Roar of Dragons

[Xander – 13 years]

Grandpa Adrian said I don't need to wear hunting gear, that I can just wear clothes which feel comfortable. This outfit is comfortable to me so it's what I went with. Just a simple MountainStorm Gear outfit that makes me feel good. A dark green long-sleeved shirt with the MountainStorm Gear name running down the left side in bright green, black pants, and black sneakers with green accents. Over the shirt is a dark green hoodie which has the MountainStorm Gear logo across the chest in bright green, and I'm wearing a black beanie with a small version of the logo on it along with a pair of black gloves.

The outfit is comfortable and I feel good wearing it, but is it really okay to wear this instead of hunting clothes to go hunting? I'd rather wear hunting clothes, but if Grandpa Adrian says I should wear normal clothes, then that means that's what I should wear.

It still feels wrong. At least I do still have some hunting stuff I'm wearing.

My hunting pouches are fixed onto the waistband of my pants, plus most my usual accessories. That includes the courage necklace, though I swapped my snail necklace for one with a wolf's fang hanging from it. Sig bought it for me and gifted it to me after our fitness session yesterday. He said I don't need to wear it all the time, since I already have other necklaces, but I want to wear it for the hunt.

Especially since I'm in wolfkin form right now. Grandpa Adrian said it's fine to do that and I'm feeling like a wolfkin right now so I'm still in it. I did have to use tailoring magic so that my hoodie and beanie had holes for the ears, but it's still comfortable. And of course, I made sure to use tailoring magic so my tail is comfortable as well.

He also said I should just go straight to the foyer at his publicly-known mansion once I'm ready. That's strange since everyone should always go in from the street, but Grandpa Adrian wouldn't say it's fine for me to do that if it wasn't. At least, not for his house.

I guess the foyer is the designated teleport-to spot for that mansion.

After waving goodbye to the guard at the gate, I teleport to Grandpa Adrian's publicly-known mansion. The moment I appear in the foyer, I look around. It's huge compared to the foyer back home. That makes sense, though, since Grandpa Adrian has a bunch of people living here. Not security guards, but staff members and family members.

Several of his children and grandchildren live here with their own spouses and children. When Greyson found out I was coming here, he gave me a full roster of everyone who lives here that he's aware of. Included in the roster also included information about each of them, like their jobs and attitudes.

The woman who's entering the foyer now, he labeled as "self-important bitch Grandfather Adrian wouldn't let me drain the bank account of".

"Who are you?" She asks. "Why are you wearing accessories like those? That's very unbecoming of a member of our family."

She can't see most of my accessories since they're under my hoodie and shirt and pants. She must be referring to my hunting pouches, but they're only slightly visible and there's nothing wrong with wearing them. There's also nothing wrong with wearing necklaces, bracelets, and anklets, either.

My tail twitches a little. There's so much I want to say to her over that, but it's Very Bad for a child to scold an adult. Oh. But Grandpa Adrian gave me advice on how to deal with people who think they can boss me around. It feels wrong to say it because it's defying adults, but he said it's perfectly acceptable for me to say it.

"I don't answer to you."

"I don't know you," she says. "Which means you do not live here. Those who live here stand above those who do not."

"If you want to talk about standing," Grandpa Adrian says from where he appeared behind her. "Perhaps you should consider your own. You're merely someone who married into the family. Xander is a direct grandson of mine whom I'm taking on a hunt. One of our targets is a wyvern around 2,000,000 mana on the standard scale. And he'll be the one doing the fighting.

"Xander," Grandpa Adrian looks at me. "How did you make it past the anti-teleport ward? It should have kept you out, but you arrived in the foyer."

I fucked up?

"Didn't you say to come straight to the foyer?" I ask. "Was I supposed to go to the street? I'm sorry! I didn't mean to mess up! I just thought you'd meant-"

"It's fine," Grandpa Adrian says. "I don't mind you teleporting in directly, I was just curious how you made it past the ward. It really should have been good enough to keep you out."

