The waves crash violently against the rocks below, stirring crabs from their hiding places and running to consume the seagulls resting against the ledges. The swishing and slamming of the waves, it's a sound I've gotten used to over the years. This time, however, it fills me with a sense of worry. I'm pretty worried about all the things that could go wrong. I'm worried about what will go wrong. Actually, what can't go wrong? The sun won't smite us. maybe… Wait, didn't the sun smite me last time I went there? Was that the sun? It was pretty bright…

  Snowstorm sits beside me on a rock, while I sit on the only patch of grass this close to the ledge. The drop down is lined with jagged spikes and is probably a few hundred feet down. How exciting. That human looks nervous though. Well, that depends. She is gripping my tail more tightly then I thought she could. It hurts, but its the kind of pain that feels strangely like a hug gone wrong.

  “Why are you hugging my tail?” I ask her, looking down at her. She squeaks and lets go. I think her skin on her cheeks is a bit redder. Is that what humans do when they're embarrassed? I think I learned this at some point… meh. Whatever.

  “Sorry.” She says sheepishly. “Im not good with heights…”

  “Then gonna hate riding on my back.” I reply, half amused and half concerned. I didn't know being afraid of being up high was a real thing. I wonder if any dragons have that. Maybe wingless ones, but I doubt any winged creatures fear the open air.

  I look down below to the waves crashing against the spikes of stone and think for a second. Even with wings, anyone would die if they fall enough. Is that why? Shes not afraid of being up high, shes afraid of falling. That makes sense. Heh, look at me being all smart.

  “You have a dumb expression on your face.” Snowstorm comments and I smack him in the side with my tail. He ignores it and wordlessly leaps off the edge, disappearing down out of view. Evelyn stares in horror for a moment before Snowstorm pops back up into view in the sky.

  “Hurry up slow-pokes.” He calls down and I roll my eyes.

  “Climb on.” I lower myself down onto the ground and angle my wing to make a ramp for her. Along my back is a series of soft membranes that I don't want her sitting on, so I retract them into my body. I learned I could do this when I was a few years old when a coconut fell on my back. Evelyn is just standing there though, nervous.

  “What are you waiting for?” I ask. Am I being too insensitive? Maybe some words of encouragement.

  “I wont drop you. And if I do you’ll fall into the ocean which you should survive from.”

  “Actually, falling from cloud level into the ocean would splatter her like fine paste.” Snowstorm comments, flying just a few meters away. I frown at him as Evelyn pales.

  “Not helping, frost face.” I say flatly. I pick up Evelyn with one talon and deposit her on my back.

  “Wha- EEP!” She squeals as I leap off the cliff and spread my wings.

  “You took to long.” I say, turning to fly away from the mainland. Snowstorm follows behind me. Evelyn grabs onto my neck and holds on for dear life. My scales are as tough as… I have no idea.

  “Snowstorm, how tough am I?” I ask.

  “What's your toughness?”

  “21.” I responded. Evelyn isn't screaming anymore which is nice, but she's a nervous wreck.

  “Well, your durability stat is judged by the amount of force you can take. It has a substat of “toughness” that marky how strong your body is, which increases with your durability, but at a slower rate. You also can't put stat points from leveling into substats.”

  “that doesn't answer my question.”

  “Since every stat point has 10% more affect then the last point when put on the same stat, and a human with a durability of 3 can take 4Gs of force, you would be able to take… approximately 22.24Gs of force.” I nod wisely.

  “That's a lot right?”

  “Not, like, a huge amount, but a decent amount. That's over 20 times the earth's gravity.” I nod again. I look down at the water. We are still close enough to see land a distance away, and the spire hasn't come into view yet. Its a fairly cloudless day save for a few stragglers up there. Evelyn is talking to herself.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “It'll be ok, Im fine, Im fine, I wont fall, I'm fine.” She mutters to herself. Maybe we shouldn't have brought her along. Makes me wish I could help distract her or something…

  {Would you like to purchase skill:“Illusion mana manipulation” for 30 essence? You currently have: 42 essence.}

  Oh, thats new too. I have a lot of stuff I didn't know I did before.

  “Snowstorm, the system is offering for me to spend essence to buy a skill. And I have more essence then before.” I tell him. He looks down at me like I'm speaking a foreign language.

  “What?”

  “I said what I said.”

  “Well, yeah, but I've never heard of getting skills in any other way that earning them from skills or situations.”

  “Should I buy it?”

