“Now that you have finished your nap, I wanted to ask about the trial.”

  Myria says “Sure. What do you want to know?”

  “I just want a general overview and what kinds of benefits you got from it. That will help me decide how important it might be for me to take it and if it is worth making the time.”

  Myria says “Shouldn’t you be more interested in the mage trials? You use your magic constantly now.”

  “That’s true. I haven’t really thought about it since I got my magic back. Still, if the benefits are good enough I will do both. The problem is that the first mage test mostly gave skill bonuses. The way I use my magic now doesn’t have much to do with skills.”

  Myria says “Well, the trial started off with me as a teenage kid, a human one. I was what you would call a street kid and I had to work my way up to the point that I could start my own faction. Once my faction reached a certain strength the trial was completed. That took me just under thirty years and it was rather annoying.”

  “It changed your race to human? What kind of stats did you have?”

  Myria says “I only had the basic stats and they all started at ten. The only thing I kept from outside was my leadership stat and it stayed the same. The low stats were harder to get used to than being human was.”

  “Ugh! That sounds horrible!”

  Myria says “I imagine that it would be worse for you than it was for me. Just how ridiculous are your stats at this point?”

  “In the thousands. Dropping back to double digits would be crippling for me.”

  Myria says “That’s outrageous!! I know you are stronger than the rest of us, but that is just absurd! I have been chasing after you for so long, but I feel like I am even farther behind than I was when I started. Just how do you do it??”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  Myria says “Yes! Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Trying to catch me has been the main source of your motivation, I just don’t want you to lose that.”

  Myria says “That was only my motivation at the beginning because I thought that was the only way we could be together. That hasn’t been my motivation since I finally got you. So, yes, I want to know.”

  “There are several reasons. The first of which, you know all those times I did something stupid and had to start over from rank one?”

  Myria says “Of course I do. What about them?”

  “All of those times, while my rank reset my stats never did. So by now, I basically have around fifty ranks worth of stat boosts.”

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  Myria says “That’s totally not fair!”

  “Second, I have had a number of skills and even the ones I have lost or that have merged into something else, I never lost the stats from them.”

  Myria says “That can be that many stats, can it?”

  “I don’t know, probably a couple of hundred points. On its own it's not much, but when added to the other things, it adds up.”

  Myria says “Is that it, just those two things?”

  “No, there is one more. I have an ability called Devour. I got it really early on, before I even met you. Although, I can’t really remember what I got it from.”

  Myria says “That was a long time ago. What does it do?”

  “It allows me to gain stats from eating the hearts of strong enemies.”

  Myria says “I’ve noticed you doing that, but I always thought it was just a victory ritual or something. Just how many stats have you gained from that?!”

  “I don’t know, thousands probably.”

  Myria says “No wonder I couldn’t catch up! You have been cheating this whole time! You are nothing but a cheater!”

  “Yeah, I basically am. It wasn’t like I was trying to be, that’s just how things ended up working out. Is this going to affect your desire to get stronger?”

  Myria says “Nope! Not at all. I already have a new motivation.”

  “Oh? What is it? If you don’t mind telling me.”

  Myria says “I am your wife, I will tell you anything you want. My motivation is that out of your wives, I am the combat wife. I need to stay the strongest to keep my place.”

  “You know that I love you and that won’t change, right? You being strong has no bearing on that. I won’t love you any less if you aren’t the strongest.”

  Myria says “I know. Besides, I am not the strongest, that is Lin. When I say the strongest I am referring to combat strength. Lin can annihilate me with a single spell. I just need to be stronger than Brightfire, the others aren’t combat focused. I also need to be stronger than any new ones that get added, like Leylisha.”

  “Leylisha? I barely know her! Why would you even think that?”

  Myria says “Because the women you save have a tendency to fall in love with you and you can’t argue that fact.”

  “No, I guess I can’t, but that doesn’t mean I will fall in love with her.”

  Myria says “Maybe not, but you are keeping her around so it is still a possibility.”

  “Actually, that is because I haven’t satisfied my curiosity yet.”

  Myria says “Uh oh! What are you curious about this time?!”

  “Two things. One, her tribe uses mounts very similar to what Lizzy was when I first found her. Two, if you take a close look at Leylisha’s eyes you will see that they are very similar to my own. I think that means that her tribe has at least a little dragon blood. I am curious if I am right and if so where did it come from. We are well outside Everburn’s territory so that should mean it was a different dragon.”

  Myria says “What are you going to do if you are right?”

  “Try and find the dragon so that I can try talking to it.”

  Myria says “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “It shouldn’t be. Now that I am a dragonling, the dragon should see me as either a relative or a child. Either way, it should make it more willing to talk.”

  Myria says “If you are so interested in talking to a dragon, how come you never tracked down the other one you met?”

  “What other dragon?!”

  Myria says “Mercy told me the story, you convinced a dragon not to destroy her capital. Why not go talk to that dragon?”

  “Oh, the shadow dragon! Um, I may have forgotten about it.”

  Myria says “How do you forget about something like that?!”

  “You can ask that when you know how chaotic my life is?”

  Myria says “Fair point. Still, that is not something you should be able to forget!”

  “There was a lot going on at the time! I did plan to try to find him again, but at the time I hadn’t learned how to enter the shadow plane. By the time I figured that out, a lot of other things had happened.”

  Myria says “That makes me wonder what other important things you might have forgotten!”