Accidentally being able to make it past a ward which should stop me is also not bad, yet Grandpa Adrian just wants to know how I made it past it. This is really confusing.

"Oh," I say. "Um… well, I just made my spell go vreek-vreok during the designation phase and mwap-mwap and nwim-nwim while it was going pwo-pwote during arrival."

"What utter nonsense," the bitch says. "That's-"

"Why did you make it go mwap-mwap?" Grandpa Adrian asks.

"Because of the kiiiin part of the ward," I answer. "It was interfering with the mwip-mwip so I changed it a little to be mwap-mwap."

"Aaaaah," he says. "Yeah, that would let you past it. I'll need to adjust that a little."

"Sorry."

"You're not in trouble," he smiles a little and walks down the stairs. "I'll take us to the hunting zone, it's a bit further than you've teleported before by yourself."

"As for you," another avatar of Grandpa Adrian's says from behind the bitch, this one looking like the old man he uses most of the time when he's not with me. "Let's have a discussion on how to act, as a member of my family."

"I have spare binders."

"That won't be necessary," both avatars tell me.

Oh, right. If he doesn't have any, he could just conjure them. His speed at that spell is too much for me to be able to figure out how he does it. One day, I'll be able to, just not right now. Maybe when I'm fourteen.

"Okay."

"Teleporting now," the avatar closest to me says, then we appear in a large field on a hill. Or is it a small mountain? There's definitely a mountain not far from us, but this could also be one. Or part of that one. "Here we are. Have you eaten breakfast?"

Did I mess up again? Teleporting past an anti-teleport ward and then eating breakfast. Fuck! I can't stop messing up this morning, can I?

"Yeah," I look down at my shoes. "You said I could wait until after breakfast to get started, if I wanted. So I ate breakfast before getting ready. Was that… should I have come before breakfast?"

"You're fine," he tells me. "Just wanted to check. If you hadn't eaten yet, then I'd get you something so that you'd be full before hunting."

So I didn't mess up? This is confusing, but I think that's what he's saying.

"Oh… thanks."

I think that's what I'm supposed to say when someone says they were going to do something nice for me. Or was it "thanks for the thought"? I do appreciate that he wouldn't have let me hunt hungry, but I don't understand why I'm supposed to thank him for that when he didn't give me food.

"Pull out one of your streamer orbs," Grandpa Adrian tells me. "Set it to record what's going on, not stream. You'll be able to watch the footage back later to see how you did."

That doesn't make any sense to me. Why would I want to look at myself hunting? I do as instructed anyway as he's probably got something he's thinking about for it that he's not telling me. Once I finish, I look at him.

"There's a spatial wyvern which lives over there," Grandpa Adrian gestures towards the other mountain. "And he has around 2,000,000 mana. His bones will make for a useful material for better stability on an expanded space. His hide and blood will be useful, and his meat can provide plenty of food. Kill him with minimal damage, but don't use your spatial-severing spell. That uses too much mana, and we have other things you'll be killing today."

"Okay," I say. "So the overgrown lizard pretending it's special is where?"

A loud screech fills the air.

"Was that an attempt at provoking the wyvern?"

"I was scared it wasn't gonna work."

Grandpa Adrian snorts.

"Was I bad?"

"No," he laughs. "You weren't bad. Incoming."

The wyvern is soaring toward us, its wings flapping powerfully as it does. Its body is dark grey, which is common among powerful creatures with spatial magics not just assisting them but deep in their magics. For a spatial wyvern, that's a given.

Grandpa Adrian didn't tell me what it does, so I need to either wait for it to use its magics or take the initiate and kill it before it can use any magics. Well, any which aren't inherent to it, such as the flight magic which allows it to fly. There's also the gravity magic it uses to make itself lighter, allowing for faster movement and less strain on its insides.

