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The kid hesitantly put his hand on my nose. Running his fingers along my tough scales as he waited for me to do something. I huffed a burst of hot air at the kid. Making him flinch, and blink before he smiled at me, and started rubbing harder. This kid clearly liked me more than a little bit.

He would be really good for Aurora. My scales stood on end as I looked at the kid. Letting my eyes fall closed slowly. No one would be able to wound me quickly. Even if I dropped my guard here.

I allowed him to really go to town on me. Until his arm started to relax. I pulled my head back slowly so I could look at him before drawing my head back up to my full height. Cocking my head as I looked at Ethan with my brown eye. I pretended to yawn.

My maw had no visible teeth at the moment since they were fully retracted. I was given a funny look, but I didn't care. I turned back to the warehouse, and walked back in there slowly. Giving the kid a smirk as I walked through the doors. I wanted him to come back.

I would just prefer that he didn't bring his mother with next time. I wanted to chat with him alone.

{Let that kid come in if he comes back alone} I didn't even need to give Ethan a glance for him to know what I was saying.

My wings twitched as I laid down at the back of the building. I wanted the kid to come back. Sooner rather than later. I didn't know how long it would take for the kid to come back, but I was pretty sure he would. My wings twitched as I thought it over slowly.

I wanted to show that kid a few things, and maybe heal him if I could. I wanted to push myself even further. I needed to go out further than I had been to pull it off. I couldn't do that if I wanted to get my reward. I slammed my tail down against the concrete.

Causing cracks to spread out from the point of impact. That was more than a little frustrating to me. All this being stuck was driving me nuts. I couldn't go all that far with my quest still open, and Vernon still planning something dirty. I didn't bother working on the map.

I still had three unnatural elements I needed to get. I'd only gotten one started so far. I only gained access to that element because I ate the crystal of a creature that could manipulate the element. It wasn't enough for me to use the element at all, but it was a start. My impatience was slowly getting the better of me.

I needed more to do that would allow me to grow stronger quickly. I couldn't afford to stagnate right now. I needed to get more XP as quickly as possible, but there weren't many powerful beasts around the settlement. I needed to go further out, but I couldn't for now. Around, and around, and around I went.

The next few weeks were a boring bit of grinding. Pushing my mana capacity up, hunting, and exercising. I maxed out my lightning affinity, and was trying to push the strength of my other affinities up, but it was much harder to strengthen my other affinities. They weren't like my lightning affinity. I couldn't work on them while doing other stuff.

I had to stop to work on the other elements. Then there was the notification I got when I maxed out my lightning affinity. It said it could evolve. I had no clue that my affinity could evolve. What would it become if it did?

That meant all my affinities would max out at level one hundred. I would need to figure out how to evolve them all. Starting with lightning. That was the one I was the most in tune with. Then there was the fact that I didn't know if I had to level up to evolve it now.

Why couldn't anything be easy? Then there was the fact that Ethan, and Savannah were both hung up on evolving their bond. At this rate Jax was going to catch up to Savannah. The kid hadn't come back either. I wanted to talk to him more.

The frustration was making me really irritated. I wanted to try, and get more done than I was right now. I wanted to level up more than anything. I didn't know how long it would take for me to kill off the little bastards. Killing off Vernon, and his fucking subordinates would be the best way to guarantee Calen's safety.

Unfortunately I couldn't do that until I had a good reason. I just had to wait until he gave me that good reason. That was more frustrating than I could possibly express in words. I wanted to kill him, and be done with it. His subordinates were just icing on the cake.

I snorted flames as I thought about it again. I preferred lightning. Especially now that the lightning felt almost as if it were part of me. My lightning breath didn't just vanish like it used to. Now it lingered.

Moving like it was alive, and part of me, but at the same time separate. It was a weird feeling. Like I was about to grasp some foreign concept, but didn't quite have it down yet. I didn't know if I should push it because of the odd feeling or just wait. Plus my mana reserve wasn't nearly as painful to expand as it used to be.

Something was wrong though. My chest was starting to feel tight. Not like when I had Aurora's egg in there. It was a different kind of tight. Like I was running out of room to grow.

I snorted to myself again. It was a weird feeling. I wondered what would happen if my mana exceeded what my body could handle. Savannah said there were severe consequences whenever that happened. I didn't think they'd be as severe for me since everything was less severe for me.