30 Not Human?

Greyson continued his schedule for another month before he felt a breaking point. Nothing actually appeared different, however, he could feel the egg within him shake. This particular night, Greyson's eyes lit up feeling the difference. He continued to meditate and allowed the mana to run through his body. The shaking sped up and became more frequent.

*Crack*

Greyson's ears perked up as he looked within at the egg and saw the first signs of it cracking. Forgetting the time, Greyson continued meditating. Time flew by in an instant as he sat in the same position while letting the mana be sucked in. Greyson was not aware, however, his transformation was causing a huge commotion. He had not stepped out of the room for three days and each day the suction of mana into his room was becoming stronger and stronger. The seven Head Teachers had already arrived and were blocking off the area so no one could disturb his breakthrough. They were just as confused as the students, though, as such a situation had never occurred before. Assuming it had to do with his elements, they continued standing guard waiting for the event to end.

Inside the room, Greyson had no feel for time and just allowed the process to continue. Crack by crack, the egg slowly opened within him.

*BANG!*

The fifth day of meditation, the mana amount had finally reached the correct amount and the beast within the egg exploded outside.

"Young boy, hear and remember my name, Zephyr." A deep and powerful voice echoed within his mind. All the mana he had stored within him was suddenly sucked away by this same beast. Panicking, he tried to receive the mana back but this action continued until he was sucked dry. What was going on? Was the last thought in his head until he passed out.

...

"Hey, it's been another 2 days. Is he okay?" A concerned voice rang out.

"He should be fine?" An unsure voice answered.

"Should we just barge in? The mana movement has already stopped. Doesn't that mean he is done?" Another voice questioned.

Hearing the noise brought Greyson slowly back to reality. Groaning, he squinted his eyes against the light. What had happened? Did he succeed? Looking around, he realized he was still within the same meditation room. Thinking back to his last moment of consciousness, he suddenly looked inside him to see the egg was no longer present. In its stead was a beautiful silver dragon. The dragon was sleeping curled up, so instead of a majestic look, it had more of a lazy and cute look. As he looked at the beast, he felt elated. Feeling his mana, he also realized that his body's mana channels were thriving with much more mana than before. He felt unprecedentedly full and powerful. Clenching his fist, he felt his magic power. Intermediate level! He had broken through. Grinning ear to ear, he felt really proud of himself. He had only just turned six! Without telling anyone, even Lyle, he had quietly passed his birthday. He wasn't a huge fan of making a big deal about it since it only reminded him of the day he was abandoned.

That's right, my beast! He looked within himself at the silver dragon resting. Since Greyson was still only at the Intermediate level, the dragon looked more like a thin lizard with wings. However, it's shape was definitely a dragon. Reading up on partner beasts when he was still looking forward to his own, he knew that dragon partner beasts were the rarest and normally humans who had dragon partner beasts were related to the real dragon race. Greyson felt confused about this point. He wasn't aware of any connection to the dragon race... Maybe his parents?

He scoffed then shook his head. What would it matter anyways? It's not like he could go and ask his parents anyways. Putting those confusing thoughts to the back of his mind, he excitedly tried to summon his partner. He closed his eyes and stretched out his palm and tried calling out to the dragon within him. Soon feeling heat on his hand, Greyson opened his eyes to look at the creature in front of him. It was still spirit looking and not solid since he still had to grow stronger. But its drowsy eyes slowly blinked open and looked into Greyson's. The eyes were a beautiful purple that matched its silver scales. Greyson felt they radiated a royalty and arrogance. This feeling was only for a second, though, before the dragon suddenly sneezed letting out a breath of fire. Seemingly shocked by the power behind its sneeze, the dragon stumbled back clumsily and fell off the Greyson's hand onto the floor. Looking out of sorts, the dragon sat down trying to orient itself.

Watching his partner look around in confusion made Greyson start to giggle. He was definitely a cute little guy. It was still a baby.

"Hello, Zephyr." Greyson smiled and picked the dragon up again while stroking him. He didn't know why his beast came with a name, however, he though it was fitting so he kept it anyway. The dragon rubbed its small face lovingly against his palm before falling back asleep. The spirit then floated back inside Greyson disappearing.

Once the spirit was gone, Greyson felt half of his mana drain. What?! Zephyr had only been out for about 5 minutes, how could he already be drained so much? Lyle could summon Kallix for two hours yet looking at today he could only summon Zephyr for 10 minutes!

Stuck in his confusion, he didn't realize the voices still speaking outside the room.

"I can't wait anymore! I'm going in!" A booming voice shouted. With a loud crash, the meditation room door was kicked down. Greyson snapped out of his thoughts at the noise and looked over to see the worried faces of Lyle and his seven teachers. They all stared at him in shock. At first, Greyson thought it was shock over his breakthrough because an intermediate level 6 year old was rare and he knew that. But soon he realized their looks of confusion indicated more than that.

"What is there something on my face?" He asked half-jokingly. However, the response was so serious that he couldn't help but be surprised.

