—Sally—

  As Orion began to walk off of the informal stage where he'd carried out his display of his abilities, I was struggling to resist the urge to burst out laughing. It was nice to finally see someone else have to deal with Orion, and to see them fail miserably.

  The look of disbelief on the chief's face when Orion easily completed the task instead of being scared off—oh, it was delectable. How often would I get to see that look of arrogance get slapped off of someone's face?

  "My athay! You otshay a olehay in it!" An angry voice called out to Orion as he walked away, when Orion turned to look at the distraction I got a good view of the ranger's target practice. Even though I could understand every second word out of everyone's mouth, the man's anger, and the reasons for it, were obvious.

  "Apologies, your chief did uggestsay your hat as the argettay for the esttay." Orion answered, and already my understanding of the language was progressing by leaps and bounds. Simply listening to the conversations was enough to fill in the gaps and translate the missing words. Given that I could understand most of the surrounding sentences and the context of the conversations, it was easy to piece together what the missing words meant.

  The aggrieved man clenched the hat tightly between his hands before stomping off to where Orion and I had just come from.

  The scene was absurd enough that I couldn't hold in my laughter a second longer, a giggle escaping my mouth. Thankfully neither Orion nor the spectators acknowledged the chirping.

  But with the distraction removed, Orion had begun to walk away from the central town square, peering into houses until he found one he deemed suitable. I was a bit surprised when he just let himself into the building.

  I realised that it was where we would be staying for the night when I saw its abandoned state, the bedding and furniture covered in a light layer of dust.

  Orion picked up and shook off the sheet covering the bed, sending a cloud of dust flying off of it. He then sat down with a sigh, and I leapt off of his head and onto the bed beside him, taking the first opportunity I’d had after hours of being stuck on Orion's head to stretch.

  I dug my claws into the bedding and arched my back, several satisfying pops coming from the stiff joints before I relaxed again.

  But before I let myself relax even more than I already was, I had an important conversation to have with Orion. Though as I looked up to try to ask him to bring out the texting-twigs, he was rifling through a wardrobe. I got up to get a closer look, and saw him pulling out some clothes, a shirt and jacket that seemed to be made of leather. Both had colourful beads tied to strings adorning them, with the ends of the jacket's sleeves cut into braided tassels.

  He quickly changed into them, and while the shirt looked uncomfortably tight, the jacket at least seemed to have been oversized for its previous owner, and fit Orion comfortably. It looked strange seeing the brown leather paired with his green-camo pants, but it suited him.

  As Orion began to shift his gear from the pockets of his previous outfit and into his new one, I tried to make a noise as close to someone clearing their throat as I could, but it didn't quite sound right.

  But it got Orion's attention all the same, and after another short game of charades, he laid out the sticks.

  'I need your help with something.' I said, Orion reading the message as he finished placing his gear into the new clothes. He sat down and gave me a nod, thankfully understanding that this was going to be a long conversation.

  'It has to do with the new system the Moon god gave me.'

  'To use it, I need your help.' I explained, Orion pausing for a few seconds before replying.

  "Why?" He asked aloud, and I felt a bit of annoyance at his curt response.

  'Because of the bond, it says that 'my Path' must be chosen by you for it to work.' I wrote, trying to infuse how much I disparaged the situation into the lifeless sticks. It felt like I'd partially succeeded when Orion quickly replied.

  "If it's because of my mistake with making the bond, then I'll help however I can." Orion stoutly affirmed, his live action subtitles adding many new words to my vocabulary.

  'I need to establish some rules first.' I interrupted his enthusiasm, deciding to establish firm boundaries before anyone could do anything stupid.

  'You cannot do anything with it, without me explicitly asking you to do so. And secondly, if you see anything strange going on with it, you tell me immediately. Understand?' I firmly elaborated. I was worried for a moment when Orion tilted his head, as if he was confused by my words before he nodded.

  'Something wrong with what I'm asking?' I quickly asked before we moved on, not letting that moment of hesitation escape scrutiny.

