Aki was in another one of her moods. That was what TS called them, anyway. It annoyed her when he called her out on her bad behavior, but he was right. She was smart enough to realize that, even if she wasn't wise enough to listen, or do anything about it.

With the partial memories of her ancestors, she knew what growing up under the guidance of a mother could be like. Aki had been denied that opportunity. That original sin wasn't Alan's, but he was part of the chain of beings who kept her from where she was supposed to be. If TS had hands instead of paws, he would have torn out his own fur the first time he heard her say that. Yes, as TS pointed out, Alan hadn't been the one to take her egg, or the one who had bought it, or the person who killed the person who had bought it. There had been a long line of people who had temporarily had possession of her. Alan had simply been the last. And rather than seeking to return her to her mother, he had imprisoned her in a magical web and tried to brainwash her.

Even as she thought this, she could hear TS's voice telling her that it was unreasonable to expect him to find her mother. He had no idea where she came from and no way to leave this place. But then she would fire back with why had he imprisoned her? Again TS would try and justify his actions with ignorance. Alan didn't really understand the ramification of what he was doing. It was a convenient excuse, but it didn't hold up for Aki. She would admit that maybe he wasn't as awful as she had first believed, but he certainly wasn't the saint that TS tried to say he was.

The reason for her current bad mood was that something good had happened. Her body was growing, and she felt in her aura that she was almost ready to evolve. After exploring her memories more, she had discovered that this worm body that she was currently in, was temporary. She would end up going through several stages before becoming even a dragonling, which was still just another step in her journey to her final form. All it would take to progress was energy and time. The amount of the second depended on the quality of the first.

She wished she could say that all of the mana she was devouring by patrolling with TS was responsible for her surge of growth, but a dragon must be honest, at least with herself. The highest quality energy was coming from a connection that had formed to her soul. It really pained her to say it, but somehow Alan had managed to create a bond with her. It wasn't a capital B yet, at least she didn't think so, but for some reason it was moving in that direction. The whole thing was baffling, because she didn't want this bond but it was happening anyway. She was pretty sure this was a result of her initial acceptance of the energy from his magic circle.

Whatever caused it to occur, it was providing a steady stream of high quality energy. And it wasn't just mana. As a dragon she was intimately familiar with mana as dragons were innately magical creatures. She also understood, but not nearly as well, some other types of energy, like soul energy, psi, and qi. What she was getting from Alan was all of that. It almost felt like she was syphoning off a portion of his aura. What was making her so unhappy was that it was making her feelings soften towards him. She didn't want to like him, but it's hard to stay mad at someone who keeps giving you free stuff, especially when they aren't there to reinforce why you don't like them in the first place.

"I know what will cheer you up, little one. Let's expand our patrol a little bit." TS's mental voice broke into her thoughts.

Aki was not a fan of being called little one, it had become TS's method of letting her know when she was acting more like a child than a friend. She understood his use of it currently, since she had just spent five minutes complaining about everything. She was tired of eating so much fruit, the furs they slept on were smelly, they hadn't had a good challenge in a while, and what had probably ticked off TS the most was when she complained that he was jostling her too much when he ran. She was approaching two meters long now, so it was getting harder to ride on his head. Her body now had to drape down onto his shoulders and it was sometimes a struggle to stay in place. It wasn't his fault, and it sure beat having to slither on her own, but sometimes her brain chose violence over logic.

TS's suggestion to expand their patrol range was an amazing offer. She had been pushing him to go farther away from this hut that was his home ever since they had started traveling together. The wolf had been resistant to the suggestion, but his friendly feelings for her had caused him to give in, and at a speed that made even glaciers seem fast, he had begun increasing the distance he was willing to travel. If he was now offering to go farther on his own, she had to encourage that.

"That's a great idea! Why don't we push farther north, let's see if any creatures are trying to move into tier 3."

