Granny grabbed Lily and pulled her away and held her in her embrace. Lily tried to squirm her way out but to no avail, so she could only pout and look at her Granny with pleading eyes. However, Granny did not budge.

“Sorry Lily, but you can’t get close to it. Most dragon species are powerful and arrogant creatures. It could hurt you and I would not be able to save you, even if it’s just a newborn. For now, let’s just observe, if it’s peaceful we will get close to it.”

Granny looked around the vicinity of the egg. It was sitting in a small crater next to the river. The strange thing was that the water did not flow into the crater but seemed as if an invisible wall was still there, guiding the body of water away from its precious treasure, lest it would stain it. While she has seen magic barriers, but nothing like this before. This barrier had no element! This was so far unheard of, magic barriers were always infused with their caster’s elements. This one however seemed to be void of any element… Or maybe it was infused with all? It was hard to tell, but she could feel the density from this far away.

Both of them were eyeing the slightly shaking black egg with curiosity in their eyes. Lily’s eyes were sparkling with expectation while Granny’s were contemplating. How did it get here? Why is in this crater next to the body of water while protected with a very powerful and thick barrier? Just based on that barrier alone, she could tell that whoever placed it here was powerful beyond measure.

—

While the ladies were looking at the egg, its resident was still in a deep sleep. He was obviously Aiden, still in the hibernation process, assimilating with the Primal Life Essence, totally oblivious of his surroundings.

Enya was monitoring the situation outside, and she did notice the pair as they made their way there. In fact, she was the one that guided the younger one here. She knew that after emerging from hibernation the new form of Aiden will be very vulnerable, and she will need to be taken care of, at least for the first few months.

After assimilating with the Primal Essence, Aiden will be in his new ‘Birth State’, a Primal Youngling, which would be very similar to a little humanoid child. He would be small, vulnerable, and would need to be taken care of. The pair she noticed earlier didn’t seem to be evil and monitoring them for a while she could see that they were a gentle and kind pair, probably family. This is exactly what Aiden would need when he would emerge from the cocoon.

When she heard that the older one mistook the cocoon to a dragon egg, she smiled. It was often the case that a mature Primal was mistaken as powerful dragons. Older, mature dragons could take on human forms, and they would usually use that appearance to mingle amongst civilization from time-to-time. They could even hide their aura, so unless they deliberately let it out, nobody could tell the difference. Luckily, most dragons were reclusive beings, and preferred to stay alone, away from all life, mostly just sleeping, sometimes for centuries.

Primals were even harder to differentiate. Newborn Primals were in a shapeless amorphous blob form, at least until they could take in enough life essence to shape their body to their matured form. Sometimes they were more animalistic, sometimes, they took on a more humanoid form. In Aiden’s case, the Primal he is assimilating with currently, took in the form of a Mature Ancient Dragon.

This was unexpected, absorbing the mightiest race of dragons, was no easy feat. Not to mention that it was in a clear condition either! Looking at the system, the remaining time on hibernation was slowly ticking away, and in the next few minutes, Aiden would finally emerge from his cocoon. Hopefully the pair outside would greet him in a friendly manner and accept him into their family.

Time slowly ticked away, and the countdown reached its end. Shortly after that, the outer shell of the cocoon started shaking, and the encased power slowly started to shine through the cracks that appeared everywhere. Meanwhile inside, Aiden regained consciousness, and the first thing he did was to look at his new status.

