บท 10: ''Wolves are cool too.''

The next day, a dozen of soldiers passed by to scout the place. As expected, they had noticed that a big fight had transpired there. They inspected the area carefully but didn't find any trace of Arima and Night.

The soldiers obviously concluded that this place hosted a large-scale battle between two powerhouses and retreated not long after. The army warned the citizens to stay away from that place until a next update.

Later, Arima and Night woke up and casually left the place after sleeping for a day and a half. Arima used magic to wash, as always. He also made sure to restore his clothes to their original state. When they were about to reach the capital, he stopped Night.

"Do you have a way to conceal yourself? I'm not blaming you or anything, but I don't think it's a clever idea to bring a dragon into the city. I don't want someone to suddenly charge at you and scream 'For my family', you know?"

"…Why would someone do that?"

"I don't know," Arima shrugged. "Just an example. I mean, maybe there's a stereotype god somewhere."

"…Yeah, sure. I can shapeshift. Should be fine, right? I can't change into a human though. I'm still a beast after all. At best I can transform into another beast, but for a human, it's like invalidating my fundamental. It's like a lock in my mind," Night explained.

"I see. Fair enough," Arima nodded. "Then go ahead, you can change into whatever you want."

"Then…" Night closed his eyes and a magic circle appeared below him. His entire body began to emit cracking noises as his figure slowly changed. His neck shrank, his horns, tail, and wings slowly receded. Then he got on all fours, his limbs deformed and his bones followed. Finally, his scales disappeared as if they were retracted inside his flesh and a black fur grew instead.

In the end, what remained was a five-foot-tall wolf.

"Is it good enough?" Night asked with his unchanged, nonchalant and calm voice.

"Yeah, wolves are cool too," Arima smiled.

"I recalled the wolf motif depicted on your sword's scabbard. I chose it without thinking."

"Now that I think about it, you are a noble dragon, right?" Arima suddenly asked while they were walking toward the city's gate.

"Yeah," Night affirmed. There were actually three different breeds of dragons. The sky dragons, the land dragons, and the noble dragons.

Sky dragons are the serpent-like ones. They normally spend their life-time traveling around the world when not in hibernation. They usually are magic experts.

Land dragons cannot fly and don't have wings. They are quadrupedal life forms and possess extremely good physical and regeneration abilities.

As for noble dragons, they are said to be the strongest. They are bipedal, possess a pair of claws and a pair of wings. They can boast about both their physical and magical ability. Night was one of them. Although he's a soul beast, he's still a life form born from the 'Laws' of this world, so there's no doubt that he was a true member of the dragon race.

While Arima was thinking about that, they reached the city's gate. The guards who saw Arima leave the day before were stunned to see him come back with a massive wolf at his side. When he explained that Night was his soul beast, they were awed and curious at the same time.

They asked some questions out of curiosity then finally informed him that a subdued, or a contracted beast was required to wear a special badge to enter the city. The soldiers gave Arima a pendant with a special symbol on it. He observed it for a few seconds then drew the same symbol on Night's fur with mana. Leaving a gray symbol on the wolf.

"Is this good enough?" Arima smiled and asked the soldier in front of him.

"Y-Yes, you can go in now," the soldier nervously replied.

"Thanks," Arima went through the gate and brought Night with him.

There were still four days left before the competition. Arima had a lot of free time at the moment so he walked straight to the library. When he stepped inside, the staff was immediately scared by Night's presence but calmed down after seeing the symbol on him.

Arima told them that Night would just read together with him. When they heard that a beast would be reading books, they didn't even have the zeal to hide their expression.

"I will," but when they heard the wolf talking, they staggered a bit and allowed them to enter together.

Arima began to read every book he could find about enchanting and alchemy. He wanted to enchant his clothes and weapons if he could. He also found out that enchantment had a lot of potential. It was just like programming. For instance, you could apply a variation and a condition on an object and do a lot of things. For example, something like; 'activate engraved magic when supplied with mana'. Additionally, the effect of that 'program' can be 'active' as well as 'passive'.

In the case of alchemy, Arima just wanted to learn about the plants in this world. He wasn't really eager to concoct potions. He could use healing magic if he wanted and he didn't like to use poison.

Meanwhile, Night was reading books about the common things in this world like Arima did during his first day. He was using telekinesis to pick up books and turn the pages. Apparently, he was reading in English too. Maybe the god's translating gift had been transmitted to him.

The staff and people in the library were staring at those two customers with a really complicated look. Especially the black wolf who was nonchalantly lying down on one of the library's tables.

And like so, they spent an entire day cultivating themselves before returning to the Inn. Aria didn't react badly when she saw Night and accepted him inside. She even tried to pet him. He actually let her do it and Arima couldn't help but chuckle.

