System Change

“Follow me,” Derek said to Avery and Lyra, then began walking a bit away, to a spot that had more of an open area for the massive winged serpent. A couple minutes later, and he stopped along with everyone, Avery and the slithering serpent.

He hadn’t specifically invited the other two, so out of respect, he guessed, they hadn’t followed him and Avery. He didn’t actually care if they followed or not, though. Which was shown as he and Avery were still well within visual distance of the other two.

“Okay,” Derek said. “I’ve only tried this on humans, a Void Beast, and my own rabbit companion so far.” What he was talking about was, of course, his Time Prison. If he was allowed to stash beasts inside, it didn’t make sense that there was a size limit, and he had an innate feeling that he would be able to use it on anything he captured, not just things of correct proportions. Though, he did think that there may be some more limitations because of size.

His Time Prison was currently level 9, which allowed for 45 prison cells. Two of those cells were still occupied by Ogre and Bones, but he had enough control over the time dilation now that he could release them quickly if he needed to.

“So you’re saying?” Avery asked.

“I’m saying that if I can fit Lyra inside my Time Prison, then I can fit more dragonkin in as well. Which means, if there is another wave of enemies, we can get in on a dragon taming business,” Derek explained.

Avery’s eyes widened at the thought. “I could bring Alanah back a wyvern? And Stella a drake?”

Of course, the first thing he would think about was providing powerful companions for his own people. Derek had thought the same. As long as one of his people ended up with an epic class, he could provide them with a dragon of their own. Whether that be an amphithere, drake, or wyrm… or even a wyvern, if they were able to obtain a legendary class. He was actually pretty certain that Brandi, at least, would end up with a legendary class down the line.

“Exactly. I’m not sure about breeding, but that could also be a thing, too. Though neither of us are really lacking for money at this point, and I doubt we will be any time soon.”

Avery thought for a second, then nodded. “Well, we need to see if it works first. What do you want me to do?”

“Just give me a moment,” Derek said. He then turned and focused on the void in front of him with his Void Sense turned up to maximum. Everything seemed to come back to that basic skill.

Time Prison used to take about a third of his overall mana to use, but since his massive increases in his mana pool, that cost had shrunk down quite a bit. Still, he focused. Usually, when he focused on ripping the void open and summoning forth his Time Prison door, he had the picture of himself in his mind. His new thinking was that if he willed it to, he could summon a prison that would fit an even bigger captive.

Derek closed his eyes and put his hands into the void. Then he pulled them apart, ripping apart the void in the process. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked up, and a huge smile fell over his face. In front of him stood the same prison door, but this time, it was multiple times larger.

Lyra wasn’t as massive as Blitz was, but she was much longer, and the prison door had grown enough that she would be able to slither in quite easily as long as she kept her over 100 ft wing span tucked in. The door was over 25 ft tall at the moment. To fit another wyvern the height of Blitz, he might have to make it even bigger. Which would be more challenging, especially during battle, as the current entrance took over half of his mana.

Derek then placed his hand on the door and willed it open. The prison had grown as the door had, but not by as much as he had expected. Unfortunately, the cells hadn’t grown in comparison. Neither the doors, nor the amount available. The furniture was still placed at the same spots as before, but now, the walls and ceiling were much further away.

Derek walked in, the previous lights he had placed inside no longer to light up the entire area like they had before. Giddy with excitement, Avery walked in behind Derek and motioned for Lyra to follow. The long dragonkin poked her head inside and looked around before following her companion in. Once her entire body was inside, Derek let out a sigh of relief.

No matter what, it looked like he would be able to store some dragonkin in the prison itself, if not the cells. He wouldn’t be able to store too many in the prison, and it would be hard to keep them in while trying to add more in the process, but he could at least cram a wyvern and a couple of the lesser dragons inside.

“Lyra, could you follow me?” Derek asked the winged serpent, who then looked at Avery and waited for a nod. When he gave it, the serpent slithered up beside Derek and followed along. It was intimidating having a serpent with a head that was bigger than his entire body move alongside him.

Derek and Lyra then walked up to one of the cells with Avery trailing behind. He avoided going to any of the cells close to the ones with Bones and Ogre inside. He made sure the cell door was closed, then Derek placed one hand on the side of Lyra’s head, and the other on the cell door in front of him. With as much focus as he could muster, and just as he had before, he willed the cell to grow.

Before everyone’s eyes, the cell door did just that. It grew and grew, and looked like it absorbed the surrounding cells, as instead of pushing the cell door out, they disappeared. Derek stopped once the cell was big enough for lyra, then opened the door.

“Could you go in for a moment?” Derek asked, then turned to Avery. “I’m going to close the door, but I’m not going to activate the cell.”

