"A dragon's first flight is not proof that it will never fall. It is proof that falling need not be the end."
― Anonymous
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As we approached the grand entrance of the CCT Tower, its sleek and futuristic architecture towering above its natural surroundings, Penny continued to animatedly explain.
"And thus, the Cross Continental Transmit System, or CCT, is a network that allows real-time communication between the kingdoms. Each kingdom has its own tower, like this one in Vale, which transmits signals to the others, ensuring seamless connectivity across Remnant."
I nodded, absorbing the information dump. It wasn't that hard to understand so far. I knew how the communication towers worked in a broad sense. Only when she went super technical did I start to feel a little lost. But I got the gist of it all.
"So, these towers are the backbone of global communication. Literally."
I finally commented, trying to at least respond in a way that didn't make me seem like a complete bum. It was curious that they didn't seem to have satellite tech here. Something to do with the dust-based tech not working properly past a certain height.
"Precisely!"
Penny beamed.
"They have to maintain constant contact, which is crucial for both everyday interactions and coordinating defenses against sudden and emerging threats, such as the Grimm."
As we walked up the steps, the hustle and bustle of students and regular civilians became more apparent. Naturally, the atmosphere was a blend of academic and civic activity due to the two prominent and identifiable types of visitors. Penny's enthusiasm was quite high as she continued sharing her insights into the tower's significance, at times going so deep that I wondered if such knowledge was even permitted to regular civilians, considering that it could be used—by people much smarter than I was—to breach into the CCT systems. Then again, this was a technologically advanced world in many aspects, so maybe I was worrying over nothing. Surely they had high levels of security in place.
"Penny? Penny! Hey!"
Suddenly, a voice called out, interrupting both my thought process and Penny's explanation.
Both of us turned to see a dark-haired girl with red-tipped hair, dressed in a black, grey, and red gothic dress and a flowing red cloak. Beside her was a pale, white-haired girl with her hair done in a side ponytail and wearing a neat white dress with black accents. Both girls carried weapons at their waists. The white-haired one's was obviously a rapier, while the dark-haired one's was harder to identify. Had I not known about the show, I never would have guessed that the weapon strapped to her back could unfold into a massive scythe. It just looked like a futuristic gun from Halo or something.
Despite never having seen them before, with this being a rather surprising first meeting, it took me mere moments to recognize two of the four titular main characters of RWBY: Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee.
I had to wonder if this was just a coincidence or if Admin was messing around with me, getting me involved with the main characters like this. I mean, what were the odds that I'd meet not just Penny, but also Ruby and Weiss on the same day, within the span of less than an hour?
Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was actually indeed a coincidence that I met Penny that day, but the following meeting was meant to happen. Except it didn't include my presence, originally.
Beside me, Penny stiffened momentarily before she responded with stuttering enthusiasm.
"Ah, salutations, stranger! It is… wonderful to meet you."
I'd barely spent like 10 to 20 minutes with the girl, but I could already point out that she was not comfortable with this encounter. I didn't think it was due to my astute observation skills, but rather due to the utter simplicity of her personality and nature that I was able to figure that out. Penny, in essence, was a straightforward girl, and it was rather easy to read her if you knew to pay attention.
The duo approaching us didn't seem to pay that much attention to it, however.
"Hey Penny! I didn't expect to run into you here! You left so suddenly. Where have you been?! Uh, and who's your friend?"
I raised a hand in greeting and, with a smile, introduced myself to the girl who was rapid-firing questions to Penny, who seemed unsure of how to handle this situation.
"Hi. I'm Damian."
"Hi yourself! I'm Ruby Rose. And this is Weiss."
Ruby introduced them, her tone a pitch or two higher than when she was speaking to Penny. Weiss offered a polite nod but otherwise clearly found me uninteresting, as her eyes were focused on Ruby and Penny as the two girls soon began talking about something that they seemed to be involved in recently. Or well, Ruby was talking about it, and Penny was still frozen in indecisiveness and hesitation, looking around like a cornered mouse.
"Uh... sorry, I think you're confused. Huck! Uh, I've got to go!"
I blinked as Penny walked without any further words, leaving us in an awkward silence for a second or two before Ruby shouted.
"Penny, wait!"
But Penny didn't seem to pay any attention to her as she kept walking away.
"Weiss, stay here. I'll go talk to her."
Ruby ran after Penny, leaving me with Weiss.
I was so taken aback by her sudden departure that I didn't even get to say goodbye to her. And it felt wrong to follow her when Ruby was clearly doing the same, and they seemed to have something personal to discuss.
"Well, this is awkward."
I finally surmised, turning to Weiss, who finally looked at me, momentarily raising an eyebrow.
"Right."
There was another second of silence before she gave me a small courtesy.
"Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Damian. But I must depart. I have work that I must finish—alone, now that my partner has decided to ditch me."
