The following day dawned with a magnificent sunrise. I got up early, my mind racing about what might be to come. Standing at the window of the room I looked out at the beautiful colors as they played out across the ocean first, then across the island, we were on. The ocean was mostly calm, with only small waves that weren't even tall enough to crest, causing the colors to almost shimmer in the sunlight. Deep reds fading to firey oranges fading to vibrant yellows played across the water, and when combined with the perfect ocean breeze made for a scene that I was finding hard to want to walk away from. I stood there, leaning on the window sill of the large double window I had opened for a while longer remembering times I had been on summer vacations at the beach, basking in the calm and peace while I had the chance.

  Aeolith jumped up onto the window sill next to me and looked out over the scene as well. She seemed almost as mesmerized as I was. I felt her touch my mind and I opened up to her. The feeling I was getting from her was one of happiness. It's hard to explain what I was experiencing exactly, but it was a warm contented feeling, the same feeling you get when you just had a margarita and are standing on the deck of a cruise ship knowing you are about to leave on a vacation, getting away from all the stress of work and regular life, and you feel that sense of peace mixed with the warm relaxing feeling of the alcohol. I reached over to rub her scales, still not exactly sure where she wanted to be rubbed. She seemed to sense my hesitation and confusion and moved to have me scratch her under the chins, under the wings, on the belly, and down both sides of her back on either side of the spines sticking up the middle. I scratched her and heard a sort of growling almost cooing noise coming from deep in her throat.

  Al'Doran touched my mind as well and I allowed him to speak to me.

  "Callan, bring your dragonling and meet me on the beach where the sun rises."

  "Sure thing, Al'Doran. We will head that way."

  I held out my arm and Aeolith jumped up onto it and climbed up to my shoulder and laid across my shoulders and neck to rest, Brutus fluttered nearby and let me know he was ready, and I made my way out of the building. Walking through the streets I was still in awe of how large the buildings were. I had lived in New York, and while those buildings were huge, they were taller, while these buildings were shorter but just massive. Large enough to fit full-grown dragons in them. The sheer size of a building to house a dragon, much less enough buildings to house what seemed to be possibly hundreds of dragons was just mind-blowing. Couple that with the fact that the streets were so flat and well-made with stones to have stood the test of time while streets in New York seemed to have to be fixed every few years was also simply amazing.

  We reached the beach and found Al'Doran sitting on the sand and looking out at the water. He seemed introspective looking out at the water. He didn't look at us when he spoke to us.

  "The information I am about to pass on to you is not something that is to be shared. These are secrets that have been kept from most records that have ever been created. But this information is also something that you will have to pass on to the next generation of Dragonriders, should there be a next generation that is."

  "You mean there really is no next generation already?"

  "The last of us were wiped out in the last great battle against the Shadow Beasts. It seems impossible to me that in over five hundred years that they would not have come back here. This was the central gathering for all Dragonriders and so after the battle, any survivors should have come here. It is possible they feared coming here and bringing the Shadow Beasts with them, so I do not give up hope, but it is a weak hope now."

  "That doesn't bode well for finding the next generation."

  "It does not. But I will pass the knowledge on to you still. You must learn the secrets to being a Dragonrider to be effective in fighting the Shadow Beasts. You must take up the mantle and be the shield this world needs."

  "That is a rather large burden to put on us. What if we don't want to fight the Shadow Beasts?"

  "Then you will die. It matters not if you want to fight them. They will hunt you as they hunted us. It is only a matter of time. You can either be prepared, or you can go and do as you wish. I will not force this on you, I merely wish to give you the tools you will need for this eventuality."

  That was some great news. One more thing in my life that I can't control, but still have to deal with. I left the comfort of my parent's home earlier than most because I felt like there was always something that I was being forced to do. Then I, of course, found out that being on my own meant there are far more things I was forced to do. I was too proud, however, to admit I might have made a mistake. I know my parents would have welcomed me back, but I just needed to be able to control my life. There were some tough times when I really could have used the help, but again my pride stopped me. It ended up fine, but losing my parents in an accident made me feel I should have done things differently. At this point though, I couldn't feel anything about it since that part of my brain had been removed and replaced. All it was at this point was an emotionless memory. Like looking at a painting that I had seen before.

