Tristan’s routine played out the following day. In the morning, he went with The Matriarch to the training field and rotated between fighting with his knife, the maul, and his sword. After some practice he swapped to the greatbow and made sure he was not too rusty with the weapon. Thankfully, his muscle memory kicked in, and his improved physique from his Elven heritage pushing out his Human side made the bow he used to struggle with bend back with ease.

  After training with weapons and nothing else, they began to practice spellweaving. Tristan was able to utilize the Frost Flurry and Frost Wall spells with ease; fending off ‘archers’ in the form of starberries flung at him from slingshots that the fairy dragons had created with the latter, and shooting moving targets at various ranges. But The Matriarch pushed him to his limits, consistently coming at him with potent combinations of weapon swings that forced Tristan to focus more on his weapon skills rather than integration spells to the point where he had to ask her to slow down.

  “What is the matter, Lord Tristan? This should be easy for you to deal with.”

  Tristan was breathing heavily and shook his head as he set the maul down. “I can’t keep up with you and practice spellweaving. You’re just too skilled for me to split my focus like that.”

  She frowned and tapped her foot on the ground, the clawed appendage pulling up small clods of grass and dirt as she did so. “I may have underestimated your essence crucible, but it seems that I overestimated your combat prowess.”

  Tristan chuckled and nodded as he leaned forward on the pommel of the maul. “I trained to fight dragons, not people. I’m not an expert in that.”

  The Matriarch raised a quizzical eyebrow, “And yet you have not actually fought a dragon, have you?”

  Tristan frowned, “No,” he admitted. “But grandfather told me that I am skilled enough based upon my practice against his puppets.”

  The Matriarch nodded and pulled her sword up to a combat stance, “Well, until you can test your prowess against the real creature, I think you need to get better at bladework.” She lowered the sword, “Have you been practicing in your inner world?”

  “Umm…no,” Tristan said, confused. “I didn’t know that I could do that. I’ve just been hammering out dents in the essence crucible’s shell.”

  The Matriarch let out a barking laugh, “You’ve been using a hammer on your essence crucible? Doesn’t that hurt?”

  Tristan nodded, “It does feel a little painful, but each time the shell grows very slightly.”

  The Matriarch chuckled and put the sword down, “No! You don’t have to do that! Just push against it with your hands next time. And…practice in that inner world.” She planted the sword in the ground before her. “An essence-weaver with an essence crucible can use their inner world to help reinforce their muscle memory, their learning, and improve upon their essence capacity. I would advise we stop training for now, and you do an extended meditation session. Focus on practicing your fighting prowess.”

  Tristan nodded and left the maul sitting on the ground as he headed to the center of the clearing. The grass was much shorter as his last session that left the ice on the ground had pushed the plants down into the dirt. He sat down and crossed his legs as he took a deep breath. “I know that I can manifest weapons while I’m in there…could I manifest foes to practice against?”

  “Your inner world can manifest virtually anything you can imagine. It should be noted that you will feel some pain if you suffer an injury – but it is not real. Just phantom pain. If you were to…say…imagine an Arch Dragon from an Elemental Realm, and it killed you? You would just snap out of the meditative trance.” She held up a finger, “But, the things you imagine will act how you imagine them to act.”

  Tristan nodded and closed his eyes, “All right. Let’s do this. I want to try without your walkthrough.”

  “Very well.” He heard the Matriarch move a small distance away.

  Tristan began his breathing exercise where he had to reverse his breathing with the motion of the essence crucible – breathing in and spinning his crucible to push the essence out into his body. It gave a deep, soothing, brisk chill that cooled his warm-from-exercise body. Then, breathing out as he pulled the essence back into his crucible along with some of the ambient energy in the environment.

  He envisioned his essence crucible – a glistening silver with icy-blue cracks that were slightly larger than before, and the gold and crimson flecks were now embedded inside those cracks. He felt himself moving into the essence crucible and found himself in his inner world once more. The space was larger than before, and he went over to the tree. The first circle is almost filled, he thought as he looked at the symbol that represented his progression of cultivating his essence crucible.

