When Roge opened his eyes in the hoard, he knew he was going to have a hard time. While the plants and fairies seemed to be in a good mood, the two figures that were added were very much not. One was the giant minotaur, with whom he could feel a better bond with. Clearly the guard had aligned himself with Roge, leaving the other figure to deal with first.

  He looked more like a naga than a snake, in Roge’s opinion, the creature’s short, stubby arms attached to the green, snake-like body looking more than a little uncanny. As soon as the creature saw Roge, it reared up and hissed, lunching itself at the dragon. No sense of intelligence showed in its eyes, so Roge decided to bar it from the environment. ‘Better to be in solitary than attacking the rest of my hoard.’ He assumed that its previous intelligence had come from stealing the minotaur’s soul, as once the creature was gone, the guard stood up from his seated position.

  “Thanks for that. That thing was getting on my nerves,” he grumbled.

  “Should probably see if I can set you to manage that stuff…” Roge mumbled, gaging the guard’s opinion on it.

  “Well, since I’m probably going to be here for a while, it’s at least something to do. Name’s Alton by the way.”

  “Jeez, that thing stole your name too?” Roge grumbled, rubbing at the base of his horns. “And if you don’t want to manage things here, you don’t have to. It shouldn’t take too long to free you, I don’t think.”

  “Considering the fact that we kill those creatures and don’t bother to try and free people from them, I don’t think it’s gonna be that easy.” Anton walked up to one of the many trees that littered the environment and tried to pluck an apple. It seemed he couldn’t effect it, though, as the fruit refused to budge. Roge was surprised at how tall the trees were, honestly, some of them looking years old with how big they were.

  “I’ll find a way. I even have that spare body from when the snake died.”

  “You did? That’s reassuring at least.”

  Roge focused more on his poking of his new hoard skill at that, trying to see if he could get it to do more. He wanted Alton to at least be able to see the outside world, even if it was through Roge’s senses. “If I was the kind of person to steal people’s bodies and minds, I would have gotten caught a lot sooner,” Roge mumbled, feeling something click when he tried pushing spatial mana into the skill.

  “There! Got it so I can summon you into the real world. Though… it says only I can see and interact with you…”

  “That’s something at least.” Alton leaned against the golden apple tree he’d been trying to take from, giving the dragon a calculated look. “You seriously not going to use the power more? You could get stupidly powerful.”

  “Honestly? Once I get you out of here and get the skill to rank ten? I’m thinking of just deactivating the class if I can’t change it.” He rolled his eyes at the minotaur’s shocked look, feeling around with his [Status] and shoving the screen over. “Look through however much you want. I’m already stupidly overpowered as is. I don’t need to be imprisoning people to get more.”

