WILOW-Ch.460: A Talented Skinchanger

Lonely Hills, Imperial Lands

POV of Domeric Pendragon

1 week later.

Domeric played with little Lagertha and fed her cooked meat every now and then as the little dragon cooed at him and tried to bite his hands.

She was Ygritte’s green dragon.

As a week-old infant, her teeth were too small and her jaw strength too weak to do any harm to him, but allowing her to form a habit of biting things out of curiosity was a bad thing, so he shook her off and didn’t give her a treat.

He instead gave her a small piece of raw meat.

Lagertha sniffed it a few times before she stepped back and tried to breathe fire onto it. The display was cute more than anything, and he allowed her to try a few times before he smiled, and with a small gesture of his hand, he lit the meat on fire.

As soon as it started sizzling, Lagertha dove in and devoured the meat.

At that moment, he saw Saphira and Tiamat walk up to Kilgharrah, who had finished eating a sheep and was taking a rest, and started nuzzling his nose.

Kilgharrah lazily opened an eye and looked at the things bothering his rest.

Upon seeing that they were none other than Saphira and Tiamat, his little sisters, he gave them a small playful shove with his nose, making them fall flat on their backs before he closed his eyes and hid his face behind his talons so that he wouldn’t be disturbed once again.

Domeric watched Saphira and Tiamat struggle on their back for a few seconds. Then they got back on their feet and came to him.

He picked them up and allowed them to nuzzle him before putting them back on the ground and turning to look at Ygritte, who was sitting in the distance, her posture straight and her eyes rolled back to the back of her head.

Then he turned his eyes to the wyvern flying in the sky.

He would say that he was surprised by the fact that Ygritte was such a powerful skinchanger even at the starting point, but he truly wasn’t.

This past week, he started her training as a skinchanger. He watched as she quickly moved up the ladder by going from a rat to a sparrow to an eagle, to a dog, to a deer, to a bear, to a basilisk, to a small wyvern, to the large wyvern that was currently flying over their heads.

He was sure that if she wanted, then she could even control one of her dragons at this stage.

A dragon was not an animal. Dragons in this world had their own sentience and were not like the mindless beasts of his previous world.

Normally, skinchanging into a dragon would be akin to skinchanging into a human, which was a huge taboo among the skinchangers.

The only exception was if someone was a Dragonlord and formed a Skinchanger bond with their own dragons.

Otherwise, even Domeric wouldn’t attempt to form a Skinchanger bond with a dragon he didn’t already have a connection with. But on the other hand, it was easy for a Dragonlord to form a Skinchanger bond with their own dragons because they already had a bond.

The only disadvantage was that dragons occupied a significant portion of the skinchanger’s mental power. Therefore, after forming bonds with Tiamat and Saphira, Domeric had little capacity left to form bonds with new animals.

At least not with large creatures like wyverns. If he wanted to form bonds with smaller animals, a few wouldn’t be a problem.

But as a skinchanger who had formed bonds with special companions like three noble dragons and Hedwig, he certainly wasn’t one to complain.

He wondered whether Ygritte could control a Giant Ape.

After all, they were double the size of the giants of this world. Easily as large as the giants of his previous world, if not larger.

The presence of a Giant Ape would be far more intimidating than a giant of this world. And a fully armored Giant Ape would be fully capable of decimating a whole army on its own. Or breaching walls and gates.

Perhaps he should bring one back for Ygritte to try with?

Moreover, he had no intention of maintaining his skinchanger capacity at this level. If dragons, being magical beings, required significantly more mental capacity than normal, then Domeric’s goal was to increase his capacity even further.

And he had a plan for this. Many of the Elemental Magical Cores he had been waiting to complete were now finished, and only a few were still gathering energy. And those, too, would soon be complete.

If it weren’t for the long delay in merging with new cores after merging with the completed ones, he would have already merged with his completed cores.

But doing so would mean waiting at least a few years to merge with the cores that weren’t yet complete. And Domeric didn’t want that.

He would wait for the others to be completed before merging with all of them at once. He believed that as his magical power grew, his mental capacity would grow as well.

After all, becoming a Dragonlord and Greenseer had not only increased his magical abilities but also strengthened his mental capabilities.

If his mental capacity increased significantly, he might try to establish skinchanger bonds with a few Wyverns and Giant Apes. He was confident they would also be quite useful during the upcoming Long Night.

His line of thought was broken as the large wyvern came down from the sky and landed in front of them.

Ygritte finally opened her eyes, looking more than a little tired as she got up from the sitting position and stumbled a bit before she finally walked up to him and dropped into his embrace.

Lagertha nuzzled Ygritte a few times before she climbed up on Ygritte’s head.

Brunhilde, the white dragon with silver stripes, and Leonidas, the red dragon with black lines on its back, stopped playing their game and came to Ygritte, nuzzling their noses against her.

"It’s a bit disorienting," Ygritte complained with a tired sigh.

He chuckled at her words and caressed her back. "It’s alright. It just means that you’re reaching your limit."

"My limit?" she asked.

"Yes." He nodded, "It’s not an absolute limit. With time and effort, you’ll be able to increase it and control other animals as well. But the normal way would take too long. Luckily, we already know a way to increase that limit by a great degree."

Ygritte took Lagertha from atop her head and pulled her into her own lap.

"Once you’ve gotten used to skinchanging into the wyvern, we’ll use mind arts to increase your skinchanging ability." He said, "I’m quite curious about how many Wyverns you would be able to control in a few years."

"Don’t care. I’m only interested in connecting with Lagertha, Brunhilde, and Leonidas..." Ygritte mumbled and nuzzled into his chest, "...and being with you. So just hold me for now."

He smiled and did exactly that.

--------------

Author’s Note: You folks can also read up to +50 Chapters on my P@treon Page as an early access privilege.

You can also read "+3 Free Chapters" and see some pictures as a Free Member.

www.patreon.com/vanguard_v

P@treon Page Name: V For Vanguard

Next Chapters’ Name:

Ch.461: The Feast is About to Begin

Ch.462: A Small Matter

Ch.463: Olenna Tyrell – The Schemer