  Turning to the snowy expanse, he thought about holding his sword and wearing his armor. Both appeared on him, and he walked a small distance from the tree. “Okay…me…let’s do this,” he muttered. “I want to fight a single mercenary,” he said as he pictured The Black Company members he had fought a few weeks prior.

  In front of him, the ice and snow swirled before forming a frozen facsimile of the mercenary – dressed in black, studded leather armor and holding a wicked-looking mace with protrusions that would crush bone. It stood there…waiting for something.

  “Umm…fight me?”

  The figure ran forward and almost caught Tristan off guard. He was able to get his blade into the path of the mace and deflected it to the side. Don’t look at it, Tristan thought, look at something beyond him. Trust your peripherals. He focused on a spot beyond the man’s shoulder and brought the weapon up into a ready position.

  The ice-mercenary came back with a vicious, horizontal swing that Tristan was able to deflect upward to make an opening, and he scored a vicious slash across the torso – cutting deep. Through armor, into where organs would be as he had to put his leg up, knee to the man’s torso, and wrench his blade out of the opening. The figure crumpled.

  Looks like training with The Matriarch, even if just for a little while, has helped my progress as a fighter. Tristan smiled as he tossed his sword into his other hand. Let’s turn this into the longer, more deadly version. As he thought that, he saw the sword elongate to its essence-fueled, artifice form as the stored Dragon’s Doom spell activated. “Now…let’s make a dragon.”

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  The ice and snow in front of him began to swirl in a tremendous flurry, and he saw the gold and crimson sparkles flutter from the edges of the essence crucible to color the figure before him. “Let’s see what grandfather fought. Go for wyrm size. The same as the Arch Dragon that grandfather fought.” Tristan had seen the puppets that were appropriately sized for a wyrm, and his mind drew upon the pictures his grandfather had sketched out; as well as paintings and artwork of the powerful creatures.

  The icy swirl before him spun and grew in size until it was easily one-hundred feet long from tip to tail, with an enormous, barrel-like torso covered in glimmering, icy scales that were flecked with the gold and crimson sparkles. Its wings spread easily two-hundred feet in either direction, and were leathery, tipped with spikes where the bone structure extended out. The claws were easily the size of a horse and gripped onto the snowy ground. From ground to the top of its back was thirty feet up.

  The head was most imposing of all. It was akin to the dragons from the Elemental Realm of Fire, as those were the ones that his grandfather drew sketches of. A large, crested head with spikes that ringed about the crown and jowls. An extended snout that was lined with countless razor-sharp teeth the size of longswords. And the creature stood completely still.

  Tristan stood there, in awe of the creature he was looking at that dwarfed him. Grandfather fought and killed something like this?! This is insane. He glanced down at his sword that could maybe poke the giant, tower shield sized eyes of the creature. How am I suppose to kill a dragon of that size with this?

  He shook his head and then shook his arms and legs, trying to get rid of the tension. This is the perfect chance to train and practice against something that is like the real thing. I know how dragons fight thanks to training against the puppets grandfather made. Now I get to apply the practice to…more practice. He took a few deep, calming breaths, and then stood fifty feet away from the creature.

  “Let’s go!”

  The creature came to life; moving and shifting as the powerful mass underneath the icy scales emulated the creature’s movement based on the descriptions that Tristan’s grandfather provided. It let out a roar that sounded powerful, proud, and commanding – an apex predator that knew it had no equal; that’s how Tristan envisioned the sound. And it brought a quivering to his heart as he felt fear. But, he pushed that down and let his training take over as he replayed his grandfather’s words as he trained against those enormous puppets.

  “Wyrm-sized dragons always roar before fighting; an intimidation tactic. Use that opening to close the distance. You must be quick, and get as close to their underbelly as possible.”

  Tristan heeded those words as he sprinted – far faster than he used to be able to – into the area right between the dragon’s legs. As he sprinted forward, he held the blade in his hands aloft and dragged it along the underside. It was not large enough to cause a huge amount of damage, but this was a distracting blow. The creature slammed its bulk down – but Tristan was already out behind it, and he grabbed the tail as all thoughts left his mind and his training took over.

