NARUTO 16

Carl was sitting at a desk slowly enjoying one of the novels that he had picked up before he arrived in the Naruto world. While it wasn't a major focus for him, in each world he had been stockpiling various books, movies, games, and other such entertainment to partake in.

He usually didn't spend too much time on such fluff over the past because he had many things to keep track of and make sure he didn't get blindsided by dangers in each world by being too busy playing games. So wasting time with a mystery novel or a cartoon was time better spent advancing his cultivation, skills, or spying on people.

But at the same time, he never knew what world he would end up in next, so it wasn't a complete waste of time to brush up on various stories. He never knew when a bit of familiarity about the types of schemes that people come up with would come in handy.

Especially now that he had the blood clone technique and had several of them running around, he felt like he had spare time. So while he was waiting for the perpetually late Kakashi to finally show up to their team meeting, he spent some time reading a fluffy feel good novel.

It was an entertaining novel about a dude who accidentally fell into the world of immortal cultivators when he was at the lowest point in his life. After over five hundred years of getting stronger, he was about to suffer from a heavenly tribulation of lightning, after which he would ascend to a higher plane. But something went wrong, he suffered greatly in the tribulation, almost being killed in soul as well as body, and he was thrown back into the past.

Because of the tribulation that messed about with time to send him back, ripples spread out and changes were made in the timeline. He found that in this new timeline he had a four year old daughter. He somewhat fell in love with his cute daughter at first sight and decide that while he would continue to cultivate, he would first focus on being the best dad ever and make up for the regrets of his past by reuniting with the mother of his child.

It was a touching and feel good story, at least what he'd read so far. Plenty of touching fluffy scenes, plenty of face slapping scenes, and just enough action in between to not be completely boring.

Carl was in the middle of the chapter where the former immortal father was reserving an entire amusement park so he, his wife, daughter, their 2.5 meter tall chimpanzee, and a dog the size of a small pony could go enjoy a day of rides and fun.

The door to the classroom opened and the grey haired jonin with one eye covered by his forehead protector finally casually walked in.

Over the three hours that Carl, Sasuke, and Saionji had been waiting in the classroom, Carl had noticed that Sasuke had sat back in boredom, fully expecting their jonin sensei to be late. Even still, he was impatient and fidgeting around. Saionji on the other hand was quite calm, and took out a sketch book that he continued doodling in while they waited for their sensei and superior officer/ninja.

'You already knew Kakashi was going to be late.' Carl had thought after observing Sasuke impatiently moving around the room for half an hour. 'Why didn't you bring reading material or why don't you start training your chakra control?'

"If you're that bored, you should practice some chakra control, Uchiha." Carl had finally advised after he found himself annoyed at the boy.

"Uh…yeah. Good idea, Carl. Thanks." The Uchiha then pulled out some kunai and began balancing them on their point with his chakra. Over the past year the boy had made some decent progress under Carl's tutorship.

His opinion of the transmigrant would go back and forth by the day, based on how annoying he was being. It was mostly still negative; but he hadn't crossed Carl's bottom line and was simply annoying.

So after three hours of waiting, Carl was watching his jonin sensei to see just what he was like in real life. Carl didn't have much hope for Kakashi as a sensei, because apparently not even the return of Kakashi's own sensei, the fourth Hokage, could change the habit he had developed of being late.

"Team 7. My first impression of you is…you're boring." Kakashi lazily said to the three expectant young faces that were looking at him.

The moment that Kakashi finished saying his lame evaluation, a whipped cream pie came out of nowhere and smacked him in the face.

Carl smirked in amusement while watching the cream drip down the front of Kakashi's clothes. Sasuke immediately burst out laughing while Saionji chuckled a bit while putting away his sketch pad.

"I changed my mind. I'm quite sure I dislike you now. But at least you're not boring. Meet me on the roof in five minutes." Kakashi said before disappearing in a Shunshin technique, leaving behind leafs and whipped cream.

A moment later, Carl was on the roof, casually sitting on the bench while waiting for Kakashi to show up once more.

While he was waiting, Carl sent a memory packet to the original Carl who was still flying off to the Divine Dragon clan. While Carl could fly much faster and probably have been there already, he had to go at the speed Big Blue could fly, since he was Carl's guide and introduction to the Divine Dragons.