I nodded.
"Nice meeting you too, Weiss."
We parted ways like that, Weiss leaving for inside the tower while I changed my course and began to leave the premises altogether.
It was unfortunate that I couldn't get a tourist-style visit to the fancy towers, but at the end of the day, I didn't have any purpose in coming here, other than to sightsee and eat my food in peace.
With this little encounter seemingly ending on a rather sudden note, I began making my way towards a secluded space, ready to portal back to the island. I think I had enough adventure for the day. I had finally found civilization. Now all I had to do was upgrade the portal, so it'd let me travel freely to this location.
Finding the nearest space devoid of any people or cameras, I opened the portal and went back to the island.
***
Returning to the island, I knew I'd not be able to return to Vale for a while. It was a bit of a shame, but I was also content with the discovery. And I did have quite an adventure in the city and met some interesting people. My wanderlust was sated for now. My need for civilization was quenched for the time being. Now, it was time to focus a bit on the island and my new job.
Lying on the open grass near my hut, I briefly checked the update [Change Logs] by the Admin.
'Hmm, new items and decorations, new island customization options, bug fixes and performance improvements… what does that even mean? What performance improvements? It's not like the system lags or anything—ooh! Personal items!'
I sat back up as I saw those and promptly opened the [Shop], seeing a new tab added after Decorations, simply labelled as Equipment & Accessories.
"Hell yeah!"
I clicked on it and found a surprisingly extensive selection of items waiting for me to purchase.
There were simple things at first—clothing, belts, pouches, gloves, boots, cloaks, and different types of saddles for mounting my dragons. Nothing particularly fancy, but all of them looked useful enough.
Then I scrolled down.
'Oh?'
There were weapons too.
Nothing crazy, unfortunately. Most were fairly ordinary—swords, shortbows, daggers, staffs, and even a few shields. Each of these was available in various bases such as bronze, iron, steel, diamond, emerald, obsidian, etc. But there were Magical weapons. Those caught my attention, along with the hefty but not unaffordable pricing for each.
There were also tools: Mining picks, axes, fishing rods, gardening hoes, Scythes. Similarly categorized in their base resources, like the weapons.
I scrolled further.
There were rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, part of the Accessories subcategory, I presumed. I wasn't one for wearing jewellery, but… some of them had tiny stat bonuses attached to them, while others were purely cosmetic. The former might be worth checking out.
"Okay, this is a pretty extensive list. Oh, they even have furniture in the Decorations tab now. Nice. No electrical appliances though… So, no TV or Smartphone. Hopefully they'll be added in the future."
Now it was truly starting to feel like a proper base-building sim—only I was playing with actual Dragons and now had access to magical items.
Closing the [Shop], I opened the [Quests], seeing a certain quest I had been unable to finish until now and which would upgrade my title from Dragon Tamer[Initiate] to Dragon Tamer[Novice], and likely lead to new Quests from the System.
I think it was finally time I figured out the whole Dragon breeding stuff.
***
Peeking atop one of the large rocks, which was almost as big as I was, I looked into the cave in which I had transferred Pyra and Nixie. Honestly, those two were the obvious candidates since I'd had them the longest, and despite my own 'genderification' of them, they didn't actually have any gender-specific parts that could point towards one gender or the other, making the usual necessity of a male and female somewhat irrelevant. None of my dragons had any visible reproductive organs, at least the ones I was familiar with. So, they probably had a different mechanism of breeding than what I was familiar with… well, not personally, but we don't need to go into that detail right now. Or ever.
As for why I was hidin—I mean, watching from a distance, well, I wasn't sure what the process entailed, and I didn't want to disrupt the process. But I was also deathly curious about how my Dragons would make new eggs. There was nothing perverted about it, I swear! It was for science! For curiosity!
Neither the quest, the System, nor the book left behind by my predecessor had any details on the process. The book simply stated that to tame Dragons, just put them in a breeding cave and after a certain amount of time, there'll be a new egg. Nothing about requiring a Male or Female, or even non-standard combinations. No talk about genders or preferences at all. Just put any two dragons and—I quote: 'their essence will mingle and take the shape of a new hatchling inside an egg.' It will then need to be transferred to the Hatchery for it to properly hatch into a baby dragon.
Of course, putting the eggs in the Hatchery was only the standard way of doing it. One could also put them in a space of their element—like how I hatched Pyra—or put the egg in a suitable habitat, as I did with my other dragons. But compared to those, the Hatchery offered a faster growth period. Which hadn't been that much of a concern so far, but from what I had understood, later down the line, the waiting times would increase exponentially as I hatched dragons of increased rarity.
I looked with curious, bated breath as Pyra and Nixie first observed their surroundings, having been transported directly from their respective habitats, followed by looking at each other as they immediately noticed each other's presence.
