By late June, the weather was growing hotter and hotter. Many dragon mothers had chosen this period to seclude themselves and incubate their eggs-a task that required a great deal of energy. Territorial disputes in the sanctuary had fallen by thirty percent compared with the previous month, and the researchers all breathed sighs of relief.
The morning light was gentle today, the spring sunshine lovely. It was fine weather for saying goodbye.
In the dragon section of the Underground Research Institute, Brian stood facing an elderly Romanian Longhorn-his teacher, a dragon with a permanent position at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary's research institute.
Brian looked up and said, "Valentin, thank you for teaching me all this time. I'll miss you. Hmm-if I miss you, I'll send you a few bottles of gin."
Valentin was a highly capable dragon who was particularly fond of gin, spoke with a very heavy accent, and treated him kindly. Through the automatic simultaneous interpretation provided by Brian's command of dragon language, Valentin's words became somewhat obscure, so Brian often had to translate them again in his own head before he could understand what he meant.
Although there were still some problems communicating, Brian had benefited enormously from this friendly dragon's instruction-now,
he had finally taken another step toward no longer being human.
His fire magic was more concentrated than before, but that was not important. What mattered was that he had mastered a spell that let him control the Magic Coating on his body. Its scope included, but was not limited to, changes in the coating's properties, changes in its strength, and fine control over the direction of reflection, and so on and so forth.
Setting aside the fact that Brian still could not draw the Magic Coating into his body, he was now a wizard