  “Whats the skill, and whats it asking for?”

  I look back to the notification.

  “Illusion mana manipulation. It wants 30 essence and I have 42.” Snowstorm immediately perks up.

  “Buy that, definitely. Mana manipulation skills are rare, and hard to unlock. And illusion is a rare affinity.”

  I nod and accept without a second thought. Snowstorm is the thinker here, not me.

  {Skill gained: “Illusion mana manipulation.” Imbuing techniques.}

  Information flooded my mind at an insane pace. I nearly fell out of the sky and Evelyn shrieked from on my back. I managed to stabalize though and shake my head.

  “Uh, my head hurts…” I mutter.

  “What techniques did you get?” Snowstorm asks curiously.

  “Whats happening?” Evelyn asks shakily.

  “I, uh… haven’t been paying attention.”

  “Abhor got an illusion manipulation skill.” Snowstorm comments and Evelyn blinks.

  “What title did he get?”

  “None.”

  “What?”

  “I said what I said.”

  I chuckle as Snowstorm talks to Evelyn.

  “Thats not how it works.” Evelyn says and Snowstorm chuckles.

  “Welcome to the club, girl.”

  Snowstorm flaps over to me, his expression getting curious. I have a feeling I’m gonna be interrogated the rest of the way there…

  <{(0)}>

  Its getting dark, and the land behind us is long gone. Far ahead of us is what I assume is the spire, but its too far away to make it out. It'll likely be another hour of flying to get there.

  “So it seems that when you thought that you wanted to help Evelyn calm down, you got offered a skill to help you do it.” Snowstorm says eventually. Evelyn, having been shocked out of her fear of heights by her confusion, is shivering on my back again.

  “What were the techniques again?” Snowstorm asks.

  “Let my check.” I open up my stat sheet and click on my new skill. Another addition I found is that the system has descriptions of all my skills now, as well as a greyed out “Techniques” area below. Probably because most of my skills don't have techniques. But this one seems to have 4. I read the description first.

  {Illusion mana manipulation[low]. Allows the user to draw in ambient mana and convert it into the illusion variety. Increases control over illusion mana, allowing it to be formed into various techniques. Mastery increases the amount of techniques.}

  {Techniques: Suggestion, Confusion, Calm, and Overload.}

  “I've got Suggestion, Confusion, Calm, and Overload.” I tell Snowstorm.

  “I've heard of Confusion and suggestion, but not the other two.” Snowstorm says.

  “Read them to us.”

  {Suggestion: Allows the user to implant a suggestion into their target's mind via physical contact. suggestions can be things like “You are being attacked” or “The air makes your lungs itchy”. Creativity is key.}

  {Confusion: Allows the user to disorient the target via physical contact. Includes affects like seeing colors wrong, thinking things are moving that aren't, seeing fake images and hearing false noises, and others. What the user sees can be affected by the Suggestion technique.}

  {Calm: Puts the user or the target into a state of calm by flooding their mind with reassuring thoughts and emotions not their own. If maxed, it may be able to seperate ones mind from their emotions in order to allow a state unaffected by fear or anger.}

  {Overload: The highest mana costing technique by far. The user floods Illusion mana into the target to overload their mind with useless information, rendering them immobile.}

  {Notice: All techniques strength are dependant on the amount of strength the user has as opposed to the amount of mental strength of the target.}

  Snowstorm whistles. I didn't even know he could do that.

  “Those are some freakishly strong skills. The overload one sounds absolutely horrifying. The only scarier Illusion spell I've heard of is Mind shatter. It does, well, you can guess what.” I turn to Evelyn with an idea. I follow the instructions in my head. It turns out that all the mana in my body is stored in the gem on my talon. I pull the mana through my roots into my mind, an intricate pattern forming. Holding this pattern together is mind-bogglingly difficult. But I manage. I feed the mana through, and out comes illusion mana. The illusion mana moves through my mana veins to the tip of my claw. In the open a small spell forms. It looks like a child scribbled on a piece of paper, but that child was picasso or something. Picasso was the painter, right? I wasn't good with history. Meh, whatever. I feed a small bead of mana into Evelyns mind.

  Calm

  Evelyn's body relaxes immediately and she slumps into my back, making a noise I assume is a sigh.

  “Thank you.” She says, looking back up at me. I smile sheepishly.

  “All in a days work…”

  “Stop distracting yourselves.” Snowstorm calls to me, gesturing in front of us.

  “Either there is more than one giant building made of black metal, or we are here.”