The days passed without any inconveniences or incidents on the surface; Mrs. Spider's offspring informed us of the complete absence of humans, at least for now, and thinking it over calmly, it took them months to return, so we can expect something similar.

  At the Garrl magic seal, I checked all its connections; I also accompanied him, partly to practice my mana control, but I also wanted to see how the seal worked in full operation, and it was incredible. It was like an immense automatic machine, programmed to perform its task continuously and, as long as it receives proper maintenance, could operate for decades or even hundreds of years, before posing any considerable risk to the great caverns, according to what the great ancestor Drazird explained to me.

  Even that could be avoided by deactivating the magic seal for regular periods of time, to allow the mountain to replenish its mana naturally. I have to repeat it, it's incredible; the magic created by Garrl's ancestor, the great Orgarrl, rivals without any problem the great scientific developments of my previous world. Unfortunately, in our current situation with the humans, the best thing is to keep it active continuously; maybe in a couple of years we can consider that possibility, or I hope maybe sooner; the only good thing for now is that we have an extended period of time to analyze this situation calmly.

  For my part, my research on human weapons in trying to understand how they worked came to a standstill. Their use is simple; with my mana, they are just ordinary weapons, without my mana they are useful, I just have to be careful not to introduce my replenishing mana, and if I do, danger! Depending on the amount of mana, it can be simply the breaking or formation of cracks in the weapon, to increasingly larger explosions with more mana, but I haven't found an optimal ratio that allows me to use the weapon with my mana without it suffering any damage; the only thing that comes to mind is that the spell inscribed in the weapons is only designed to work solely with the mana of the great spirits.

  I couldn't make any progress in trying to translate the inscriptions or in being able to compare them with the signs we use on the magic seal; they are very different. Moreover, as the great Drazird later explained to me, using complex spells or magic seals is not something dragons did frequently, as they had large amounts of mana and were more specialized in being able to manipulate it like we do than in using spells.

  According to Drazird, Orgarrl, and other dragons, they created that draconian magic with spells more for pleasure than necessity, at least at the beginning; and similarly, he told me to expect that other kobold tribes would follow the thinking of their ancestors, so finding that magic or the use of mana tools might not be the norm and would only remain in the hands of the wise in the kobold villages.

  Another problem I faced was the lack of this type of weapon to experiment with; although we had several, they weren't many. Most of them were old and worn out; there weren't many from the recent battlefield, not to mention that almost all the soldiers only had ordinary weapons without mana. It made me conclude that this type of weapon must be exclusive, expensive, or difficult to craft, so I stopped experimenting with the ones I had left; I preferred to keep them functional.

  I also tried copying the symbols onto pure mana minerals, but there was no reaction. I suppose the materials need to be refined, but I don't know anything about blacksmithing. This only showed me that the symbols used by dragons and humans are very different; ours do work on pure minerals. Damn!

  There is too much I don't understand, and while I learned how the draconian symbols on the seal worked, I couldn't replicate what the humans did, since our symbols were designed to function for large amounts of mana, not for small flows. The only exception were the tablets, but they only had one symbol, unlike the humans who had several … …………….. I will have to take this calmly and accept that our spell-based magics are very different. I also shouldn't get frustrated; I should be like someone who barely knows how to add and subtract and suddenly jumps to advanced mathematics; I can't expect to understand everything just from a few symbols.

  For my part, when studying the armors and staffs that emitted mana, I experienced the same problems as with the weapons and even made less progress.

  In the case of the armors, just like the weapons, I needed to spend my mana first for them to work and activate the mini barrier that covered the armor; it was similar to our hardening. However, I still didn't understand the inscriptions, and they spread all over the armor. Anyone would think it was a decorative carving, but no, they were complex spells inscribed.

  As for their usefulness, it was low for me. Not only do the armors not fit my body, which is to be expected, but if I wanted to adjust them in any way, I would definitely alter or ruin the inscriptions, rendering them useless. Not to mention the most obvious reason not to use these armors: I wouldn't wear an armor that, if I accidentally infused my mana into it, would turn me into a living bomb! Because yes, they explode just like the weapons.

  Lastly, there are the staffs held by those who maintained the human magic barrier; these also had inscriptions along the staff, which was made of some kind of metal and ended with a crystal, which thank God was not a mana crystal. According to what the great ancestor confirmed to me, I would never experiment with mana crystals; he didn't feel it was right.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  But putting that aside, I couldn't activate the staff with or without my mana. Apparently, as the great ancestor explained to me again, these worked with chants; that is, I had to know how to read and speak the human language, so for now, they are just ordinary staffs in my claws. What a disappointment, that magic barrier seemed very useful, although I suspect it takes more than one to raise it, since there were several humans, each holding a staff at the moment the magic barrier was active. And that's how I spent my time, trying to investigate. Although in our free time we also did various things. Garrl dedicated himself to continuing his training; for a change, he sought to refine his use of mana to optimize its consumption and thus be able to make stronger, consecutive, or even new attacks. I accompanied him and tried to keep up, but I had my own challenge and it was just for me: "flying."