My dragons were pretty familiar with each other by now. Despite their different elements, having fought side by side and played around with each other and myself, they knew each other, and they didn't tend to butt heads. Well, other than Cyclis trying to 'attack' Terrin, who was still just as affected by it as before, that is, none at all. For Cyclis, I think it was now more of a habit of play-fighting and chewing and just being a little nuisance to its fellow Dragon, rather than actually being angry or frustrated at him. I had seen it coiling around Terrin and sleeping on his back after it was done trying to raise some sort of reaction from the Earth Dragon and failing as usual.
Terrin was such a chill Dragon. He didn't seem to mind it at all. I wish I was as tempered as him.
Curiously, Cyclis didn't seem to share the same attitude for Pyra and Nixie. They were treated in a rather friendly manner by Cyclis, who enjoyed playing around with both—whether it was Pyra and Cyclis flying around or Nixie and Cyclis floating on the lake or near the beach. Not that Cyclis was swimming, more along the lines of floating on the surface.
So, in short, my Dragons were rather friendly with each other. So, it didn't surprise me when Pyra and Nixie greeted each other in their respective Dragon tongues before roaming around a little and finally settling down near each other.
Curiously, they didn't try to leave the Den. I had wondered if they would when they were roaming around, but they didn't.
I blinked as the seconds turned into minutes and they continued to just sit, occasionally affectionately rubbing against each other, but that was the extent of any sort of intimacy between the two.
Which was weird because they did similar things outside the cave too, and that didn't lead to any laid eggs.
… Was it working? Was I doing something wrong? I scratched my head, unable to confirm if this was working or not.
Eventually, seeing as they'd both fallen asleep, I left to check on the book after I was done checking the System and the Quest for any details I had missed, finding none.
…
The book also didn't exactly have anything new. It was still the same information I had read about before.
Humming, I glanced back at the two sleeping dragons before finally shrugging and leaving.
Either it'll fail, or it'll succeed, and I'd have a new egg to hatch. Either way, I'll come pick them up if they still haven't 'finished' after an hour or so.
Maybe this needed more privacy, and me being a peeping tom was disrupting the process?
Maybe.
Whatever, I'll come after an hour or so to check on them.
***
About half an hour passed as I did some manual farming and feeding of my other two Dragons, took a dip in the ocean, and just chilled as I scrolled through the Shop to look for something I would want to buy. I got two pairs of clothes and leather shoes, apparently made of Dragon hide harvested from some dragon's shed skin. Didn't know Dragons shed their skins. Apparently, it was specific types of Dragons that did that. Ones who shared some similarities to Snakes, lizards, and even Turtles, among others, which were known to shed their skins. None of my four dragons would.
There were some really interesting rough drawings in the guidebook that made me wonder if there really existed dragons in those shapes and styles it hinted at, but apparently the Dragon Taming System had some really esoteric and unique Dragon types. I'd love to find/discover and tame them. It was one thing that kept me going, making progress as I discovered and tamed more Dragons. I had the 4 basic elements done. And things would only get more interesting from here on as new elements were discovered.
'Then again, even if the breeding succeeded, there's still a higher chance I'll end up with a regular Fire or Water dragon, rather than a hybrid.'
The chances of getting an egg of the same element as one of their 'parents' were 50%. The chances of getting a hybrid ranged anywhere from 25% all the way to 0.00001% in case of some ultra-rare legendary dragons.
The Quest didn't specify that the resulting Dragon egg must be a unique or hybrid Dragon type. In fact, it didn't talk about the result at all. As long as I had bred two Dragons, it'll be counted as a success. But it was likely that in the future I would receive quests that'd require certain types of Dragons as a result of the breeding. Which meant there was going to be some RNG element to it going forward.
I might end up with lots of dragons of similar types in the process. But that was all in the future. For now, I was just concerned about the process actually working—
[Attention!]
[Your dragons have finished breeding! Check the Den to learn more about the egg.]
[Quest "Dragon Tamer(Novice)" completed!]
***
[–Status–]
Name: Damian Pendragon
Age: 18
Race: Human(Magical)
Class: Dragon Tamer(Novice)
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Tier: II
Level: 23/50
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HP: 5060/5060
MP: 400
Aura: -Locked-
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STR: 30
END: 30
AGI: 30
DEX: 30
INT: 40
WIS: 40
CHA: 20
LUC: 30
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SP: 3
DP: 10
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Gold: 250,650
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Affinities:
[Fire(Intermediate)]
[Water(Intermediate)]
[Earth(Intermediate)]
[Wind(Intermediate)]
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Dragons:
Pyra (Lvl 48)
Nixie (Lvl 26)
Terrin(Lvl 35)
Cyclis(Lvl 37)
? (Lvl ?)
***