Full-grown wyverns are large enough and heavy enough that their internal organs wouldn't be able to survive without something reducing that strain. Since they don't live in an ocean like whales, they adapted to possessing innate gravity magic. It serves the same purpose, but isn't a spell they cast.

Which makes it something I don't know how to counter. A spell would be really easy, but a magic inherent into a living creature is… a lot more difficult. Using my own gravity magic would probably be effective, though.

Except Grandpa Adrian mentioned how it can provide a lot of food. The wyvern likely weighs tens of thousands of pounds. Even if only forty percent of its weight was meat, that's a lot of food which can be provided to people. Crushing it might fuck up the plan to use it for that. I don't want to waste what would probably be tens of thousands of servings.

That's a lot of food.

Which means I need a better way to kill it. What would work?

Oh! I know!

I hold my right hand out forward, then clench my fingers into a fist. The wyvern begins twisting and shifting and thrashing as it crashes to the ground, still a few hundred feet away from us.

"Not bad," Grandpa Adrian says once it's dead. "You bypassed any defenses by creating an air filter in its mouth. Rather than filtering out impurities in the air or generating breathable air, you filtered out breathable air. Let's grab the body."

We begin walking towards the wyvern's remains, rather than teleporting over. Grandpa Adrian apparently wants to talk a little.

"I'd give that an A-minus," he tells me.

He didn't tell me this was a test! Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm. An A-minus is the best grade I can remember ever receiving on a sudden test. That's good. That's good. That's good.

"An A-minus?" I ask.

"Yes," he answers. "There were ways you could have done that more quickly, even with air magic. Rather than creating a filter to prevent it from being able to breathe, you could have used the filter to send in a toxic gas to poison it."

The test even comes with additional parts. Why couldn't he give me advance notice so I could study first?

"But that could spoil its meat," I say. "And that would just be wasting it. You said it would provide a lot of meat for food."

"It depends on the gas," he says. "Another method would have been to knock it out with mind magics."

Grandpa Adrian goes over a lot of different ways I could have killed the wyvern faster or more painlessly, none of which I'd been able to come up with on the spot. All it really means is that I messed up and need to kill differently next time.

"At least it was a wyvern," I say after the wyvern is placed into my hunting pouch.

"Why's that?"

"Because I can at least kill those without hesitation," I say. "It's easier, 'cause it's a faker. I don't think I could've managed that if it was something else. Like a bear. I still feel squeamish and get all hesitant and stuff for other things."

That was confirmed last weekend, when I hunted something to make for lunch over in Nine Springs. It was still difficult for me to field dress it and then butcher it.

"Hm…" Grandpa Adrian thinks. "There are some bison which use a mixture of lightning and spatial magic about two hundred miles east of here."

Oh, no. Why did I say something?

[Sig – 13 years] → begins a little before Xander's PoV.

It's cold out, but my new gear is comfortable and only my exposed face and fingers are warm. The field is relatively quiet, and my breath fogs in front of my face in the very early morning chill. The sun has begun to rise and we're waiting for the first of the hares to show up.

My initial thought was that we'd be pretty close to the forest the hares are being chased out of, but we're not. The group I'm a part of is a good three hundred yards or so away from it, in a field which held grass for hay until it was cut last month. With the grass being so short now, it provides good visibility.

Large round bales are scattered throughout the meadow, which provides some obstructions of the view, but I was told that's actually better for this. It can help to hide us, and the farmer who owns the property said that he'll accept the losses of any bales from the fighting as long as he gets a little bit of compensation from the hares' sales.

Last night was spent at the farmer's cabin, where I met the rest of the members of this group. It includes Mr. Wilson's wife and their two older sons, plus Ryan's best friend Alec and his parents and older brother and sister. That's eleven of us total in this group, and we're scattered around this part of the meadow.

Another group is past us, further away from the forest than ours is. Their hunting zone is perpendicular to ours and set so that they won't hit us unless they're really trying. Having two groups like this ensures that if we miss any, another group will catch them.

