Roge sighed as he woke up, stretching before moving over to the mirror in his room. He’d brought it with him from his parents’ inn, mostly so he could remind himself of his new body every morning. More and more the bright sapphire scales, wings, tail, and reptile snout looked like they belonged. Even his sleek, toned look didn’t look half bad, Roge rubbing a claw down the black scales on his belly. While he felt a little sad about the growing familiarity, he mostly felt relieved. ‘It’s not like I’ll be changing back any time soon.’

  After getting dressed in a forest green shirt, one he had modified to be a gradient to a lighter green near the collar, black pants, his black and blue jacket, and his similarly colored boots, he walked out into the common area of his group’s room, smiling as he looked over his progress that week.

  It had been a mostly chill week, as his party members forced him to take a break from his experiments. They hadn’t stopped his dodging and accuracy training, of course, but with all of the changes in his life, Roge was glad for the calm. There was one thing he did want to try, and as he sat down on the couch, he gave Hops, the [Elven Wizard], a soft glare.

  “Now I know you guys said not to experiment-“

  “Yes. We did,” he replied raising an eyebrow as he looked up from the journal he was writing in.

  “But! There is one thing I want to look at.” At Hops’ indignant look, the dragon held up a claw. “It’s something simple. And will help with the test.” Roge pulled an apple out of his hoard at that to bribe Hops, having not been allowed to even magic up the plants he had. Didn’t stop the others from wanting the apples and oranges he occasionally picked.

  Roge was very glad he’d picked the Golden Apple trees, the apple he tossed over looking like it was gilded in gold, like in video games. Turned out to be some kind of sap that hardened to that signature shine, and it was really funny when the elf casually took a bite of the poisonous looking fruit.

  “Fine,” Hops grumbled, taking a few more bites out of the apple. “Which one is it?”

  “The Fire Blight,” Roge said, pulling out his potion brewing cauldron, a blueoak branch, and his bonded wand. He’d been tracing a design all along the exposed wood of the wand that week, making sure to not nick the glass handle or the quartz crystal on the end.

  “Whatcha trying to do?” the elf asked, Roge ignoring the odd word choice as he placed the blueoak in the cauldron to make sure he didn’t burn things down.

  “Make a longer lasting campfire,” the dragon replied, swapping the healing of the wand for the [Blighted Fire] coins, which he’d found out were purple in color with a flame embossed on both sides. His wand instantly turned a similar shade of purple, so dark it almost looked black. Roge would have laughed at the cliche if it didn’t look so cool, the base of the wand flickering with the odd dark light.

  “*That’s* what blighted fire looks like?” Hops asked, quickly using his own [Inscription] wand to draw out a description and image in his journal. Roge had changed the former bottle on a stick style wand for the more elegant design for the elf, something he appreciated as he used it more like a pen. The base color of the wand could only be a dark orange, something Roge suspected was because of Hops’ [Fire Magic], so the elf had stashed some inks in his inventory to do full color work. Dipping the wand in the inks changed the color he could draw with, and it also allowed him to mix colors together on the page to get the right shades.

  “You’re getting better at that,” Roge murmured, looking over the drawing of his blight wand that looked almost exactly like the real thing.

  “Of course. Got a few skill level for it over the past week,” Hops said, waving at the cauldron. “Now start the experiment.”

  With a nod, Roge started with just the basic effect, pointing the wand at the stick and firing. The resulting purple flame was a bit large, and he had to cut the flow for it quickly, but the purple and black flames quickly consumed the wood like he wanted. A merry fire cracked as it ate away at the material given, though it did it a lot slower than a normal fire would. Even though the flames seemed about the normal size, the stick wasn’t even completely on fire as they watched the embers slowly spread across the dry wood.

  “It feels… just as hot,” Hops muttered, writing things down more furiously. “But it’s almost like its eating the wood rather than burning it.”

  Roge felt his eye-ridges raise at that, surprised as he noticed it too. Instead of making coals that would heat and burn slowly, ash was slowly sloughing off the stick wherever the flame spread. “Makes sense. It’s a magical fire based upon a disease. So even though it’s fire, it’ll consume something like a disease.”