***

The next day, Arima got out alone for an hour and came back at the Inn with some items that he threw on the bed. Night was lying down in the room half-asleep when he heard Arima throw his stuff. He lifted his head and looked at it.

"What is that?"

Arima raised an eyebrow. "Tools for enchantment," he was clearly upset.

"What's wrong?" Night tilted his head.

"I tried to find decent quality equipment and so I bought this. Do you know how much it cost me?"

"How much?"

"Three, freaking, hundred golds."

"Oh."

"What 'oh'? It's basically 30 000 dollars! If it wasn't for me pillaging some nobl- bandits, even with the money from the guild and the precious stones I had, it wouldn't have been enough," he grumbled and sat down on the bed.

He sighed. "Well, let's begin."

"You got over it pretty fast, and what was that pillaging story?" Night couldn't help but ask.

Arima ignored him and looked at what he bought. Beside him were three things. One was a sort of big and sharp white pen with carvings on it. Next to it, there was a box with twenty empty magic crystals inside and finally, there was a strange scroll with a magic circle drawn on it.

Arima took one crystal with his left hand and the pen with his right. He infused mana into the pen until the runes on it glowed. Soon enough, he started to engrave something on the magic crystal.

Basically, he was transferring a certain amount of mana to the pen without making it leak out. Then he had to redirect it toward the tip and then engrave something on the crystal. Also, the amount of mana needed to be the exact same for each character engraved. In short, it was damn hard. The precision and concentration required were off the chart.

When Arima finished engraving the first word, the crystal restored itself, absorbing the word at the same time while producing a faint blue light.

Night was silently watching. When Arima was halfway through the second word, the crystal fissured. Arima felt something was wrong and instantly set up a small mana shield around the crystal.

As expected, it exploded.

"..."

"It shattered," Night remarked.

"Yes."

"You failed."

"...Yes."

"I'm shocked."

"Fuck off."

***

Ultimately, Arima succeeded an hour later, after his third try. He continued to enchant until evening. And after he finished, he ended up with eight enchanted crystals.

"...My head hurts," he complained.

"You know, if I'm not wrong, from what I read, the average enchanter can only enchant once every two days. The most experienced ones can go to two per day. And usually, when a normal guy enchants three times a day, he faints and if he forces himself to four per day, he dies. For you... yeah, eight is not bad," Night had lost it the moment Arima finished the fifth crystal. Now he just acted like it was natural.

"Anyway," Arima took one of the crystals and put it on the scroll listed previously. He activated it with a wisp of mana. The circle shined and the crystal cracked, but this time it was normal. The crystal was crushed until it turned into a glinting dust, floating above the circle like a cloud. Arima flicked his fingers and the dust flew to him and directly fused with his coat.

"What was that?" Night asked in curiosity.

"The enchant. It transforms the crystal into dust and the enchantment engraved on the crystal is applied to an object through it. The object here is my coat."

Arima then used the remaining crystals. Three more on his coat, two on his shirt and two on his pants. He noticed then that enchanting didn't work on Karma. Maybe because its power was too strong to accept enchantments.

In the end, the results of the enchants were:

Coat:

- *Passive*: When injured, cast [Sana] (Heal). {Can heal for 30 minutes a day, in total}.

- *Passive*: When hit, activate [Defensionis Est] (Defense up). {10 times a day}.

- *Active*: Activate [Sicarius Umbra] at the keyword. {Once a day}.

- *Active*: Activate [Restitutio](Restoration) at the keyword. {Once a day}.

Shirt and Pants:

- *Passive*: When injured, constant healing [Sana]. {30 minutes a day}.

- *Passive*: When hit, activate [Defensionis Est] (Defense up). {10 times a day}.

The Defense up and healing magic could be stacked three times. The magic Sicarius Umbra was a camouflage which would change the caster into a shadow. Restitutio allowed the caster to restore the clothes he wears.

Analyzing that in his head, Night opened his mouth. "A country would try to kill you if they knew what you're wearing right now. I mean, 30 minutes of healing and 10 times of mid-tier defense per day, that's pretty much as good or better than a national treasure."

"So, what?"

"Nothing, I was just stating facts. By the way, why do you buff that coat so much?"

"What? I like this coat. It was a gift, I'm lucky I came into this world with it. Well, anyway, we still have two days before that competition, tomorrow we'll go train our teamwork and maybe master that thing."

"'That thing'?"

Arima grinned. "Resonance."

***

The next day, Night and Arima trained together. The day after, Arima messed around with alchemy to produce some sweets.

"Why?" Night was perplexed.

"What? I love sweets. I can't live without my weekly dosage of sugar," Arima answered seriously.

"..."

"You want one?" Arima said while eating a jelly-like candy.

That day, he also enchanted five knives with an active enchant; Fulgur. Generating electricity for 1 hour a day. He didn't really need to do it but he was bored.

Finally, the next day was the date for the tournament's first round.