***
The next day.
Byrone City.
Aiden kept his promise to the old man. He arrived at the city library that afternoon and found no sign of him. The person who met him was none other than a female librarian named Adel.
"Welcome. Can I help you?" asked Adel.
"I'm looking for the old man who keeps this place. Can I see him?" asked Aiden.
Adel squinted, watching Aiden's facial expression. The woman knew who the old man was, he was the owner of this library and not many people could meet him, not even the mayor.
Before Adel could say anything, the old man stepped down from the second floor stairs. He came with a long white suit of clothes, his hand seemed to be holding a white magic wand.
"Oh, it's you," the old man said, stepping closer to Aiden until it was enough to confuse Adel.
'How does he know about Master Sylas?' asked Adel, staring ahead at Aiden.
Aiden took out a black pouch from his bag, handing over the four materials needed by Sylas. Seeing the four types of materials Aiden had managed to obtain made Sylas happy, while Adel was in shock.
"That material... doesn't it grow in the fog hills?" Adel asked.
"It does and this young man was able to get it for me," Sylas replied, pointing ahead at Aiden.
"Bring the basic magic book and the 1st level fire magic tome here," Sylas ordered Adel, and Adel nodded in agreement.
While waiting for Adel, Sylas asked many questions about Aiden's difficulty in finding the materials he needed.
Aiden told Sylas several things, including how useful the herb compass Sylas had given him was.
Since Aiden liked it, Sylas decided to leave the compass to Aiden, even if Aiden didn't become an alchemist in the future.
"Thank you, Mr. Sylas," Aiden said, and Sylas nodded happily.
Not long after, Adel arrived carrying two books stacked in her right hand. He handed them to Aiden, who gladly accepted them.
He opened a few pages and saw a method for the absorption of magic energy. Aiden was really looking forward to practicing the method written in the book.
"For a mage like you, a 1st level magic spell is enough. Don't look too much into magic, don't be provoked, don't be easily affected," Sylas said.
"Learn it in two weeks, then show me the results of your training. If your training is good enough, I'll train you directly," Sylas said.
Aiden smiled, wondering what kind of luck had befallen him to get the chance to learn from Mr. Sylas.
With great enthusiasm, Aiden said that he would train hard so that Mr. Sylas would train him directly. Sylas revealed that he was waiting for the results of Aiden's training.
He had already gotten the two books he wanted, but he needed other information regarding the mysterious ice-blue egg.
Adel sees Aiden walk in between the bookshelves in this place. Sylas returned to his study carrying the four types of herbs he had obtained.
"Do you need anything?" Adel asked.
"Yes! I need a book that explains the types of beasts in this world. It might help me a lot later," Aiden replied, his eyes focused on the title of the book on the spine.
Adel heard Aiden's words. She joined him in searching for the book he was looking for until she finally found it, titled Legends of the Beasts of the Valthoria Continent.
The 400-page book was more than enough to explain about the beasts that had appeared on the Valthoria continent, but not on the planet Gaia.
To summarize all the beasts that live on the planet Gaia, a 400-page book is not enough. Still, that book was probably enough for Aiden because his search was more specific.
'The beasts with eggs are probably beasts with water or ice attributes, or they're used to living in areas with low temperatures,' Aiden said.
Not bringing the book home, Aiden chose to read it at the library. He opened it sheet by sheet, looking for possible beasts that could be the owners of the mysterious blue egg.
Adel saw Aiden flipping through the pages quickly, she guessed that he was looking for something. However, she didn't know what Aiden was looking for.
Until Aiden arrived at the legends and myths section. There, he saw a sketch of a huge dragon that was said to be the ruler of the Mythrandis Continent, the home of myths all over the world.
There were three types of dragons listed in the book, such as the Rain Dragon, the Fire Mountain Dragon, and the Ice Dragon. But Aiden couldn't find any descriptions of the eggs of the three dragons.
'Is it possible that the egg belongs to a descendant of the Ice Dragon?'
'It's possible, not only are the attributes the same, but the locations of the two continents are also close together,' Aiden said.
Despite his own conclusions, Aiden had to be wary if the ice egg really belonged to a descendant of the Ice Dragon.