Groups are arranged like this all over around the forest, and there are a few more at different forests and wooded areas in the area. It's mostly hunters from the Dragon Falls area, but they apparently even pulled in some from other areas to help make up the numbers. Not everyone is an archer, they just wanted long-ranged hunters for the first groups the hares would encounter outside of the forest.

The hunters in the forest should be starting soon, so I'm waiting ready with my bow. Xander's also loaning me a spatial bracelet to store my arrows in, so that I don't have to worry about managing multiple quivers during this. I practiced pulling arrows out of it last night, so I feel comfortable using it during the hunt today.

It really is a loan. I have to give the bracelet back after the hunt ends, and I'm pretty comfortable with that. The size of it isn't too big – only three feet or so on each side – but that's still expensive. I could afford it if I tapped into what was set aside for savings and it was really tempting to do that to buy one from him.

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Maybe next month, once I have more in savings.

I didn't ask Xander for the bracelet loan – he gave it to me after the fitness session yesterday morning entirely on his own. He was also very firm that it was simply him letting me borrow something for the hunt, to make it easier and safer for me. I'm to return it once the hunting session is over.

In addition to the borrowed bracelet, I have a wooden wagon sitting near me. It's resistant to burning, freezing, and impacts. We'll be able to leave the hares where they drop due to the cold weather, but we'll collect them once we stop later in the morning. The wagon is where I'll be putting mine, and the other hunters all have one as well.

A series of lights flashing in the forest signals the beginning of the hunting session. Not long after, the sounds of dogs barking reaches my ears. Some of the hunters here have hunting dogs of a good enough strength for this, and they're helping chase the hares into traps and ambushes.

It takes about seven minutes before the first hare bursts out of the forest in our section, over in Mrs. Wilson's designated zone. It fires a few icicles at her, but she avoids them before taking it out with an arrow.

Another twenty or so minutes pass before a hare enters my designated zone. Its horn looks like a small icicle, and its pelt has a frosty look to it with a faint blue hue. I summon an arrow from the borrowed bracelet and nock it, then quickly enhance it with a few spells while stepping back to avoid the icicle the hare fires at me. A faint shimmer forms around the tip of the arrow, along with a reddish haze which turns the bluish shimmer of regular magics purple.

Then the fire-enhanced arrow with speed and durability enhancements soars forward. The hare attempts to fire an icicle at the arrow, but its attack misses. It was too slow, and the arrow pierces into its neck just as it tries to hop out of the way.

This continues for nearly four hours, with each of us shooting at the hares which enter our designated zones. A few cross through the zones, but the others seem good at judging who between them and their neighbor will be best-suited for shooting them. It's honestly amazing, even if I'm not able to judge it that well.

Fortunately, my neighbors are experienced enough magic beast hunters to tell whether or not I'll manage the shots. Mr. Wilson calls for me a few times to shoot one that's in the crossover zone between us.

Some of the hares make it past us, but not very many. None actually make it past me – I manage to snag all of the ones which enter my zone!

A little before eleven, a series of flashes in the forest indicates the end of the morning hunting session. If I remember the light signals Mr. Wilson went over with me last night correctly, there are more hares to catch so there will be another session this afternoon to finish up.

I caught twelve hares in the first session. There's still enough that it's being split into two sessions rather than just one longer one?

"Don't worry about field dressing them," Mr. Wilson tells me. "The crew back at camp will handle that."

In addition to us hunters, there's also a group staying at the camp with the tents. They're in charge of field dressing everything and getting an appraisal on the catches. Rather than doing the work for free, they'll be compensated from the parts and earnings from the hares processed.

This means that my earnings won't be as high as initially estimated, but I'm fine with that. They're doing work as well, so they should get paid as well. Even just five hares – the expected minimum per person – doing it all on my own would have been a lot. With there being quite a few people out here doing this, having everyone trying to process all at once would be a lot for a makeshift area.