Carl liked the blood clone technique quite a lot, since it let him accomplish quite a lot. The technique wasn't perfect though. The blood clones were half as tough as Carl himself was. The technique permanently took a chunk of his chakra pool to create. And while he could continue to train up to regain the lost chakra storage amount, it was still an amount of power that was kept in use, instead of being available for him in combat.

All in all, there were plusses and minuses to the technique. So he didn't make a horde of them since it would negatively impact how much chakra he could use. But a handful was perfect.

The memory packs were a definite bonus; he loved being able to update all the clones and Carl Prime on a regular basis. It was practically like being there himself.

After half an hour of waiting on the roof, Kakashi finally showed up once more. Carl sighed at the sign of things to come. He needed to stock up on whipped cream if Kakashi was going to be perpetually late. Maybe aversion therapy could help out?

He was just a blood clone, maybe he could get out of this torture by killing himself? Carl could just send another blood clone. Even if it would still be himself in the end…

Or maybe he would start using the regular shadow clone jutsu to replace himself? Nobody told him he couldn't send a clone to do a blood clone's job. Even if Kakashi noticed, what could he do about it?

"Carl!"

Looking up, Carl saw that he had been ignoring his new team while they were talking so he did the only thing he could. Sticking his pinky finger in his ear like he was cleaning it of wax, Carl innocently looked at his teacher.

"Sorry, Kakashi Sensei. Were you saying something?"

Carl smirked inside when he saw Kakashi's eyebrow twitching in annoyance. It was pretty fun to turn something back on Kakashi that he regularly used to annoy his everyone else, especially his friend and self proclaimed eternal rival Gai.

Even though he hadn't been paying attention, Carl had still heard and catalogued what had been said before. Quickly reviewing his memory, he saw that he was the last one to need to introduce himself, the others having gone on before himself.

"My name is Kakashi. I like some things. I dislike others. I have some random hobbies. My dreams…well, you don't need to know." The jonin paused and then turned to Saionji. "You go next."

"My name is Saionji. I like drawing. I dislike those who make people into tools. My hobby is drawing and training. Dreams…hmm. I don't know. I'm still looking for one."

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I like tomatoes, training, and…yeah. My hobby is to train. Uh. Oh yeah. I need to repopulate my clan with lots of hotties..er… yeah. And I guess I need to kill a man. Yeah, I'll definitely kill that one guy."

Carl rolled his eyes when he reviewed the introductions. This group was so…dysfunctional. And the Uchiha was a poor actor, not even able to stick to his own assumed character of Sasuke from a half remembered script of what the actual Sasuke was like in the original show. Trying to split the difference just made him sound dumb and uncertain.

"Well, are you going to introduce yourself?" Sasuke finally couldn't take the silence and yelled at Carl.

"Okay. I'm Carl Hyuga." And Carl stared at the group, waiting.

"That's all you're going to say?" Sasuke gritted out from his teeth.

Carl wasn't sure why the kid was getting angry. Surely these past few years of him and his friends mocking him had gotten the kid used to Carl by now?

"Well. Nice to meet you, I guess." Carl was having fun winding the kid up and not giving up information immediately.

"What are your likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams, Carl?" Kakashi finally intervened, seeing that Sasuke was going to explode soon and that Carl was just playing around.

"I like my family and friends. I dislike emos. My hobbies are to do lots of stuff. And I dream of Jeannie." Carl facetiously answered, leaving the listeners more confused than anything.

Except for the dude who had taken over Sasuke's body; he was more convinced than ever that Carl was also a transmigrant. Dream of Jeannie? That was a show back on Earth! The only way Carl could talk about that was if he had knowledge from a previous life from Earth!

Sasuke gritted his teeth in annoyance at the realization. Obviously the appearance of Carl had ruined everything for him. And the worst thing was that he was part of a large clan, the fourth Hokage was back, so all the civilians weren't kissing his ass and treating him like a prince, and none of the girls gave him the time of day!

Carl gave Sasuke the side eye, judging his mentality after "finding evidence" that Carl was also a transmigrant.

'Looks like some people are more stubborn than others and I'll have to beat them regularly to keep them in line.' Carl thought, seeing as how Sasuke was coming up with all kinds of elaborate imaginings of how he would regain his destined supremacy as Sasuke Uchiha and build a harem.

"Fine." Kakashi sighed.

Carl didn't know what Kakashi was bothered by. He set the tone by not answering deeply or truthfully about his own personal life. Did he think all 12 year old genins would automatically tell their deepest darkest secrets just because he asked? Especially when he was stingy with his own information.

