Bookbound Bunny

The last few days, Lily spent most of her time with Lotte, which really made her wonder if there was some truth behind Thomas' words about scaled friends. They spent most of the time in Lily's room, since she had it all to herself and it was far more spacious than Lotte's.

Lotte was supposed to share a room with a roommate, but due to her bloodline and its potentially hazardous tendencies, they quickly relocated her to a single room. Sadly, it was on the smaller end, so Lily's became the natural hangout.

I guess roommates are why people spend time at the faction houses instead.

Their activities mostly revolved around talking and getting to know each other, and eventually branched out into Lily showing Lotte a little bit of alchemy. Lily didn't have a full-sized cauldron on hand, unless she went to the Maranix building, so she could only show a bit of the basics.

Not that she had the resources that really required a full-sized cauldron, as she would have had to pay full price to get them from Camilla. Lily imagined that the old woman was probably considering sending her an invoice for the potions she had been given on her departure.

Lotte showed a moderate amount of interest in it and was quite surprised by the breadth of Lily's knowledge, which she attributed to having a rigorous teacher.

Lily did end up eventually brewing a minor potion for a demonstration, nothing more than an energy stimulant, and that was when she got to reveal her absolute pride and joy—glyphs!

Lily had dismissed buying a full alchemist's toolkit, as she had solved most of her brewing problems with glyphs. She had a glyph that could suspect liquid as a sphere at a strict height, and she already had plenty of practice making flame glyphs. Combining the two meant that if she had ink and paper on hand, she could effectively brew most minor potions anywhere.

Of course, the cauldron itself wasn't just for show or to hold the liquids, as the real ones were also enchanted for brewing. Without it, you'd struggle to make anything above apothecary grade.

If Lily's alchemy had surprised Lotte, her glyph work had left her speechless—she stared at the bunny like she was from a different planet entirely. Lily, of course, tried to encourage Lotte to enter the fantastic world of glyphs, but just like Rose before, she refused.

"I think I'm already going to struggle to keep the alchemy stuff in my head, I can't handle all these shapes and squiggles with all these rules too!"

Lily was momentarily disappointed, but ultimately accepted it. She hoped in her enchanting class that she'd perhaps find a peer who shared her enthusiasm.

Although they will all be newbies, won't they? Umm… maybe I can befriend the teacher?

The one silver lining about Lotte having no interest in glyphs meant the girl gave Lily her leftover chalk from the Familiar ritual, which Lily gratefully accepted. When she opened the box, however, she was surprised by how little remained or had been snapped in half.

"Didn't you pass one on the first day? Why does it look like you struggled?" Lily asked curiously.

"Oh, I did. However, I suppose I was being too rough, and they kept breaking. When I finally finished it, it was such a mess, but it worked on the first try, and out popped Jade here!"

Lily felt her eye twitch, especially after the time she spent ensuring that everything was as perfect as possible.

This must be the power of an extinct bloodline… I wonder how easy a time Rose had? I'm almost imagining she tripped, grazed her palm in the binding circle, and that was enough to trigger the ritual!

Speaking of which, Lily still hadn't seen hide nor hair of Rose, and her attempts to ask Beatrice or Aura about it were going nowhere. They both just said she was in the dungeon and should come out when school started.

Lily also ended up spending a little time in the library, mainly for Arakil's benefit, as he was interested in seeing what he could find. This led to plenty of odd stares from anyone who witnessed the floating book that was reading other books.

While Lily enjoyed reading, the books that were available before school started were not her cup of tea. Some history about the world and the school, changes in the curriculum over the years, discussions about the subjects, and the electives. The latter might have been helpful for Lily if she hadn't already made up her mind.

In their time together, Lily also tried offering a hand in "raising" Jade, the curious lizard who seemed more like a cat than Yona. It wasn't very successful, and she seemed to have quite the stubborn streak that only bribes of tasty treats would temporarily alleviate.

Lotte was also not exactly sure what Jade could do, as the smug Familiar hadn't really displayed any unique or interesting characteristics yet.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Lily even privately consulted Arakil, but even he wasn't too sure and could only point out that the green scales might hint at something poison-related in addition to being drawn in by Lotte's basilisk blood. This theory was then further reinforced when Arakil witnessed Lotte feeding Jade some of her Mana and was positively astounded.

[Even her Mana is corrupted by her poison, truly remarkable! I doubt even Rose's Mana has taken on the properties of fire; otherwise, there would've been a lot more conflagrations back in the orphanage, not to mention the forest.

This is almost akin to what we did with your Mana Core when we aligned it to Astral Magic, except on a much more exorbitant scale. I'd be willing to bet that any water and perhaps even earth magic she casts inherit a noxious quality.]

This led Lily to try awkwardly bringing up the question to Lotte. Eventually, she managed to do so by requesting a glass of water, which elicited a rather visceral reaction from the girl.

"Err… you don't want any water I make. Anyone who's ever drunk it has gotten violently ill. I can't even drink it, unless I want an upset stomach," she explained.