Hiring dedicated people to butcher and otherwise process the catches just makes sense. They'll be better at telling how to skin and cut them to preserve the hides and meat and maximize the earnings and value.

As I collect my hares and drop them into the wagon, something near one of the hay bales catches my attention.

No. Freaking. Way.

I pull a general-purpose arrow out of the bracelet and aim it as I enhance it. If these ones are just hanging out here, watching the others die, then they're probably around the same strength as the icicle and flarepoint hares, maybe a little bit stronger.

So adding in an extra aspect in the hopes it'll make the attacks more effective is definitely a good idea.

"Sig?" Mr. Wilson asks. "What is it?"

The tip of the arrow becomes wrapped in shadows from one of the enhancements I added to it, then I release the string. By the time the arrow's struck one of the lightstep hares hanging out here, I've already knocked and drawn another and am enhancing it.

This is a group of five lightstep hares, and I take out three before they stop fleeing and start charging. A fourth one falls before it can reach me, and my bow disappears into my storage. I brace myself for the final bundle of light and catch it, twisting my body in a move Adam's taught me. It helps to redirect the energy of the impact and avoid taking the full brunt of it.

We both go down to the ground, but I've got my body wrapped around it.

"Sorry, buddy," I say as I carefully grab my knife. "But you're actually pretty useful, you know?"

Once I've stabbed into its neck, I release the hare and check to see if I got any blood on me. I didn't, so I clean my knife off on the grass and look over at Mr. Wilson.

"I got a massive bruise just from fighting three the last time I encountered them," I tell him. "I am so glad I've learned a bit more now."

"Well," he smiles. "Those are all you. How'd you notice them? I couldn't see what you were aiming at until the first arrow hit. They blend into the bales pretty well."

"I think it was light magic to affect their coloration a little?" I ask, then shrug. "And I was actually looking for things which blend into others… like I said, I encountered them on a hunt before. It my first hunt, and I was going for an antelope. That's probably why I was doing it, because you never know what might pop up."

"Alright," he chuckles. "Finish grabbing your catches."

Once I'm done, I join him and the others, then we head back to the camp. No one from the forest's group is a part of our camp, but our ranged hunting line and the backup line are camped together. Then there's also the group processing our catches… and a man I don't recognize.

He's from the forest's group, and he's giving a report. Apparently, the hare population is a lot higher than estimated. So much so that they're contacting the local hunters' guild to see about getting reinforcements.

They think there might be something a lot stronger around, even if it hasn't shown its face yet. Without reinforcements, everyone here will likely run out of mana before the hares are taken care of. A stronger beast would make that even more likely. There might be backup in the form of people with around 100 mana or so on the standard scale, but they don't know how sure it is they'll be able to fully assist.

That's how big the hare population is. On top of that, they don't know how strong the beast is and it might be several time as powerful as our backup. Calling in people who are stronger than pretty much anything which can normally be found in the area means being certain of success.

"No worries," a familiar voice says. "Reinforcements are here."

I turn to find Xander and Adrian King standing there, the latter being the one who spoke. The ancient mage has his real appearance right now, as he usually does when around Xander. He's dressed casually as well, in just jeans, sneakers, and a button-up shirt.

Xander's dressed in MountainStorm Gear, wolfkin ears poking up through the top of his hoodie's hood.

Did he… decide to go hunting as a wolfkin today? Wait. That's not even a hunting outfit. And one of his streamer orbs is floating near him, its iris green. Did they nix the hunting trip and decide to do a stream of some sort? Except Xander doesn't feel comfortable being a wolfkin in public so I doubt he'd stream that way. It was surprising when he let me post pictures of him in his wolfkin form from the party.

"Uh…" the man who was giving the report about the hares seems pretty confused, judging by his frown. "And you are…?"