A slight rise in the wolf's lips let her know that her suggestion was a bit farther than he was thinking, but he didn't say anything. She slithered up his leg and took her place on his head. She didn't like using that word to describe her motion, but it was the only one that fit. She was really looking forward to evolving. Her memories weren't clear on what was next, but hopefully it would have legs. Dragons were not meant to wriggle over the ground like a common serpent or worse a dirt eater.

TS's mate had already left for her own hunting. There was no sign of any pups of their own yet, but the she-wolf wanted to increase their family regardless. Over the last week she had been searching for other wolves to bring into their pack. So far she hadn't had much luck. That was fine with Aki, more wolves just sounded like a lot of noise she didn't want to deal with. With nothing else they needed to take care of here, TS set off at a brisk run toward the north.

They passed the two kilometer mark which had used to define his perimeter. Together they had recently gone as far as five kilometers out, but now she was asking for almost ten to get them to the passage to tier three. It was quite the ask, but she felt it was necessary. Aki's level had grown and she was now level eleven. Even TS had gained a couple more levels, pushing him close to what a person would call diamond level. This meant that they had trouble trying to find anything that could provide them with a real challenge. Aki had been taking on the boss that occasionally spawned from the dungeon obelisk all by herself, and none of the 'native' creatures were even close to their level. Even the stronger monsters that leaked from the dungeons hadn't caused them many issues. With their constant patrols, most beasts and monsters had learned to avoid the area around Amthraxia. Hopefully this journey would provide something new, a real challenge.

They passed a few small colonies of relatively harmless beasts. There were some gophers, brownies, some leprachauns, a colony of rabbits that got a growl from TS, but that was about it. They were letting these creatures live, as long as they behaved. It was both a necessity, as the area would need other creatures to create a stable ecosystem, and a test to see if they could coexist. There was one serious dungeon monster that they found, some kind of large dinosaur, and it provided a bit of entertainment.

The beast was huge, at least four meters tall and it had a large head full of razor sharp teeth. It ran around on two powerful hind legs, but its front limbs were rather pathetic looking. This should provide a good opponent for Aki who had been working on stretching her fighting abilities. It was too easy for her to burrow into a monster and devour it from the inside. It was until recently her only real finishing move against the larger creatures, but she had been committing to working on her agility and reflexes during combat. That was why rather than trying to bite the large dinosaur to provide an access point, TS ran in close, allowing Aki to jump onto its body.

One of the abilities she had gained as she grew was Sticky Scales. It allowed her to move around on a surface as if she was glued to it. It didn't provide resistance to her own movement, but it allowed her to ascend even vertical surfaces. Due to the incredible mass of the monster compared to her small size, it didn't realize she was there at first. She used that to her advantage as she made her way over to the joint between its body and its left leg. The dinosaur's skin was dry and soft against her scales, but she could tell it was also very tough. When she got in place, she used her tri-part beak to bite into the tissue around where the ligaments connected the leg bone to the rest of its skeleton.

That had certainly gotten the beast's attention, and rather than burrowing in to complete her attack, she stayed on the surface, excavating the wound until she could cut through the ligaments. In a respectable display of flexibility, the large carnivore managed to bend around and snap at her as she attacked the wound. This was what she had been hoping for, a chance to practice her own ability to maneuver and dodge.

Without sticky scales this would have been impossible. Not only would she have had a difficult time getting to this position in the first place, but there was no way she could have moved fast enough. With the passive ability, her scales gripped the dinosaur's hide and she deftly curved her body to avoid the massive teeth. It slowed her down a little in attacking the hole, but that was an acceptable sacrifice. After its first snap failed to deal with its annoying parasite, the large creature kept trying, but the follow up attacks had no more luck catching Aki than the first one.

Finally she located a web-like structure of thick white strands, the ligaments connecting the leg bone. Her mouth had been capable of biting through her metallic shell and the bones of many opponents, so it had little trouble cutting through the fibrous tissue. She hadn't realized it when she was younger, but now that she could properly understand her status sheet, she knew that it was most likely her talent, All Devouring Maw, that allowed her to accomplish this.

