During my telling of my story I notice that the three youngest daughters are flirting with me. For me to notice it, it means that they are being very obvious about it, I am fairly dense when it comes to that sort of thing. Once I am paying attention, I notice that even the oldest daughter is flirting with me, although not as blatantly as her sisters.

  Mavel can definitely see what is going on, but she doesn’t encourage them or try to stop them. She just watches the show with a slight smile on her face and calmly keeps eating. I do my best to ignore her daughters’ flirting, but it is not an easy thing to do.

  It is especially hard to ignore the oldest daughter, even though she is supposed to be married. I am rather glad that she isn’t one of the ones that will be leaving with us tomorrow. Although, it does make me rather curious as to where her husband is and what the situation is.

  I am pretty sure that Mavel would tell me if I asked, but I won’t do so in front of Gremshow. Whatever is going on is absolutely none of his business, not that it is mine either. Then again, I probably won’t ever see her again once we leave, so I shouldn’t even ask.

  Besides, I don’t want Mavel getting the wrong idea and trying to push us together. Mavel absolutely seems like the type of woman who wouldn’t let the idea go once it took hold. That is the kind of bother that I absolutely want to avoid, so I am going to keep my mouth shut.

  My curiosity isn’t going to like that answer, but I am used to it bugging me at this point. Luckily, dinner ends without any problems and because we are leaving early no one lingers. I barely glance at the room that I am led to before heading down to the stables to see Lizzy.

  Lizzy says “Are we going hunting?”

  “Yes, but we are going to have to travel a good distance to find anything worth hunting. You have two choices, you can stay here or you can fly with me.”

  Lizzy says “You are not leaving me behind, but how are we going to fly? I don’t think you can carry me.”

  In answer I drop shapeshift, shift my clothes into a saddle, and then give her a look. However, I can’t hold the look when I see her face as she realizes what I mean. I can’t help but laugh as the look of realization turns to one of horror at the thought.

  Lizzy says “No! No, no, no! I am your mount, I can’t ride you!”

  “Then that means that you are staying here.”

  Lizzy says “No! I am not letting you run off on your own!”

  “Then climb on. Those are your only two options.”

  Lizzy grumbles a lot and even calls me a few names, but she eventually shapeshifts and gets in the saddle. When I take off, she yelps which makes me laugh, but she will make me pay for it later. I quickly fly north towards the kingdom’s border, I plan to cross the border and then look for beasts.

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  Lizzy says “Ash, remember when you asked me what I wanted to do?”

  “Yeah, have you thought more about whether you want to be freed or not?”

  Lizzy says “I am not worried about my freedom, but I do have a new goal now.”

  “Oh, what is it?”

  Lizzy says “I want to be able to fly!”

  “Um, okay. I take it that you mean something more than just shapeshifting into something that can fly?”

  Lizzy says “Yes! I want to have wings of my own, like you do.”

  “Alright, that is something we can work on. The best bet would probably be to try and get enough essence to make you a half-dragon. Although, considering your link to earth I can’t guarantee that you will get wings.”

  Lizzy says “That sounds good. I know you can’t guarantee anything. This way you can use me as a test subject for what you plan to do to yourself, right?”

  “I won’t be using you as a test subject! I won’t do anything to you until I am sure that it will work. But yes, you going first will definitely help me.”

  Lizzy says “If I don’t get wings right away, that just means I need to focus on evolving after.”

  “Agreed, but you should keep in mind that this will make it harder for you to find a compatible mate.”

  Lizzy says “Not really. I actually have a better chance of finding a dragonkin than I do of finding a lizard race close to what I am now.”

  “I guess that’s true. Especially if you manage to evolve. At that point you should be pretty close to a drake and there are plenty of those.”

  Lizzy says “You will help me evolve if needed, right?”

  “Of course. I will help you as much as I can.”

  Lizzy says “Good. In that case, this is the path that I want to follow.”

  “Understood. Well, the first step is for us to find some strong beasts to hunt so that I can further study essence.”

  Our conversation wasn’t that long, but it was still long enough for me to reach the border. Beyond the kingdom’s border the land turns into broken plains with the occasional small forest. Even as I am coming in to land, I can sense multiple beasts moving away through ravines.

  As soon as I am on the ground, Lizzy jumps down, drops shapeshift, and insists that I ride her. I am smart enough not to argue, so I return to beastman form and mount up. Lizzy barely waits for me to get into the saddle before she is off like a bullet.

  Apparently she can also sense all the beasts moving away and that triggers her hunting instincts. The first few beasts she hunts down are nothing special, so I just collect their essence. As she is eating her latest catch my senses pick up something stronger, so I jump off her back.

  Lizzy isn’t all that worried about me and just keeps eating as I run off on my own hunt. What I find has the body of a crocodile with two snake heads and two scorpion tails. This doesn’t seem like the right environment for it, but I am not going to let that stop me.

  It doesn’t look like it should be all that fast on land, but it responds quickly when I close in. Surprisingly it coordinates the attacks between its two heads and tails and almost gets me. It uses the attacks from its heads to bracket me and then attacks with its tails where I will dodge to.

  Unfortunately for it, I don’t bother to dodge the attacks from the heads, I just grab them. It has already launched its tail attacks, but since I don’t move they completely miss me. After they miss, I just stretch out my arms and pull the heads in opposite directions until they come off.

  1 Scorpcroc defeated! 275,000 Exp gained!

  With it dead, I quickly expose the core, crack it open, and stuff the essence into one of my jars. While I am curious which is stronger between it and the spider essence, I want to study it first. Just from the amount of exp, the croc’s essence should be the stronger of the two.