  "Well, I am rather attached to living. So I guess we should get started."

  "The main things to teach you are about the skills that you will need to have as a Dragonrider. I sense you have already obtained the four first-level skills of the Dragonrider class."

  "Yes, I have. The benefits seemed too great to pass up."

  "That was wise. It will open up all the options that you will need to be most effective. Have you reviewed the second level of the skill tree?"

  "Not yet. I've been a bit preoccupied with the dungeon I was dropped into and surviving."

  "Dropped into?"

  "Yup. Today I am technically two days old. If you count reincarnation as my birthday."

  "You truly were brought to this world yesterday?"

  "Just ripped from my world, put in some ethereal nothingness and told to make a few choices and then plopped right in here. Though the errors were interesting."

  "Errors?"

  "Yeah, when I was making my new selections there were a bunch of errors at the end right before I was sent here. Any idea why?"

  "I do not even begin to believe I understand the cosmic workings of the reincarnation process, much less your strange divergence from the norm."

  "Me either...I guess."

  "So you mean to tell me, that you hatched a dragon egg in just one day?"

  "Well, I found it in the dungeon. I suppose there is no telling how long it had been there before I got there."

  "Based on where I found you, it is unlikely the creatures of that dungeon would have left an egg of that size alone. Also, Dragonriders are typically paired with their eggs right at the start of the egg's life. The rider usually has to go through a leveling process to hatch the egg."

  "Well, I did that. I leveled a fair number of times fighting for my life in that dungeon. Goblins, spiders, a brood mother, and then that werebear."

  "It sounds as though you had a harrowing experience."

  "It wasn't much fun for sure, but I found Aeolith, which was worth it to me."

  "That is good to hear. Now, let's go ahead and review those skills before the day gets away from us."

  I thought about the skills page and it appeared in front of me. Looking at the second tier of skills I began to read over the options. It was a little bit overwhelming to see so many different options in comparison to the first tier, and with how much they cost compared to the first tier. I began with the Draconic Attack skills.

  "These skills are obviously the attacks your dragon would be able to employ against foes. All of them are useful, but we need to discover more about what is available to you before we make a decision on which direction you wish to go. Also, some of the skills may not be useful right away."

  "That does bring me to another question I had. How long will it take Aeolith to grow?"

  "That will depend on the two of you. Dragons grow as they level, so you and Aeolith will need to work hard to get her to the place where she needs to be."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  That was a little disheartening. We were going to have to find things that Aeolith could kill to get her to level. My feelings must have either shown on my face or come through my mind because Al'Doran replied to me.

  "Do not worry, she will gain levels as you gain levels. Now that you are bonded when you gain XP so does she."

  "So, like being in a party where when one person kills something everyone shares XP?"

  "Yes, it is much like being in a party. If you kill something, both you and Aeolith will gain XP, so she does not have to be in the same amount of danger. But do not count her out. She is fierce even at her small size. Remember to rely on her as well. The bond you two have will only grow stronger through combat and trials."

  "That actually reminds me, I leveled up in that last boss fight and haven't really had a moment to sit and look at that. Would you mind if I did that before we continued with the skills?"

  "Certainly. Please let me know as soon as you have finished."

  With that Al'Doran lay down in the sand and closed his eyes to wait for us.

  I pulled up my attributes page and saw that I had ten attributes to spend and four skill points to spend. Trying to decide where to spend the points led me to a couple of decisions straight away. First I wanted the extra HP so I put two points into Constitution to bring my HP up to two hundred. Next, I found that my spells were almost as useful as my attacks between healing myself and distracting that boss, so I put four points into Intelligence to bring that up to eighteen and my mana pool up to two hundred as well. With four more points to use, I realized I wasn't going to have enough points to do what I really wanted, so I decided to just finish off this round of points by adding them to Endurance to increase my physical stats. After that, I looked over my sheet to see where I was.