As she separated the leg bone's connections, the large dinosaur collapsed onto its side. Without being able to use its tiny arms, there was no way for it to support itself on one leg. Now it was TS's turn to get in there. The brown wolf set its white paws on the creature's back, as if to hold it in place, and then bent down and started tearing through flesh, trying to find the spine. When he did get down to the bone, he found it too thick for even his strong jaws to bite through. Instead TS located the nerves coming out of the spine and started ripping those apart, shutting down the dinosaur brain's ability to control various functions in its body.

This was no doubt an already mortal wound, but it was incredibly painful and the giant beast tried to roll over to crush the enemy who dared inflict such pain. TS wasn't really strong enough to hold such a giant in place, but given its injuries, and the fact that it couldn't use its leg, he was able to delay it long enough for Aki and himself to scramble out of the way. Having flipped over, it foolishly presented its belly to TS and its freshly exposed spine to Aki. After that, it wasn't long before it was finally dead.

Now came Aki's second favorite part, the feast. Such a beast had intensely mana-rich meat, and devouring it allowed her body to absorb it. The amount she got wasn't as much as the near constant stream she was receiving from her burgeoning bond with Alan, but she had earned this herself, so it tasted sweeter. Or, it probably would if she could taste mana. Both friends were covered in gore, so they made a side trip to a small stream nearby. This zone had one main river that ran through it, but there were a few smaller waterways that broke up the terrain. They were useful for staying hydrated, and the occasional bath.

Without opposable thumbs, or limbs of any kind in Aki's case, these cleaning sessions usually amounted to rolling around in the water, rubbing their bodies against the sandy and sometimes rocky bottoms. It wasn't the most dignified thing, but they turned it into a game, trying to cause the most spray with their thrashing. TS had the definite size advantage, but Aki could use her long serpentine body to generate impressive waves. During their current cleaning and splashing challenge, Aki felt something smash against her side. It didn't hurt, not really, but it wasn't a pleasant sensation either.

TS sensed that something had distracted his friend, so he paused his efforts to swamp her and looked over to see what had caused it. Aki was staring into the water, trying to better see her attacker. Her eyesight was good, all dragons had amazing eyesight, but in her current form it wasn't great. It was tough to see through the flowing water, but she could almost feel the target of her search. Finally she ducked her head under the water and grasped it in her mouth. She felt an intense urge to devour it, but she wanted to see what it was first.

Gliding through the water, she made her way to the shore, where she set the object down. It was a sparkling white rock, about the size of a peach pit. TS had also made his way over, and he bent down to sniff at it. Aki had a moment where her body wanted to instinctively attack the wolf to defend her prize, but her rational mind managed to suppress the urge. Her friend couldn't discern anything special about the rock, so he went back to cleaning the blood off his fur. That was another advantage of her scaled body, she was basically clean already.

Now that she could see it better, Aki wanted to eat the rock even more. It was a strange feeling, similar to what she had felt about the shell of her egg, but stronger. The area around their home wasn't particularly rocky, but she had seen rocks before and hadn't felt such an urge to devour them. Bending closer, she studied it with her eyes and her dragon senses.

Her eyes caught on the many gold flakes embedded in what she now realized was a crystal, most likely quartz. Her dragon senses were telling her that it was overflowing with mana channels. They weren't currently holding much energy in them but the capacity to do so was there. After several minutes of study, she decided to trust her gut and ate the stone. As her beak closed around it, her all devouring maw broke it into tiny pieces that were then drawn down to her stomach where her dragon acids started to break it down for further digestion. She felt an intense surge of energy enter her aura, like eating ten dinosaurs. It left her writhing on the ground, moaning in delight.

"What's gotten into you?" TS's voice in her head broke through to her.

Aki sat up with a guilty gleam in her eye. "Uh…sorry. That just tasted really good."

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"I'll never understand why you eat rocks. Give me a raw steak any day."

"I am a ferric dragon, or at least I was supposed to be. That means I like iron and other metals."