"Okay. On to the next thing. You're still not genin, at least not until the jonin evaluation test, which we'll do tomorrow. Meet at training ground 11 at seven in the morning. And don't eat breakfast if you don't want to puke it all up." Kakashi disappeared in a shower of leafs.

Carl looked at his two teammates and seriously considered just giving up and going on ANBU missions instead. Why did he have to put up with perpetually late Kakashi and the Uchiha?

Saionji wasn't too bad, really. Especially after going through deprogramming from the short amount of time he spent in Danzo's ROOT program.

In the end, Carl decided to give it a go. It should only last for six months until the chuunin exam anyway. That wasn't very long.

"So, who wants to go practice our team moves?" Carl asked.

"How did you know the test is about teamwork?" Sasuke suspiciously asked, apparently still stuck on the idea of outing Carl as a transmigrant.

"What, the test is about teamwork?" Carl cluelessly asked. "I was just asking because we are a team and haven't really trained together as a trio. But if you know something, you should share!"

"Indeed. If you're aware of what the genin exam tests us on, you should tell us." Saionji added while staring at the Uchiha.

"Uh…from what I heard, Kakashi idolizes teamwork to an unholy degree. So if we work together, I'm sure we'll pass…" Sasuke finally muttered, flustered that they had turned his interrogation around on him so easily.

"Well, isn't that amazing! I've got some fireworks that we can set off to commemorate our team building exercise!" Carl exclaimed. "We'll set them off as a team, and everyone will know we're a group! That'll show Kakashi!"

"I can draw some birds that will keep us in communication if we get split up." Saionji added on. His ability to physically manifest anything he drew through an application of chakra could come in real handy.

"Uh…I've got some…tactical scrolls we can study today that we can use tomorrow." Sasuke finally added, confused about what he could actually bring to the team, now that he thought about it.

"Okay! Party at the Uchiha's house! Who wants beef steak?" Carl laughed. It had been a long time since he had been to a student party. They liked eating food at those parties, right?

"Really? Great! Let's invite everyone!" Sasuke almost cheered at the thought of inviting all the hot ninja girls to his house so he could impress them.

"No, not really." Carl flatly stated, his eyebrow twitching. "Just the three of us are going for a team dinner, where we'll discuss things. Everyone else is getting to know their own teams, why would you think that?"

"Oh…well…" Sasuke was the epitome of depression at the moment.

"Whatever. Saionji, where do you want to go eat?"

"It's been a while since I had barbecue." Saionji said after a moment of thought.

"Okay, let's go to Yakiniku's." Carl declared, getting up to match actions to words. "Coming, Uchiha?" Carl called out when he saw that Sasuke was still sitting in his own depressed world of thinking it was all unfair that he didn't have a smooth road.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, fine."

Carl had a little smirk on his face as he led the group, thinking about how it might be kind of fun to torment – er… toughen up Sasuke over the next six months.

XX

The next morning Kakashi was three hours late as usual. After that there really wasn't much drama to the test that Kakashi gave his three genin. He used the bell test to determine if the three of them were able to work together or if they would fight amongst each other.

"I have two bells here." Kakashi hung the two bells by strings on his belt. "You have to get the bells. If you don't have a bell by the end of the test, you will be sent back to the academy for another year. Come at me with everything you have if you hope to succeed."

The point of only having two bells was to convince the genin team of three that only two of them would pass, so that they would fight with each other instead of working together to pass the test.

Since Sasuke was a transmigrant that had been a fan of the Naruto show, he knew the true purpose of the bell test. Saionji was also willing to listen and work together. So they passed the test by working as a team and not abandoning one of their own in their desire to achieve their goals.

It really was a test designed with Kakashi's life philosophy in mind: Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash.

By noon Carl, Sasuke, and Saionji were a genin team and were released for the day. They would convene again in the morning at 7 (more like 10, thanks to Kakashi's perpetual lateness). And they would begin their epic career of being ninja by…painting fences, pulling weeds, babysitting toddlers, and fetching groceries for old people.

D-rank missions were basically chores around the village that needed doing. For newbie genin like them with no skills they got the most basic chores. The more experienced genin got D-ranks like maintaining stockpiles of weapons, inspecting and fixing defenses on the Wall, and patrolling the nearby forests.

Over the next several weeks of working in Team 7 Carl had a mostly enjoyable time. He stopped tutoring Sasuke because he wasn't the sensei and because one early morning he overheard Sasuke's jealous "take everything that belongs to me back from Carl" plan. Sasuke really needed to figure out that they were ninja, and that he shouldn't be muttering his plans out loud where anyone could hear.

