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Kozabokget raised her head. The goat with pink eyes was lying on her stomach, with her legs curled underneath her body. Her tilted to the side, her ears flopping because of the motion. Ramon’s gaze shifted away from his tablet, and he turned his head to stare at the goat. “Is there something wrong?” the holy dragon asked, his eyes lighting up. “Are you hungry?”
Kozabokget shook her head. “The air told me something strange,” she said. “You know how it likes to gossip.”
Ramon, in fact, did not know how the air liked to gossip, but he did know this was a chance to weasel his way out of studying a dead language. “What’s the air saying?”
“A ship arrived on the shore,” Kozabokget said. “It’s really large, and a lot of people are disembarking from it. They might be trying to build something.” After a bit, Kozabokget shrugged her shoulders. “The air is a good storyteller, but the accuracy of their stories isn’t that high. It likes to embellish things, and if the events occur far away, then it’s one pocket of air telling an embellished story to another one until it reaches me.”
Ramon blinked. “And … that means we have to go outside and see what’s going on, right?” Ramon nodded to himself, not caring about Kozabokget’s response. “Who knows what those people are plotting? If we find out they’re up to something dastardly, we could be heroes.”
“Your grandma will get angry at both of us if we leave,” Kozabokget said. “She’ll be upset at you because you’re not studying, and she’ll be upset at me for enabling you.” Kozabokget pawed at her face with her leg, scratching herself. “Why don’t you try talking to the light? Ask it to show you an image of the shore.”
Ramon made a face. “I’ll try,” he muttered and took in a deep breath. He glanced upwards and asked, “Mr. Light, can you show me what’s happening at the shore?”
The baby holy dragon and the pink-eyed goat waited in silence. Several seconds passed. There was no response. Ramon’s face flushed pink, and he stared at the goat. “Why don’t you do it?”
“If I’m always the one doing it, you’ll never learn how to do it yourself.”
Ramon snorted. “But it never works! Did you even teach me the right method?”
“I did,” Kozabokget said. “Remember how you made the air blow against Gloria?”
“I could’ve done the same thing with a fart,” Ramon said and rolled his eyes.
“Before you can do something big, you have to start with something small,” the pink-eyed goat said. “Instead of asking the light to show you the shore, why don’t you ask it to show you what’s happening on the other side of the door? Afterwards, ask it to show you images further and further away until you reach the shore.”
Ramon sighed and took in a deep breath. “Mr. Light, can you show me what’s happening on the other side of this door?”
Kozabokget raised her head. She whispered something, and a moment later, a screen of light appeared in the air above Ramon’s head. The silver dragon’s eyes lit up, and he pointed at the images that were being projected by the screen: Gloria was feeding her bear some grapes; Kal was taking a nap; Gren was muttering to herself while browsing through stone tablets; Grimmy and Leila were wrestling with each other. “I did it!” he said and beamed at the pink-eyed goat.
Kozabokget cleared her throat. “A little further away, please,” she said, and the image changed to the barren wasteland outside the palace. After confirming the image had changed, Kozabokget smiled back at Ramon. “Good job. Didn’t I tell you that you could do it?”
Ramon puffed his chest out and swept his tail back and forth. He raised his head and blinked at the new image. “When did it change?” he asked and tilted his head. He shrugged. “Mr. Light, can you show us what’s happening closer to the shore?”
The image flickered, and the projected screen vanished. Ramon stared at the empty space before turning his head towards Kozabokget. “What happened?” he whispered as if afraid his voice would prevent the screen from coming back. “Where’d Mr. Light go?”
Kozabokget rubbed her face with her leg again. “It must’ve been busy,” she said. “It can’t always be listening to us. It has important light things to do, and it can only help us when it’s free. Of course, there are ways of making it communicate better.”
“How?”
“If you’re strong enough, you can threaten it,” Kozabokget said. She laughed upon seeing Ramon’s dubious expression. “You can also bribe it. Offer the light some mana, and it’ll be more likely to listen to you.”
“You can bribe light?”
“As long as you know what something wants, you can bribe anything,” Kozabokget said. “Luckily, most things want mana.” A sigh escaped from the goat’s mouth. “Unfortunately, I don’t have that much mana to give, so things only listen to me when I ask nicely. Sometimes I have to broker deals between multiple things. For example, when I wanted the air to do something once, it asked me to move the earth for the air to have more space. I had to give the earth a massage to get it to move. Usually, I interact with three to four different things to get one favor.”
Ramon scratched his chin, looking much like Grimmy as he did so. “How do I give the light mana?”
“Heal the empty space and let your mana disperse.”
Ramon followed Kozabokget’s instructions, and the screen of light reappeared. This time, it showed the image of a man and a woman wandering around. They didn’t seem to have any goal in mind.
“What are they doing?” Ramon asked. He looked at Kozabokget. “Can I give the mana to the air to ask it to transmit the sound?”
“Try it,” Kozabokget said.
Ramon’s eyes shone silver, and a white light appeared and disappeared in the space in front of him.
“Damn. Are we sure dragons live here? Are we sure anything lives here?”
“Shut up. Why do you always complain so much? Just do your job.”
Ramon tilted his head. “Those people are looking for dragons?”