TS looked at her like she was crazy, but he gave it up and they lay in silence as the sun beamed down on them, drying their scales and fur. That was another benefit of her scales over TS's hairy body. Although, that hair feels really good she thought as she once more climbed into position. She wouldn't give up her own scales, but Aki was willing to admit that fur was nice for other people to have, especially for those who carried her around.

The bath had taken them off course a little, but they were soon once again loping towards the entrance to tier three. The dinosaur proved to be the largest threat they encountered, the other smaller animals they ran into were left alone to see how they behaved. Anything that got too aggressive would be put down, but as long as it could get along it could stay. By 'get along', they didn't mean that it didn't kill anything, death was a part of life, but it should be controlled killing. Indiscriminate violence across the grasslands was something they wanted to discourage.

The sun had been set for a while when they finally encountered something different. There was a person running through the area. They noticed it long before it saw them, their night vision was excellent, so TS went full stalker wolf. Aki's eyes weren't quite as good as the wolf's at that distance, but her dragon senses were more than capable of telling her it was an actual human, and they were armed. The only human she had met since hatching was Alan, but she didn't need their bond to tell that wasn't him. This person was of a similar size, maybe slightly taller, but compared to that sleek killer, this person moved like a toddler.

Alan's movements were fluid and sure, something that had made the younger Aki jealous as she first adapted to her unexpected body. This person might as well have been stumbling around drunk in comparison, an image that suddenly popped up from her memories. The equipment was also drastically different. Alan wore a fierce chainmail that was made from bleached bones, not some type of grey leather armor. He also rarely carried his weapon openly, and when he did it was that intriguing mace-dagger hybrid that glowed so marvelously in her dragon senses. This man was carrying a low-quality, yet functional, sword.

"Who is that?" She asked TS.

"I don't know. But Alan mentioned sending other adventurers into the area to take care of dungeons. Maybe this is one of them?"

"I thought those were supposed to be some kind of beast person species, and wouldn't they be traveling in a group?"

TS cocked his head to the side, he hadn't considered that. "That's a good point. What should we do?"

Aki knew how to answer that question. "Kill and eat him, probably in that order."

That drew a chuckle from the giant wolf. It sounded like a small rockslide. "You are a bloodthirsty little thing. We can't kill him, he might be an ally of Alan."

"I barely tolerate him, why should I have to deal with his friends." Aki knew she was being childish, but she couldn't help it.

"I tell you what. Let's just go over there and talk to him. If he knows Alan then we just send him on his way. If he seems suspicious, then you can eat him."

Aki had been pondering how exactly they were going to talk to this person, as neither of them was capable of human speech. But she forgot all that when TS said the last part. That made her shut her beak and eagerly crouch down on her friend's head to allow him to run faster. The pathetic human didn't even notice them until Two Socks suddenly sprang up right in front of him. That was the most embarrassing part for her, they hadn't even been approaching from the back, they were right in his face. He had been following a small path that had been made through the grass, but still, have some awareness!

The man, and she could tell it was a man now, recoiled in a most amusing fashion. Not only did he let out a high pitched screech, but he almost cut off his own leg as he jumped backwards. Somehow he managed not to kill himself, but he raised the sword to keep it between TS and himself. He even made a few half-hearted lunges with a swing of his sword thrown in, as if to ward them off. TS glared at him, even though the sword had never come close.

"Clearly this man is dangerous, look how he tried to attack us, let me kill him."

"Aki, I think you don't know the meaning of dangerous. Let's talk to him."

"Watch out, he's coming right for us!" She shouted in TS's head, as the man made absolutely no move of any kind. Unless you count shivering in fear as an attack.

Before she could do something drastic, TS interposed himself between them. It meant he had to knock the man down, which caused his sword to go flying. The frightened man started to crawl towards his fallen weapon, which set Aki off again.

"Now he's trying to get away. Clearly he's no friend of ours. I'll eat his legs so he can't run, Alan can always regrow them later if we're wrong." TS had told her Alan's story of having to regenerate his hand. This seemed like a perfect compromise to her.

