98 Rosalie's Friends

After parting ways with Cerul, Greyson went back to his room. Rosalie did not walk back with him and instead went to her own room seemingly inspired to start practicing now that her friends were back. Cerul said that the rest of the group were all going to meet up with each other the next morning. They would probably get back to the mountain tonight but would have to report to their families and leaders before resting after the long journey. Greyson looked forward to meeting all these new people. He thought about maybe sparring with them as well even if they were a lot more powerful than him. He wanted a challenge. Although he still could not beat Rosalie, it would be good to experience different sorts of fighters so that he can build a more versatile style for himself. Meditating for the rest of the night, Greyson only awoke after a faint knocking on the door sounded. Opening his eyes and looking towards the doorway, he was surprised seeing a new face. Almost every single day it was his sister who got him from his room, but today it was a blue-haired, blue-eyed young girl. From her features, Greyson could easily infer that she was from the water dragon tribe. Her features were not particularly striking; however, they had a feminine softness making her look like a vulnerable small creature.

Furrowing his brows in confusion, Greyson finally asked, "Who are you?"

"Ah, hello, I am Lariah of the Water Dragon Tribe. I just wanted to introduce myself. I, uhm, really admire you for your bravery. I have been watching your fights and think that you are really amazing!" Slightly blushing, she politely curtsied before introducing herself. Normally, all the other male dragons would have felt seduced by such a cute and shy act but it seemed to go right over Greyson's head.

"So?" Still not understanding what this had to do with him, Greyson did not soften.

"So... I-... Nothing, I guess I just wanted to let you know of my existence..." Biting her lip with tears springing to her eyes, Lariah tried her best to stutter her way through an unexpected reaction with a wronged expression.

"Oh, well, okay. Lariah, right? I will remember." A little stunned at why this girl would suddenly start crying for no reason, Greyson decided to answer nicely.

"Hmph, Grey, there is no need to waste your time remembering nobodies. This fox is especially someone not worth your time." A cold voice suddenly cut through from behind Lariah. Greyson's eyebrows rose in surprise, recognizing Rosalie's voice. Lariah's expression paled as she bit her lip harder.

"...?"

"You might not know, but this little Water Dragon may look young and weak but she is a wild temptress. Many of the different tribes have been her victims, nowadays, all men steer clear of her and all women sneer at her." Rosalie walked in while slowly enunciating each word. "Oh, actually, if I remember correctly, the only person who interacts with you these days is that Young Lord of the Dragon King tribe." Spitting out the last words in disgust, Greyson started to understand what was happening before turning his cold purple eyes to glare at Lariah. Still looking the part of a shivering scared young girl, Lariah's face lost all color at Rosalie's words.

"Don't ma-malign me! I'm not like that!" Fighting weakly back, she ran over to Greyson to grip onto his arm. "Greyson, you have to believe me! Rosalie is just trying to keep other people of the tribe away from you. I just want to be your friend, I have no other intentions." Pouting unhappily with tears spilling out of her wide doe eyes, she was the picture of a girl suffering injustice. Only, she obviously tried this act on the wrong person. Almost shivering in disgust, Greyson pushed off her grip from his clothes. Using his magic, he washed off the piece that was touched. Walking over to Rosalie, he did not look over once at the crying Lariah.

"I dislike strangers touching me." His unfeeling voice spoke out. "Please leave this room. You are distracting me from my training. I hope that you do not interrupt me again. To answer your request, I do not think we can be friends."

Hearing his words, Lariah did not respond as she was still in shock from being pushed off like some dirty beggar. Her crying stopped as her expression was blank. Finally, she reared her head towards the two at the doorway with an ugly expression on her face.

"Well, looks like you do not know what's good for you! Messing with the Lord's women, I was trying to give you an easy way out if you just came to me." Getting angry out of humiliation, her facade finally faded away. Greyson and Rosalie just looked at each other before letting out a laugh.

"Hm, seems the farce is over? Be a good dog and go back to your owner and tell him that he is going to have to come back with higher quality women if he wants to seduce my Greyson. He has to make sure that he takes a good look at who would be the rival, obviously not just any random person can match up to me." Rosalie linked arms with Greyson before leaning her head on his shoulder possessively. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Greyson decided to just stay still and allow her to use him. She was his sister after all, he could help her with this much. Lariah looked back and forth between the two of them before suddenly feeling like she was just a clown jumping up and down forcing a show. Blushing further, Lariah looked as she just swallowed a fly. Not knowing what to say, she just got up off the floor and pushed past the two of them in a huff.

"Really, if that man wants to set a honey trap, he first has to make sure the woman is up to par. Such an intelligence level is just asking for it to fail. My little brother is so great, of course he would have high standards in women." Rosalie's cold expression did not change as she scoffed at the leaving Lariah. "Grey, don't just talk to any woman. Who knows what their goal would be?" Turning her vision towards her brother, Rosalie decided to concisely lecture him. Rolling his eyes, Greyson suddenly felt that his sister might be too protective. He could deal with these things himself.

