Hey, Author here, so... sorry for not giving you guys a chapter last saturday, I was very occupied in the university and had a trip to visit my parents, so I didn't had time to write, but now things are going back to normal (I think), and I'll be able to write normally for you loyal readers, thanks for your time, and enjoy this chapter. Author out.
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Dawn broke over the Familiar Forest like a blade of blue fire.
It didn't so much brighten as carve through the mist — slicing open layers of mana-saturated fog that curled between ancient trees like living ghosts. Droplets of condensed magic hung in the air, catching the newborn light and refracting it into threads of pale sapphire and emerald. Every living thing in that forest felt the shift.
Griffon cubs stopped mid-flight. Wyrmlings raised their small heads from their nests. Enchanted beasts that normally ignored the world around them paused and tasted the air.
Because Tiamat was awake. And she was in a mood. I felt it before I even reached the cavern.
Pressure rolled through the forest like atmospheric anxiety, a subtle tightening in the mana that made every breath feel slightly heavier. It wasn't violent. Not yet. Just… expectant. Like the world had decided to hold its breath and see who survived the day. Kalawarna, Asia, and I stood before the cavern entrance in light training gear. I rolled my shoulders slowly, feeling joints pop and muscles protest from yesterday's "introduction." Tiamat had called it a preview. My body called it war crimes.
Kalawarna's wings were half-open, extended just enough to stretch the membrane, feathers twitching with tension. Her hair was tied back high, sweat already beading at her temples even though the works hadn't started. Asia stood between us with Rassei curled around her shoulders — the pale-blue Sprite Dragon dozing like a scarf that occasionally flicked its tail and watched everything.
Asia's hands were clasped in front of her chest. She looked nervous. She also looked like she'd show up again tomorrow even if today killed her.
Then Tiamat stepped out of the cavern, and the forest bowed.
Literally. Leaves dipped. Branches bent. The mist near the cave mouth parted like it knew better than to touch her, and it even looked like what the red sea probably did for Moses. Light blue flames curled lazily around her palms, like tame comets eager to be let off the leash.
"Good," she said, voice echoing just enough to remind you the mountain was listening. "You're on time. I don't tolerate late students."
Kalawarna muttered, "That's… motivating," under her breath.
I elbowed her lightly. "Don't provoke the dragon queen."
Tiamat's ear twitched. She didn't even turn her head.
"I heard that."
Kalawarna froze. Asia made a tiny, squeaked "eep," then covered her mouth like she could push the sound back in.
I exhaled slowly. "Let's begin," I said, because if I didn't, she'd begin anyway, and I'd rather it look like a choice.
Tiamat gestured, blue fire trailing the motion. "Inside," she said. "The forest cannot handle what we're going to do to you."
We followed her into the cavern, the temperature rising and then stabilizing at "uncomfortable sauna built inside a dragon's mood." The already-familiar drop through the sapphire shaft came — light, free-fall, then sudden stop as we arrived in her Den of Trials.
The chamber looked different in full "morning" light. Mana pulsed brighter in the glyphs carved across the floor. Obsidian pillars jutted from ground and ceiling in irregular patterns, some fused into natural-looking arches, others hovering in mid-air like someone had decided gravity was an optional feature. Platforms hung at varying heights, each ringed in faint blue circles. Pools of concentrated mana glowed across the floor like liquid stars.
Tiamat stepped to the center, wings spreading briefly before folding behind her like a royal cloak.
"As expected," she said, eyes roaming over us, "your flame hasn't gone out yet."
[Oh, this is going to hurt,] Ddraig muttered. [Even more than usual.]
'Good. I haven't hurt enough yet.'
[I truly worry about your definition of 'good' boy.]
"Hyoudou Issei," Tiamat said, snapping my attention back. "Front and center."
I stepped forward, stopping a few meters from her. The air between us felt heavier, like the mana itself knew better than to get comfortable.
"Your control over basic elemental manipulation is acceptable," she said. "Fire and earth mainly, some of air too. Enough to fool demons and angels into thinking you're 'talented.'"