"Adrian King," Adrian King answers. "This is my real appearance. You can look it up to confirm; I've not hidden it in public a fair amount lately. The hare issue is the result of a series of microrifts having opened up earlier this year and shortly before the temporary seal went into place.

"There is, indeed, something stronger," Adrian King says. "There's a snake which has been eating the hares, building up strength. It's waiting until you've all exhausted yourselves taking out the hares, then will strike."

"You knew about it?" I ask, and nearly everyone else here gives me a look that says they can't believe I just questioned someone who may or may not be Adrian King.

He's a lot more willing to answer questions than people realize. Especially when he's literally having a conversation with them. Well, it depends on the question, and on how much he likes the person he's talking to, but I figured he'd answer this.

"No," Adrian King answers. "Xander here was contacted by one of Greyson's employees, who were monitoring the situation in case things got out of hand. They noticed the snake in the forest and how it was hiding, and determined that it was too strong for even them to handle."

Just how strong are his cousin's ninja?

"Oh," I look at Xander. "Did you decide to not go hunting?"

"We already finished," his face is as mostly-expressionless as normal, but his tail starts wagging a little. "Grandpa Adrian and I were discussing whether the meat of a spatial wyvern or a temporal wyvern would be more delicious when I got the text. Greyson's apparently absorbed into a project right now and told them not to bother him, so they asked me if I was available to deal with the snake."

He looks around a little, then looks at his great-grandfather.

"Though their estimations of the hares means that the hunters wouldn't manage to kill them, right?" He asks. "If what they said of what's been caught already is true and everyone here is this low on mana? Since mana potions are more of a really rich person thing?"

"Correct," Adrian King says. "Based on what I can see here, it looks like they've already exceeded how many hares they expected to catch as well, so I'm sure they're satisfied. Xander, why don't you handle the rest of the hares, as well as the snake? Try to do it in a very short window of time, rather than extending it out."

Just a feeling I have, but I think Xander's hunting trip was also a lesson at the same time.

Xander thinks for a few moments, then nods.

His ears fade away as his beanie and hood readjust themselves so that they're for a human once more, his regular ears back. The tail that was swishing before fades away as well, so his pants/underwear are probably back to human ones.

Then a pair of the most beautiful wings I've ever seen sprout from his back. They're feathery and the same sun-coloring as his hair, but they seem almost as if they're aglow.

Wait. Are they glowing?

Xander flaps his wings once, and is immediately taken high up into the sky, his streamer orb following him. He soars to a point halfway between the forest and the fields and for a few moments, nothing happens.

I enhance my vision with a spell the others taught me last night, allowing me to watch… Xander's back and wings, I guess. It would be nice if he were facing this way, but I guess he wants to face his target.

A minute passes and nothing happens. Is he preparing a big spell, or just trying to figure out what to do?

"What's he doing?" One of the hunters asks.

"Preparing a spell," Adrian King answers. "From the looks of it, he's going to seal off the forest in all directions except this one. Since there's an opening, he's likely intending on casting a spell to force the hares to exit the forest, to make killing them easier. Ah, there it is."

While I can't see anything, I also know that Xander is good enough that his barriers aren't noticeable unless he wants them to be.

A few moments pass after that, and hares begin pouring out of the forest in this direction. Dozens at first, then hundreds. It quickly ramps up until it's just a straight horde of hares. There must be at least two or three thousand of them.

"What the fuck?" Several of the hunters exclaim, while others have more colorful swears.

Xander just watches as the hares flee the forest, and they start drawing near to us. Even after no more hares exit it, he continues watching the forest, his wings occasionally flapping as if that's what keeps him in the sky rather than his magic.

Then the big daddy of all snakes exits the forest. It's easily three feet in thickness, its scales a blend of white and very pale blue, with an occasional hint of reds, oranges, and yellows. A pair of horns protrude from the top of its head, one a very thick icicle, the other a very thick cone of fire.