  “We’ll have to experiment to see if it’s more fuel efficient,” Hops muttered, looking up when Sean the lion man entered the room. “Later. First we gotta get breakfast.”

  Roge turned to the lion man with a smile, Sean’s mane flowing around his feline head as he smiled back. Roge could finally admit to himself that he didn’t know what he was doing with his tall, muscular party member. He knew Sean probably knew that Roge had a slight crush on him, but the dragon also suspected that the lion didn’t know he was ace. That was going to be a hard explanation to go through at some point, Roge’s idle thoughts about soft fur mostly in reference to the warm hugs the lion gave.

  When he’d blinked out of his thoughts, the two men rolling their eyes at the dragon staring off into space again, Roge put the now full of ash cauldron back into his inventory and followed them downstairs for breakfast.

  ~~~

  Roge took a deep breath as they arrived for training before Roge’s test, his snout buried in the materials book for what was expected of him as a Utility Adventurer. Marge had been leaning more towards him becoming a Ranged member like her, the deer woman constantly trying to get him to make more magical arrows for her. The group decided against it however, as Roge’s jack of all trades style along with his huge inventory made him ideal for Utility. Not to mention the way he could pump out as many magic items as he had materials for, making the team better in the long run. The amount of money he’d made that week selling his potions through Madam Madrid that week spoke for itself.

  “So… I did have another idea,” Roge said when they arrived at the practice room, raising his hands at Sean’s dour look. “It’s not anything serious. I just decided what my free bonded item slot and recipe are going to be. And it’ll help with the test.”

  “Watching you,” the lion muttered, Marge giving their antics a giggle. “What did you decide on?”

  “Magic cards and arrows,” the dragon replied, wincing at the excited squeal from the deer woman. She rushed over to him with her superior [Agility], holding out a basic fire arrow. Usually she used rune-inscribed tips, but ever since she found out his additional recipes effect could grab a recipe from a mundane magic item, she’d been carrying the things around.

  “Why cards?” Hops asked, both him and Sean looking confused at the choice.

  “Two reasons,” Roge replied, absentmindedly pulling out a chair and table to set the arrow and his recipe book on, earning him jealous looks at his big inventory. “One, cards are good to have one time effects on. Like lighting a fire or something I don’t want to use a potion with. Light little magic trinkets.”

  “And the other reason?” Sean asked, earning him a grimace from the dragon. “Another memory thing?”

  “Yeah,” Roge said, feeling bad as he lied to his friends. They’d all, apparently, assumed that some things of his Draconic heritage or his [Nature Magic] whispered things to him occasionally. It was honestly a better explanation than the truth, which was that Roge suspected they were all playing some type of twisted game to the tune of the machines controlling the world. He just remembered how the world was before the micro machines took over.

  “Have you heard of… Tarot Cards?” he asked softly, getting confused looks from everyone. He’d remembered only a little bit about the divination technique, but considering his [Nature Magic] seemed to follow in the old druids’ footsteps, he’d try making a deck. “I feel like I can do something with a deck of them…”

  “You mean like playing cards?” Hops asked.

  “No. Something… magical…” he muttered, fiddling around with the arrow in his claws. “I’ll see what I can make, anyway. But first.” He activated his additional recipes slot to look at the magic arrow, glancing at the recipe to see what he needed to do. Sure, he could have taken mundane arrows and added coins to them, but then only his [Screen Hoard] would gain experience. This way, making arrows for Marge to use would benefit one of his lower leveled classes instead.

  Roge rolled his eyes at the recipe, chuckling to himself as the others looked it over as well.

  “Well that… is something pretty much only you can do,” Hops commented, laughing along with the dragon. “It practically assumed you can shape the wood and can already make bombs.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that,” Roge sighed, rolling his eyes at his book. “It gives me recipes with techniques I already have access to. You should have seen Judson’s healing potion recipe. It requires some weird moss he gets from the forest.”

  “I’m… curious how it’s going to make an arrowhead, though,” Marge muttered, reading through the recipe again. “I’ve sharpened arrows before, so I should be able to do the shaping…”

  “Let’s find out!” Roge crowed, pulling out five of his glass bottles with a smile. He’d been waiting to try some of his shaping abilities all week, and the large flash he needed was a perfect opportunity.