The way she said talented made it sound like "housebroken."
"But draconic magic," she continued, "is not demon magic, or angel blessings, or the structured spells of human sorcerers. It is instinct refined by will. It is breath given purpose."
She raised one hand. Blue fire flared in her palm, writhing like a living thing. With a slow inhale, she pressed her palms together. The flames compressed. They shrank, folding inward, denser and denser, until there was no visible flame at all — just a small, floating sphere of blue, the size of a marble, swirling like caged lightning.
"This is not a spell," she said.
She opened her hand. The sphere hovered above her palm, perfectly steady.
"It is a heartbeat. A piece of the self, crystallized into flame. Your fire must obey you not because you command it…" Her eyes pinned me. "…but because it is you. True dragons with the innate fire element do not 'manipulate' fire. They are fire."
"It's easier to just throw it around," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Which is exactly why most of the dragons who did this died like idiots."
She flicked her wrist. The tiny sphere shot off, carving a neat hole through a hovering platform without exploding, then melted into the far wall like butter. She lowered her hand and nodded at me.
"Your turn."
I stepped forward, raised my hand, and called.
Heat answered. A flicker of red flared above my palm — a raw ember, unstable, coughing sparks like a lighter running out of fuel. It wanted to erupt into a full flame, to stretch and roar and burn. Compressing it felt like trying to convince a dog not to chase a moving car.
"Good," Tiamat said. "Now compress. Do not tame. Do not force. Align. Your flame is wild but not stupid. It knows its master, if you remember who that is."
Sweat beaded on my forehead as I coaxed the ember smaller. It fought me, pulsing, flaring, trying to blow out. I squeezed with too much force; it flickered, threatening to vanish. I loosened; it flared, almost bursting.
My teeth clenched.
Tiamat's hand shot forward and caught my wrist.
Her touch burned — not physically, but magically. Her aura pressed through my skin, rode along my veins, and slapped my power awake.
"Stop treating it like a bomb," she said. "Turn your mind inward. Dragons are not external casters. Your flame is not 'out there.' It is inside. You are just letting it peek."
[Listen to her, partner. She knows what she's doing.]
'Just because you slept with her doesn't mean she's always right.'
[I DID NOT—]
'Focus.'
I exhaled slowly and followed the sensation inward.
Instead of pushing at the ember from outside, I pulled my awareness back into my chest, to the place my aura pooled. The flame in my hand wasn't separate from me. It was just… concentrated me. Heat shaped into a point. I stopped trying to grip the ball and instead treated it like a held breath — contained by understanding, not brute strength.
The ember steadied. Deepened. Darkened into richer crimson. The wild flicker smoothed into a slow, purposeful rotation. A marble-sized sphere of draconic fire hovered above my palm. Stable. Heavy. Dangerous without needing to prove it. Tiamat watched it for three seconds, then gave a short nod.
"Acceptable," she said. "For a hatchling."
She turned her head slightly. "Do not release it. Maintain it while we move on."
I arched a brow. "Multitasking?"
She smirked. "You call it that. Dragons call it existing."
[She's not wrong.]
Asia flinched when Tiamat's gaze snapped to her.
"Asia Argento," Tiamat said. "Front."
Asia stepped forward like someone walking into a confessional. Rassei slithered off her shoulders and landed on the ground with a soft hop, then padded alongside her, tail swishing nervously. Tiamat circled Asia, inspecting her as though she were a curious artifact rather than a person. Her eyes lingered on Asia's hands, the light coiled within them, the quiet posture.
"You are pure light," she said. "Gentle, reactive, born for healing, not violence. A walking contradiction to this era." Her eyes narrowed. "And yet you are still walking. Curious."
Asia swallowed. "I just… try to help people."
"Yes. You are a healer. But if your body is weak, you will die before you can raise your hand. That makes your gift useless."
She pointed to a ring of stone pillars near the wall. They weren't human-carved. They were heavy, black, and dense, with faint dragon-scale patterns. You didn't have to touch them to know they weighed a lot.
