System Change

Derek may have agreed to go tell everyone of the situation, but in reality, he just stood back while Cain did his best to explain everything. It wasn’t going that well, as there was a lot of screaming and a bit of threatening involved—basically, it was just about everything that Derek expected would come out of it. After he gave Cain enough time to try, and fail, at calming everyone, he stepped forward himself.

“Everyone shut up!” With the yell, he let the floodgates on his aura flow for the first time since his evolution. He was honestly surprised at the result, because it felt like there was an almost qualitative leap in the power. Even some of the elites that weren’t at max level yet fell to one knee.

Derek hadn’t bothered with directing the aura, so it let it spill out like a blanket. Out of the corner of his eye, Derek saw Tristan Allister step out of a tent with a frown on his head and sweat dripping off his forehead. Seeing that, and knowing that Tristan was still working on regrowing a limb, Derek directed the aura at those in front of him instead.

This ended up putting even more pressure on them, and some of the even stronger party members struggled to stand. They had all already unleashed their own aura as a defensive measure, as well. Derek half grinned at the defiance in a few of their eyes, and was also kind of thankful that the most defiant person, Victor Greenland, was currently in a trial.

In the face of the resistance, even though auras wouldn’t actually do any real damage to elites like this, Derek only did one thing. ‘Silvi. It’s your turn.’

Silvi’s aura was near identical to Derek’s, with just some slight alterations. His aura was pure void, but, though her aura was mostly void, there was something else in it—he could only guess that it was from her cooking abilities. If he was going by the weird system that had appeared and left him with a lot of questions, he would say that her affinity was split between void and cooking.

But the aura was just as intense as his own, and when overlapped with his, it crushed all others. That was enough to get everyone to back down. Auras blinked out of existence one by one until there was only his own. Finally, he let his go, as well.

Now that the surrounds were quiet enough that one could hear a pin drop, Derek nodded and spoke. “Now, I’m sure people are no longer wondering about how I was able to take on that dueling trial alone when Asana Greenland died so easily. Avery, Edgar, even Cain—none of them have ever been the strongest in this party, not even with their dragons.”

That statement got a lot of murmurs. But when Derek glared at them, they stopped speaking again.

“I joined this raid because I was asked to as a favor for Edgar. I consider that prince to be a friend.” He made sure to put emphasis on that. It showed he was doing it as a favor for a friend, and not because the kingdom asked him to. “Unfortunately, word has gotten to us through special means, and we have learned that the kingdom is under attack by the combined forces of Astrus and Indria.”

This was already explained by Cain, so the reaction was minimal at the moment. This time, however, the group didn’t go into a panic like they had before because Derek had control after showing his power and acting the part.

“Now, Edgar decided to play the dumb idiot and rush out with an escape scroll before letting you know of the situation. If you ever wonder why he chooses to be an adventurer instead of getting into politics, then there’s your answer. It’s not a bad thing, but because of it, he left me to clean up his mess. I would much rather sit back and let someone else take charge.

“Unfortunately, I have friends and other people I care about in the kingdom, so I can’t do that anymore—especially after Edgar left me in charge. So, we’re going to do things my way, no questions asked.” Derek waited, and seeing that there weren’t any major reactions, he continued. “You currently have two options. First, you fall in line and do as I say. I’m not here to make friends, so I couldn’t care less if you find that option not to your liking. The second option, and this is only available to a few, is that you use your own escape scroll and leave this dungeon. What you do after that isn’t my problem.”

Louise Bonilla, one of the top archers in the party, stepped forward and began to speak. “What if…”

“I said no questions.” Derek cut her off. “Those are your two options… well, there is a third, but that involves fighting me, and I’d be more than happy if you wanted to take that one. What do you say?” To the surprise of no one, nobody stepped forward to challenge Derek. “Good.”

With that, Derek, with Silvi on his shoulder, walked over to the trial orbs and took a seat. He would meditate until Avery and the other came back. He’d said everything he needed to—if Cain wanted to add anything, that would be up to him.

Around eight hours later, and everything was completely calm once again. Only one person had chosen to take Derek up on leaving with their escape scrolls—it probably would have been more, but the scrolls weren’t that easy to come by. Tara Perez, the support elf who had entered the second trial with Derek, did some negotiating and traded an escape scroll she had brought with her to Louise Bonilla, the archer who seemed to not like the way Derek handled things.

The few others who looked ready to leave were those that were still low level and hadn’t gotten a chance in any of the trials yet. Now, with Derek in charge, they assumed that they would have even less of a chance to gain any trial rewards. But, since none of them had an escape scroll or any way to obtain one, they had to stay. There was one silver lining for them all, though. Even if they didn’t complete any of the trials, there should still be a dungeon reward at the end that everyone, no matter their contribution, would receive.

Also, in the short time that Derek stayed in the main camp—now the only camp—he realized that Tristan Allister and Ciera Cook, the woman who he had been treating since the end of the first trial, had grown quite close to one anther. It was no wonder that the man had chosen to stay back instead of going on the fifth trial with Avery and the bunch. He just didn’t want to leave her side.

While he and Silvi, who was meditating atop his head, were waiting for the others to come back, Derek was thinking. After going over his options, he finally made a decision. See, in the first trial he completed, he had been rewarded with the Skill Scroll: Dragon Fire.

Ever since then, he had wondered exactly what to do with it. His first thoughts were to give it to Jacks or his son, since both of them used the fire element. But dragon fire seemed to be different from regular fire, and since learning a bit about the whole affinity thing, he wasn’t sure that would be the best option.

