pathway seemed peerless. Despite having heard of Gent’s methods, Rein very much remained baffled that Gent had prevailed against his peers during those ancient times in battle.

Rein had to wonder-- were there any dragons that mastered all three of these pathways? A constantly shapeshifting body of unyielding flesh and flexible magics…That must be why dragons remained at the top of beastkins.

Anyhow, these were the main pathways listed. Accompanying these were side pathways that could be used by any to augment their main pathways. One was about strengthening the lightning element in the body, another about strengthening the fire element.

Then there were some that focused on movement, primarily on agility while in dragon form. All of these had caveats, such as requiring the user to have a certain degree of strength in flesh, or certain elemental affinities.

It was then that Rein also discovered that there were many different types of dragons with different elemental affinity, which explained how increasingly convoluted all these main and side draconic paths became.

Yet, one line of text stood out to him like a blazing fire in a dark forest. The line claimed that beastkin needed to consume human brains and souls to gain intelligence, and as a result, the origin dragon had bid the dragons to hunt, breed and preserve human brains!

After repeatedly running his eyes over this part of the book, Rein admittedly could not prevent himself from developing a degree of ill will toward these demons. After all, he is human.

This ill will further manifested after he meticulously checked the last few pages of the book. The last few pages contained information on how to battle supposedly some sort of short and stocky humanoid race that lived underneath the mountains. This humanoid race was supposedly the dragon’s eternal enemy. Rein found a scribbled annotation on this page:

Glory to our dwarven brothers, hunted to extinction across the realms by the dragons!

Seeing this, Rein thought the Allfather right to crush the origin dragon. Rein settled his heart and reminded himself of his main goal.

Rein began testing the draconic magic pathway for tempering his body penned by Gent. Many of the draconic arts were not categorized like the human’s advancer system, but he understood the similarities that existed in the progression and easily identified his own stage of transformation.

With the dragon fists that Master Yirn taught him, compatible with the draconic magic flow pathways, Rein discovered himself able to achieve around an eight out of ten effectiveness. He very much felt the difference when he instead directly imitated the forms from the draconic magic book. That was the price of disguising his draconic metamorphosis with Master Yirn’s human-like forms.

He decided to practice both, and only use the true draconic pathways when in a desperate situation if he was in need of something a tad stronger. Another trump card, so to speak.

This hand-to-hand-- or claw-to-claw-- combat technique played a critical role with the body augmentation pathway, which focused on using lightning to temper one’s flesh. Rein groaned in his heart. Basically, he had to electrocute his flesh repeatedly while flowing through the forms without flinching. The core of this flesh and bone transformation magic was certainly not for the faint of heart.

The limit of this body tempering technique was based on the strength of the lightning used to temper the body. As such, this went hand-in-hand with the side pathway of strengthening the lightning element. As per the nature of demon magic, Rein would need to search for more powerful sources of lightning, consume those to raise the quality of his own body’s lightning. Then said stronger lightning would be used to repeat the process of augmenting his flesh, blood and bone.

The current red draconic lightning within his body was of the lowest grade for dragons-- all baby dragons would be born with this at least.

Rein spent the rest of that first night practicing the new flow of aurae through his draconic vein pathways, aligning it with both the set of forms from Master Yirn and the book on draconic magic.

As he became somewhat accustomed to combining the new pattern of aurae flow with the two sets of forms, he began igniting the lightning within his body. Every single spark of red lightning stunned his limbs, breaking the flow of his shifting form.

Once his body had built some resistance after the first night, he began using the vials of lightning-infused aurae to give his own red lightning a boost, further pressuring his own body.

Others might require significant time to recover from such damage to their bodies, but Rein employed the other trick described in the booklet.

Whenever he needed to recover, he would consume the wood-infused vials of aurae to ignite the vitality of his draconic body.

By the end of the week, he had achieved a minor success of the red lightning stage-- he knew this was so because he was now able to walk slowly even with the red draconic lightning zapping his body-- the text indicated this to represent minor success. When the red draconic lightning only tingled his heart, that would be a major success.  When he no longer felt anything, that would mean complete success, at which stage, the only way to progress further was to upgrade his source of lightning.

How much strength, agility, durability and endurance had his body gained in this short week? Rein would need to test it out to know. His body oozed impurities and he entered the sky shower within his cave.