  "I'd just assumed that such things would be baseline considerations?" He replied, and after I carefully dissected his reaction, I decided that he probably wasn't lying.

  I felt incredibly nervous about the next step of this conversation, but even with the gradually rising anxiety about it, I didn't exactly have many other choices available to me. If the Moon god couldn't fix it, then I wasn't likely to find a different solution anytime soon. I didn't doubt that I'll eventually find a way to break the [Soul Bond] and cure myself of the forced reliance on Orion for system upgrades. But I had no choice but to do without it for now.

  Yet even with the inevitability of the situation, I still felt like this would be a horrible mistake. That allowing Orion this new level of control over me would result in some horrible abuse of power, a slow sinister creep of him changing me without permission.

  But I did reassure myself that I would know if he did something that insidious, given that I could still access my system whenever I wanted. And if he did, well… there were always other ways to remove him from the equation.

  "How did the Moon god give you a new… system?" He asked hesitantly.

  'I just had to read the phrase 'I give myself to the Moon, and my Path shall be taken under its light'.' I explained, Orion only reading the first half of the sentence before panicking and looking away. It took a second before I realised he was afraid of reading the sentence and accidentally changing his system.

  I laughed and wrote a new message before he could misunderstand my words.

  'It'll offer you the choice to swap first, just reading it won't force you to accept it.' I explained, leaving the Moon god's phrase intact as I added the necessary context. Orion let out a sigh of relief when he read my explanation, and returned his attention back to the mysterious sentence.

  "I give myself to the Moon, and my Path shall be taken under its light." He spoke aloud, and his head jerked up to look at what had to be a light-blue system prompt.

  "That is interesting… Can anybody use the Moon god's Path?" He asked, and I had to rely on his subtitles to fully understand his words.

  I shrugged, both uncaring and unknowing of what the answer might be.

  'I'll give you access now, and then there's a few things I need you to do.' I tried to explain, but Orion's attention was instead focused on the closed shutters that were currently covering the window. I let out a squeaky cough to get Orion's attention, who then read my instructions and nodded.

  I opened the system and navigated to where I’d encountered my previous roadblock.

  And with my heart beating so hard from anxiety and trepidation, I was surprised that Orion couldn't hear it, I allowed it to continue.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  In an instant it was over, and my control was gone, without any fanfare or dramatic effects. I looked over at Orion to see him staring at the empty air, his eyes reading through what I assumed was every detail of my existence.

  "I can't see much, only the 'pending actions' section." Orion eventually said, and I let out a sigh of relief. A silver lining to the typhoon.

  'In there, you should see an evolution option.' I elaborated, and Orion followed my instructions.

  "You can become a dragon already?" He asked, his tone flat as he undoubtedly saw all of my evolution options.

  'Yes, I think that I'm going to go with cloud dragon, since it-'

  [Be warned, the greater the change in between your current form and the one you're evolving to, the stronger the possible side-effects. However, the most common symptoms of:

  

  
• 
  
    Drowsiness
  
    


  
• 
  
    Nausea
  
    Migraines
  
    


  
• 
  
    Memory loss
  
    


  
• 
  
    And more
  
    


  

  Only typically last twelve hours at most. If symptoms persist, please pray to your personal god at your earliest convenience.]

  I stopped laying out twigs as I struggled to get over the incredulous rage slowly rising up through my psyche. I looked up at Orion, who was seemingly unaware that he'd picked my evolution before I could finish talking.

  Even as the sudden wave of drowsiness and extreme lethargy overcame me, it didn't stop me from swearing revenge as I slumped to the floor. But even my anger couldn't stop me from going limp as Orion quickly picked me up and placed me onto the bed.

  ***

  I eventually found myself waking up, with everything feeling a tad off, as I slowly regained my bearings.

  As I opened my eyes, I realised that the colours of everything around me had slightly shifted, as if the contrast slider of reality had been turned up a little. But it was far from the biggest change I was experiencing.

  I hurriedly stood up, my legs shaky, but far more stable than the last time I'd changed physical forms. A quick inspection of my body revealed a few subtle changes, but significant enough to warrant celebration.