"These," Tiamat said calmly, "weigh roughly as much as a mid-sized human vehicle. Push one."
Asia blinked. "A… car?"
"A truck."
"M-Me?"
Kalawarna groaned under her breath. "Is this dragon insane? She'll never push those…"
Tiamat's head turned very slowly toward her.
"Dragon… insane?" she repeated.
Kalawarna's feathers puffed. "I-I mean, magnificent dragoness instructor whose methods are beyond my mortal comprehension."
Tiamat's lips curled minutely. "Adequate recovery."
Her focus snapped back to Asia.
"Push."
Asia stared at the nearest pillar, pale.
Then, slowly, she nodded. "I… will try."
She put her small hands against the stone and pushed.
Nothing happened.
Her boots slipped. Her shoulders trembled. The pillar didn't move a milimeter.
Asia's breathing quickened. Rassei hopped up onto the pillar, watching, worry gleaming in his bright eyes.
Tiamat didn't look disappointed. She looked exactly the same as before — which was somehow worse.
"Kalawarna," she said without turning. "You try."
Kalawarna sighed, rolled her shoulders, and stalked forward.
She planted her palms, set her stance, engaged her legs and back properly like someone who'd been put through military conditioning before.
She grunted, body straining.
The pillar moved.
Barely 5 meters. But it moved.
Asia watched, eyes wide.
Tiamat nodded once. "Good," she said. "That gives me a baseline. Now we adapt."
She snapped her fingers.
A circle of blue runes flared beneath Asia's feet.
Asia yelped as strength flooded her muscles — not unnatural, not wild, but a supportive buzz, as if the mana around her was lending its weight to her own meager physical power.
"Again," Tiamat said.
Asia, eyes shut tight, pushed with everything she had.
The pillar groaned.
Moved.
Just a fraction, the stone grinding against the cavern floor — but it moved.
"I… I did it…!" Asia panted.
"You had help," Tiamat said. "From the forest, from me, from your own magic. This is how you will train: channel your light, not just outward, but inward, to reinforce your body. You will not become a brute. You will become durable."
Asia nodded, trembling but smiling. Rassei nuzzled her cheek, chirping happily in the draconic language.
"Now," Tiamat said, turning. "Kalawarna."
The fallen stiffened.
"Yes, mighty dragoness who will absolutely not turn me into ash?"
"Sky," Tiamat said, pointing upward.
Kalawarna looked. Floating platforms waited far above, arranged in a dizzying three-dimensional maze.
"You will hover for as long as possible," Tiamat said. "No landing. No touching walls. If you drop before I say, you repeat from the beginning."
Kalawarna grimaced. "My wings are already complaining."
"Then they will learn to shut up," Tiamat replied.
She flicked her fingers. Magic grabbed Kalawarna by the aura and yeeted her gently into the air. Kalawarna's wings snapped open on instinct.
"Okay, we're doing this now, I guess," she muttered, finding a hover equilibrium, legs tucked, arms loose. The air around her thickened as resistance magic coiled around her wings, turning each flap into a weighted rep.
Tiamat said nothing. She just watched. Blue fire coiled back into her hands as she turned towards me again. I still held the crimson sphere. It hadn't flickered.
Good.
"Your turn again, Red," she said. "We will work on your endurance and your tolerance."
"Sounds fun," I said, deadpan.
She raised her hand.
"Walk."
The ground ahead of me lit up in a straight line, sigils flaring. Blue fire erupted along it, forming a narrow path of controlled dragon flame.
"Through it," Tiamat said. "While maintaining your flame. Do not shield yourself. Do not reinforce your body with holy tricks. No Holy Spear. No Balance Breaker. Just you, your skin, and your will."
[She's going to cook you medium-rare.]
I stepped forward anyway. The first step into the blue fire felt like stepping into an oven. My skin prickled; my nerves shrieked; my aura flared on instinct, wanting to push the flames away. I didn't let it. The point wasn't to dominate the fire. It was to exist in it.
