Chapter 316 (Patreon)

Chapter 316

Sophia showed Cirrus around her domain and explained more about how everything works. Once she mentioned that she'd experience heavily accelerated magic growth when she's inside the tiger's domain, the cloud elder dragon was immediately on board with creating her own biome and lair inside of it.

“Okay, how about we go back to your place?” Once Sophia finished showing Cirrus around and recruited her, she suggested returning to the regular world. “I want to introduce you to the others, too.”

“Oh, yes, I’d like to see how your portals actually work because you moved us right through them before, so let me go on my own this time.” The dragon remembered how Sophia had directly transported them to their destination before, while still referring to them as portals.

“Sure!” The tiger clapped her hands and pointed at the massive portal on their left that she previously used to get the dragon and herself into her domain. A moment later, it turned see-through, and they could see the pearlescent insides of the cloud she met Cirrus.                

"Wow, that was easy!" The dragon stepped through the giant portal and was surprised to find herself instantly back in her lair. “Those portal things are rather handy.”

“They sure are~.” She nodded a few times. “I’m also placing them wherever in the regular world with the goal to have one in every interesting area all over the planet to get everywhere in an instant.”

“That sounds like a fun idea. I’d appreciate it if some of those portals were dragon-sized. While I’ve been to pretty much every corner of this world, being able to revisit certain places in an instant would be nice.”

"That's the plan." Sophia was happy that she liked it. “Don’t worry, I can freely adjust the sizes of my portals, so you can take them to wherever you want.”

“Glad to hear.”

"By the way, could I ask you for a favor?"

“I mean, why stop now?” Cirrus tilted her head because the tiger had been asking a lot of favors already.

“Ahaha…” The blonde scratched her cheek. "One of the people I travel with who is currently on the floating island is my sister. She loves dragons and everything that is epic. I want to make her extremely jealous if possible.”

“Okay…?” The epic dragon sounded confused.

“Can I, pretty please, ride on your back when we fly down from here and meet up with them?”

“Overseers… and overseer adjacent beings sure love their flashy entrances, huh?”

“I especially love making my sister envious~.” The blonde’s expression turned into a massive smirk. “So, what are my chances on that?”

“I want a month alone in my new biome without you coming to check on me to experiment.” Cirrus stared right at her. “On top of that, I want one of your birds for supervision so that I don't do anything fully against the rules and for tips and tricks.”

“I can sense everything that is going on inside my domain, you know?"

“Well, I assume you can sense magic, but not what I’m doing with it specifically, right?”

“Magic, all the time. Specifics, if I concentrate on it.”

“I’m a fan of surprises, so no concentrating, either.”

“Mhm, I guess it could be interesting.” Sophia shrugged. “I can't promise you Blu or Limes will be constantly with you. They like to do their own things, too. However, they usually always appear right away if you call for them. Or, if you try something cheeky.”

“That’s acceptable.” The dragon was okay with those terms.

“Then?!”

“You may.” Saying so, Cirrus lowered her body and moved her massive wings to the side to give the tiger easier access to her back.

“WOW!” Sophia hadn't expected her to go along with it. “Let’s go!” She quickly moved to her back before the dragon decided to change her mind.

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The duo left the inside of the clouds, and Cirrus took off into the sky above the island. She flapped her massive cloud-like wings a couple of times, and her entire body shone in a bright pearlescent light as the sun-rays hit her, making her already majestic appearance stand out even more. Naturally, she also let out a massive roar that echoed through the entire island as she circled over it.

Sophia was firmly planted on her back, right between her beautiful wings, and enjoyed herself a lot. After all, it was her first time riding on a dragon like this, and it's hard to get more fantasy than that.

"WOAH!" Steph was the first to notice the dragon and pointed at the sky with sparkling eyes. The group had left the ruins by now and found the big lake in the middle of the island, where they reunited with Kel after he swam up the waterfall.

“W-What is that?!” Ari wasn’t quite as excited as the dog.

“That explains a lot!” Aura and Fen had the exact same reaction.

“Yeah, I see now why Sophia wanted to go there.” Maya could also only nod.

“So pretty!” Anna and Chloe were on Steph’s side, too.

“That’s Cirrus.” Kel, who was relatively close to the shore of the lake, changed his attention to the group. “She’s the Cloud Elder Dragon.”

“Ohoho~.” Aura’s voice turned even more excited than the dog-girl’s. “How strong is she?” She was already itching to fight her.

“She’s fast and sneaky.”

“I love that combination!” The female wolf liked that even more.

