Over the several hours that Hazel was gone, I did my best to teach Icarus how to fly. The method? Trial, and error. Icarus needed to take risks and experience what it's like being in the air, mainly to conquer his fear of heights. Only after he got rid of his fear could we start working on the actual flight part. Eventually, I decided that the best thing to do was transform into my dragon form, bring Icarus to the ceiling of the dome, and let him drop down. It was crucial that Icarus voluntarily jumped, as I didn't want him to fear training.
Of course, I was barely able to fly as well as I would've liked, but I was still able to reach the top of the dome with ease. However, swooping down and reaching the bottom before Icarus did was impossible for me. So, to accommodate for my slowness, I had Aros waiting on the field below, ready to catch Icarus whenever available.
With that plan set in mind, we began. I first transformed into my dragon body and shook my wings, basking in the comfortableness that my dragon body provided. This form felt natural like I had just been given a massage. My human form had no problems, but it didn't leave me in comfort. Had I been able to speak while in dragon form, I probably would've chosen to stay in dragon form the entire time.
Before I transformed, I made sure Icarus and Aros knew the plan, so they didn't need any further instruction on what to do. I looked down at Icarus and lowered my body to make it easier to climb onto. Icarus looked at me for a moment, frozen in fear, before he slowly managed to take his first step forward.
Still, he was determined to learn how to fly- not only for his own advancement but for the ability to protect the ones that surrounded him. Aros had been correct. Because of Icarus's failure, Hazel and I were put in a dangerous situation. Of course, Icarus was the only one that thought of it like this, but that still served as fuel for his determination, so I didn't decide to fix it.
With that strong determination, he took another step and began to climb atop my body. Then, without much more warning, I took off into the sky and slowly made my way into the air. It felt like I was wearing a weighted vest as I flew, pulled by strings that were connected to my back, but I flew nonetheless.
Then, once I had gotten close to the crystals at the top of the dome- the ones that provided the illusion of night and day- I began to hover. Icarus took one look into my eyes before turning back to the ground and gulping in fear.
Then, with the same determination that he had shown on the ground, he took a step forward.
Several hours later, after I had finished training with Icarus for the day, I returned to the house to get something to eat. While there, I considered what my future plans would be.
"The core upgrade will take 10,000 DP, and will probably multiply by ten every time, so I shouldn't waste DP on that right now. I'll worry about that when I get a higher DP rate," I muttered as I considered the core upgrade options. I wanted to get the『 Skill Shop 』option that I had seen a glimpse of when I upgraded the core last time, but that was only accessible through a core upgrade.
It had been about a day since Hazel left, so she and the others were probably already at Hewe by now. Ever since then, I had been working hard at understanding how my『 Flight 』skill worked, as well as working tirelessly at unlocking Icarus's own『 Flight 』skill, but neither of us had had much luck.
Flying in the air, especially in a small dome like this, was like trying to swim in a pool while wearing heavy weights. The movement was awkward, constricting, and difficult. Aros tried to help me learn how to get used to my dragon body, but his limited knowledge didn't include how to control wings, so he wasn't really useful. Without many other options, I ran into the problem head-on and worked through trial and error. Over the last few attempts, I had only ended up making myself fall down to the ground after trying to perform a simple yet challenging maneuver.
Icarus was slightly more fortunate with his attempts at flying. He had been jumping from the roof of the house into Aros's arms while I was training to fly, but he wasn't succeeding in the slightest. He had, however, completely destroyed his fear of heights. It had gotten to the point where he would sometimes not even try to flap his wings and instead fall directly into Aros's arms. It appeared that Icarus was somewhat of an adrenaline junky.
After I saw how Icarus had gotten rid of his fear of heights, making some progress in his training, I started to work even harder at understanding how my wings worked.
Unlike other skills,『 Flight 』wasn't as gracious as to allow me to activate it perfectly without much effort. In order to fully utilize the skill, I had to push my innate mana through my body and balance it through my wings.
When I would first start pumping Mana into my wings, it felt good but somewhat clunky. It was like I was filling a stuffed animal with stuffing. There was a lot of it, and it felt good to me, but it was uneven. Flying with uneven wings was like trying to glide a paper airplane that had one wing bigger than the other.
So, to fix this problem, I worked solely on fixing the Mana distribution problem. I would begin by concentrating on the Mana in my dragon form, reading it like a book as I tried to understand everything about it. I wanted to engrave the feeling of mana in my body like a scar. I wanted to turn it into instinct, so I didn't have to divide my attention while I was in a fight.
Because my dragon body and my human body were completely different, I found that even the mana was different, almost foreign.