Second step. Third. Breath in. Breath out. The sphere over my palm pulsed once, tried to expand, then steadied when I tightened my focus again. Sweat poured down my back and stung my eyes. The smell of singed fabric reached my nose.
"Do not run," Tiamat's voice called. "Do not hurry. If you rush, you fail. Fire does not worry. It simply is."
I walked. The line felt longer than it was. Each step stripped away another layer of comfort, of illusion, of "this is just training." The flames knew who they belonged to. For now, Tiamat allowed them to lick and bite and test me. They burned, but they didn't annihilate. I reached the end of the line and stepped out, breath ragged, clothes smoking in places.
The crimson sphere still hovered, unchanged. Tiamat's eyes shone with a hint of approval.
"Again," she said.
So we did it again. And again. Time in the Den of Trials went strange. Hours blurred into cycles of exercise and pain. Strength drills — Tiamat's idea of "baseline."
She conjured enchanted weights that adapted weight based on effort, growing heavier the more you tried to cheat by using aura instead of muscle. I deadlifted stone blocks until my legs shook and my vision spotted. Kalawarna worked through pull-ups using a ring that rotated unpredictably in mid-air, forcing her wings and core to engage constantly. Asia did bodyweight circuits under a constant gentle mana-load, healing her micro-injuries as they formed, forcing her body to rebuild stronger. Wing conditioning — a special kind of hell.
Tiamat separated Kalawarna and me onto two different courses in the air, both ringed in rotating sigils that created pockets of drag and turbulence. We had to hover, accelerate, brake, twist, all without landing.
"Your wings are not ornaments," Tiamat said from below, arms folded. "They are weapons. Shields. Engines. Most beings with wings forget this and treat them as accessories. I do not train accessories."
My shoulders and back burned like they'd been replaced with hot lead. Every beat of my wings felt heavier, the resistance field pulling at each membrane, trying to drag me down. Kalawarna cursed in three languages and one dialect of pure suffering.
"Can…'t… feel… my wings…" she wheezed.
Tiamat pointed a claw upward, blue flames flaring at the tip. "If you fall, I will catch you. Then I will throw you back up until you learn."
"Motivational speeches," Kalawarna gasped. "Ten out of ten. Would die again."
"You may," Tiamat said. "We will see."
Asia's training looked gentler. It wasn't. Tiamat had her running repetitive patterns — sprints between etched circles, balance drills on narrow stone rails, long holds in difficult stances — all while maintaining a constant flow of healing magic through her own muscles.
"If you overdo it," Tiamat said, "your body will tear. If you underdo it, you will not adapt. Find the boundary. Dance on it."
Asia pushed. Sweated. Trembled. Rassei shuffled along beside her, occasionally puffing a small breath of support — not flame, more like encouragement scented with ozone. When Asia stumbled, I was there once, grabbed her shoulder, steadying her.
"You okay?" I asked, breathing hard myself.
She nodded rapidly, eyes glassy but determined. "If you're still… standing," she panted, "then I can be too."
"You're allowed to stop," I said quietly.
She shook her head. "If I stop when you don't… I'll fall behind. I don't want to be the one you have to protect all the time."
"You are," I said. "That's not a bad thing. But I get it. Just don't break yourself for pride."
She smiled faintly. "I'll break myself for you oni-chan, not pride."
I had no comeback for that one.
Tiamat's voice cut through. "Enough affection demonstration, training. Move."
"That was just me and my little sister," I muttered.
"It was disgustingly affectionate though," Kalawarna called from above. "I approve."
By late afternoon — or whatever passed for it in this timeless dragon hole — my muscles had moved past pain into that numb, trembling state where they no longer reported properly. Kalawarna's wings shivered with every flap. Asia's legs looked like they might detach and walk away in protest.
Tiamat watched all three of us, arms crossed, weight balanced on one leg like a judging colossus. She clapped once. Everything stopped. The resistance fields dropped. The weighted magic receded. The flames in the path flickered out. The chamber exhaled.