  “Damage its weak spot to make it fear the sudden attack and take you seriously as a threat. Often, they will try to crush you with their bulk; which will help increase the damage of the underbelly cut. Get out the back or side, and then use that chance to mount them.”

  Tristan clambered up the tail – finding that his armored, booted feet were easily able to find purchase. I always wondered what those tiny bumps on the bottom were for, he thought. Grinning, he scrabbled up the back of the beast as it began to roll, and he ran the opposite direction.

  “When they realize you are on them, they will do one of three things. One; roll to try and crush you – run the opposite direction to stay on top of them. Two; lift off and perform aerial maneuvers – stab your blade into them and hold on for dear life or grab onto something like a spine. Three; spin in circles relying on that rotation to throw you off. Same instructions as scenario two.”

  Tristan let his training take over as he ran around the rolling creature’s torso, taking a few swings at the membrane of the wings as he passed by.

  “Whenever possible, damage the wings. It will prevent them from flying and keep them grounded.”

  Tristan was able to slash several large gashes into the wings, and the creature ended its roll upright as it tried to lift off and fly – but could not. It began to spin in a tight circle, trying to fling him off. He ran up the spine of the icy-construct dragon, grabbing the spines as he went to prevent himself from being flung off. He felt dizzy and the spin came to a close, but he kept pulling himself forward. Towards the place between the wings, where the joints entered the back.

  “Most people think that a dragon’s weak spot is the neck or the soft underbelly – but the weakest point is the bundle of muscle right between the wings. Underneath that is their heart – pierce that, and it will eventually perish. This is why when dragons fight each other, they try to get above one another – a single, solid blow will end the fight…or at least lead to its conclusion.”

  Tristan got to that point and lifted the blade, preparing to stab down, when the head circled back to face him, the mouth opened, and he saw the sphere of crimson and gold sparks turn into a flame. Crap! Tristan had nowhere he could go to dodge or evade.

  “If you are in the range of its breath weapon – which changes depending on the Elemental Realm it comes from – you must get out of the way. If not, then get behind something that can take the blow. This is its trump card, and they cannot re-use their breath weapon for a minimum of ten seconds, with the cooldown period lengthening the smaller they are.”

  Tristan knew he was going to ‘die’ in this phantom encounter. But I have to try something! He curled his right hand into a fist with his thumb tucked inside, and slammed it down onto the dragon’s hide before him. “Ich beschw?re eine Wand aus Eis herauf!” (I summon forth a wall of ice). The wall of ice grew in front of him, and as he spun his essence crucible his peripherals caught sight of the exterior of his inner world spinning as well.

  The icy wall shot up in front of him, and the flaming torrent spewed out. Tristan could see the ice melting away. No time to gawk! He lifted his sword and plunged it into the vital spot between the wing joints. He felt it cut down deep; but not deep enough. He could feel the heat radiating from the still-active-but-almost-melted wall of ice.

  Growling, he held his hand out and a maul manifested in his grip. “Just go in!” he shouted as he lifted the hammer and brought it down onto the hilt of his planted sword – pushing it all the way down to the cross guard as it impaled the creature through the heart. He dropped the maul, ripped the sword out, and a geyser of icy-blue liquid shot upward.

  The flames breached the ice wall, and Tristan dove to the side – off of the creature and landing in a roll that hurt as he dropped the thirty-foot distance. He felt something crunch and winced. But, grinned in triumph as the creature let out a pitiful wail before collapsing and turning into a slurry. Then, it faded to snow and ice.

  Tristan let out an exhausted laugh – and then felt a hard pinch on his shoulder. Oh, meditation time must be up.

  He focused on leaving his inner world, and his eyes snapped open in the real world. He saw The Matriarch standing next to him. She had a stern expression on her face. “Lord Tristan – we must go. Now.”

  “Why?” Tristan asked as he stood up and took in the frozen terrain around himself.

  “Whatever you did in your inner world signaled something. An incursion is underway.” She pointed into the sky off in the distance, and Tristan saw a small, glowing, red light that illuminated the horizon beyond the trees – like a smoke-filled sunset. “The Elemental Realm of Fire is intruding into the Fey Realm.”