"Wait, is there really something the matter with my face?" He quickly summoned a water mirror in front of his face to look. He was shocked by what he saw. His once plain white hair was now platinum silver and had grown down to his waist. His eyes were a wondrous mix of colors that looked to be constantly changing. On the right side of his face was a silver dragon tattoo that traced traced from the top right corner of his forehead to the right edge of his chin. It was not detrimental to his looks and instead made him look even more enchanting. What is with his features? What's going on? Greyson felt he couldn't take much more shock today and his head started to ache with questions.

Greyson looked over to see the conflicted look on Head Teacher Elendil's face.

"Teacher Elendil, what is going on?"

"Greyson, did you break through to the Intermediate level?" Elendil didn't answer immediately and instead asked a different question. Although confused by the sudden question, Greyson still nodded accordingly.

"What is your beast?" He continued.

"A silver dragon."

"A dragon?" His eyes revealed shock. "Can you show me?"

Greyson nodded and placed out his hand. Zephyr soon reappeared in the room. Teacher Elendil and the rest all exchanged looks after confirming his beast.

"Alright, that's okay, thank you." Greyson nodded and received Zephyr again.

"Teachers, what is happening to me?" Greyson asked feeling sincerely distressed by these sudden changes.

"Greyson, we haven't been completely honest with you..." This time it was Teacher Vivienne who spoke up.

"What is it?"

"Your eyes changing color like that, we had all knew from the beginning that meant that you were not completely human. We didn't want to confuse you since you have always considered yourself human and other than your eyes, you have always seemed human. However, looking at your beast and your hair. We believe we can make some conjectures about your parents. They were definitely special if they could pass down these kinds of traits to their child. One of them must have been at related to dragons while the other must have been at related to the elves. Only humans with a partial dragon bloodline in them can have a dragon partner beast and, even in that small group of people, dragon partner beasts are still rare. In a way, you are very lucky. Also, silver hair like yours is THE feature of elves, no other race has hair that color. I can't say who your parents were but they were obviously not completely human."

Not human? Greyson felt lost hearing these statements. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel. Did it change anything? It did in a way because the human race had mostly hostile relations with the other races except the Dwarf race and even that relationship was precarious. He was always taught by Sister Lily to love every living being, so he did not really have negative thoughts towards the other races, it was just hard to suddenly accept that he was a mixed-breed. The news was rather disconcerting because he knew that there was a lot of discrimination towards mixed-breeds because no matter which race they went to, they were not accepted. All the races felt they were superior to the other, so they saw interbreeding as an insult to their race. The products of these relationships were like thorns in their sides that they wished disappeared. Thinking of the treatment he saw some mixed breeds get in the slave market and on his travels, Greyson suddenly felt he should have spoken up for them.

Yeah, that's right, spoken up for them. What was wrong with being mixed? He got the superior parts of all the races, so he did not see where he was any worse than anyone else. Why did he have to suffer for his parents' decision? Hardening his opinion, Greyson no longer felt upset by the news. He was mixed? So what? It did not change anything, plus he didn't believe that Sister Lily would judge him for this and as long as she was okay with it then no one else mattered. Thinking of Sister Lily had him smiling warmly again and pushed the other thoughts away.

The teachers were watching Greyson closely to check his reaction. Seeing him suddenly smile had them shocked, Lyle was surprised as well. Although he showed some shallow smiles politely, they all had never seen him smile so warmly and happily before. Similar to Elendil and Lyle, he was rather stone-faced. The three of them were eerily similar in their silence and apathy.

Lucius jumped onto his shoulder while mentally saying, "I rather like this new you. Much better-looking than those ugly and boring humans, eh?"

Hearing his encouragement, Greyson felt thankful to have a friend like him. Just as he was having these thoughts, the rest of the people in the room spoke up.

"Hey, Grey Grey, don't be too shocked. It's no big deal. If anyone bullies you, just let older sister know. I'll scold them." Leilena spoke out while patting her chest and showing her most reliable looking pose.

"Hmph, if they dare to make a move on my student I'll take care of them." Vivienne coldly spoke.

"Yeah, we'll bash 'em real good! Hahaha!" Keenan laughed.

"My cute student, if you give your precious teacher a hug, I would do anything for you." Edwin spoke out as well.

"Hmmm... well if you are ever hurt by people, I can heal all sorts of injuries." Nicholas smiled warmly.

"Are you cursing him to actually get injured, Nicholas?" Gaius snorted.

"What is everyone making a fuss about? I don't see anything different." Elendil spoke out coldly. Hearing his final words, the teachers all paused before laughing.

"Hey, Grey, aren't you hungry? You know you were meditating for seven days now." Lyle spoke out as if he hadn't heard all the earlier information.

Seeing all the warm faces, Greyson actually cried. In his six years of life, the only time he had probably cried was when he was born. But his new friends and teachers really touched him. He suddenly felt like coming to the Academy was his best decision yet.