  As Alton looked through the many screens, Roge wandered through his veritable forest of trees and flowers, smiling as the fairies flew past him. Finding a good place to sit wasn’t too hard, the dragon sighing at the cool breeze flowing through the space. ‘Now to start on some experiments in here…’

  ~~~

  Roge spent at least an hour running through the various things he could *not* do while dreaming in his hoard. He very quickly found out that the only items he could access were things that were already in his hoards, and that he couldn’t add more things to it. His skills didn’t seem to work either, even his bonded wand not wanting to make an effect in the space. ‘No power leveling this…’ he thought to himself, moving on to the next action he hoped he could do.

  He’d sat right up against one of the ironwood trees intentionally, the entire tree being a mix of silver and black metal with red-ish rust. He was worried he might have to give it more iron for it to grow, but thankfully, his hoard seemed to be able to grow the tree just fine. ‘Maybe it’s feeding on my blood?’ With that morbid thought, he focused more on the tree with his [Druidic Touch] to see if he could bond with it in his dreams.

  He felt the connection snap into being immediately, the tree a powerful source of density and strength. He also got the distinct impression that it’d been wanting to talk with the dragon for a while, as its emotions had a tinge of impatience.

  ‘Too weak. Need strong.’

  “I do want to get stronger. Can you help with that?” he spoke aloud, feeling more inclined to do that in his private space.

  ‘Can help. *Will* help.’

  It almost felt like cheating to Roge as the connection snapped into existence right away. Feeling no pain with the buff the trees provided, and wanting to do the last bit of bonding for the night, he quickly scanned the effect.

  “That’s… helpful?” Roge muttered, having not encountered the size categories before.

  “Oh it certainly is,” Alton chuckled, causing Roge to jump as he noticed the minotaur had come looking for him. “The size categories are all based upon height. How tall are you?”

  “Five foot eight?” Roge responded, looking a bit confused.

  “So In the upper one meter range.” Alton looked over the effect screen Roge had pulled up, giving him a low whistle. “Well now you’re treated as being a bit over two meters tall, which is the size I am. It means you have more mass to leverage when using your strength. So you most likely got a lot denser outside.”

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  “I mean… that’s nice and all for if I get hit but…”

  “Hey, just because you’re a squishy magic dodger, doesn’t mean that strength isn’t really good. It means that your inventory slots are going to have a bigger cap for when they get full.”

  Roge blinked at that, glancing at his inventory to see that his inventory wasn’t as full as it was before. Some things that weren’t stackable before even started stacking, causing the dragon to grin as he looked it over. “You might have a point.”

  “I know I do.” The minotaur was cut off with Roge’s grunt, the bonding with the last ironwood tree apparently having been enough to tick his progression over.

  “Huh?” Roge grunted out, pulling up the skill description for the new skill and the screen for the new effect.

  “Of course it gives me more shapeshifting options…” Roge grumbled, his irritation adding to his excitement at automating a lot of his alchemical processes.

  “Hey, don’t knock it,” Alton growled, pointing to the wolves and cats flying around the area. “You set it to one of those creatures, and you have a small form that can fly.”

  Roge sighed, looking at the prancing beings and giving a nod. “You’re right. It just worries me that the orange trees are having such a big effect on my skill evolutions.”

  “That’s fair. Just hoping that I have the ability to fly when we-“ Alton was cut off as a rumble went through the hoard, the trees and fairies crying out in joy at the sound. Nature mana flooded the entire area in an instant, the green magic making it so Roge couldn’t see a thing for a few seconds. It soon all absorbed into the plants and animals in the area, giving Roge his sight back as he looked at the slightly larger trees. “Well. Isn’t that interesting,” the minotaur muttered, the mana also absorbing into him. “Hope this doesn’t effect me too much…”

  At the same time, Roge was feeling more power rushing into him, the increased density of flowers showing that all of the ones he’d ‘planted’ had now sprouted. Not only had his resistances gone up, but he’d actually gotten two new effects he wasn’t expecting.

  “Finally!” Roge grouched, only focusing on the fire buff at first. “I’ve been wondering when I’d get the fire resistance.”

  “Yeah… you’re going to need that,” Alton commented, his eyes bulging as he looked over some of the screens. “How is that fair?!”

  Roge blinked at that, feeling very confused by the language it was using. “So… I’m not effected by things colder than that…? How’s that powerful?”

  “It’s… ugh,” Alton groaned, scratching the base of his horns as he looked at the dragon. “Get a book about it? Or ask one of your friends to see if they know? I just know that the resistances and weaknesses change your comfortable temperature range. Like my cold resistance made it so I could survive up to freezing temperatures no problem. But yours… your *comfortable* temperature is probably below freezing. Which means you’d be perfectly fine sitting out in snow no problem, whereas I’d have to go inside after an hour or two. You might even find a snowstorm pleasantly warm now. You could go to the north and south wastelands and be fine walking where others would freeze instantly!”

  “Oh…” Roge mumbled, looking over the screens again. “I wonder then… because I can extend forty resistance to ice and cold to my friends…”

  “You’d be spending a lot less money on heating enchantments.”

  Roge placed his face in his hands at that, feeling slightly overwhelmed by it all. “I really need to ask Hops. He’d know more about it.”

  ~~~

  Roge spent the next few hours doing more alchemy work, as the growth of his plants allowed for harvesting once again. He wasn’t sure when the wave came through, but he was at least glad for it, as alchemy and harvesting were the only things he could really do while asleep. He sighed when he found out he still couldn’t do the advanced recipes, half tempted to just make them the normal way to get it over with. But he wanted to make sure he did everything correctly, so when he found that he really didn’t want to deplete any more of his stocks, he started working on more of the enchanted arrows. He couldn’t do all of them, as his ash trees didn’t give him enough samaras, but he could at least get eight done of each.

  As he was lazing around some more, and actually getting proper rest, he decided to do the last upgrade for the day, looking over his [Screen Hoard] for something to bind. He then noticed the [Flame] coins unbound, sighing as he added more into his hoard and bound all of them.

  Roge chuckled at the effect, flicking it off to the side as he started to feel himself waking up. ‘That’s going to make Hops go ape. Along with everything else…’