(3rd person PoV)
Henryk soon noticed the sneaky presence that was Eucleia. He relented in letting her come along on the condition that she does not put herself in danger. He also made sure that her parents knew about this by relaying the news via one of the Horrors.
Nephelont, for his part, was partly paralyzed. He did not know how to consciously move in this body, not yet. He had to be carried along. It was hard not to lash out, to refuse the urge to gouge out Henryk's throat or his eyes. A violent whisper was always present when someone or something was in touching distance from him.
Well, except for Eucleia. She, and only she, was an exception that was never the target of his whispers. Henryk used this to their advantage by making Eucleia move Nephelont around and to hold his limbs to help him recognize how to flex them around to walk on his own.
Over the duration of two weeks, they arrived at the Evil Mountains, Beol Mountains. By this time, Nephelont was somewhat capable of movement. His wings were folded since he still did not figure out how to use them fully, while his tail was dragging along the dirt and sand behind him, leaving a deep trail.
"Here's the plan, kids" Henryk stopped walking just as they met their first monster. A lone loup garou. 'Damn... When was the last time I killed a surface one of these? Was it eight years ago?' Henryk reminisced over his old memories and the achievement he made. 'Grysia doesn't have to repel them anymore. Just me showing up makes them flee the area for a few months at a time now'
"Nephelont, can you kill that kobold?" Henryk told a white lie. Although they were stronger than kobolds, surface loup garou were still not that much stronger than floor 4 kobolds.
"Grr?" Nephelont replied to the best of his abilities. He simply could not talk right now.
"You should be stronger than that, seeing as I killed many of them before receiving my first falna" Henryk pointed mockingly at the oblivious loup garou.
"Kha" Nephelont dismissed any precaution he may have had at that moment and started targeting the poor thing with blades of compressed wind. Blades that could not cut it exploded on impact, delivering blunt force trauma akin to that of a grenade exploding right next to the body.
"Yelp!" The loup garou yelped in pain before turning its head every which way to scan for potential threats. Its blood ran cold when it saw Henryk, and Henryk recognized it.
'Oh! It was you! You bastard! Might as well kill you since you served your purpose!' "Focus fire!" Henryk's enthusiasm bled into Nephelont, who now started trying to channel red lightning into the wind blades. One ignis fatuus coming right in!
Nephelont's mind (the energy) ran wild, exploding our little dragon. The loup garou tried to flee when Nephelont momentarily stopped attacking, a failed attempt, foiled by Henryk running after it. The loup garou finally met the grim reaper that slaughtered every single pack member it held dear.
'We should have left that human den (Preblica) alone generations ago' That loup garou finally acknowledged something that all of them should have. That was the last thought on its mind before its life was no longer. Henryk collected the magic stone before returning to the kids, who were still within his sight this entire time.
"That was a good attempt, Nephelont" Henryk opened with praise for Nephelont's attempt. "What you need is to get a feel for the flow of your mind. Once you get a hold of that, you could twist it in many new ways to perform all manner of magic with red lightning"
(At 8 years old)
For their 8th birthday, Nephelont and Eucleia were brought back to Orario momentarily to celebrate it before getting back to Beol Mountains. Nephelont's training was not over yet. To compensate for the lack of monsters, Henryk had the Horrors bring monsters out of the dungeon in droves for Eucleia and Nephelont to train with.
For five months, Nephelont trained to move his limbs as he pleased. By the end of the second month, he was mostly able to move well enough that he started getting into melee with monsters. During the latter three months, he started getting into fights with weakened wyverns, virtue of Henryk's handiwork on them. Most of the first few wyverns were weakened by shredding their wing membranes apart and beating them half to death.
At the sight of the first wyvern, Nephelont almost went loose, losing his mind over the tempting scent of prey, prey the heart of which was his true target. He sulked afterwards once Henryk calmed him down.
They tried letting him indulge in those desires for a while instead of holding them back. He started improving after a while. By the tenth wyvern, Nephelont was already somewhat in control of what he did.
By the twentieth, he was capable of reeling back the urges by leaning into them with more rational thought, promising a much better chance to fulfill them.
Once the wyvern population of the Beol Mountains was nearly gone, they had to move to another set of mountains in search of them. A quick search of related quests with the guild led them to the frost-ridden forest between the Great Mountain Range and Dragon Valley.
While Henryk and Eucleia wore coats, Nephelont's body shape did not allow him that comfort... or so it was supposed to be. Strangely enough, Nephelont could endure these cold lands without much effort. He could simply warm himself by blazing the ground and laying on the spot for a little warmth.
"Big Golden Bunny!" Eucleia exclaimed as she threw herself at him, latching onto his back. He was now nearly twice his previous size. In fact, he is still going through a growth spurt right now.
"Soon, you will be the size of an adult ancient dragon" Henryk commented, impressed by Nephelont's size. 'And your power is growing to rival one. With a falna boosting that, you will transcend the limits of an ancient dragon's power soon enough' Henryk had a sudden thought.
"Punch me with all you have" Henryk assumed a defensive stance, expecting Nephelont to follow through with his request.
'Uncle is strong enough to take this, I think' Nephelont thought.
After eating the hearts of all of those wyverns, Nephelont could feel it. He absorbed their strengths as his own. He could also feel the strength that will come to him when his falna is updated. Part of him does not see a reason to question why the majority of the strength he absorbed is held back by the falna.
"Khaa!!" Nephelont let go of all restraint, channeling all of his strength. Unbeknownst to him, he also channeled all of his mind along with it. Red lightning arced around his body as {Ariel} was activated on its own. His fist descended upon Henryk.
'Here we go!' Henryk braced himself with a smile.