When he ran his fingers behind his ears, he was nearly scared out of his wits when he felt a scaly sensation hidden behind his earlobe. He checked his other ear and discovered the same! Then, when he cleaned his lower body, he was bewildered to find that his manhood had developed a knot and rough ridges. He had completely shut himself in to temper his body the last few days and only noticed such changes to his body today.

Had he made a mistake during the tempering of his body?! He rapidly finished cleaning himself and opened the page on body augmentation. After scanning it meticulously, he discovered a throwaway sentence.

When one tempers that body, there is a tendency for strength and vitality to concentrate towards the genitalia.

Rein blinked in shock. That did not explain the scales behind his earlobes. He could only chalk it up to his odd situation of him having a human form body with a draconic core.

Often, the most obvious hypothesis is the right one. Rein knew that beastkin gained the ability to transform into humanoids at higher realms. The scales behind his ear lobes-- he should be able to control and limit the appearance of those as he climbed the advancer ladder.

Anyhow, he had an important task to attend to this day-- communicating with Baejenh, the outer advancer from Fusion Sect. He set off at dawn towards the location given to him on his previous meeting with Baejenh.

He soon found himself inside an inconspicuous pet shop. This pet shop specialized in selling birds of all sorts. As for what these species were, Rein really had no idea-- he had never studied such a subject matter. 

The best he could say was that he recognized some owls, sparrows, pigeons, eagles and parrots. But there were many that he could not recognize. Though his eyes were untrained, it appeared that some of these birds had been magically altered, containing appearances and traits of different species.

"I need to speak with the bird in the cage," so uttered Rein upon standing before the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper, a bald man with a long gray beard, nodded and directed Rein into a backroom. Inscriptions lit up around the door, frame and walls, thoroughly insulating the room.

It was time to speak to Baejenh again, the Fusion Sect Elder who kept an eye over this city.

On a circular wooden table in the center of the room stood a large cage that held a white feathered sort of parrot. Beside the cage were stacks of blank paper and quills and ink.

Rein pulled back a squealing chair and sat himself down, and found the white parrot's nature changing in a single moment. The white parrot now looked at him with an almost human expression.

"Do you have information?" So squawked the white parrot.

Rein nodded. "You are doubtless aware that a chest covered by ancient runes was successfully escorted back to the Halls around a week ago." Baejenh and her underlings surely would have noticed the blazing fires and clash of steel that accompanied such a battle.

"I have no doubt that that is the relic you wished to know of." Rein had long decided to make himself valuable to Baejenh. He might receive benefits that could be put to use for his own goals.

"It has been hidden somewhere in the Halls," Rein hesitated but then put forth his own conjecture. "Likely some passageway that's been disconnected from the underground labyrinth. I have memorized the appearance of the ancient runes, if that is useful to identify said relic."

"You can read ancient runes?!" The white parrot squawked in surprise. 

"No,” Rein frowned in response. “I've simply memorized the shapes of the runes..."

The parrot burst into a squawking laughter, and although Rein himself could feel some mirth bubbling up within himself at this rather hilarious scene, he also felt some trepidation that he must have made a misstep somewhere.

"My dear Rein. I hope for your own sake, no one else has knowledge of this. Did you know, most humans today are unable to even recall the shapes of these ancient runes? It is said that the runes confuse the vision of the observers, and thus only a small number of beings in the present day are capable of even recalling its shapes."

Rein's heart nearly jumped out of his chest. It was a good thing that he had not mentioned any of this to anyone else. Frankly, he wished he had not carelessly revealed this to Baejenh either. Then again, how could he have known that this was a thing in the first place?

"Well," Rein furrowed his brow once again. "I have no idea as to why I can remember the shapes." At the same time, Rein made a mental note to not reveal this oddity to anyone.

Was it the draconic metamorphose bead? Were dragons capable of reading these ancient runes? Supposedly, these ancient runes were of the fallen gods. Rein could tell that he himself had begun attributing every oddity to the metamorphose bead. It made sense after all-- Gent had spent time under those fallen gods!

He picked up a piece of paper and dipped a quill in black ink and quickly began drawing the shapes of the ancient runes he saw on that chest.

Although somewhat perturbed, Rein also hoped that this oddity of his would mean that Baejenh herself would make an effort to give him more benefits.