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“Hey~.” The dragon landed near the lake a couple of minutes later, and Sophia jumped off her back while energetically waving towards the group. “Sorry I disappeared earlier, but something caught my attention!”

“I HATE YOU SO MUCH!” Steph immediately started glaring at her after realizing that her sister had just ridden a beautiful pearlescent dragon through the sky without her. “Why do you keep doing these amazing fantasy things without me?!”

“See, totally worth it~.” Sophia briefly turned around to smirk at the dragon. “Anyway, this is Cirrus, everyone! She’s the Cloud Elder Dragon, but I guess Kel already mentioned that, huh?”

“Long time, no see.” Cirrus focused on her fellow dragon first. “You’ve changed a lot since the last time we saw each other.” She paused for a moment and took in all of his multicolored being. “You seem to have a lot more authority. I also don’t remember you being this sparkly. You weren’t iridescent the last time, weren’t you? I do approve of it, though.” The pearlescent dragon didn’t dislike the iridescent one.

“It’s been too long.” Kel reacted with a slight nod. “I experimented with some of the saving magic ore, and that is the result of it."

“Did you eat them or what?!”

“Indeed.”

“Hah…” Cirrus had no idea how to respond to that information first. “Well, that actually is a very you thing to do.”

“Sure is.” He sounded quite proud of himself. “You seem just like I remember, though. Which, of course, isn’t a bad thing.”

“I’m naturally shimmering, so I didn’t need any help from a bunch of rocks.” Cirrus responded with a hearty chuckle that echoed through the area.

“Fair.” Fen couldn’t really say anything there. “I see that you met our not-overseer friend.”

“I, uhh… did.” She paused for a second. “My curiosity got the better of me, and I brought her to my lair. I certainly wasn’t the one surprising the other, though.”

“Oh, you tried to surprise her?” The male dragon stared right at her. “I tried to fight and overpower her…”

“My condolences.” Cirrus didn’t need to know more. “I also heard you became good friends with her birds.”

“I DID NOT!” He instantly raised his voice. “Wait, where did you meet the small bundles of concentrated terror?”

“Sophia showed me her domain… thing, and introduced me to them. I also somehow ended up agreeing to make a lair inside there.”

“Ahh, you fell for the same trap I did, huh? Insanely accelerated magic growth and the absence of Mira’s ruling on magic.”

“Indeed…” The pearlescent dragon let out a sigh. “So, it’s at least true?”

“Her domain is a fascinating place, and the magic dynamics are something else entirely.” He reacted with another small nod of his massive head.

“Okay, that at least means things will be quite interesting in there.”

“Oh, that much I can guarantee you.”

“S-O-P-H-I-A~!” While the dragons were talking, Steph was getting impatient as she glared at her sister while she was shaking both her shoulders with her arms. “What did I say about going on adventures without me?! Meeting and riding a shiny picture-book fantasy dragon with cloud-wings is peak adventure material! I am sooo upset right now!”

“Does it help that she literally catapulted me to her?” Sophia scratched her cheek. “You saw me suddenly launching into the sky, right? That was her using magic on me specifically.”

“Only marginally!” The dog-girl’s cheek puffed out from the pouting.

“Now, now…” Chloe tried to calm her down and patted her head. "From how it sounded, the new dragon will also be staying in the domain, so I'm sure you can have your own adventure with her soon.” She looked at her with her usual gentle smile. “Personally, I can’t wait to learn more about her wings! It looks like they’re made from literal clouds! That’s so cool!”

“Mrmm…” Steph was still quite grumbly.

“I can’t believe she found a second dragon before getting to the demon continent.” Ari lightly shook her head after the initial shock wore off."

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?!” Anna was a lot more excited.

“Well, she seems friendly, so…” The jaguar looked at the newcomer. “Very pretty, too.”

“Sophia would never let us get close to anyone dangerous, so I’m sure she is fine.” Maya smiled at the jaguar. “As much as we hate it, that’s also why she gets on those adventures on her own first…” She then looked at Steph. “To make sure whatever or whoever she finds is alright to be approached by us. She’s just overprotective.”

“Mrmm." Steph continued to grumble, but her expression softened a little.

“Exactly!” The blonde reacted with a big nod. Maya being so understanding made her even happier that she went ahead and told her first by stopping time before going into the big cloud where Cirrus was.

Afterward, the group continued watching the newcomer as she caught up with Kel. Everyone wanted to get closer to her and ask many cloud-related questions, but they didn't want to interrupt, so they decided to wait a little.