Carl never felt like Sasuke was a friend, and since they weren't actually friends in Sasuke's mind despite all the help he had given the ungrateful Uchiha, Carl felt no more need to help him along when it was Kakashi's duty to train him.

But he was able to become better friends with Saionji over the same time period. Saionji had only joined their class for this last year and Carl had naturally invited him along to their afternoon and weekend training. He wasn't the most social person, having been stunted in his social growth by ROOT. But he had been rescued early enough to have become more normal than many of the ex-ROOT members. And apparently he had been given a different name than the one he had in the show.

And with his unconscious use of Yang element release to bring his paintings to life, Carl felt the young boy had a lot of potential, so he worked with him on his ninja skills after their group broke apart each day.

Aside from his dysfunctional team, Carl was pleased that his sister Hinata's team got along quite well. It was a bit unusual that she was in an all female team, but with Anko there, it was always interesting. Hinata, Naruko, and Sakura were three powerhouses in training under Anko, who, now that she wasn't being held back by the Cursed Seal, was showing her own incredible skills and was trusted by Minato to be a full jonin.

Carl had learned that the reason that Team 7 didn't have one of the kunoichi on it was that Naruko had complained to her dad about how she felt like Sasuke was a creep that liked hitting on the girls. So the fourth Hokage had made sure there weren't any girls on Sasuke's team.

Carl just laughed it off, even if he got the short end of the straw. It seems that even after the Uchiha clan got wiped out, Minato was still holding a grudge against them because of how they had treated Naruko before the Carl and Hinata's family had taken her in.

Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji had consistently complained about their lazy teacher who wanted to take things easy. It still amused Carl that Shikamaru…well, not enjoyed so much as respected his training so much now after so many years of being pushed to join in their fun. Even though he still put on the Lazy Nara persona, he was as driven to learn as any of them.

Actually, it was more like Ino complained loudly and Shikamaru never said anything like "troublesome" about her complaints which indicated that he agreed with her. Choji munched his chips in agreement as well.

Yakumo, Kiba and Akamaru, and Shino made a pretty good team as well. Kiba and Akamaru was their main taijutsu heavy hitter. Yakumo used her illusions to confuse and attack from mid range, since her illusions were so powerful they could be physical manifestations. And Shino was their longer range attack with his kikaichu bugs and small illusions to disguise their attacks.

And the civilian trio that actually stuck it out and graduated were also doing very well. Nobodon was delving into sword skills, Junirio was focused on ninjutsu, and Yamiko had finally decided to focus on thrown weapons. Her love of thrown weapons had been solidified when she saw what Tenten could do with them, and she began working on it herself.

The time leading up to the Chuunin Exams didn't have many unusual happenings. They finished their allotted D-ranks necessary to qualify for a C-rank. Their first C-rank was escorting a caravan. They were one of two genin teams hired. The other genin team was a career genin team, made of four genin.

During the mission Carl was amused to see the four 16 year old career genin trying to pick Kakashi's brain for jutsu and help in how to advance past genin rank. Apparently they hadn't passed their jonin's test back in the day but weren't willing to give up their ninja career and kept trying to get help in training wherever they could.

When it proved that Kakashi didn't understand how to help the four career genin actually learn jutsu, Carl rolled his eyes and stepped in to help them learn a jutsu or two.

There was no attack while they escorted the caravan, the four genin learned some new moves, and they returned smoothly back to Konoha. A far cry from the action packed first C-rank SNAFU that Carl had expected, based on all the stories he had read before.

They managed to finish four more C-rank missions before the Chuunin Exams came around. One bandit extermination mission, one diplomatic papers delivery, and two more caravan escorts.

Overall, it wasn't too bad of a time posing as a fresh genin for Carl.

Sasuke would have greatly disagreed and couldn't wait to get away from Carl, who he saw as the bad jinx of his life that stole his honey harem destiny.

XX

Going back in time to a few days after Carl's blood clone passed the Bell Test, Carl Prime had finally arrived at the Divine Dragon clan with Big Blue.

The terrain they had been flying over had been quite interesting. He had only seen a little bit of the summons land among the Snakes, Chameleons, and Wyverns. But flying over the land, he saw just how massive the land and everything in it was. The trees, the lakes, the streams, the grasslands, and the animals; everything had been ramped up to an enormous size. He felt like he was in a land of giants.

