Sophia told Chloe, Anna, and her sister about the new friend she had made, and everyone was looking forward to meeting Kel. Steph was especially energetic about it, so Sophia brought them to the place where he was building his biome, and everyone spent a good hour getting to know each other.

"Alright, let's have a match, my big new friend!" After a lot of chatting, Steph eventually walked closer to Kel's head in front of them and pointed at him. "I doubt I can win, but fighting a dragon has always been my dream!"

"How can it have always been your dream?" Sophia stared at her sister from Earth.

"I'm a very ambitious person!"

"I love the enthusiasm, and I always welcome a challenge, but I don't think I can provide a good match at the moment." The dragon lightly shook his head. "Your sister made me bleed for the first time in several millennia, the fight with Fen depleted a good chunk of my authority, and the match with Blu… was… was…" He wasn't able to finish his sentence as he briefly moved his eye ever so slightly to glance at the tiny blue bird who had gotten comfortable on Chloe's shoulder for a change.

"How could that have been tiring for you?" The blonde tilted her head. "That match didn't even last for a fraction of a second."

"What did you do to him?" Chloe slightly looked to the side to address the parakeet on her shoulder. In response to that, Blu just let out a few chirps that sounded strangely boastful and smug in one way or another.

"It's actually not even worth describing." Sophia shrugged. "It appears that our favorite bird here has mastered gravity magic, and Blu used it to crush Kel into the ground before he could even react."

"I didn't know dragons could be squished that flat." Fen just nodded a few times.

"NEITHER DID I!" Kel got loud while putting a bit of power in his voice.

"Such bass!" Steph seemed impressed. "Though those doggy ears of mine do not appreciate that! Anyway, hmm, it would be a waste to fight a weakened dragon… How about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow should be fine."

"Yippie!" The dog-girl happily clapped her hands. "Let's go!"

"By the way," While her girlfriend was getting excited over their arrangement, Chloe also faced the dragon. "I understand you lived in the oasis lake because you like the desert. Okay, understand might not be the right word, but I accept it." The arctic fox, in fact, could not understand why someone would like to live in a desert. Oasis or not. "Still, how did you get there? I know there are flying dragons, but unless they are somewhere under the water right now, you don't have wings, do you?"

"I do not have wings."

"So, how did you get here?" The fox tilted her head. "I somehow can't imagine someone as big as you simply slithering through the desert until you found that lake to live in."

"I made that lake." Kel lightly corrected her. "I indeed did not slither through the desert. I tunneled my way towards the place from the ocean's shore instead. I did spend a while above ground, though."

"Ohh, a fellow tunnel enjoyer!" Fen liked the sound of that.

"Who doesn't enjoy a good tunnel?" The dragon sounded slightly confused.

"Indeed!" Steph nodded along.

"Quite true." The wolf obviously felt the same. "I'm also rather proud of my extensive tunnel system that I created under the beastfolk kingdom's capital, so I totally get it."

"Your what now?" Anna, the princess of said kingdom, heard something that caught her interest. "I'd like some details on that."

"Don't worry about it." Fen just briefly glanced at her.

"You can't just say 'don't worry about it' after dropping something like that on me!"

"It's fine~." The wolf's voice turned playful. "The tunnels are barely 20 kilometers long in total because I got distracted with other things."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"What makes you think this would help here?" Anna tilted her head.

"If that upsets you, you probably don't want me to tell you that I turned parts of it into a dungeon with working traps, right?"

"…" She just stared at him.

"Good, because I absolutely did not do that." Fen nodded a few times before turning in the direction of Kel's head. "I totally did that."

"As one does." He saw no fault in him.

"I heard that." The princess slowly shook her head.

"Didn't we talk about this before?" Sophia felt like she was having a déjà vu. "Like, didn't we have a conversation about that dungeon a long time ago? Actually, didn't we explore it together, too?"

"I feel like I'd remember that?" Anna sounded slightly unsure herself. "Then again, with so much stuff going on lately, it's not impossible that I forgot. Especially if someone forgot to mention where we were when we explored a place."

"See? Everything's completely fine." Fen's voice turned even more smug.

"Will the capital be fine, too?"

"Absolutely." He nodded. "In fact, I made it safer than ever because there were some caves already present that were on the verge of collapsing, possibly causing massive sinkholes in the capital if I hadn't fortified them."

