Soren watched as the white clouds flashed below him.
The world was moving so incredibly fast, yet it felt so stagnant within the translucent sphere that protected him.
He looked up to see the sun but didn’t feel its burning heat.
He just felt the warm light gracing his skin.
Soren dismissed the ethereal beauty that came with traveling across Atheo by dragon—a luxury only those favored by dragons could afford.
He had to grow faster, and that meant that he had to grow accustomed to his strengths and abilities before he arrived at Droc, the border city to the Empire of The North.
He stood up from the dragon’s back, apologizing silently, and closed his eyes.
Soren breathed deeply in and observed the two different energies within him.
The syntropy was circulating within his body—his core—while the Domain Energy was deep within what felt like something beyond his physical body—his soul.
He pulled the warmth out of his core and slowly let it fill his body.
He felt the warmth calmly and structurally fill every part of his body, generally enhancing it.
Then, he willed the syntropy to pool all into his right fist.
The syntropy flooded his right arm and into his fist, where instead of feeling warm, the rest of his body returned to normal while his fist felt like it was burning.
It wasn’t painful, though, just an uncomfortable heat.
Soren released the buildup and felt it flow back into the rest of his body and right back into the core.
It seemed that he would need to focus on designating the syntropy in order to use it.
Soren turned his attention to the Domain Energy that was flowing into his soul.
It was his trump card that allowed him two separate sources of power, and he was going to figure out how to use it.
He closed his eyes once more and focused on the world around him.
Suddenly, a rush of information poured into his mind.
It told him every single minute detail of everything that was going on within its radius.
He gasped and quickly cut off the connection with his Neutral Domain, feeling a throb pound his head.
He winced, regaining his bearings before he tried again, but this time he guided syntropy to his head and manipulated it so that the domain would filter out the unimportant details.
Soren felt the headache disappear, and he quickly breathed out a sigh of relief, glad that his idea worked.
It would’ve been a tragedy if he couldn’t use his Neutral Domain.
He felt the world around him, but it wasn’t every minute detail that was flooding his mind—ranging from how big each scale on the dragon’s back was to how each gust of wind traveled.
It was merely the general state of things, such as the general speed he was traveling, what was within the domain, and that the dragon he was riding on was a Transcendent beast.
Soren felt a small smile creep up to his face.
He was an advocate of how information was power, and using this would be invaluable as an information-gathering tool.
He turned his focus back to the second source of energy that was accumulating from the passive domain around him.
While syntropy acted as an enhancer that strengthened his muscles, bones, senses, and abilities, Domain Energy was solely used for the application of his power.
Thanks to Ignus’s Transcendent presence, the stream of Domain Energy flowing into Soren’s soul was thick and continuous, replenishing his reserves that had been emptied ever since the Undercity attack.
‘Let’s see what happens when I don’t release it all at once like I did against Scrappy.’
Soren reached past his core and pulled out the strange warmth that pooled in his soul.
Instead of forcing the Domain Energy out like an overwhelming wave, he eased it out in steady waves.
A faint, brilliant ring of white light flooded below his feet and expanded outward in a perfect circle.
The circle expanded, the energy being consumed at a faster rate until it reached its maximum size of fifteen feet.
“What are you doing?” a voice rumbled, startling Soren out of his experiment and causing the ring of white light to shatter.
Soren looked around until he realized that the dragon in front of him was talking.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this dozens of miles in the sky on my back,” the dragon said, shaking Soren’s feet from the vibrations.
“Do you have any manners?”
“Sorry, uh, I didn’t know dragons talked.”
A sound that suspiciously sounded like laughter came from the noble dragon in front of him.
“Of course we can!
We’re the gods of the skies while you humans are like ants beneath our feet,” Ignus said haughtily, snorting a column of smoke.
“All except the Empress… She’s a bit scary.
And those old farts in your little human Council.
They’re… I don’t like them, but the elder dragons do.”
“Ah, right,” Soren replied, rolling his eyes and finding amusement at the dragon’s bipolar claims.
“I didn’t think she was that scary.”
“Don’t kid with me, human,” Ignus replied snarkily, beating his wings and shooting forward.
“I saw you trying to act all cool with your friends, but I could tell you were also intimidated by the Empress.
Nice try trying to hide it from them, but I’m a legendary dragon!
You just can’t hide these things from me.”
“Whatever you say,” Soren replied, finding a genuine smile forming on his lips.
“You can’t speak since you’re also scared of her.”
“Hey!
She’s a different breed from you humans!” Ignus cried out, causing Soren to almost fall off the dragon’s back.