And outside of the clan areas, Carl had seen some truly massive animals fighting for territory, hunting other animals, grazing on the land, and otherwise being animals instead of intelligent animal summons clans.

While on the flight over, Carl learned that there was a reason the summoning clans welcomed the contracts with the humans to be their summons animal. The less powerful animal summons clans especially benefitted from the contracts.

The summoner contracts helped build up the clan's power and intelligence. If the weaker clans went for a long time between summoners, then they began to lose their intelligence and became wild animals, like the wild animals they had seen in the land between the summons clan's land.

The more powerful the clan, the less they needed a summoner. The Wyverns had gone for a hundred years without a summoner and they could have gone for another few hundred years without another summoner.

The Divine Dragon clan could go for many thousands of years without needing to renew their contract. So they were very picky. Only the most powerful ninja were allowed to sign their contract. And it was a self sustaining system. The more powerful the ninja that signed their contract, the more power the clan got from the interaction.

So the Snake, Chameleon, and Wyvern clans would gain an enormous power boost from interacting with Carl, who was possibly the most powerful ninja that had ever lived.

That's what happened when one was a Jumper who had cultivation techniques, bloodlines, and perks so that his power was never capped.

And Carl had proven his worth, through his power, fast ability to learn, and his evidenced patience. The Divine Dragon clan was interested in meeting him to judge his worth and see if he was the right choice to sign their contract.

When they arrived on the outskirts of the Divine Dragon clan, Carl was impressed to see many enormous buildings built on the outskirts of a gorgeous green valley. They were built of wood, but the craftsmanship was exquisite. There were decorative carvings all along the walls and eaves of the large houses.

They landed on the outskirts of the valley town that was surrounded by a wall and walked the rest of the way up to what was obviously a gate checkpoint. Carl wondered if there were caravans that ran from clan to clan through the summons land. It would make sense then that they had these enormous gates.

There was a serpentine eastern dragon curled up on a seat near the gate. The dragon had green scales on his back and a white underbelly. He had four legs with four claws on each foot. He sported long catfish like whiskers and had two antelope like horns on his head.

"Who goes there!" The green dragon's eyes opened and he yelled at them as they walked up to his checkpoint. "Oh, it's you, Big Blue. What are you doing here?"

Carl couldn't accurately measure the dragon's length, but it looked like the dragon was about 30 meters long. He didn't know what the Divine Dragon clan's abilities were, but judging by the fact that they had so many subordinate clans, they had to have some nice abilities to make them dominant.

"Hello there, Jotaro. I'm escorting Carl Hyuga here. He has an Invitation from Them." Big Blue said as he gestured toward Carl with one of his wingtips.

The green dragon peered at Carl for a few moments. He didn't let the inspection bother him as he stood there steadily under the dragon's gaze.

"Good, good." The gate guard Jotaro chuckled a bit. "It's good to meet you, Carl. If you'll wait to the side there, I'll call for an escort to show you to your accommodations."

"Thank you." Carl nodded his head and moved to the indicated spot.

"Well, I'm off back to my clan, then. Farewell, Carl, Jotaro." Big Blue rumbled as he began turning around. "I'll see you at the expected training sessions, then."

"I'll see you later, Big Blue, and thanks!" Carl called out just before the large wyvern began walking away to the spot they had landed at before.

Carl spent the time while he waited inspecting what he could see of the town through the gate. Throughout the town there were dragons going about their daily tasks. It looked surprisingly similar to a human village, aside from the fact that it was sized for 10 to 40 meter long dragons.

An hour later a short 12 meter long light green dragon showed up, bouncing along the ground as it made its way over to guard Jotaro.

"Hi, uncle Jotaro! What did you need me to do?"

"Hey there, niece Ritose. This is the summoner candidate, Carl Hyuga." Jotaro pointed at Carl. "He needs lodging and food for a few days until the caravan departs for the capital. Escort him to your father's place. Your dad should already have a place prepared."

"Sounds good, uncle. Are you coming by later today for dinner?" Ritose asked while staring wide eyed at Carl.

"Afraid not. My duty schedule keeps me on guard rotation until next week. Off you run, now."

"Okay, uncle. Follow me, Carl!" She called out and then started scampering off, causing Carl to chase after while waving a farewell to Jotaro.

It was interesting to Carl that the three clans he had interacted with so far had been living in caves or nests, while the dragons here had built their own villages, and apparently also capital cities.