"Wow, thank you!" The princess was grateful for that. "Hmm, I'm starting to feel like I've actually heard that before now, too."

"Anyway, a tunnel from the sea all the way to the oasis?" Chloe got the conversation back on track. "How long did that take?! I know the sea isn't that far away from the desert, but it's still quite the distance, no?"

"It's a few hundred kilometers." The dragon reacted with a slight nod. "It's been far too long to remember, but I don't think it took too long. I got quite sidetracked with exploring, too. Maybe a week? As a conservative guess."

"Sounds about right." As a fellow digging expert, Fen agreed with his estimate.

"Why so deep, though?" Sophia also got more curious about it. "The lake is way over a kilometer deep, so I assume you dug the tunnel that deep, as well?"

"No, I didn't travel nearly as deep." Kel shook his head. "I surfaced nearby and found this massive crater. I created the lake, but I did not make the hole. I merely filled it with water."

"Ohh, that makes a lot of sense!" Sophia clapped her hands. "I take that's how you found the magic ore, as well?"

"Yes, they were at the very bottom of the crater." He looked at the blonde. "I have no idea why they were, though. Or how that crater came to be. Mira refused to elaborate on that as well when I met her sometime after."

"That does sound like Mira." Sophia saw a familiar pattern there. "Unless you ask the right questions, she can be a bit secretive."

"Or if you pester her enough." Chloe agreed with her.

"That might be daughter privileges, though." Anna glanced at the fox.

"Fair enough."

"So, after finding the crater and going down to the center, you found the magic crystals and decided to eat them?" The blonde was still curious about that part.

"Not… immediately…" The dragon suddenly sounded a little awkward.

"But?"

"I did a lot of experimenting with those crystals. Lots of explosions happened."

"Fair."

"Understandable."

"Naturally."

"As one does."

"Unsurprising." The girls, and Fen, could easily follow his explanation so far.

"I was quite fascinated by the crystal's ability to literally suck out my magic and store it. It was even more fascinating when I recovered my authority and attacked the crystals with fire when they were still charged with my previous magic."

"Which, I presume, caused the first of the many beforementioned explosions." Sophia took a random guess on how the story continued.

"Precisely." The dragon reacted with a slight nod. "I did that a couple more times to understand what was going on. At first, I thought it was a better version of the heating ore that produces fire instead of simple warmth, but that theory was quickly cast aside when it amplified other types of elemental magic, as well. I actually created the entire lake in one go after I charged the crystals for a day. That's when I got the idea of trying to infuse my body with it to have a permanent magic storage on me at all times."

"By eating it?" The blonde raised an eyebrow.

"Fair." Steph couldn't blame him for the idea.

"Is it?" Chloe stared at her girlfriend for a moment. "Then again, it made Kel very pretty and sparkly, so it's hard to disagree there. Don't you do that, too, though!"

"Ehehe~." The dog-girl smiled at her. "I think I'll be okay without the crystals."

"Still, your idea of infusing your body with it was by eating the thing that steals your magic and exploded in your face multiple times?" Anna was as confused as Sophia about his course of action.

"I'm open to suggestions that could've been a better solution." The dragon lightly turned his massive head to concentrate on the princess.

"I don't know, grinding the crystals into a fine dust and applying it to your body from the outside?" She voiced the first thing that went through her head.

"Hah." Kel froze for a moment. "I didn't think of that."

"Was any thinking involved when you made the decision? It was more of an act first and think later decision, wasn't it?" The blonde had seen through him already.

"…"

"He's a good fit for the group." Chloe smiled at the dragon. After all, they were all suffering from the same problem. "So, you just ate a bunch of those crystals and then they made you sparkly?"

"Pretty much." Kel didn't know what else to say. "I was in pure agony for a whole month during that change, though. I assume they weren't exactly meant to be eaten. Who could've known, huh?"

"Who couldn't?" Anna slowly shook her head.

"In my eyes, it was perfectly worth it." The dragon didn't mind some pain for gains.

Afterward, Kel shared more about his experiences with the crystals, explaining how infusing himself with them was such a great idea. They all were fascinated by it, but especially hearing about the pain part when the crystals fused with him, no one had the slightest intention of trying it out themselves.

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