“You wouldn’t get it unless you were a dragon.”
“Name’s Soren, you lump of scales,” Soren said, slapping the back of the dragon.
“Of course I knew that!” Ignus cried out indignantly.
“But don’t tell the Empress anything, got it?”
Soren finally relaxed, bantering with the strange, humorous dragon as they traveled through the skies of Vulcanis with jaw-dropping speed.
The sun quickly started setting before silence settled between them.
“Hey,” Ignus said, breaking the comfortable silence.
“What were you doing before we started talking anyway?”
Soren looked at the dragon questioningly before remembering what he was talking about.
Soren rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, sitting down cross-legged on the broad scales.
“Oh, I was experimenting with my Awakened abilities.
Sorry if it startled you.”
“Hmmm… Do you want some pointers?
I’ve never been an Awakened, but I have been a Transcendent for my eighteen years of living.”
Soren looked at Ignus with wide eyes and an open mouth.
“You’re eighteen years old?!” Soren yelled, looking at the dragon’s enormous body and Transcendent aura.
“The hell have they been feeding you?”
Ignus roared with laughter, smoke billowing out of the corner of his mouth before he turned his long neck to look at Soren.
“That’s just how superior dragons are, human,” Ignus replied easily, casually doing flips and turns that churned Soren’s stomach as he gripped tightly.
“So… Do you want some pointers?”
Soren, having settled his stomach, pondered over it.
Of course, he had just met the dragon and had gotten to know him for only a couple of hours.
They exchanged many stories, but he wasn’t sure if he could trust Ignus.
Hell, the dragon could be a spy sent by the Empress to report back to her.
Soren sighed, having finally decided.
He was mistrusting, but if he didn’t trust every single ally that he met, he’d eventually end up having more enemies than friends.
“Yeah,” he eventually said, flaring up the syntropy and spreading it across his body.
“How do you use your entropy efficiently?
It kind of just spreads everywhere or just pools in one area.”
Ignus hummed, thinking over his question.
“I think you got it all wrong.
Entropy isn’t something you force.
It’s chaotic in nature and doesn’t easily follow your commands.
I assume you’re treating it like an external tool rather than a part of your body.
When I channel my abilities, I don’t force the chaotic essence out, but I simply let my body naturally assimilate to it.”
Ignus paused, his scales warming up.
“If you force all your energy into your fist like a brute, you leave the rest of yourself unprotected—that burning sensation you likely feel is waste.
True efficiency comes from intent.
Don’t force entropy to flood one spot, but let it flow naturally while guiding it, letting it follow through your body naturally.”
Soren thought over what Ignus said, feeling the syntropy within his core.
Of course, he didn’t possess entropy but rather syntropy, but the general gist should remain the same.
He closed his eyes once more, taking a deep breath to settle the turbulence in his core.
Instead of treating the syntropy like a reservoir that he needed to force out, he shifted his thinking so that he was more guiding the flow out and into the desired path.
He guided the warmth from the core to the rest of the body while focusing the flow into his fist.
The suffocating heat he expected was instead diffused to a pleasantly warm heat that pooled in his fist but also throughout the rest of his body.
Soren opened his eyes, staring at his empowered fist and body with a flicker of genuine awe.
“It… it actually worked.”
“Of course it worked,” Ignus huffed haughtily, a small plume of ash puffing from his nostrils.
“You were learning from a god of the skies.
You humans always try to overcomplicate the natural flow of things—trying to force your way.”
A quiet laugh escaped Soren’s lips.
“Alright, alright.
Now, what about how to use my abilities using entropy?”
He didn’t want to expose his trump card about having Domain Energy.
Of course, maybe if he could absolutely trust Ignus, but that wasn’t now.
Ignus tilted his massive head slightly, the corner of his eye looking at Soren.
“Now, I can’t really help you with that.
Each person has different abilities, and those range from different pathways.
Of course, I could help you with your abilities if they’re related to fire, but other than that, you’d have to ask a master within your pathway.”
Soren nodded slowly, understanding the problem.
Although he was slightly bummed out that he couldn’t get any pointers on how to use the strange Domain Energy, he expected it.
He’d just have to experiment with the Simple Domain when he landed in Droc.
“You know, for an eighteen-year-old lump of scales, you’re not that bad of a teacher.”
Ignus roared with booming laughter, the sound echoing within the chamber he created.
Soren smiled at the dragon’s infectious laughter, feeling glad that he opened up to Ignus.
Although he wasn’t the most down-to-earth person—no, dragon—he was definitely fun to hang with.