Chapter 4 - Time To Train
"Sir I want to thank you for giving my children their names I know they will treasure them for the rest of their lives, now please can I offer you some hospitality My husband has recently hunted some wolves that thought they were strong enough to eat our eggs and also a small amount of human who wanted to take our scales for their useless journey for power."
"Ahh well in that case I believe some human meat would do just nicely it has been a few years since I was treated to something so delectable."
Well I can agree with this new Person who I guess is my grandfather? also it seems he is an elder and also my father's father so that must mean that my father is a badass!!! Sweet that means that I have great potential in this body, even if it is the runt of the litter with enough training I'm sure this new fantasy universe will give me the power to conquer all, It's decided I will start to train this weakling body as soon as I am able to even if I have to do it in secret just for the fact that unless I gain an indomitable will I am still weak against judgement after a certain point, Just because I am in a new body and in a new world doesn't mean that my soul is any different.
But with that all in mind I decided that even if I was being bullied by my younger brother who is stronger, and smarter..... and more powerful in every way.... ugh it doesn't mean that I myself could not be powerful too.
SLAP!
SLAP!
I cannot think like that it does me no good on this new journey of mine I must always think that with time and enough work I can be the best.
At breakfast my grandfather attended alongside my mother and also my father who came back with not only a few wolves but also what looked to be like a farm animal of some kind, it reminded me of a fluffy cow, sorta like a cross between a sheep and a cow. But either way after a little smoking from yours truly (looks like I have some uses after all hooray) the meat became just heavenly, I mean the meat stayed juicy and just dripped with flavor packed grease and before it was cut up I experimented and found out that it had udders as well so using a little human knowledge I was able to gather some milk that was then put into a stone bucket that my mother was able to fashion in mere seconds. Which took me by surprise, I knew she knew healing magic but to think that she knew other magic as well does that mean that dragons are able to use all magic types or depending on the color of our scales determine which magic we are able to use I hope not because if my scales are any indication than I will be limited and I hate that feeling. Thinking that brought up so many bad memories of my past life where I would just sit on the edge of my bed drowning in misery because even at the age of 30 I was going nowhere fast and in my mind would always be a voice telling me that I was meant for more but I could never figure out for what. But that is why I am so excited for this new life even if it means I am stuck in a runts body, the potential to achieve something great is right in front of me and with how hardworking I was in my past life I know that I would be able to achieve it. Even if it took me years I am sure that this dragons body surpasses human expectancy by at least a couple hundred years.
After having a partial breakdown from past trauma and after my grandfather left I resolve myself again, and after eating I decided to explore and after some hardships I was able to finally crawl out of the giant nest which as of now was the only area that I could reside in only for the fact that since the walls of the nest were so high only my body was to small to get over them because my brothers and sisters easily either climbed over them and set about their new life doing whatever or just jumped over like some pretty boy shiny punk did. But anyways after I finally get out of the nest I found myself on a floor that was covered in pelts almost like a rug sort of, which led me to wonder if these dragons could make rugs why on earth did they lay eggs in a nest built on the floor why not just make a better area for the eggs out of pelts themselves, and come to find out my brothers and sisters were able to speak already.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE HASN'T CAME OUT OF THE NEST YET IS HE STILL SO WEAK THAT HE CANNOT DO THIS SIMPLE ACT." This voice sounded young and quite boisterous like a hothead
"Hey do not speak to your mother like that boy it seems you have forgotten your lessons of respect quite easily." I could tell this was my father
"Oh dear let him be, he is just worried about his older brother." With such a sweet voice and words I could tell this was my mother
"I am sorry father, Mother please forgive me but no I do not care about that weakling. I only wonder why he has taken so long even after challenging me."
it seems that me being the runt effected my ability to do anything other than simple tasks physically, although I can run walk and do normal things like eat perfectly fine which was odd at first but once I remembered that unlike humans, Creatures have to mature physically faster to survive, so I just let that thought brush past me and continued thinking that not being able to speak for a barely week old newborn was completely normal never would I have thought that dragon hatchlings were able to speak after only a few days.