Spotting it results in even more swears from the hunters as they start scrambling to grab their weapons. Well, the ones who hadn't already grabbed them in anticipation of the hares reaching us.

I didn't, though. This is Xander, the kid who killed Akrolnomak. He can handle this.

The snake might be huge, but there's no way he wouldn't have already known about it if the beast were extremely powerful. In fact, everyone probably would have, with it living literally in a forest beside someone's farm.

So it's strong, but probably not more than 1,000 mana or so. It was smart enough to stay hidden and feed on the abundance of hares… to gain strength? I didn't know magic animals could do that, so it's probably a rare ability it has.

There's a moment where all of the beasts cease moving forward, then they lift up into the air. Judging by how they're struggling in their attempts at returning to the ground, it's far from their choice. And the way they're shifting from their movements… Xander's using magic similar to the gravity berries to do this.

Over a huge area.

Even the snake is lifted up into the air, and all of the magic beasts begin floating around him in a slowly-rotating orb.

"Did he just hit the entire area with gravity magic?" I ask.

"No," Adrian King answers. "He initially used it on each individual hare and the snake. That's why they and only they lifted up. Then, he merged the connections together to create a sphere of altered gravity."

Xander's shoulder shift up in the way they do when he inhales deeply, so I'm assuming their lowering is from him exhaling.

A moment later, the heads of all of the beasts within his sphere fall off, though they start floating as well.

"Hm… not bad," Adrian King says as Xander pulls out a pouch and holds it out, the hares and snake soaring towards it. "He connected their necks with a targeting spell, then sent out a series of blades of force set to follow the paths. The structure wasn't stable enough to cut through all of them so he needed to recast it twice, but it's not a bad job. For his first time taking on that many creatures at once, I'll give him an A."

Xander definitely spent the morning learning stuff.

Once Xander finishes pulling all of his catches into the pouch, he slips his hands into his hoodie pocket, turns around, and flies to us. Then he returns to wolfkin form.

"That was awesome!" I say. "Are you streaming? You didn't say you'd be streaming this morning!"

"I'm not," Xander tells me. "Grandpa Adrian said I should record the hunt so that we can review the footage later and discuss where I did good and where I can do with improvement. And you've given me a lot of As today, are you sure they weren't Cs?"

Have some more confidence in yourself!

"I'm positive," Adrian King tells him. "You did pretty well for each thing," the ancient mage looks at the hunters. "That's all of the excess hares. Xander left some to allow the population to stabilize again, but they won't cause any problems for awhile. Good work, all of you."

Several of the others stammer out thanks, but Xander's eyes fix on Alec and Ryan, who are standing behind me. I think they want to ask me something about him.

"Oh," Xander says after looking at them for a few moments. "So that's why I felt like there'd be two. 'Cause he was gonna make two more friends here, wasn't he?"

"You're thinking out loud again," I snicker.

"Oh," Xander's cheeks flush.

"But yeah!" I say. "These are Alec and Ryan! Ryan's the one who's farm I went to on Sunday to practice hunting hares."

"Ah."

"You're Xander King, right?" Alec asks as Xander pulls out a laptop and some sort of device. "The magitech kid? I've heard you're really strong. How strong are you? Like, 30,000 mana? That would be enough to do a gravity spell like that after a barrier and a bait spell, right?"

"And slowing magic on the hares in the field," Xander adds while typing on his floating laptop. "So that they wouldn't reach y'all while I was waiting for the rest to come out. And no. I'm a lot stronger than that. Okay, here we go."

Two pairs of business cards which look like the invitations he gave me and the others print out of the small device. Those are place atop treat boxes which appear as the laptop and printer vanish, and he offers them to Alec and Ryan.

"I'm hosting a party on Friday," he tells them. "And then some Halloween celebrations from the afternoon on the thirty-first through the morning on the first. The former will have pumpkin picking and carving and a sleepover, while the latter will include trick-or-treating."

"You're… inviting us?" Ryan asks. "We just met."

