Chapter 115: True Form

The next morning, after finally getting rid of the embarrassment from the training ground, Neo changed into fresh clothes and walked down to the dining hall, where the whole family had already gathered around the long table for breakfast.

The table was filled with warm bread, freshly cooked eggs, roasted vegetables, and a large bowl of fruit placed at the centre. Cassian sat at the head of the table reading a stack of reports while chewing on a piece of bread, and Sylvia sat beside him, pouring tea into the cups with a gentle smile on her face as soon as she saw Neo entering the hall.

"Good morning, Neo. Come and sit down. You must be hungry after training so early in the morning."

"Good morning, Mother, Father."

Neo took his seat and noticed that Nora was already sitting across from him, calmly eating her breakfast with a perfectly blank expression, as if she was not the same girl who had demanded his shirt only a few hours ago. Neo hurriedly looked away and focused on the plate in front of him, but he could still feel her gaze brushing against him from time to time, which made it difficult for him to swallow his food properly.

’Don’t think about it, Neo. If you don’t react, then she will also forget about it.’

Cassian lowered his reports for a moment and looked at his son with a faint smile. "I heard from the knights that you have been training since morning. It seems that you have not lost your passion even after staying away for months. That makes me relieved."

"I couldn’t just waste time while I was away, Father. I wanted to become stronger, so I tried different methods whenever I got the chance."

"Good. After breakfast, you can show me how much you have improved. I will test it myself."

Neo smiled awkwardly and nodded, while Sylvia lightly scolded her husband for talking about training at the table, as if he had not been doing the same thing for years.

In the middle of the meal, a small figure came running into the dining hall, and Evelyn jumped onto the empty chair beside Neo with her black hair messy from running around the mansion, her bright blue eyes shining with excitement.

"Brother! Brother! Did you meet Yuki yet?"

Neo blinked at her sudden question. "Not yet. I came straight here for breakfast after training. Why, did something happen to her?"

Evelyn shook her head with a very serious expression, as if she were about to reveal a great secret. "Nothing happened, but Yuki has grown so much while you were gone! She is so big now, Brother, you won’t believe it!"

"Grown? Eve, it has only been ten months. How much could a dragon possibly change in ten months?"

Neo scratched his cheek in confusion, because the last time he had seen Yuki, she was roughly the size of a large dog, and he had already thought that she had grown slowly compared to what he had read in books about dragons. For a Frostwyrm, which was supposed to reach the size of a small hill after a few years, Yuki had barely grown beyond a pet that could sit in someone’s lap, and he honestly couldn’t imagine what kind of change could have happened in only ten months.

"You will understand when you see her, Brother! Go and see her after breakfast, okay? Promise me!"

"Alright, alright, I promise. Now finish your food first, or Mother will scold you again."

Evelyn nodded happily and began to stuff her mouth with bread, while Neo glanced at Nora, who was quietly sipping her tea. Her eyes met his for a brief moment, and he thought he saw something unreadable flicker in them, as if she knew something that he didn’t, but she lowered her gaze before he could think about it any further.

After finishing his breakfast, and after Cassian reminded him once again about the test he would have later in the day, Neo excused himself from the table and walked out of the dining hall, heading straight towards the garden at the back of the mansion, where Yuki usually stayed during the day.

The garden was exactly as he remembered it, filled with vibrant flowers and neatly trimmed hedges. A soft breeze was blowing through the leaves, and the sunlight spilled warmly over the grass, but Neo couldn’t see Yuki anywhere at first.

"Yuki? Where are you hiding?"

He walked further inside, calling her name softly, and just when he was about to turn around and check the other side of the garden, a small blur of white and blue shot out from behind a bush and slammed straight into his chest.

"Kyu!"

"Oof!"

Neo staggered a step back, barely managing to catch the small creature in his arms. Yuki’s tiny claws were holding tightly onto his clothes, her tail wrapped around his arm, and her bright blue eyes were looking up at him as if she was afraid that he might disappear again if she let go for even a second.

He couldn’t help but smile as he felt a warmth spreading across his chest, and he gently stroked her smooth, pale-white scales with his fingers, feeling the faint chill of frost against his palm.

"I’m back, Yuki. Sorry for leaving you alone for so long."

Yuki rubbed her small head against his hand, making a soft, happy sound in her throat. After a few moments, she pulled back a little, as though she had suddenly realised that she was behaving too clingy, and tilted her head at him with a proud expression, fluffing out the feather-like structures on her shoulders.