  "OK Al'Doran, I have finished for now. But I have a question, are you just going to send us off on some kind of quest to just kill things until we level up?"

  "No, young rider. There is much for you to do and learn in this process. It will not be an easy path, but in the end, you will be one of the most powerful beings on the planet and able to repel the darkness that will seek to harm you. You will learn to fight with a weapon, you will learn to fight without a weapon, you will learn to fight with magic, and you will learn to fight with your dragon."

  "And you can teach me about all of those things?"

  "I can. Let me show you."

  With that, I felt Al'Doran push further into my mind and a vision appeared as though I was seeing it with my eyes. A man was standing on the beach. The beach looked exactly like where we were standing now, but the man was wearing what looked like a fencing outfit and carrying a sword. He nodded to me and then turned around so he was facing the same way I was. He went through a sword form very slowly. He flowed through the movements like water following the path of a stream. His motions through the forms were so smooth and fluid that he could only have been a master of the style. The raising of a sword in a blocking motion, the twist of a wrist into an attack position, all while making sure the footing was just perfect so that one would keep balance, while also being able to shift your weight into the position to keep the form going. When he finished he turned back to me and bowed. After that, the vision ended and Al'Doran retracted from my mind to just where he was able to speak to me.

  "That is just a taste of what I can teach you. But you keep putting off the main reason we came. We need to return to your skills."

  "Sorry, Al'Doran. Let me go back to the list."

  Pulling back up my skills I looked over the list of tier-two skills again, this time determined to get through the whole list. First was the Draconic Defense tree.

  Those all seemed useful. It was really too bad that I only get two skill points per level. I'm going to have some serious grinding to do. Draconic Mind was next.

  These also seemed really helpful. Now I see why Al'Doran wanted to help us with understanding what we should pick. I'm not sure I could make a decision given these options. The last section is Draconic Spirit.

  That last one left me confused. It seemed really vague. But maybe it was something for use against the Shadow Beasts? I really hope this isn't going to be one of those last hope for all of humanity and I need that skill to save us all. That would be really anticlimactic.

  "How am I supposed to choose between all of these skills? It would take me forty levels just to get each of the tier two skills and by that time I would expect I'd want to get some of the higher tier skills."

  "You have to decide how you will fight. I do have one gift to give you to get you started. I can give you the ability to select three skills that I can unlock for you now. I can only do this once and it is at a great cost to me, but I feel you are the best hope for the next generation. I am old, and my time has passed. I want to do this to give you an edge."

  "What kind of cost? Will it kill you?"

  "No, young one," Al'Doran said with a bit of a chuckling sound coming from his chest. "It will not kill me at all. It will just take skill points I have and use them for you. And the process takes a lot of my mana so I will need to rest until it returns."

  "Ok. Then I will accept your gift with gratitude."

  Al'Doran raised his head and looked at me. A glow began to cover him and then extended to cover me. As the glow dissipated I got a message.

  "Thank you Al'Doran. This gift is greater than I could have hoped for. I will be sure to use it wisely."

  "I am sure you will, young one. I can only do that once so the rest will be up to you and Aeolith. But I will be here to help you along your journey for as long as I can. For now, I must rest, but I can help you with some of the sword forms while I rest. Get your sword ready, for when I am ready we will leave for the mainland so that you can begin training yourself and Aeolith.

  With that Al'Doran lay his head back down on the sand, looking especially tired, and opened his mind more to me again. The sword-form vision played in my head and I watched it a few more times before readying myself to copy the motions. Moving through the forms had an old familiarity to it from my weapon's training on earth, but this form was still foreign. It was smooth and easy to transition through though, so I set to memorizing the motions. As I fell into a pattern, I let my mind go and just focus on the moment to be sure I truly understood the steps. All the while the thoughts of what skills to take with the newly given points played through my head.