"Yeah," Xander says. "You're both good guys, and it's clear Sig wants to be friends with you and is already considering you to be friends. So I'm inviting you to my party. Oh. But I'll need an answer by tonight, since Dad and I are going shopping for the groceries and stuff for it tomorrow. Since none of the girls were allowed to go, there won't be any supervisors, but your parents will be able to request access to an exclusive stream of you, allowing them to check in on what you're doing at any time. It won't show them anything inappropriate, like you going to the bathroom or changing, and will instead simply let them know what you're doing, where you're at, and who is there with you. This way, your parents can be assured that even without supervision, you're behaving and not doing drugs or anything like that."

I try not to snicker at Alec's and Ryan's baffled faces. Meeting Xander can be a bit overwhelming, especially when he's explaining something shortly after. They accept the boxes, then Xander yawns, showing his very sharp canines for a moment before he covers it.

"And now I think it's lunchtime," he says. "It was nice meeting y'all."

"Wait!" I give him a hug. "See you, Xander!"

"Bye," Xander returns the hug, then looks at Adrian King. "Okay. I'm ready to go. Can we continue the discussion about wyvern meat during lunch?"

"Sure," Adrian King answers as they vanish.

"Was that on your bingo card?" Mr. Fuller asks me.

"Nope!"

[Greyson – 11 years]

Concentrating on my project is difficult with my friends making stink bombs on the other side of the table. They feel mischievous and keep snickering, and they're making it wrong. Really wrong. It's disrupting my concentration. Never do things wrong when causing mischief.

If you're going to get into trouble, do so properly so that the punishment is worth it.

I really don't understand why they wanted to make their project in the same project lab as I am, especially at the same table as me. There are other ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than to incorrectly make a stink bomb. Doing that across from me as I try to make a new transfer component for my mega-computer makes no sense.

As long as I focus on this, though, it's not too bad. I don't think.

Adjust this connection here slightly, and shrink this edge of it by a tenth of an inch. Use this rune instead of that one and remake the connecting lines. Don't whack my friends on the head for using solder.

"Argh!" I exclaim, and both Cody and Finn giggle. "Guys! You're doing it wrong! Stop using solder! That's amateur magic welding for something small! It's only really useful on big stuff! And not in traditional soldering, too! Special magic soldering! And that runic setup is completely wrong! It's not going to generate a scent like you want, it's just going to waste mana from the crystal! And why would you want it to smell like farts and fish, anyway? That's just gross!"

I get up and grab the necessary materials.

"Watch closely," I tell them as I quickly assemble several basic parts. "You'll want to enchant it like this," I make several markings. "This setup here will be much more efficient. Then when working on the part which tells it what scent to generate, mix in a little bit of essence of the relating scent into it You can see here I've got essences for brownie and apple pie. I'll do one scent bomb of each. You mix them into the enchanting fluid like so…" once I finish explaining that part to them, I start writing the runes. "You create the runic setup for the scent factor. This saves you on a lot of extra effort. Then once you activate the scent bombs, it'll fill the area around it with that scent, no guessing required!"

The bombs include access panels so their mana batteries can be replaced, allowing for a longer life than standard scent bombs. Most are used up once their mana crystal is drained, even if they last for quite awhile. That's a waste of materials, though, so it's better to make them reusable.

I finish showing them how to make a scent bomb properly, and once I finish, I stare at Cody and Finn, who giggle. They both feel really happy and satisfied now, for some reason. Also really mischievous, as if they just got away with something.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing," they answer in unison.

Normies are weird.

"So is this how you keep our room smelling good?" Cody asks.

"Yeah," I answer. "I just turn on the one I have every now and then and boom! Our room smells good for awhile! You can make requests for scents and I'll consider them. Okay. I'm getting back to work on my component. Please make scent bombs properly this time, okay? And with good scents. If you don't, I'll not make either of you chocolate for a month!"