With a loud huff, TS put his paws on the unfortunate man, pinning him in place. It wasn't very diplomatic, but it at least eliminated the most recent pretext that she was trying to use. Aki was not pleased, and actually snapped at TS in annoyance. That had been one of her more recent affectations and he was not thrilled with it, in fact he hated it. This time he snapped back at her, which caused Aki to rear back and actually fall off of TS and onto the human.

"I can't believe you did that!" She hissed at him. She literally hissed, in addition to the mental message.

TS growled back while sending his reply. "Oh, so it's okay when you do it, but not when I return the favor. Now get off the human, I think he's actually soiled himself." The wolf's face scrunched up in disgust at the smell.

While her dragon senses could identify the messy present in the back of their prisoner's pants, it thankfully didn't come across the same as actually smelling the stench would have. In her current form she didn't have a nose, per se, but her skin contained receptors to accomplish the same function. Because her skin was covered in fine scales, it significantly dampened that particular sense.

"Well, I'm certainly not going to eat him now, but we could still kill him."

TS was starting to come around to her viewpoint, but with a violent shake of his head, he reminded himself that this could be an ally. "We must first ask him if he is a friend of Alan's."

"And have you worked out how to accomplish that yet?"

TS let out a howl of annoyance as he realized the problem he had overlooked. He and Alan had formed a connection that let them understand each other even without words. There was no such familiarity here.

"Move to the side, perhaps I just have to focus on sending my thoughts to him hard enough, and then he will be able to hear me."

Aki's beak opened slightly in her best imitation of a smile. This was going to be funny. She slid off the human and onto the ground, and at the same time TS leaned even closer to the prisoner, as if a few centimeters was going to fix things.

"You, human, why are you here, and do you know Alan?"

There was no immediate response, so the massive wolf leaned in even closer in an effort to establish contact between their heads in the hopes that it would make communication easier. It didn't have the desired effect.

"Look, TS, I think he passed out. Surely we can eat him now. I call the top half!"

Fred had been living his best life recently. In his past he had been an apprentice to a rather unskilled barrelmaker. That had not been a promising path to glory and fame. As a matter of fact, it had led to a lot of ridicule from the people he had hoped to be friends with. After one particularly traumatic night where those same people had cornered him and started beating on him, Fred had decided to join the new Tutorial he had heard some people talking about. Once you piss your pants in front of a crowd of bullies, it's hard to come back from that.

After arriving in his new village, in what he had first taken to be an insult, he had been made a common farmer. He wasn't one of the first settlers, arriving several weeks after the village had been founded, and so he couldn't get a more prestigious role. Still, he thought he was doing better than his old life since he now had some new friends. Or so he had thought. It turned out they were just using him to get extra food that he smuggled home while working in the fields. He had heard them laughing about it behind his back one day. Fred had been miserable all over again.

Then had come the recruits. The first group to arrive had been humans like him. They were nice enough, but not very strong. A group of insectoids arrived a few days later and started fighting with them in the street. Fred had seen the whole thing, hiding behind a rain barrel that was in a nearby alley. He had thought about leaving a couple of times as the fight was making quite a mess. A couple of villagers had already been severely injured by missed attacks and spells that weren't properly controlled.

In the end, three of the insectoids remained and all of the members of the human party were dead. That wasn't the outcome that made Fred so happy these days. As a matter of fact, if things had ended there he would probably not be doing so well. Some insectoids had a reputation for subjugating humans and others who weren't their own species. The exciting thing was that the fight had apparently drawn the attention of another group of recruits. These were golemoids, Bodarians was the term they used.

They made quick work of the insectoids and had followed up by taking over the town. The mayor had been forced to surrender, or they would have killed her. That didn't bother Fred too much, he was starting to learn that other people weren't so nice, and he could only rely on himself. That was why these Bodarians were so great. They preached individual strength and made everyone in the village join a militia.

