"Ignus, what about the dungeon?" Remey had been working on the herbs she had found. She had managed to recruit an elder water dragon, six of Onyx’s younger serpents studying light and dark affinity herbs, and three researchers focusing on alchemy, herbalism, and the new forms of herbs coming about because of the changing elemental manas in the world.

This had been the focus for her for three days straight. Not because she had pushed to stay awake and work harder, but because she had wildly underestimated the excitement and desires of those she recruited.

Not only were they focusing on the herbs she had found, Remey realized that each of them had been working to gather unique herbs that had dual, triple, and even quad affinity. This had been their focus because they believed that the more complex the manas needed for their growth. The more tangible the research data would be.

They had also stressed that the value of these herbs became very unique. Not because they had a better potency in medicinal or poison usage. Because they had specific uses that other herbs might not meet perfectly.

One herb that had water, dark, light, and wind affinities was called the drifting water bulb. It lived in murky slow moving water and used the dark and light manas to balance the rot of other plant parts it trapped within it by filtering the water. The wind would slowly push it to other places of stagnant water to filter for nutrients.

This herb, the floating water bulb, was recently discovered in a dungeon that Midnight and Onyx had explored by sending their underlings.

The fascination came from the fact that they had managed to harvest these herbs without very harsh breakage or damage. Instead, they seemed very resistant due to their balancing of light and dark mana within them. This was surprising but not as surprising as the fact that it was able to help treat a disease called living rot.

While the disease was related to the dragonkin and would have been a major issue since it was easily passed on to the weaker scaled monsters that some dragonkin would take in as food or cattle. This disease was not life threatening but would constantly cause scales to fall off and rot on the body, it caused extreme pain in just basic movement.

Therefore, treatments had been shared since the dragonkin arrived within genesis. But success in handling it to a higher degree required very many potions of different times to overlap care.

This drifting water bulb was able to be opened and boiled to extract a few oils that were a perfect healing salve for the disease. From there, it was able to be derived as a constant lifetime treatment for this disease completely eliminating something that was not curable due to the fact that it was a disease they were born with randomly.

It opened back up the potential for the dragonkin to keep a certain few species of cattle that they had entirely given up on since they would pass the disease to the cattle.

While some had expected the predisposition for passing the illness and rot along due to the born conditions, it was just a unique illness that came from multiple conditions being met. But preventing that from even occurring? That was major.

"I have placed three guardians for the dungeon seed now. They will work together to train a younger hatchling to be able to keep it for a lifetime. The mana needs are not what they can handle. The one I chose has already asked for someone to train and needed assistance. They have never asked for help, but they did so because they knew that greater things could come by changing their solitary ideals."

Ignus was thinking of the state that came from his underling’s hard work. But he also understood that they had shown their own growth and gave right back the hard work offered to him as their royal dragon.

Knowing that someone who worked solely for them and with the utmost loyalty had shown a weakness so that they could achieve a goal beyond themselves showed that true ownership of the situation was taken. It deserved the time, but that time had been away from Remey who had made quite the statement before the dungeon seed needed to be handled.

"Oh? And you thought you could just come here while I read some reports from the team I recently put together? You know that they had a very large hand in helping handle the combination of illnesses both bron disease and transmitted sickness for living scale rot. So why would you bother me?"

Her words were less of a question and a statement that he was bothering her when she was doing things just as important . maybe even more important since she had been the one seemingly forgotten for the time being. Ignus knew that all too well.

"I wanted to challenge you to a fight."

Remey started to grin, toothy and sharp. "You think you can fight me? You know that I can use you as a stepping stone. I could just use all my flames and fists to punch through your scales in your full dragon form, you know that, right?"

"Why would I want to spend time with a weak partner?"

The mocking tone from Ignus made Remey grin even wider as she knew exactly what he was doing.

While each of the dragon race members had their own ways to show care and attention to those they cared for, it was partially a ritual, but also part of their culture as a whole.

Water dragons would challenge their partners to dive deep in to the water and retrieve stones or prey. Wind dragons might challenge their partners to fly through the sky as fast as possible, racing and maneuvering in chaotic ways that would bring about shock to others.

The light dragons would demand a pure and clean body to show the true purity of light. Dark dragons would challenge their partners to hide within the shadows, to become unusable and to then find them through the feeling of their innate mana.

The earth dragons cause small earthquakes. Just enough to signal that they had the weight and defensive might to carry the burden of their bonds.

Then fire dragons?

They would fight. They would conquer. They would start fires. They would show their violent power that deserved the attention of their partner.

For Ignus, this was a show of apology and acceptance. For Remey, it was a show that he was honest with her, and also a way to vent some frustration.

What Ignus didn’t realize though, was that she was going to take full advantage of the fact that he could not easily take his full dragon form. That he had to keep refining his dragonkin form. Specifically, that he had done so to a much firmer strength that she had noticed and enjoyed but was not sharing with him just yet. So, why not punch him around a bit in that form while also making sure he could manage it?

"Think I should doing something about all that fire?" Gil calmly looked at Alma as he had just returned home with a small selection of potions and rune sewn clothing that would help Alma as she carried their child.

"No, that’s Ignus and Remey fighting. The two of them are apparently on a date or whatever the dragon equivalent is. It’s sort of funny that they are using their fight to also clear the land there for building. The damage will just help out in the end." another pillar of flames followed by a flare and crackling of sparks and embers.

"That’s a very showy way to have a date. I think I liked when we were climbing the trees and trying to find the higher branches better." Gil laughed but he also sighed slightly.

He was feeling like he and the rest of the party were getting older in ways that he had not really realized. They had all grown a lot and even though they might not age the same as expected or what was known before they became heroes or a party, he believed that he was looking at a world changing too quickly around him.

Everyone was moving toward their goals, and so was he. But he still wanted to look at where they came from.

"I heard a rumor that Alice gave Walker an earful about being too busy. He tried to run off in to the elemental planes alone again." Alice laughed and Gil understood.

They all needed to look more at what was in front of them before skipping over the good moments. Without one another to remind them, they might just get lost in their gaze in to the future.

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