He had never seen or even interacted directly with the dragon race before. Aiden also had no idea what their characteristics were like.
"Is there anything I can help you with?" asked Adel from behind Aiden, startling the young man.
Aiden turned his head and closed the book he was reading, making Adel curious. The woman was very curious about what Aiden was looking for.
"Perhaps I can help you with the beast you're looking for," Adel replied.
'I can't possibly tell her that I have an ice dragon egg, especially since ice dragons are legendary beasts.The whole city could be in chaos if I told them,' Aiden said.
"Nothing." Aiden got up and walked over to the bookshelf, putting the book he'd finished reading away as he said goodbye to Adel.
Adel didn't ask Aiden to leave, but perhaps the young man had already found the information he wanted.
"What exactly is he looking for?" Adel asked.
Elsewhere, Aiden hurriedly left the city library to return to his home. Leonora was the only one in the house, as Jack was away delivering wood and vegetable customers.
"You're home early, Aiden," Leonora said.
"I need to study these two books thoughtfully. For tonight, can you leave me alone?" asked Aiden, looking at Leonora.
"Sure. I'll prepare dinner, you can go to the kitchen if you feel hungry, Aiden."
"Thank you."
Aiden opened the door to the room and entered while locking it. Now, he was the only one in the place, accompanied by the ice-blue egg he guessed belonged to the Ice Dragon.
"I'd better return that ice-blue egg before it's too late. It will be very dangerous for me if the egg hatches before I return it too late," Aiden replied.
He opened the window and saw that the city sky was still bright with sunlight; it wasn't yet nightfall.
Some people occasionally crossed the area near Fog Hill during the day, making it dangerous for Aiden to be spotted by them.
Aiden would have to wait until night so he could return to the hill and put the egg back.
While waiting, Aiden opened a basic magic book and studied it from the first. In short, he learned that natural energy was an abstract energy that was unstable, becoming stable once it was fully absorbed by the body.
"The amount of natural energy is infinite, always produced by other living things besides humans," Aiden replied.
"The more living things live in one place, the more abundant the amount of natural energy," Aiden said.
"That's why the amount of natural energy in a desert is much less than in a forest," Aiden explained.
Not only did Aiden get information about natural energy and its amount, he also got a method to absorb natural energy and process it inside his body into magic energy.
Out of curiosity, Aiden tried the method. He sat cross-legged while keeping his breathing steady, meditation style.
Since Aiden's body didn't have any seals, the absorption of natural energy could go smoothly even though it wasn't in large amounts.
The more he practiced absorbing energy and processed it, the more Aiden would be able to absorb more natural energy from now on.
Light of various colors flowed into Aiden's body. The first thing Aiden felt was a comfortable, fresh, and pleasant feeling in his body.
'If humans could do this, they would definitely spend a lot of time doing this meditation,' Aiden said.
Aiden closed his eyes, further relaxing his body. Slowly, he began to understand the workings of the nature energy absorption method.
Surprisingly, some of the natural energy was accidentally absorbed by the mysterious ice egg. That made the hatching of the egg much faster than expected.
CRACK!
Aiden heard a mysterious sound in his room. When he peeked out, he saw a crack appear on the egg's wall. This shocked Aiden.
"What? It's going to hatch!" Aiden was shocked.
Just before Aiden touched the egg, the crack grew larger and caused magical energy to rush through the room, pushing Aiden's body backward against the door.
Leonora heard the ruckus. However, she didn't dare to disturb Aiden due to Aiden's earlier message to her.
"Aiden? Are you okay?" Leonora asked.
Aiden paused, feeling his back ache from the doorknob. He raised his head and saw that the beast emerging from the egg was an Ice Dragon, true to the legend.
What it saw first, it was its parents. That was the exact expression for this situation. The Ice Dragon saw Aiden first, so it regarded Aiden as its parent.
With just a dragon's roar, the dragon walked over to Aiden and slept right next to the young man. Aiden was really unlucky, he didn't know what to do this time.
"Does it consider me as its parent? How am I supposed to raise a dragon? Especially when this one is an ice dragon."