Corrupt Light Dragon

Prologue: The Dragon Legend

"Master, how did dragons begin?" I asked as innocently as possible. 

"Why are you suddenly interested? I thought dragons 'bored you to death'?" Master asked suspiciously. 

Well I can't tell him I met a dragon now can I? So I made up an excuse ready just for this question. 

"Well, I just wondered how great dragons are considering my great master avidly mentions them," I replied emphasizing the 'great' part. A little flattering should distract him from suspicion 

"Well I'll start from the beginning then. Make sure you pay attention this time. I'm not going to repeat this story however much you beg next time," he said with laughing eyes. 

"Oh-kay," I said feeling a little impatient. 

Master cleared his throat, gathering his thoughts. "Well a long time ago, eons in fact, this continent was a very harsh place to live in. Do you know why?" 

I shook my head. Don't ask me questions anymore and just get on with the story! 

"It's because the land lacked magic," Master looked at me expectantly.  I simply nodded, showing understanding. "Well you see the world was unpredictable back then. The land was fertile yet barren in different locations at the same time or fertile one season and barren the next three seasons. The weather is just as unpredictable. There's a storm and a lot of rain then a drought following it. Humans lived just to survive." 

What a horrible life that must be! I'm so glad I was born in this era 

"The heavens were saddened by the lack of magic and cried. One tear fell to the earth. Do you know what that is?" Master asked, making sure I was paying attention. 

"A Dragon egg?" 

"That's right. A dragon egg. The first dragon in the world. And when it hatched, a beautiful dragon came out. It had magnificent crystal scales and a dragon pearl on its forehead brimming, no, overflowing with magic! It is said that the dragon pearl had dark and light magic in it in perpetual motion. The area around the dragon immediately flourished with life. Oh how I wish I could have been born in that era!" Master's thoughts flew away from the story. 

I rolled my eyes and waited for him to finish his trance but it seemed that it wasn't going to end anytime soon. I hate it when Master is like this. He can be such an airhead. I snapped my fingers impatiently waking him from his trance. 

"Chryisle! How rude. That is no way to treat your Master!" 

I stuck my tongue out playfully, "But I wanted to hear the rest of the story" 

"Really. So much cheekiness in such a small body," Master shook his head. "There are other ways to do it you know." 

I'd rather have this conversation later. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry. Can you please continue now?" 

Master cleared his throat again. "Okay, where was I? Oh yes. The dragon. In short the dragon was a beautiful, mighty creature to behold. For a while, she made - " 

"The first dragon was a she?" I interrupted, quite surprised. 

Master ignored my interruption and continued. "She made the land on the center of the continent, where her egg landed, magically stable. But in her benevolence, she decided to make the whole continent magically stable. No one knows the real gender of the dragon but people assumed she was female because she managed to create four more dragon eggs. But those eggs were different from the eggs of today. They were borne from pure magic." 

"Pure magic?" 

"Yes. Just magic that was shaped and took the form of dragon eggs. You see the first dragon was overflowing with magic that is why she was able to do so. Nowadays, you need a lot of dragons to create a single dragon egg from pure magic. 

The first dragon egg, she dropped in the most active volcano back then. Today, that volcano is just active because the dragons in it used their magic to keep it active yet calm. She left the second egg on the peak of the highest mountain in the world. The mountain is on the island lying on the outskirts of the continent. On the waters surrounding the island, she dropped the third egg. For the last egg, she carefully hid it in the largest cave in the continent. 

All the eggs were dormant for a while, absorbing the elements around them. And then at last, eight young dragons, two in each egg, hatched simultaneously. The hatched dragons came in pairs, one female and one male for each egg. Two red fire dragons, two white wind dragons, two blue water dragons, and last but not least, two gold earth dragons." 

I counted in my head. "Something doesn't add up. Where are the other two kinds of dragons? Aren't there six dragon clans?" 

"Well you see," the Master replied. "When the four eggs hatched, the First dragon died and her pearl broke into two. The two halves of the pearl became two dragon eggs. When they hatched, two crystal scaled light dragons and two black scaled dark dragons emerged, completing the six clans." 

I nodded and remembered the dragon I saw that day. So he was a dark dragon? 

"Well enough story time. Time for more sword practice - swing your sword one thousand times. If you lose count, you start all over again. After that, some magic practice - cast 10 spells 20 times each. I want them 20 perfect and consecutive times per spell. One mistake and you repeat the same spell twenty times again." Master said as he got up and brushed the dust off his robes. 

So that means one thousand sword swings and two hundred spells? Are you kidding me? 

I felt tired already after hearing the instructions. He then cast a light orb spell and it slowly hovered from his open palm to me. It hovered three inches away from my face. 

"Don't think you can escape, little girl. I will supervise your progress through that. Now, do it while I do some..." he paused, swallowed and continued with a heavy tone, "...chores." 

He looked like he was preparing to die. I can understand though. Master hated chores like laundry and earning travel money as much as I hated lessons. Laundry tires him out but if he doesn't do it, we won't have fresh clothes to wear on the road. Earning money is just as hard. Since he is such an airhead, he gets exploited often and earns less than he deserves. But I think the problem lies in the fact that he doesn't demand for a proper fee in the first place. He simply leaves it up to a person's good will to decide the price of his services. It can't be helped though. My Master was a kind guy and I won't have him any other way.  He was also responsible enough to know that someone has got to do the chores. Let me say it now - I am not, in any way, responsible, so I don't do chores. 

I slumped and looked at him with piteous eyes. Maybe I can exploit Master's kindness too. "Can you reduce the number if I helped with the chores?" 

"No." 

 Master may normally be an airhead but he can be a demon when it came to practice lessons. There was no such thing as compromise. I shrugged. Oh well, at least I tried. 

I was about to go and do it when I heard him say, "And since you asked, add 100 more swings and 5 more spells. You will be busy all day so if I were you, I'd start right about now." 

Correction: Master isn't a demon. He's the Master of hell himself. 

Author's note: Chryisle is pronounced as Kr-ay-lle or Kraylle