Upon meeting Nephelont's punch, a few things happened at that instance, the first of which was that Henryk's lower half was now buried under the sand, and this "was" a stone surface they were standing on. The punch's impact was transferred through Henryk's body and into the ground, pulverizing some into sand. The second immediate effect is the numbness Henryk felt. It was not much, barely being there, but that proved the potency of the lightning infused into the attack, the sheer amount of energy it carried inside it. The third immediate effect was the shredding of Henryk's clothes. The wind scattered into tiny streams of compressed air, sharp enough to cut a normal human into pieces. The fifth and last immediate effect was Nephelont's loss of consciousness. He emptied the mind accumulated in his scales.
'Ais gave birth to a monster, an adorable monster' Henryk was careful not to let his thought out. While he did not mean it in a bad way, the children might become sensitive to it.
"Uncle!" Eucleia never got used to Nephelont spending all of his energy and passing out. She would always panic over it and get all teary-eyed, looking hopefully at Henryk.
"There, there, little crimson rabbit" Henryk said while patting her back. 'If it was yellow and red, that would have been fine, but golden and red isn't. Golden and crimson is, though' Henryk's thoughts were detached from Eucleia's worry, unlike his actions. To his credit, he knew where Eucleia's worry came from. She knew that Nephelont was fine, as this happened a few times by now, but getting used to Nephelont becoming unconscious was never an option for her, it seems. 'She never wants to be separate from him in general, as well as at the oddest of times, like now'
(The day before their 9 birthday)
"Are you still refusing to meet my kids?" Henryk was bugging Nephelont to do just that for a while now. For the entire last year, in fact. He was jabbing a finger into Nephelont's cheek constantly for the last hour alone.
"Alright! I'll go see them!" Nephelont was shying away from it. He was not as confident when he thought about making new friends. He lived all his 9 years of life with only Eucleia as a friend who is his age. Henryk's children, triplets, were around the same age, being only older by a few months.
On the side, Eucleia was still amazed by how Nephelont talked without opening his maw. How he explained the last time, which took nothing away from the achievement but added to it instead, was that he ordered the wind to talk in his stead. He himself did not understand how it worked, just that it did, and that he could control it.
"Are you done, dear?" Amber said with a voice dripping with adoration. The way Nephelont looked in this form was endearing to her. She wanted to dote on this hatchling dragon until she spoiled him rotten. Once she had Nephelont's attention she stepped off a completely unharmed wyvern brought from the dungeon. "Now," She smiled manically. "fight this thing!" She was truly joyful at what she considered a rite of passage for a fellow dragon and was very expectant of Nephelont.
Without talking, Nephelont was already focused on the wyvern. He saw an opportunity for an ambush since it was now focused on Amber.
Nephelont started by disappearing into dust before gathering his body above it, biting down on its neck. He bit as far forward as he could to prevent it from turning back and launching fireballs on his face. Even if he was resistant to heat, it was still unpleasant to get too warm without consent.
The wyvern felt Nephelont's teeth sink in its neck. The frontal ones were flat and serrated to rend flesh while most other teeth, beside two pairs of molars at the very back, were conical in shape to hold the prey firmly in his grasp. The more the wyvern struggled, the more the serrated teeth gnashed away at its neck and made it bleed, and the more tired it would become because of the struggle to escape the grasp of the conical teeth.
The wyvern, in a panic, started spraying fire everywhere its maw was directed, hoping that a stary spray might reach Nephelont on its back. It was also tossing and turning around.
As soon as the fire came out, Nephelont did as Henryk trained him to. He cut the air supply from reaching back to the wyvern. Henryk told him to cut "breathing air" and leave "not breathing air" to prevent a fire from escalating. At the same time, he could use the "not breathing air" to make miniature air blades inside of the wyvern's throat and lungs to make it suffocate on its own blood as well as the lack of "breathing air".
'I shouldn't have given him that kind of demonic advice yet' Henryk was surprised by how acceptant of violence Nephelont was. He did not question the cruelty of the act.
As the crowd of three watched, Nephelont dug his claws in the wyvern's sides and shocked it, adding to the cumulative damages and to its suffering. Shortly after, the wyvern was left as a quivering mess of half-burned flesh.
"Don't you need to hurry, Nephelont? Remember the dozen or so wyverns that turned to ash before you could devour their hearts?" Henryk reminded Nephelont of the urgency of their situation.
"Oh! Right!" Nephelont rushed at the twitching mass and cut it with his claws, covered in a technique Henryk taught him. Henryk taught Nephelont to coat his claws with any type of air then vibrate the air coating very quickly, very tightly. It proved useful in making his claws much sharper than they were.
There was the precaution of not maintaining the technique for too long and only using it when striking, but Nephelont failed to judge how much time had passed by then. As he was about to relish the taste of his prize, his claws caught flame.
"Oh" Nephelont nonchalantly put the flame out by cutting "breathing air" away from it, just like how he was taught to quell the flames of a wyvern. He thought that they would act the same, and he was delighted when they did. He quickly gobbled down the heart of the wyvern before it turned to dust like the last one. The last wyvern before this one had its heart turn to dust inside of his mouth, just as he was about to swallow it.
"After celebrating your 9th birthday, we'll start exploring your transformation manipulation" Henryk said to Nephelont.
"Congrats! Kid! You smell like an adult now! This older sister is proud of you!" Amber patted him on the back, roughly so, as she laughed boisterously.
To the side, Eucleia felt left alone. She was with him, yet he did not have much time to spend with her. But as soon as Amber showed up, she got some time with Nephelont.
Something inside Eucleia started to stir and change. She started to think that being a dragon like him would have given them some more time to play together, like how he is playing with Amber now.