With Derek’s reassurance, Avery agreed to let Lyra inside, and the snake-like beast slithered her way inside. Derek closed the door behind and waited, but nothing happened. He hoped that the cell door would return to its original size, but it didn’t. He knew that his void element was a combination of time and space, so he had hope. Instead, he was slightly disappointed.

For a cell big enough to hold Lyra, it had taken six cells along with it. And if things stayed the same, for a wyvern it would take six or more, and for the other, lesser beasts, it would take anywhere from three to five, depending on their size. He made a mental note to look for smaller beasts-beasts the size of Lyra before she evolved.

Of course, there was still the slight chance that the cell would shrink back down once he set a sentence, but he wasn’t going to rely on that happening. If it did, great. If not, he would still come out well ahead.

Derek then opened the door and let the dragonkin back out. She quickly slithered out and nuzzled her head against Avery’s body.

“Help me store all this stuff,” Derek told Avery. He was talking about all the furniture inside the prison. It would be hard to keep all of it from getting wrecked by the dragons they were bringing in, and Derek didn’t want to destroy all of his precious furniture. He would have done it all himself, but his storage devices were all almost full because of the amount of materials he had gathered from the two wyverns and other, smaller dragonkin.

After that, he and Avery went around the place and stored everything from the tables to the shower curtains. Before long, the entire room was completely bare, minus a few lights they had moved to the corners to light up as much of the area as they could.

“Now, I’m going to leave this open. It takes way too much out of me to keep opening and closing it, unfortunately. I’m also going to have to try to think of an easier way to get the beasts inside,” Derek commented.

“Me and Lyra can deal with that…” Avery said as he pet the dragon once again. “Can’t we, girl?” The amphithere actually purred like a cat with her snake-like tongue flittering out of her maw.

Avery then explained a bit of Lyra’s powers to Derek, which instantly made him understand why Avery had chosen Lyra over all the other beasts. She was indeed quite the special companion, and if her controlling skills worked anywhere near as well as Avery believed they would, she would have no problem corralling the lesser dragonkin into Derek’s prison.

In fact, Derek only needed to sit back and adjust the cells as needed. He wouldn’t need to do much of anything else. Of course, this would leave Edgar alone with Blitz to distract and keep all the other dragonkin busy while Avery and Derek did their work. Tara and Jasper would need to stay inside the prison with Derek, just in case anything happened.

Derek was sure Edgar wouldn’t mind doing the job they wanted him to. He had been the one to rely on him and Avery to do the exact same for him during the previous wave. And surely, the prince would want to test himself and Blitz’s skills out against all the beasts.

Still, this all only mattered if another wave came along. There was still the chance that the time would count down, then the system would hit them with a trial completion notification. If that happened, Derek would be extremely disappointed. It would have been such a great opportunity missed.

Derek, Avery, and Lyra finally left the prison and moved back to where Jasper and Tara were sitting. They didn’t say anything about what they were thinking, and only waited for Edgar to come back. Jasper and Tara kept glancing over at the enormous open door to Derek’s prison, but kept silent about it.

The prince must have been enjoying his new Dragon Rider skill, as he didn’t make it back until there was only one hour left until time for the next wave… or time for trial completion.

When he arrived, though, Derek finally broke down everything he and Avery had discussed to the rest of the party. When he told them his plans, they all had the same reaction as Avery had, pure excitement. When he told them that he and Avery had tested whether it would work or not with Lyra, and it had, they could barely contain themselves.

It was a bit of a bummer that they would only be able to get ten or so beasts depending on their size, but it was ten dragons, so there was nothing worth complaining about. Edgar happily agreed to the plan. He just wanted to be able to keep one or two of the dragonkin for his own people.

Derek didn’t mind. That would still leave him with at least six, maybe even more, dragonkin. And Avery and Tara would be doing the lion’s share of the work. Jasper asked them to keep a death attuned dragonkin out of the prison so he would have the chance to tame it, and Tara asked if they would be willing to reserve her a drake for her son.

Derek agreed to everything, exchanging his communication rune with Tara and Jasper so they could get ahold of him if they needed to, and none of the others had any problem with it. They all also agreed to keep everything to themselves, at least until they were finished with the dungeon, knowledge that there were a bunch of dragonkin stored in Derek’s prison would definitely cause disagreements with the raid party.

It would be odd that Derek no longer allowed everyone inside to pass the time faster, but that couldn’t be helped. Everything would just be speculation, and if all else failed, he could just say that it was full of materials they’d gathered from the trial.

Like this, they waited for the clock to tick down, minute by minute. Soon, only five minutes remained, and everyone tensed. In five minutes, they would either be ecstatic or terribly disappointed.

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