He had also thought about just saving it to sell or trade for something he may need later. However, he’d quickly thrown that option out the window because he already had the Void Beast items he could sell or trade with. In fact, it would probably be easier to deal with those than it would with the dragon fire skill scroll.

So, after all that thinking, and finally seeing Silvi again, he came to a decision. ‘Hey, Silvi,’ he sent to his companion.

‘What?’ she chimed back.

‘Do you think food would taste different if it was cooked in a different type of flame?’

‘Of course it would,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘Everything matters when cooking. One small thing can destroy a whole delicious meal. Just like that stupid void.’ She was obviously still bitter about losing meals and ingredients to Void Travel.

‘So… do you think dragon fire would make things more or less tasty?’ Derek asked.

‘Dunno. Never cooked with it.’

‘Do you want to?’

‘Want to what?’ she asked.

‘Want to try cooking with dragon fire?’

Silvi hopped off of Derek’s head and looked up at him. Then she turned and her eyes landed on the drake that Jasper had finally decided to bond with at some point. The drake drenched in darkness was now a pristine white color, as it had become the light element after Jasper’s own.

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t look like it could make a proper fire. And the noodle doesn’t look like it could make fire at all,’ Silvi commented after inspecting the drake and pointing out what she thought about Rocky after their initial meeting. When it came to food, she was very serious.

‘Well, you see.’ Derek pulled out the skill scroll from his storage bracelet and laid it on the ground beside Silvi. She took a small hop and placed her paw on it. ‘I got this…’ Before he could finish, the scroll had already turned into motes of lights that were disappearing.

Congratulations

Your beast companion (Silvi) has learned the Dragon Fire skill.

Well, I guess that settles that. Derek brushed the notification aside and looked at Silvi. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘Give me meat. Dragon meat,’ she demanded.

Derek chuckled and fished out a piece of drake meat he had stored in one of his rings, then handed it to her. She reached out with a Mage Hand and took the meat before hopping past the trial orbs and testing out the new skill. Derek watched as she worked.

It looked like she didn’t trust many of the ingredients she had stored, so she only pulled out some simple salt and pepper. And she didn’t dare use those even until she sniffed and tasted each one. She quickly put the pepper away and shuffled through different spices until she found one that she seemed to deem okay. After a nod of her head, Derek guessed she had her ingredients.

He also noted down that it didn’t seem like the salt had been affected by the Void Travel skill, but it seemed that the herbs and spices had. Maybe it’s because salt is a mineral? He shrugged the thought away and went back to watching.

Silvi gently laid the cut of meat on a tray and began seasoning it. She also did some weird knife work with the cut. Derek was unsure what it would do, but he wasn’t a cook. Finally, she tested the dragon fire.

The first test couldn’t have gone how she had planned. It sure surprised Derek and the others that had turned their attention to his chef bunny. She wouldn’t dare cook with a new skill before testing it out, so she had hopped away and turned her head toward the sky.

What came next was a stream of dragon fire so powerful that it made Derek think back to the wyvern fire from the ones he had fought. No, it may have been even stronger. That was the power of having such a high intelligence stat.

Luckily, the skill didn’t seem like it was all or nothing, and Silvi quickly got a handle on it and began adjusting it. After a while, the flame only seemed like a mini flamethrower. It shot out only about six feet from Silvi, and it wasn’t near as big. Derek still couldn’t get the image of such a small creature producing a flame that was so many times bigger than herself out of his head.

Finally, she moved back to the seasoned drake meat and held it out in front of her with what Derek could only assume was Telekinesis. Next, she let the flame rip and gently brought the meat to it. She didn’t let the cut touch the flame directly—she kept it a small distance away. The meat slowly rotated in the air.

Before long, the smell wafted over to Derek, and he couldn’t keep his mouth from watering. Such a simple roasting process, and yet it produced such a delicious smell. Some time later, the flame disappeared, and the meat floated over to the tray and rested.

Soon enough, Silvi, with the tray floating above her, hopped back over to Derek and placed it on the ground between the two of them. The juicy meat was already cut up and ready to eat. “Ready?” he asked her out loud.

Without a reply, a piece of the meat floated toward Silvi, and she tore into it. Derek took that as his cue and grabbed a piece before tossing it into his mouth. The lightly seasoned drake meat was succulent and tender, and Derek yearned for another piece as soon as he swallowed the first.

When he looked up, he saw that Silvi was already a quarter of the way finished with the meat, so he hurriedly took another. The culmination of dragon fire and Silvi’s culinary prowess had resulted in something of a masterpiece. It was so simple, but so good. Instantly, he knew he made the correct decision to give Silvi the skill.

When they finished eating, Derek looked up. It seemed that the previous gazes of anger and reluctance from his party members had changed to ones of jealousy. He could only chuckle. The simple recipe was enough to give him a decently sized boost in stamina regeneration. Few foods could do such a thing.

Derek held himself back from laughing at the bunch. It must have been torture on them. Even Tyron was looking over with some envy. My companion is better than yours, he thought, and most definitely meant it.

‘Dragon Fire gives very nice flavor,’ Silvi sent as she cleaned the tray and put it away before hopping back atop Derek’s head. ‘We need more wisdom. Fire hard to control.’

‘It’s the next thing I plan on increasing,’ he said back.

Silvi didn’t bother to reply, and the two of them slipped back into meditation. A few hours later and the trial orb became active. Avery and the others were finally back.