  It was incredible to think that I could fly on my own, who doesn't dream of doing so? However, from dream to reality, there were several steps to overcome; first, I practiced flapping my wings with the aim of getting used to the movement of my wings.

  He also moved the different bones and joints he had and tried to understand what they would do when they were in the air. It felt strange, like having a pair of membranous hands attached to my back. And speaking of the membrane, it was very flexible and, along with the multiple joints it had, it allowed me to extend my wings to a great size or fold them up easily. I won't lie, I spent hours and days doing just that; even Garrl started to worry, but once I felt confident enough that I knew how to move them, I had to face my next obstacle, the mental one.

  It's not that I was afraid of heights or anything like that, but I had a problem: how would I react when jumping and trying to stay in the air? The natural thing for any human is that, if you jump from a certain height, you should prepare for a free fall, but I had to figure out how to stay in the air, so, to avoid stressing too much, I started by jumping not very high and tried to use my wings as a parachute. The first few times it went horribly, as I tried—why, I don't know? to flap and fly; it was as if my body was trying to fly, which caused moments when I was suspended in the air and didn't know what to do to finally land. It was so embarrassing.

  I had to change my strategy, so I had to mentally focus on the fact that all I was looking for was to descend smoothly, not to fly yet; and little by little I began to get used to what I would first define as a controlled vertical descent, where I began to learn what each joint did, how to descend to the left or right. Then, as the height increased, I tried to reposition my body for a horizontal descent. Luckily, my wings extended from the upper part of my back to the base of my tail, so I just needed to gain momentum and use my wings as delta wings, as they supported most of my weight.

  I kept practicing like that until I started making my first flaps and pushes, so at that moment I could finally try to fly on my own. It was incredible the first time I did it: I was flying! and I felt so free. Garrl shouted at me from the ground and told me that I should be proud of my lineage. It was hard for me, but it was worth it; being able to fly felt wonderful. I knew I still had a lot to improve in my flying, even in figuring out how to enhance it using my mana, but I had done it.

  It had taken weeks, but I had done it! I roared with joy, and Garrl joined me from the ground; each of us knew we were proving ourselves worthy of our lineages, each in our own way, but worthy. It brought me memories that gave me satisfaction with myself, and thus nearly two months passed.

  …………………………………………………….

  Finally, the day had come to go to the surface and try to find our people, or at least some village or tribe. We felt prepared, eager to see what the future would hold for us, to try to fulfill our dream, to honor our ancestors and those who gave their lives for us.

  Before we left, we said goodbye to everyone, promising once again that we would return, with or without our people, in a year. We reminded them never to forget to stay united and left the Mrs. Spider one of the ritual tablets that would help her send us a signal in case the magic seal encountered any problems or was in danger, as well as if the humans returned. And to be a little more sure, we concealed all the entrances to the magic seal, not before saying goodbye and praying for the souls of Tammat and the great serpent.

  Speaking of the great snake, when we checked its nest as usual, we were surprised to find that the eggs had hatched. We couldn't be present, however, as Mrs. Spider told us, that's natural, for the young to be born on their own, and no matter how much we searched, we didn't find any. We resigned ourselves to hoping for the best and maybe someday meeting one of her offspring again when we returned. If the ritual went well, we knew we would realize we were one of its offspring.

  We were walking to the surface, we were almost there, Mrs. Spider decided to accompany us, she was so eager to see the light of day again and to take in the fresh air. Garrl was also nervous and anxious to see the surface, although he tried to hide it. One thing was my explanations of what the surface should be like along with some unclear drawings—don't blame me, I'm not an artist—and another was seeing it with your own eyes.

  It was incredible how time flies; it's been over a year since I was reborn and started this adventure with Garrl. It has been difficult, and there were many sacrifices, some very painful for both of us, but we have also had great joys and pleasant memories.

  But now we have our dream, a path to fight for, each one under her own principles, and of course, I will try to enjoy this path that was given to me. Thank you Kirrkarg for helping us and for inheriting me, thank you Tammat for protecting us, thank you great serpent for being our friend; thank you all for everything; we will seek to honor your sacrifices; and I regret and ask for forgiveness for my mistakes, I will carry them as reminders of why I fight, not as a burden that seeks to drown me, but as a driving force to not give up.

  I see the sunlight at the end of the tunnel and we say goodbye to our arachnid friend, my body no longer feels strange, the air feels fresh and I perceive various smells, the sunlight is warm on my scaly skin and blinds me, but it's no problem, it's just a matter of getting used to it, after all, I'm an expert at that.

  - Come on, Garrl! Don't fall behind.

  - Of course not, brother! We're together, remember?