9.3

Thankfully they didn't seem to notice anything off. I would see some of the memories they held when I absorbed the mana from the cores. I returned to the warehouse calmly. Completing the crown of horns had worn me out. I laid down in my corner.

Intending to get a little sleep in. Then a thought occurred to me. System can other creatures create, and use divine energy?

Yes. Any creature capable of developing an aura can use divine energy.

That might be a problem. I would need to develop this ability as soon as possible. I had a feeling that an aura was the only thing that could combat another aura. I converted all the mana I could to divine energy.

New bloodline quest.

A New King

Complete the evolution to dragon king. Evolution is only possible when user reaches adulthood, and cannot be achieved unless the user is on earth during the entire evolution.

Reward ???

Penalty for failure - death

Thus confirming the bad feeling I had about the upcoming evolution. I couldn't think about sleeping now. Even if my body wanted me to relax into a dreamless sleep. My talons tapped the floor in rapid succession as I tried to calm myself. I needed to go back to earth to evolve, and if I failed I would die.

My wings stilled, and my tail wrapped around me closer. I didn't know how long I was agitated before Ethan came over to speak to me mentally. He knew of the system so all I had to do was relay the memory to him.

{Why does this always happen to you?} Ethan snapped mentally.

I had to hold myself back from laughing. Ethan's anger made me feel better for some reason. Ethan noticed my sudden uptick in mood, and looked at me in confusion. I just relaxed, and finally got to sleep. I found myself in my inner world once again.

I looked right at Regala, and slowed time within the inner world to a crawl just a second later. The look on Regala's face when she realized what I'd done was funny.

"Such a large change in such a short amount of time," any sign of Regala's surprise vanished quickly, "How did you do it?"

"I just understood it all of a sudden," I shrugged casually.

"That's not much of an explanation," Regala stood.

"It's the only explanation you're going to get," I didn't know what had changed besides the now completed crown.

"Then lets begin," Regala made a stone slab appear behind her, "First we'll begin with the three stages of elemental control."

She ran her hand under the word affinity as it carved itself into the stone.

"First there's an affinity," she tapped the stone, "An affinity is a light connection to an element. A single thread you can pull to influence that element. You don't necessarily need an affinity to influence an element, but the difficulty of controlling an element you do not have an affinity with without some sort of aid makes doing so more costly then it's worth."

"There are things that can help you manipulate elements that aren't your own?" I cocked my head curiously.

"Elemental crystals," Regala frowned at the interruption, "They can be created by concentrating elementally infused mana."

"How?" I wanted to know more about these elemental crystals.

They might allow Ethan to use magic as well.

"Are you here to learn or are you here to question me?" Regala frowned at me.

I shrank back a bit. She was right. I should let her continue.

"An affinity is the first tentative connection to an element," Regala went back to the original subject, "An elemental affinity is difficult to merge or connect with another element. Therefore magic that requires multiple elements to manipulate is near impossible such as nature magic. Nature magic requires both water, and earth elemental fusion to manipulate properly."

"I've made grass grow before," I flicked my tail.

"The Earth you live on is mana starved," Regala corrected, "Releasing more mana would cause all life near you to react. Once the Earth recovers properly it's unlikely for the plant life to react to you anymore."

"Oh," was all I could say.

I hadn't thought of that.

"Now the second stage of elemental manipulation is fusion," Regala gestured to me, "Elemental Fusion is when you form a proper partnership with your element. This allows you to create your own elemental mana instead of just drawing in the existing elemental mana." Regala ran her fingers along the word fusion as it formed along the wall, "This is where elemental manipulation becomes interesting. You may find this interesting since you were interested in the elemental crystals. It's at this stage that you can concentrate elemental mana to artificially create elemental crystals."

She was right. I did find that interesting.

"You need elemental crystals to advance within the fusion stage of your elements," Her face stayed serious despite the good news, "Now the third stage of elemental manipulation is called domination." Regala smiled faintly as the word appeared on the stone wall below fusion, "Domination is the ability to take control of all of the elemental mana around, and within yourself. Should two Domination stage elementalists of the same element oppose each other then the caster with the stronger domination will win the battle."

Now that sounded interesting. My wings twitched as I thought about how a battle like that would go.

"Wait," I raised my hand, "Doesn't that mean a domination level caster would completely cancel out any lower casters ability to use whatever element they are Domination level in?"

"If you came face to face with a domination level caster specializing in fire then you wouldn't be able to use fire unless that caster allowed it," Regala ran her fingers along the word domination on the wall, "And even if they did allow you to use your element it's unlikely that it would harm them since they have high resistance to their own elements." she gestured to me again, "Similar to your own high resistance to your own elements."