  My scales had changed, and while they still retained most of the silver colour I'd inherited from my new parents, they now had a golden tinge at the end of every scale. The edges glowed like the sun reflecting off the sea, the pattern that formed from them only highlighted their beauty. And the pendant— annoyingly, the wrappings around the base of my neck had become even larger—had changed as well. A feather had been tied to a new piece of string, the base of which was right next to the twine securing the stone pendant. But the new accessory was strangely similar to my scales, it was a silvery-white with gold tinges colouring its fluffy edges.

  But much to my disappointment, it didn't seem like I had gotten any bigger, but I was still excited about the promised changes to the system.

  Okay! I see the new skills, but my stats haven't changed at all?

  I took a closer look, eventually deciding to use [Appraisal] to see if it could scrounge up the information I needed.

  [Cloud Dragon:

  [Synchronicity – 93%]

  Description: A rarer and aloof breed of dragons than most. They once lived simple existences in the clouds, looking down at the world below with the arrogance of kings. In an age many cycles before this one, they were worshipped as genies to gods, their beauty and power revered among all. But because of their inborn power and phenology, they were thought to all have been born with egos capable of matching their horrific, yet awe-inspiring beauty.]

  [Average Stat Changes through Levelling:

  [Dexterity ++, Wisdom -, Charisma ++, Soul +]]

  What? That's the stat changes per level? Am I going to run out of [Wisdom] if I level up too much? What happens if I have zero [Wisdom]?

  I almost went into full panic mode, but I decided to delay the probable chaos by looking at my new skills instead. The [Wisdom] crisis won't happen until I begin to level-up anyways.

  [Flight (Basic):

  The absolute most basic skill for those learning to fly, and assists those just learning to use their muscles and wings to begin their journey towards flying skilfully.]

  [Weather magic (Basic):

  The absolute most basic skill for those learning to wield the magic that rules over the weather. This skill assists those just beginning to learn to use their natural affinity towards the skies and its domains, and leads them towards the next level of mastery.]

  [Cloud shaping:

  This trait is intrinsic to only a few species, as only a couple have ever reached the realm of clouds. It allows for you to physically interact with clouds and mists, shaping and changing its properties with fingers, claws, or paws alone.

  This is a passive skill inherent to your [Race], and as such, the trait is always active and levels with your [Race].]

  At least these were still what was promised.

  But, I’d lost a skill, hadn't I?

  [Lost: [Ill-fitted Soul]]

  Oh, I don't care about that, it was a negative trait that I was happy to see go. And the other one, [Mental-Framework], had been partially absorbed. I don't really know what that means, but I’m assuming that it's also a good thing, as it was always destined to be absorbed. I guess it's just there to make sure I don't get mentally reduced to infancy along with my body.

  But even with all of these unknowns, I was still dying to try out all of these new skills and magic.

  A quick look around the room revealed Orion sitting on a chair, the bow he'd just received laid out along with its quiver. He seemed to be idly making all of the arrows in the quiver disappear into thin air, probably using a skill of his to store them more efficiently.

  I quickly walked over and leapt up onto the chair adjacent from him, catching his attention with a few taps on the table.

  He thankfully laid out the twigs without any further requests, and I began to lay out my plan to him.

  'Going forwards, I think we should keep my nature as a dragon secret, along with the system.'

  'As long as we don't know what's normal or not, I don't think it's safe to show-off anything magical.' I suggested, the scene of sudden silence and tension after Orion's declaration of my dragon-hood was still lodged in my head. It didn't take a detective to recognise the fear and apprehension in their eyes.

  Orion also saw the wisdom in my idea, and nodded his assent to the plan.

  'Now, should we go hunt some dinner?' I asked, and for the first time today, I think I saw a small smile on Orion's face.

  Though, I hadn't forgotten about his earlier mistake. I made sure to inflict a bit of pain on him once we were ready to go, clenching my talons tighter than I needed to as I climbed his body and perched on his head. My claws might've left a few marks, but they healed almost instantly, leaving me both satisfied and guilt-free.