Neo chuckled and scratched under her chin, where the crystal horn sat glowing faintly. "You haven’t changed at all, have you? Eve said that you have grown so much, but you still look like the same little dragon to me."

Yuki blinked at him slowly, and for a moment, Neo felt as though she had just smiled at him, in a way which was far too smug for such a tiny creature.

’What is that look for? Is she hiding something from me too?’

He didn’t think too deeply about it, and instead carried her in his arms as he walked out of the garden, heading towards the special training field of the mansion, where there would be enough space and nobody would disturb them. The knights standing guard at the door bowed to him as he passed, and Neo pushed open the grand door and stepped inside.

The training ground was empty at this hour, the broken dummies from the morning already cleared away, leaving only the wide open field and the quiet air. Neo walked to the centre of the field and gently placed Yuki on the ground, then took a few steps back and crossed his arms with a curious smile.

"Alright, Yuki. Eve told me that you have grown a lot, but I can’t see anything with my own eyes. So why don’t you show me how much you have actually grown?"

Yuki stared at him for a moment, tilting her head to the side as if she was checking whether he was serious. When Neo nodded at her with encouragement, her bright blue eyes narrowed slightly, and she took a step back, spreading her small wings.

Then, a faint blue glow began to rise from her body.

It started from the crystalline scales along her back, spreading slowly to her limbs and her tail, until her whole body was wrapped in a bright light, so intense that Neo had to raise his hand to shield his eyes. The temperature of the training ground dropped suddenly, a thin layer of frost forming over the floor beneath his feet, and a cold wind began to swirl around the field, carrying tiny snowflakes that glittered in the air.

’What is this pressure...?’

The light kept expanding, the silhouette inside it stretching larger and larger, until it was no longer the shape of a small creature that could fit in his arms. Neo lowered his hand slowly, and when the light finally dimmed, his breath caught in his throat.

In front of him stood a dragon, the size of a small house, its body covered in pale-white scales that shone with a silvery light, and deep blue crystalline plates running along its back and long tail like frozen starlight. Its wings, which had once been tiny feathery structures, were now spread wide, covered in icy plumes that shimmered with every movement, while the crystal horn on its forehead had grown longer and sharper, glowing with a cold, brilliant light. The snowflake-shaped markings across its head were clearer than ever, and its eyes, bright and blue like sunlight passing through clear ice, were looking down at him with calm dignity.

It was no longer a cute little dragon who liked to curl up in someone’s lap. It was a true Frostwyrm, a being that had been feared in the old stories as a calamity of the northern lands.

A pressure descended over the training ground, a pure and sharp aura that made the hairs on his arms stand on end, and it pressed against his chest as if the whole world had gone silent in the presence of something far greater. Neo should have felt afraid, yet instead, a strange sense of excitement surged through his veins, making his heart beat faster, as his blood seemed to respond to the roar of a creature that shared his path.

"Amazing..."

He could only whisper that single word, his eyes wide open as he took in the sight in front of him. Even so, he knew that this form was still far from what an adult Frostwyrm should look like. The size of the dragon in front of him was only a fraction of the monsters described in the ancient records, which were said to be as large as that from which even a mountain will feel small, and the aura, though overwhelming, still carried an immaturity which showed that she was young and still growing.

Yuki lowered her large head slowly until her eyes were level with his, and then she nudged her snout lightly against his chest, as gently as she had done in her smaller form, making a soft, deep sound that echoed through the field.

"Kyuu..."

Neo raised his hand and placed it on her cold, smooth snout, feeling the faint vibration of her breath against his palm, and a realisation suddenly struck him like a bolt of lightning.

’So that’s it... The reason why she had grown so slowly for the past eight years, the reason why she never looked like the Frostwyrm I read about in the books, it was never because she was weak or because something was wrong with her.’

He looked into her calm blue eyes, and he could see the intelligence shining behind them, the same intelligence which he had always felt but had never truly understood.

’She was deliberately hiding her true form all this time. She chose to stay small, to stay in my arms, to stay beside Eve and Nora, because that was the way she wanted to live.’

A warm feeling spread through his chest, and Neo couldn’t help but laugh softly as he stroked her snout again, shaking his head with a mixture of amazement and affection.

"You really are a sly one, aren’t you, Yuki? Even I couldn’t see through you for eight years..."

Yuki let out a low rumble that sounded very much like laughter, and a few snowflakes drifted down from her wings, settling on Neo’s silver hair like a gentle blessing, as the two of them stood together in the quiet training ground, bound by something far deeper than the words of a master and a pet.9