"Simple enough plan," Savannah nodded absentmindedly.
"I still think it would be better if you came with us," I thumped my tail on the ground.
"I can't," Savannah shook her head.
I looked away from her. The windows were tinted so I didn't need to worry about anyone seeing me in here. If Savannah wasn't going to come with then there really was nothing else we needed to discuss. My wings twitched. They wanted to be extended, but that wasn't going to happen in here.
The room was too small for me to extend my wings. I could barely raise my head all the way. I yawned as I went over our plan again in my head. I had plenty of credits to cover a rental. I couldn't afford to buy anything expensive without selling more of my venom.
Savannah sat there in silence for a few minutes as she waited for me to say something, but I wasn't in a talkative mood. She decided to leave after awhile. I focused my mind on Ethan since it was unusual for him not to seek me out whenever he got the chance.
{Are you alright?} I sent over, and over again.
{Yes} I could hear his faint mental response {This distance... difficult... message... Need more... training.}
{Ah} I sent back {More training. Don't worry. I'll be here when you get back.}
Ethan felt relieved after that so he must have gotten as least most of my message. I was looking forward to us being able to communicate completely telepathically. I figured once our bond evolved again it would become a lot easier to communicate telepathically. It had already gotten easier just with practice. I started playing with my scales.
Making them ripple like a wave for a while before I got bored of that. Then I started seeing what the smallest thing I could pick up with my tail was. Switching to picking up glass things without breaking them. Picking up glass stuff was really difficult. After I broke two or three things I switched to my hands to see if it was still as difficult with my hands as it was my tail.
My increase in strength wasn't too awe inspiring considering how much work I needed to do to get each stat point, but I was still significantly stronger as a dragon then when I was in my human form. I planned to stay in my dragon form most of the time once we got out of here, so I'd have to get used to handling fragile things as a dragon. I'd only ever handled glass when I was in human form so I figured that was a good starting point. Maybe I'd try using chicken eggs next. It was good to know that I still had better coordination with my hands then with my tail, but I wanted to close that gap even further.
The more control I had over my big body the less of a chance there was of me doing something accidentally. I kept doing coordination experiments until I was tired enough to doze off a few hours later. I woke to my alarm. An irritating beeping I hadn't heard in some time. I needed to be awake earlier than I'd grown accustomed to.
Goliath's workout routine was unforgiving, but sleep was one of the comforts Goliath hadn't been stingy on. I stood up, and arched my back slowly. My wings twitched as they ached to be spread. This room may be bigger than my dorm room, but it still was a room designed by humans for humans. I simply didn't have enough room to stretch like that.
I shook the exhaustion out of my scales, and picked through the clothes I'd packed. Pulling out a school uniform, and checking it for holes before switching forms. I got dressed like usual before heading out of the room. Ethan met me downstairs. Savannah seemed to be somewhere in the market.
Ethan was wearing the light beast armor I'd bought him. It was decent gear. Really was. But it wouldn't hold up to anything over a tier ten for very long. I lead the way while Ethan kept pace by my side.
We didn't talk. We just looked around casually. Not really looking for anything in particular, but since neither one of us had ever been to this kind of festival market environment we just had to have a look around. The team matches started at ten, and lasted four hours. If there was a clear winner they'd end it early.
I wanted our team to be the winner. I was a little worried about the two unknown members that would be on our team. The second year, and this Jax guy. Savannah seemed to know who Jax was. She recognized the name, but didn't seem to know him well.
Mutual acquaintance type relationship? It didn't really matter. I'd find out when I met him. My eyes landed on a flashy bit of beast gear. I walked towards the stall to get a better look.
They were almost gauntlet type weapons, but instead of being designed to close into a fist the fingers were more slender. Making them look like claws. They had a blue sheen to them. Probably the color of the beast crystal they'd been made from. I could feel lightning mana forged into the metal.
Someone had gone through the trouble of making them from lightning type beast crystals only. Ethan noticed my gaze, and smirked at the back of my head since I was leaned conspicuously close to the clawed gloves. I drew a few funny looks from folks as I looked the gloves over carefully.
"Are you going to kiss them or buy them?" the stall keeper, who wasn't much older than me, interrupted my train of thought.
"Lightning based beast crystals are rare," I straightened out, "I doubt I can afford them."
"How could you tell?" the stall keeper looked stunned, "Most folks can't pick up on lightning elemental mana. The blue gleam throws folks as well. Most lightning based equipment has more of a gold sheen to them."