That also brought up another question? If they could speak how come I was not able to hear them? The answer was that getting out of the nest was a test of sorts for the hatchlings as a sign that they were ready to enter the world and that after learning to speak they would then be taken out daily for training in the art of hunting and if they shown the aptitude magic. Now I had a short term goal that I could achieve to enhance my day to day. But due to my size my father was against taking me outside with the others and instead decided that after training the others and coming home he would oversee some basic training to hopefully buff up my frail looking body, even though I was a dragon it seems that if the baby was weak enough I could get eaten. or kidnapped by the humans and sold as a pet.
With that in mind I decided to focus on trying to talk by making a sound and after a while instead of just some sort of growls and guttural chirps I was able to start to sound out every so often a word or 2 which as you can imagine garnered quite a bit of attention from everyone there.
"Good it looks like Vexsus is working hard to improve I can tell he is still having trouble but even from just a few hours ago he is already making great progress, I can only imagine what a potential powerhouse he could be if given the chance to show what his true colors are."
"Father he can barely speak, yes he is making progress but compared to the time it took for us, his younger siblings, to learn how to speak his progress is only comparable to a snail trying to fly its impossible."
"Oh brother Aurum that is just your insecurity showing, Just because even as the runt he challenged you doesn't mean you need to be so harsh on him. I find it quite inspiring that he is trying to hard. I believe that if we all work together we could be unstoppable maybe even be compared to the gods like in ancient times when every creature would worship our might and bow before us."
"Now now Salus do not get to prideful we must always be humble especially knowing our past as a species should go far in proving how pride can have a negative impact not only in the present but also in the future to not only you but also your descendants. Even your grandfather as one of the elders of the dragons had to fight tooth and claw to get to his position because of the problems his ancestors created for dragons as a whole."
OOOO juicy backstory it looks like my ancestry in this world is going to be a bit more hazardous than I thought, and here my assumption was that my family was just a low rung dragon family. While that may have been true for when my grandfather was child I am guessing that as an elder maybe that makes my family like nobles or even dare I say ... Royalty. hahahaha yes I am a dragon prince Even having a weak body I should still be able to rule.
SLAP!
SLAP!
Dammit I shouldn't think like that either I need to gain my Authority with my own hands, what's the point in ruling over everything if you do not have the power to protect it. But more importantly why even am I thinking that far ahead in the future if anything my chances of seeing a future like that depends on surviving my first day of training outside. I need to focus only on achieving small goals at first until the scope of what I am able to accomplish creates bigger opportunities for me. I need to start not only being able to speak but also to get stronger physically, even if all I wanted in my past life was magic right now my body can barely run for a few seconds before being winded and need to rest for hours to catch its breath (my human body was also a little on the bigger side and needed to rest after lightly jogging but back then I did not need to run to survive so I am just going to forget about that.)
So I started by lightly jogging from the back of the cave to the front and after that I would do some pushups where i found out as a four legged creature did not really do anything mostly what I thought would be a pushup was essentially a squat so instead that I just focused on running back and forth to build up my stamina. And after a few days of that I was able to run for an hour without tiring myself out to the point where i would have to rest for the remainder of the day, But odd thing was that after that I got a notification popped up which I completely forgot about
[Conditions have been met Stat Page has been made accessible by user.]
Name: Vexsus
Species: Earth Dragon hatchling
Current status: Exhausted, weakened
Health: 50/50 ->60/60
Mana: 0/0
Stamina 10/50 -> 10/60 𝙛𝘳𝒆𝒆𝒘e𝗯n𝗼𝘷𝚎𝚕.𝒄૦𝓶
Str: 1 𝒇𝒓eewe𝒃𝑛𝒐𝘃𝒆𝚕.co𝘮
Vit: 1 -> 1.5
Dex:1
Con: 0.5
Ah sweet now I can see my stats I was wondering why unlike every other system novel I read in my past life I could never see anything related to the system.. But now that I could see and have a value associated with my life it made things easier to focus on what needed to be improved and it looks like my Vitality increased which maybe corresponds to my health and stamina seeing as how they just got an increase as well, And just like that I was given a boost to my resolve and a easier path to follow to getting stronger.