'Interesting.'
Tiamat thought as she stood up from her throne.
Sol's training had been extremely interesting in her opinion. She was surprised to find that she had learned many things.
For one, his decision to cut short his training in Tartarus surprised her since this had happened in none of the futures she had seen.
At the end of the day, her foresight, future sight wasn’t her specialty and she could only observe a limited amount of possibilities in the stream of time.
Still, she was gratified by his sight since it showed that he understood his limit very well and was ready to strive for greater heights.
Sol already had pretty interesting skills. What he did with his dimension in order to avoid Nabu's attack particularly intrigued her.
Dimensional Mages had the highest survival rate because even at the King or Demigod level, there weren't many who could directly affect space and time.
Even for those that could, it wasn't as if they could completely counter dimensional mages either.
One of the reasons was clearly because a dimensional mage could enter his dimension at any moment and the more skilled they were, the less time it took to hide in the dimension.
But what Sol did was completely different. In the first place, the different dimensions had different ways of working so it was expected.
For most of them, once they entered their dimension, they could not see what was happening to the other side without opening a portal.
But Sol, even in his dimension, could see everything that happened in another dimension. At least from what she understood.
This was perhaps the reason why he was able to do what he did.
'I wonder what his dimension encroachment would look like.'
She smiled at the thought. It had been a long time since she had been so excited about training someone of the young generation.
Not even for Blaze since there wasn't really much to teach to a Chaos Dragon aside from knowing what kind of hit one should take and what should be avoided.
With Sol, on the other hand, she had finally found a true inheritor that would receive all her skills.
'Let's work on the schedule program again. I will leave him to Kiyohime for a week or two to help him unwind.'
For the training in Tartarus, the most important wasn't how much they evolved while being down there, but how they changed after coming back to the surface.
Some of them became dominated by the killing intent while others never managed to get their sanity back.
Of course, this happened to a very small minority of weak-minded dragons. If Sol crumbled from only so much, then it would be extremely disappointing.
All she could do now was wait for the Nornes sisters.
—--
‘Ugh! It feels suffocating.’
The moment Sol appeared above the sea, he was so surprised that he didn’t even bother taking out his wing and fell down helplessly with a splash in the water.
Since then, he had been floating aimlessly, letting the waves send him wherever they wished to.
He felt so sluggish. He wished to do nothing. He didn’t even wish to sleep - just letting his mind stay completely still and void.
Even now, he could feel his body slowly changing as it greedily absorbed the pure mana in the air.
Compared to when he initially entered, while it wasn’t like he could crush his old self, he still went through an incredible growth. Just the circulation of energy in his core was a few times faster and he could feel that his mana veins were far sturdier.
Despite this, he couldn’t find in himself the slightest feeling of elation. It was like a tight string was suddenly cut, making him feel hapless.
“You are here. Do you know how hard it was to find you? At least you should emanate some energy.”
A shadow formed above his head, blocking the light of the sun from reaching him. Blinking a little as his awareness came back, Sol looked up at the intruder that awakened him from his stupor and couldn’t help but mutter.
“What a beautiful sight.”
“!!!”
Kiyohime, who had been floating just above his head was briefly confused before her face blushed and she moved away from above him in a flash.
“You saw it?”
“To think the dragon Queen would fly commando. The breeze must feel good.”
Kiyohime became even redder,
“A gentleman would have acted as if he had seen nothing.”
“Since when did I say that I was a gentleman?”
Sighing, Sol shook his head as he stood up and began to walk on the water by applying mana on the soles of his feet.
He was too lazy to fly and didn’t want to bother.
Kiyohime was a little startled before chortling in amusement.
Indeed, from what she had seen with Nent and Sol, her little nephew was in no way a gentleman.
Manipulating the flow of mana, her clothes changed and she was now fully covered above and below.
“Oh…How did you do that?”
Curiosity flashed in his otherwise dead listless eyes.
“What do you…Ah…Astral clothes? It’s a pretty useful technique. You can create weapons with mana, right? Why not do the same with clothes?”
Sol tilted his head, “But…If you deplete your mana…?”
“You will end up butt naked.”
Kiyohime shrugged. “That’s why Astral clothes exist. They are special clothes created by using Arachnid thread as the main material. That thread easily absorbs mana and can change shape based on the flow of mana.”
This kind of clothes was practically a necessity for divine beasts. After all, if they wore normal clothes, they would become naked everytime they transformed.
“Arachnid thread? Interesting…”
Sol couldn’t help but think of Duchess Arachne Milaris. One of the four Dukes of Lustburg. She was also a very skilled woman or rather, a legendary woman when it came to art. At the very least, he didn’t think anyone could be praised by the goddesses and receive a gift from them.
At the same time, thinking about Arachne and Lustburg made him think back to all his beloved ones that were waiting and worrying for him.
‘I miss home.’
Strength came back to his eyes as the depression and sluggishness was completely swept away.
He remembered why he came to the Astral World and how much he was willing to sacrifice for them. Even though his mind was tired and he did need some rest, he couldn’t let his mental states deteriorate further.
Kiyohime, who had been observing Sol, was quite surprised. She didn’t find his previous state foreign.
After leaving the gloom and darkness as well as the stained energy of Chaos in Tartarus, all young dragons would fall into a daze.
How long this lasted depended on the individuals but, while most always managed to break away, some others would fall further in the abyss of madness.
'Even after deteriorating, his mental state is still quite good.'
"Let's go back to my Island. You need to rest."
Sol didn't bother arguing and followed her Kiyohime.
The call of a comfortable and large bed did sound very appealing.
—--
[7th Heaven]
While Sol was climbing up the heavens on Kiyohime's ship, Isis was facing a very uncomfortable situation.
Currently, Isis was being surrounded by a group of people composed of dragons, elves, and dryads.
While Dryads were originating from the Territory of Yggdrasil, this didn't mean that they couldn't settle down outside of their home.
'I have been careless.'
The last time, when Isis descended on the 7th heaven alongside Nent, nothing noteworthy had happened and their outing had been pretty mundane.
This gave her the illusion that she could do everything herself and as such, she decided to come to visit a store with Sheherazade's help.
At first, everything had been alright and everyone was happy.
But suddenly one crazy woman came and asked her to sell Sheherazade to her. The worse was that, once this didn't work, she began to threaten them and even found a Dryads to play the witness.
Isis didn't care whether Sheherazade was really a criminal or if it was just a ploy. There was absolutely no way she was going to give her friend away.
"I said that this fairy is a criminal in our territory, are you really willing to protect her?"
"I don't care."
"You…!"
Faint black flames began to flicker as Nent wondered whether she should just burn all those bastards alive.
"What going on?"
Isis turned towards the source of the voice that interrupted them and then squinted.
She usually didn't pay attention to people in general because of her upbringing, but she still remembered the man that appeared.
After all, from what she heard, he was supposedly one of the most powerful young dragons Sol would have to face.
He was none other than the descendant of Fafnir–
–Kaiser.