[That all but confirms that Jade must be highly resistant to all forms of poison, or perhaps even capable of feeding off of it. Judging by her rotundness and corresponding appetite, I think it must be the latter as she was probably drawn to such an appetizing Mana source for her.]

What kind of creature eats poison? That's even worse than slimes, which are known to eat garbage!

They'd also met up with Thomas once; he was pretty determined and busy, and it seemed Lily's casual suggestion of lightning had lit a fire in him. He was eagerly going over some of his old books from before Regarth while also trying to scour the limited library section for any notable lightning mages.

Lily and Lotte had both greeted a few of the other newcomers passing their test, but none of them really stuck around for more than a few pleasantries. Lily wasn't too fussed about it, though, as she preferred having a small circle of friends rather than being a social butterfly.

And just like that, the last few days flew by. Until it was the afternoon before school officially started. There would now be a short orientation lecture, after which everyone would be led to their first class: Dungeon Studies.

Lily and Lotte were both excited, although they knew that they would probably not get to see the dungeon on the first lesson. They were busy chatting away in Lily's room when there was a knock on the door.

Lily got up and went to open it, expecting Beatrice to perhaps tell them about tomorrow. She opened the door and was startled when it opened to a very tall and very red girl, Rose.

Rose had somehow grown even taller in the almost two years' absence, unlike Lily. Her chunky tail was now elongated, and it was only an inch away from touching the floor. On her back were a large pair of red, leathery, and scaly wings, folded in a resting position.

Her skin, which was once a patchwork of scales, had inverted, and now her red scales dominated her flesh. The biggest surprise of all was that, sitting on top of her head, emerging from the top sides of her forehead, were a pair of small horns, curved backward. She'd evidently gotten the comprehensive dragon package with her bloodline awakening completed.

Before Lily could respond or react, the now much taller girl leaped forward and lifted her up into the air.

"Lily! You're finally here!" she cried out with joy, while giving a dangerously tight bear hug.

Lily tried to respond but failed to, only making a slight gurgling sound as the air escaped her mouth. A momentary fearfulness for her life, she summoned her Nebula Veil around her in an instant, putting a barrier between herself and Rose's deadly hug.

"What the heck!?" Rose cried out in surprise, releasing Lily entirely and causing her to bounce to the floor.

Lily coughed a few times as she sucked in air, then pointed an accusatory finger at Rose.

"You nearly choked me! And I've been here for a week, where've you been?"

Rose blinked a few times, likely not expecting such a reaction for their reunion.

"I was in the dungeon… I wanted to spend as much time there as possible before the school year started, try to earn some treasures, you get it, right?"

Lily sighed. "I guess the dragon needs her hoard."

"Exactly!" she grinned. "Gods, I've missed you, Lily."

She reached over and began to ruffle Lily's hair and ears.

"And I've especially missed doing this!"

Lily pouted and tried to cover her ears with her hands. "I didn't… most people don't assault my ears."

"I would be a terrible sister if I didn't!" Rose retorted.

Lily frowned briefly before giving up and letting her have her fun. Eventually, Rose stopped ruffling her ears and began touching her starry cloak instead, her eyes twinkling with fascination.

"And what the heck is this? You couldn't do this back when I was around! You've certainly been busy."

Lily nodded. "I actually learnt it shortly after you left. I've been swamped making sure I'd be Regarth ready."

"Ha! I'll bet. You and that damned book getting up to all sorts of troubles? Did he teach you this?"

"Uhh…" Lily mumbled, a little frantically.

"Oh right, I promised to call him Arakil, didn't I? Sorry about that."

Lily's face paled.

"Uh… isn't Arakil the name of your Familiar?" Lotte asked suddenly.

Rose's pupils momentarily became slits, but as she blinked they returned to normal. She glanced behind Lily, an easy feat due to the immense height disparity.

"Who the heck are you?" Rose demanded.

Lily feared that her territorial nature was rearing its ugly head again. "This is Lotte, she's a new student just like me," Lily explained. "She's one of the new friends I've made since I came here."

Lily noticed Rose's eyes shift for a single blink again before she seemed to slightly calm down. "Replacing me already, huh?"

Lily frowned. "I'm sure you have friends here, too."

"But they aren't Lagia… you've gone and found a Dragia to replace me!"

"She's a Serpia, not a Dragia!"

Rose's apparent anger abruptly faded, as if it had never existed. "Oh. That's fine then."

Lily very nearly rolled her eyes in exasperation. She couldn't believe the only reason Rose was angry was that she thought Lily had found another Dragia. Clearly, there were limits to what Lady Desthu's training could accomplish.

"Yes… I'm not a big scary dragon, just a little snake," Lotte agreed.

"I've never seen a Serpia with scales like that… sorry?" Rose replied awkwardly.

"Blame my bloodline. But that's a little irrelevant for now," Lotte said. "You mentioned Arakil teaching her, but isn't that the name of her Familiar?"

Lotte then pointed to the book that was sitting on the desk. As if called, it floated up a bit from the desk, and the eye on its cover turned to face Rose.

"Shit!" Rose blurted out.