Kalawarna plummeted. I darted forward on instinct and caught her by hooking an arm under her shoulders and another under her knees, landing hard enough that my knees protested but didn't buckle.
"Don't," she panted, "ever tell anyone you princess-carried me."
"Depends on whether you survive," I shot back.
Asia collapsed onto her knees, hands on the floor, chest rising and falling in frantic little bursts.
I crouched beside her. "Hey. Asia. Breathe slow. In, out. You did good."
She looked up, sweaty bangs plastered to her forehead, cheeks flushed, eyes glowing with fatigue and something like quiet pride. "It hurts," she admitted. "But… it's a good hurt."
Tiamat approached, each step echoing. Her expression was neutral. But the cold, crushing weight of her aura had softened by a degree.
"This was the beginning," she said. "Barely the start."
Kalawarna let her head loll back dramatically. "Barely…? I think my soul left my body twice and is currently considering a restraining order."
Asia made a soft noise of agreement. I stayed kneeling, controlling my breathing, forcing my aura to settle. The crimson sphere still hovered above my shoulder now, like if it was orbiting me. It looked smaller now, not because it had shrunk, but because I understood its weight better.
Tiamat's gaze flicked to it, then to me. "You maintained it."
"Yeah," I said. "Thought you'd yell if I dropped it."
"I would have," she said. "But you didn't. Good. Your endurance rivals that of young Volynian dragons at their second century."
"Is that… good?" I asked.
"For a human?" Her lips curved very slightly. "It is absurd."
I spat a bit of blood onto the stone and wiped my mouth. "I can handle more."
Her eyes glowed faintly brighter.
"I know," she said quietly. "That is why I will train you harder than the others."
She stepped closer — close enough that I had to tilt my head up to meet her gaze. Her aura pressed against mine, testing, probing, measuring.
"Your draconic potential is only half-awake," she said. "Fire. Earth. Holy. Something… else, buried deep. When you truly command your flame — when you stop seeing it as borrowed power and accept it as your own — it will not just be the Underworld that feels it."
"So push me," I said. "Until that day comes."
The smile she gave then was all dragon. Slow. Sharp. Proud. A predator's respect for another predator in the making.
"Good," she murmured. "Tomorrow, we begin real magic."
"What the hell," Kalawarna croaked. "What was today, then?"
"Physical calibration," Tiamat said.
"That's what you call it?" Kalawarna flopped back onto the stone. "I call it 'creative attempts at murder.'"
"If I wished to murder you," Tiamat said mildly, "you would not be complaining. You would be seasoning."
Asia choked on an exhausted laugh. The forest hummed around the Den — as if acknowledging that something was shifting. Three small presences, once negligible in the flow of power, were now being carved sharper, brighter, hotter.
Under Tiamat's merciless gaze, a dragon, a fallen, and a saint had taken their first real step up a staircase no weakling was ever meant to see.
We were nowhere near legend yet.
But for the first time, the climb felt real.
[You realize,] Ddraig said into the quiet of my skull as we stumbled back toward the exit portal Tiamat opened for us, [that if you keep this up, people will stop calling you 'human' soon.]
'People already don't.'
[You do.]
'Yeah. But I lie to myself sometimes to sleep.'
[Hnh.] A rumble. Almost fond. [Keep the fire, partner. Let her shape it. But make sure it's still yours when she's done.]
'I will.'
I glanced back once, over my shoulder, before the portal swallowed us.
Tiamat stood in the center of her Den, arms folded, watching us go. Her expression unreadable. Wings casting jagged shadows across the glowing stone.
"Do not disappoint me, Red Dragon 'almost' Emperor," she murmured grinning.
And for the first time in a long, long while, I was honestly looking forward to tomorrow's pain.
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Curiosity: The draconic race 'Volynian' was inspired by the medieval slavic kingdom/principality and culture 'Galicia-Volhynia(n)', so basically, dragons of the Volynian race live and hide in the region of modern Russia and Belarus, serving as commanders and guards of the slavic pantheon.