Carl was soon introduced to Ritose's father, Rahi and her mother Rurirako. After chatting with them for a bit, he was shown to a room that was still pretty large for him, but it was the closest they could get.

He assured them it was fine, that he could sleep anywhere. They assured him they took their duty as innkeepers seriously and they would never force a guest to sleep somewhere they were uncomfortable.

After the polite talk back and forth, Carl was left alone in his room. He settled himself down and reviewed what his blood clones were doing in the world, since he wasn't allowed to wander off on his own since he wasn't the Divine Dragon's contracted summoner yet and he didn't want to ruin his chances of succeeding in the scenario because he was overly curious.

He was brought a meal later on that was quite delicious, and then spent the night studying and practicing the musical instruments that the Hyuga clan had gotten him started on. Because he wasn't the summoner for the Divine Dragon clan, he also couldn't send himself back home and reverse summon himself back to this little border town. So he was stuck here for the time being.

In the morning he was brought over to a series of wagons that were tied to enormous oxen. He was shown where he could ride and they started out on their journey to the capital.

After an hour the caravan was ready and began moving out. The blue oxen pulling the wagons were about 15 meters tall at the shoulders, and they ambled along a cobblestone paved road through the countryside. While the oxen weren't particularly fast, they were big and their every step moved them a great distance.

Over the next two weeks of travel Carl relaxed on one of the wagons, occasionally chatting with the dragons that were driving the wagons. He learned some of the basics of the Divine Dragon clan that lived in the huge area.

He soon learned that the Dragons weren't the only clan that made up this amazing Empire. Their lands were split into four quadrants. They were currently in the Eastern Lands of the Empire, which was ruled by the Azure Dragons. The Southern Lands was ruled by the Vermillion Birds. The Western Lands were ruled by the White Tigers. And the Northern Lands were ruled over by the Black Tortoises.

The border town where he and Big Blue had arrived at was the edges of the ruled lands of the Divine Dragons. The subordinate clans of the Divine Dragon clan had their own ancestral lands outside the main lands of the Empire. They sent tribute every few years to the Divine Dragon clan, and they received protection from attack by beast hordes that occasionally rampaged around the summons lands that they couldn't handle by themselves.

Carl soon learned that while they called it an empire, there was no actual emperor. They were ruled by the council of four, the leaders of the four Divine clans.

And Carl saw as they traveled through the Divine Dragon lands that there were villages here and there, and there wasn't only dragons that populated the towns. There was all kinds of summons animals from the subordinate clans that made their way into the Empire lands to try to make a living so they could gain access to more power, more techniques, and other such benefits that they could bring back to their clans and develop more.

Eventually they arrived at the capital. Carl's first sight of the city was from the mountain pass that they traveled through. Looking down on the vast plain in front of him was where the capital was sprawled. It was naturally sized for creatures that were in some cases hundreds of meters long and tens of meters tall.

The sight in front of him very majestic, since the truly massive city stretched for miles and miles into the distance. But thanks to his perfect sight, he could see the four enormous palaces that were no doubt the homes of the four divine clan leaders. They were all gathered in a central location near each other.

Carl gave out a low whistle at the sight. Seeing the enormous capital city that he was dwarfed by really made him aware of just how small he was. It was a similar experience to the first time he had viewed the Milky Way Galaxy from outside it while he was in the Stargate universe.

Seeing this enormous land of creatures that were so much larger than even his Dragon form, along with the realization that this was just a small corner of the universe he was currently in, which was just one of many universes that he had personally visited, which was an infinitesimally small drop in the proverbial bucket that was the omniverse.

That juxtaposition of being so dwarfed by large creatures but also realizing just how small they were in the backdrop of reality, or everything, is what really got to him at that moment.

The driver shouted at the oxen, snapped his whip, and the wagon began shuddering down the slope, breaking the mood that had gripped Carl for a moment. He adjusted his mood and began chatting with the driver once more who continued to goad the oxen down the trail. Carl encouraged the driver to brag about the capital so he could continue to glean various tidbits of information from the dragon.

By the end of the day Carl was once more resting in an inn room. He had a scheduled meeting with the Azure Dragon in five days time. It was an interesting experience to be forced to wait on the schedule and whim of a clan leader. But Carl didn't bother to get offended by it. He knew how the schedule of a leader was, and he was content to explore this city with a guide for the next few days while he waited for his appointment.