Luckily, though, controlling the mana was easier than I thought, as the mana in my body seemed even in the first place, just condensed to everything but the wings. I already had enough mana to fully cover my entire body- wings and all- without much problem. Only after moving my mana into my wings did everything get fucked up. My body was like an uneven bowl that would never sit straight while it had water inside of it. Instead, it would spin and spin around while the water pushed against the walls of the bowl at every flinch.
I was almost tempted to move my body with the mana because the uneven rhythm of the mana was so hypnotizing. However, after a few hours of sitting still and focusing only on my mana, I came to a realization.
The mana concentration around certain parts of my body was heavier like there was a magnet for the mana there. There were only five magnets in my body. Four were at the joints of my legs, while the fifth was at the base of my throat. These magnets were most likely what was causing the strange unevenness of the magic in my body when I attempted to fly, as well as what was preventing my mana from leaking into my wings normally.
Once I realized these magnets existed, I began to even out the mana in my body with their influence in mind. I would send less mana to those areas while I would send more to my wings. The change that this created wasn't enough to solve my problem, but it was much more even than before.
After having my first semi-success, I grew excited and began to concentrate on my mana once more.
"Holy shit!" I heard somebody say. I opened my eyes and groaned as I looked down at the ground. I was still in my dragon form, so the only thing I let out was a low grunt. As I looked to the ground, I saw a familiar figure standing at the dome's entrance.
It was Hazel, already having returned from her trip to Hewe. She was standing at the door with a shocked expression on her face, but her eyes were full of excitement.
"That's huge! Wait, there's no way! Is that you, Icarus?" She screamed as she ran forward. I watched as she ran up to me, then began climbing over my legs and onto my back. I twisted my neck as I watched her, which was easier than I thought it would be considering my neck's size. After she ended up on my back, she quickly began climbing up the scales on my back until she ended up on the top of my head, "Hello, Icarus. Where's Arthur?"
I sighed, which let out a deeper sigh than I intended, then slowly shook my head. I moved my head back to the ground and twisted my neck. Hazel jumped to the ground after the top of my head was tilted, but then looked at me with an angry face.
"Icarus!" She complained, "I liked it up there."
"Maybe you'll like it more once you transform yourself," I heard a voice say. Hazel and I turned to the source of the voice, then found Aros walking up to us with a small dragon wyrmling trailing behind him, "But for now, Lady Conley, please restrain from climbing atop Lord Aureys."
"Wait, what?" Hazel muttered. Her eyes fell to Aros's ankles, where she found Icarus. Then she looked back at me with her eyes wide, "Huh? That's you, Arthur?"
I sighed again, then used my skill to transform back into my human form. A blanket of orange fire covered my body for a moment as my size changed, then disappeared a moment later. I looked to Hazel, then walked up to her.
"Ahh! Wait, how- you still have your suit?" She asked with a loud yelp. Her hands were hovering over her eyes as she tried turning away from me, apparently expecting a different picture than what she got.
"Perks of being a dragon," I chuckled, "Anyways, you're back so early. Did you forget something?"
"Nope! Thanks to your portal, I managed to get to Hewe before breakfast, so I decided to leave after that and come right back. I was expecting to get lost on the way, but I somehow ended up finding the entrance to the dungeon on the first try," Hazel told me, "The dungeon was impressive. If I didn't have a Kobold to guide me through, I would've gotten lost for sure."
"Good," I said, "I already told her about you while you were gone, but it looks like she didn't have any problems recognizing you."
"Right, Silfang. I met her for a moment when I got to her boss room," Hazel nodded, "She's really nice, but it kind of freaks me out that she's able to speak."
"All dungeon bosses can speak, Lady Conley," Aros said, "Both present and future. If the boss doesn't have vocal cords, they will automatically gain the skill『 Telepathy 』to communicate."
"That's interesting," I muttered. Then I turned to Aros, "Has he made any progress?"
"I'm afraid I'll have to say no," Aros sighed, "There's a chance I've created a little daredevil, as well. Even when I'm not there to catch him, Master Icarus insists on jumping off of high objects to feel another adrenaline rush."
"It's that bad, huh?" I sighed.
"Huh? I've been gone for one day, what the hell happened?" Hazel interjected. She looked down at Icarus, who was beginning to hide behind Aros's legs, with a stern gaze. Then, after a moment of silence, she sighed and turned to me, "So, how did you do that?"
"You want me to show you how to morph?" I asked. Hazel nodded.
"I lost control last time and nearly killed you. I don't want that to happen again. Show me how to control my transformations," Hazel said with a determined spark in her eye. I nodded, then brought her aside to teach her.
"I suppose we will continue our lessons," Aros sighed as he looked down at Icarus, "I dread when you learn how to transform into a human. I already have a feeling you'll be a monster like those two, who learned how to transform earlier than they should've."