The white parrot remained silent, patiently waiting for Rein to finish his sketch.

After a meal's time, Rein held up his sketch in front of the white parrot's eyes. The white parrot cocked its head at the sketch, trying to memorize every single little detail.

"Amazing… these do have similarities to the rare well-researched runes…" 

“Elder. I am rather curious about the situation with the Minhr Nation’s nobles.” Baejenh, as a member of the Fusion Sect, the supposed ruler of this realm, should have a thorough understanding of the situation.

The white parrot’s unblinking eyes indicated Baejenh’s assent for Rein to continue.

“I have been repeatedly told that the Minhr Nation’s nobles are weak, and thus had no choice but to flirt with the Hall of Heroes. Yet, the Minhr Nation remains standing…?”

The white parrot’s eyes closed for a few heartbeats, before proceeding to enlighten Rein.

“They are only weak when compared to times long past. They still have the strength to hold dominion over these lands and battle the Zoh Empire to the East. Centuries ago, these advancer clans did not have competition against the Great Sects in the Evergreen Mountains, and the Zoh Empire had yet to submit itself to the Hall of Heroes. Things have changed since then…” Such information did not sound serious coming out of the squawking parrot. Not at all.

“Keikr!” Baejenh summoned the shopkeeper through the parrot.

The shopkeeper entered the room before reactivating its defenses.

“Give this man one of my disguised golden tokens!” 

“El--Elder… your golden token? A disguised one at that?” Keikr couldn’t believe his ears. The Elder Baejenh had left him with three of her tokens, and in the past twenty years, had never given out a single one! As for a disguised one-- that made sense seeing as Rein couldn’t be revealed if searched.

“Yes! Additionally, provide him with a shifting mask!”

The shopkeeper returned with Baejenh’s golden token in his hand, a flat circular stone-shaped lapus lazuli token. He also carried a wooden box.

Keikr placed the wooden box onto the table then flipped the token onto the back of his hand. He performed a few taps of a specific rhythm on that flat circular token, before flipped it over and performed another rhythm. The token then visibly transformed before Rein’s eyes into a golden emblem engraved with the image of a gliding ice phoenix.

Rein nodded and upon receiving the token, he too performed the exact same rhythm as shown by Keikr, and the token shifted back into its original flat and circular lapis lazuli disguise.

Keikr now unclasped the brass ornament that locked the wooden box tightly through a pin and hole. Rein found his eyes drawn to a metallic mask with inscriptions forming a hypnotic effect on its surface. Though it appeared metallic, the mask was incredibly light in his hand

“The mask that will effectively obscure your identity from most advancers. However, it won’t be particularly effective against advancers close to the telekinetic advancer realm,” Keikr explained. “Well… I’m sure you understand that fooling experienced outer advancers and telekinetic advancers require much more complex methods.”

Rein nodded as he equipped the mask. He looked down at his body and his appearance shifted as he willed it-- truly an amazing item.

“Don’t lose it,” warned Keikr as he frowned, not knowing why Baejenh was treating this young man with so many benefits. “This mask costs a few lumite coins. A fortune for those of us at the bottom of the rung.”

“Now,” the listless white parrot regained its fervor once Keikr had completed his task. “The token will allow you to join a sect affiliated with the Fusion Sect within the Minhr Nation. Consider it as a repayment if you seek a different path.”

Was Baejenh attempting to recruit him? It certainly seemed so. Yet, Rein had entered the Hall of Heroes determined to hunt demons and devils while peering into the workings of the Dingien Clan through the nobles. He wasn’t about to abandon his plan.

He soon left the magically-protected room and waved the mundane shopkeeper farewell.

He returned to the plaza before the Hall of Heroes and visited a shop selling aurae buns. The shopkeeper here was Xeeran, an underling of Master Yirn sent to scout the Green Trout City! The man had somehow obtained this role.

“A faction of the Dingien Clan will be present for the celebratory ceremony of your batch of initiates. They are here to gauge the Great Sects, while a young prince wishes to win Lyne’s hand.”

Rein simply nodded as he received a bag of aurae buns and quickly left. He had to be careful not to draw any suspicion to Xeeran’s stall.

As he returned to the Hall of Heroes, he looked up at the statue of Xune arching over the entrance.

It was then that a feeling within his heart called out to him once again? A vision…  of Xune? His curiosity was ignited.