[Name: Aiden

Race: Primal (Evolver)

Form: Ancient Dragon (Tier 3)

Level: 1/100 (0/100 xp)

Condition: 100%

Soul Power: 50

Experience: 105 XP

Might: 27 (0/500 xp)

Agility: 27 (0/500 xp)

Spirit: 32 (0/500 xp)

Skills:

Primal Absorb (Level 1) (50/100 xp), Hunt (level 1 – 5/100xp)

Effects:

Blessing of Ioris (-), Physical Resistance (level 1 – 0/100 xp), Fall Resistance (level 1 – 0/100 xp), Water Resistance (level 1 – 0/100 xp), Poison Resistance (level 2 – 25/100 xp)]

Aiden was shocked seeing his new stats. His Soul power along with his Might, Agility and Spirit basically skyrocketed. Also, his new form was of an Ancient Dragon? How strong is he currently? How could he test it? Questions filled his mind, but for the time being, the first task would be to break the shell, and get in some fresh air once again. Then to check his new form. He could feel that he finally had legs and arms, and that he had a humanoid shape.

—

I slowly started squirming and moved my newly acquired hands to touch the shell. Exerting a bit of force, I could easily crack the hard shell, breaking the protective energy that surrounded me.

Slowly my hands greeted the outside world, followed by the rest of my body as more and more parts of the cocoon broke apart.

I could not see anything at first, the bright light caused momentary blindness. I could however hear and see a young female giggling, and shortly after a set of soft arms around my neck.

As my vision returned, I saw a small, blonde, pig-tailed girl with her arms around me, as she giggled into my ears, while looking back at her companion, an elderly lady wrapped in ragged, red clothes.

“Granny, granny look! He is no dragon, he is a boy!”

The elderly lady looked at me, with a questioning gaze. I could feel her scanning me, probably trying to determine if I would be a threat or not.

“Calm down Lily, we still do not know who or what he is.” Then she looked into my eyes. “Who are you? Why were you in a Dragon Egg, and what are you doing here?”

Suddenly bombarded with questions, I could not answer at all, so I just looked back at her. Meanwhile Lily, who was still hugging me, looked at her Grandma.

“Granny, don’t be so mean to him! Can’t you see that he is alone? He is my new brother!”

Granny was shocked in this sudden exclamation, but instead of answering her, she looked at me once again.

“Where are your parents, boy?”

Parents? The term sounds familiar, but for some reason I can’t recall it’s meaning. As for the earlier questions, I wasn’t sure how I should answer her. Another thing that bothered me, is that they were speaking to me, and while I had no idea how to answer them, I could understand them. It’s like they were speaking some unknown language, that was immediately translated in my mind to a form I could understand.

I phrased the question in mind to Enya. ‘Enya, how can I understand them, but can’t talk back to them? What’s going on?’

Her reply came immediately, like if she was prepared for this one already.

[It’s because the system can translate any language to a form you can understand. You will also be able to gradually learn the language that is being spoken to you, just by listening. The system will analyze it in the background and gradually impart the knowledge to you. For now, you can’t reply to them verbally.]

With this in mind, I tried thinking of ways to answer the lady in some way. The only thing that came to mind was to gesture, which was very limited.

To answer her question, I just looked at the ground, and tried to express a troubled expression.

However, the lady probably misinterpreted what I tried to convey, as her face and tone immediately changed to that filled with compassion.

“I see… Sorry for your loss kid. Are you alone here? Since Lily here already took a liking to you, would you like to come back with us? We just wanted to eat something for lunch, you could join us if you’d like.”

I nodded my head, then looked at Lily who hasn’t left my neck all this time and smiled at her.

“Yey, little brother, come with us! We have yummy sandwiches!”

Instead of me, my stomach decided to answer that exclamation with a loud rumbling. This caused both Granny and Lily smiling at me.

“Come, we were camping not far from here!”

Smiling back at them, I stood up but quickly fell down back to the ground. My legs were still shaky, and I couldn’t stand on them. I have never used them before, the whole sensation was still new. Granny looked at me and lifted me up in her embrace. I hugged her, and with this, we went back towards the flower bed.

(A/N: There’s a change in perspective from first person to third person. It is meant to be symbolizing change, let me know if it’s stupid, or if just causes confusion, I can switch it back in that case. It’s just that since new characters are introduced, first person could be problematic to follow when the attention is shifted from Aiden to others. Anyways it is meant to be an experiment.)