Everybody still had jobs to do, but for two hours every day they were supposed to train in combat. Fred had done well as a swordsman. The scraping and detail work he had done as a barrelmaker plus the physical strain of working as a farmhand had given him strong, nimble arms. He couldn't measure up to an actual classer, but he could hold his own in most fights against the other villagers. He had done well enough that when they were offered the opportunity to participate in Village Raids, he was given the task of being a scout.

The Bodarians favored the other golemoids in the settlement, giving them the best tasks, but they had selected some of the humans and beast people to be very long range scouts. Fred's job was to explore as far as he could to see what else was around. Capturing the village was a given as far as priorities went, but if they could identify some rare resources to grab while the portals were open, that would be an added bonus.

Fred hadn't been too far from his exit portal when he located a path through the open grasslands that this zone seemed to favor. It was a remarkably good path, smooth and firm with no roots or rocks. He didn't know where anything was in this unfamiliar place, but a path had to go somewhere, so he decided to follow it. Running down the well made path with no cares or worries was very freeing. Well, not no worries. There could be random monsters, but he figured a well traveled path would be patrolled, and any monsters left would be small and he should be able to handle them with his new training and fantastic equipment. It never occurred to him that if the path was patrolled that he might run into those responsible for keeping it safe.

Luckily for him, this path wasn't actively patrolled, it had been magically created by Alan on one of his trips to his old home. Unfortunately, that also meant there might be monsters, and he was soon greeted by a rather large one.

As he took another step on the path, once again thankful that there were no tripping hazards on this dark night, he suddenly realized the space in front of him was occupied. He instinctively jumped back and let out a mighty roar to try and scare it off. That's how he thought of it anyway. Once he was able to focus on his attacker, he realized it was a giant wolf, at least as tall as he was, with a strange growth on its head.

He swung his sword at it, trying to slice its neck, but he just barely missed as the wolf miraculously bent its body out of the way. In an incredible display of nimbleness, Fred recovered from his first expert swing and came back around to catch the wolf unaware. Unfortunately it was once again able to dodge his attack. It was after this second swing that Fred realized the thing on its head wasn't a growth at all, but some kind of large snake.

In his moment of distraction, the wolf made its move. It was trying to bite his head off, but Fred was able to dodge backward to avoid it. He unfortunately ended up on the ground, with his sword a couple of meters away. The wolf was staring at him menacingly, so in a desperate bid to stay alive, he scrambled for his sword. The beast once again proved faster, as it managed to rush forwards, pinning Fred under its massive paws.

Fred knew that this was the end. He was about to die, torn apart by the monstrous wolf. But then he was saved by the snake on its head. Perhaps the two were enemies and he had stumbled upon their fight, or maybe the snake was more intelligent and realized that Fred was a human being and not food. In a beneficent act, the snake first snapped and hissed at the wolf to get it to back off, but the aggressive monster wasn't going to be budged, so it tried to bite at the snake clinging to the top of its head.

The snake easily avoided the attack, but it must have decided it needed to intervene more directly, because it jumped down and interposed itself between Fred and the wolf. It hissed up at the wolf, telling it to back off. The furry beast stared back, engaging in a battle of wills between the two. It was as he sat, contemplating who would prove the dominant one, that Fred realized he had soiled himself.

The wolf's face twisted in hate, the snake was proving the tougher creature. Trying to make the wolf run off, the snake hissed back once again, causing the wolf to shake its head in defeat. But then something must have happened because it suddenly stretched its head towards the sky and let out a mighty howl. It sent a feeling of dread crawling up Fred's bones, even the snake was startled by the change that came over the wolf, and its mouth opened in surprise before it gave up in defeat, slithering away, exposing Fred once more to the massive monster. Slowly its head moved closer and closer to his own. The last thing Fred saw was the pointy teeth sticking out of the wolf's mouth as it closed in to bite his head off. The snake had tried its best, and he truly appreciated all it had given, but in the end it wasn't enough. At least it would be over quickly, Fred thought before the world went dark.

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