"Alright, alright, I know, sister. I will be careful. Plus, just because I said I would remember her name did not mean I actually wanted to be close to her. It's just that minute she said her name, of course I would remember it, not that I would put any extra effort or something. My memory is good." Shrugging, Greyson did not see the big deal about earlier. There was no need to be so hostile, but he thought he should back up his sister and show a united front towards others.

"That's just because you haven't ever met that disgusting man. Who know what his plans were by having that woman approach you? Stay on your toes. As much as I abhor him, he really is powerful and his servants are all cunning." Rosalie's expression turned serious as she warned him.

"That Young Lord of the Dragon King tribe? The Light Dragons? Why did she say you were his woman anyways?"

Rosalie's expression quickly darkened. "Irumen. The current son of the Dragon King. He wants me to be his woman and thinks that just because he says that, he has laid some sort of claim on me. Delusional as he may be, I really cannot do much against him and neither can grandfather or grandmother."

Greyson also grew silent.

"Well, no matter, we will deal with it when it comes. He has not acted on anything yet so I have just tossed it to the back of my mind most of the time along with the rest of those nonsense suitors." Trying to lighten the atmosphere, Rosalie decided to divert the subject. "Hey, I was coming to get you, so you could meet my friends. Follow me! I'll take you to see them. They're all really quirky but have kind hearts."

Deciding it was best not to mention anything at this moment, Greyson let Rosalie change the subject and pull him along down the mountain.

...

As the brother and sister pair got closer and closer to their destination, Greyson began to spot a group of six that was laughing and chatting loudly in the midst of a quiet circle garden. Glancing over each person, he realized there were five different type of dragons in the group. There were three males and two females. One female Dark Dragon, one female Earth Dragon, two male Fire Dragons, Cerul, and one male whom he could not tell. His hair was dark grey almost as if he were an old man, however, his features were still young and in his prime. All of them were mostly good looking except for this mysterious male whom Greyson felt had extremely ordinary features, almost to an easily forgettable extent. As if even though he just saw his face, he would forget it the next second. His interest piqued, him and Rosalie quickly made their way over as Greyson was able to catch the tail end of their conversation in secret.

"A younger brother?"

"Oh, that means she found one! Which one is it? An older or younger brother?"

Both the Fire Dragons asked enthusiastically. Greyson could tell now that they were actually related, and looked identical to one another.

"Younger brother." Cerul gave his signature lopsided smile before answering.

"How is this younger brother? What do you think of him?"

"Just as beautiful as his older sister! You guys should look forward to meeting such eye candy, especially when him and Rosie are standing together. It just automatically multiplies the beauty in the area. He could be her little sister instead of her little brother!"

The arriving Greyson had three black lines form on his forehead. Was this a compliment or an insult?! Not pleased by the words he purposefully snorted loudly signaling his arrival. The rest of the group held in their laughter as they had seen Greyson coming but Cerul's back was facing Greyson so he did not realize. Cerul paused before turning around.

"Oh, Grey~ Looking great today as well, you handsome devil!" Quickly bounding up from the ground, it looked as if Cerul wanted to grab Greyson into a hug. However, before he could get close, a hard foot slammed his face back and sent him flying.

"My goddess, Rosalie, what did I say about hitting my face!" A distressed cry rang out from Cerul as he got back up.

"Well, what did I say about the 10 feet radius?" Rosalie fired back. It was at this moment that the rest of the group finally burst out into laughter. Their eyes filled with familiar amusement. Rosalie smiled towards them ignoring Cerul and dragged Greyson over to introduce all of them.

"This is my younger brother, Greyson. Greyson, these are my friends. The twin Fire Dragons, Ferno and Fervis, the Dark Dragon is Hayze, the Earth Dragon is Sloan, and lastly the Time Dragon is Aeos." Hearing the last introduction, Greyson glanced over to the earlier mysterious looking man. A Time Dragon? Although he had heard of the existence of people who could control the time element like the space element, it was much rarer and extremely difficult. Until they reached higher levels, it was apparently one of the most useless elements. They could only minutely effect time before they become powerful. A lot of them turn to divining the future. Since they are in tune with time, they can sometimes have a picture of what is to come. However, it is not super reliable as things can change all the time. Thus, their reputation for being useless. Elder Sweetbow had told him that once a time element magician reached the Great Magister level, he could start to control time with much better mastery and became a much more difficult opponent than before. They could start to slow time for others and speed it up for themselves or vice versa. Some could even reverse time back 1 minute at a crucial moment. These types of spells obviously took up a lot of mana, but in a battle, they could be deadly with just one move not needing one more.

Understanding Greyson's curiosity, Rosalie decided to educate him some more.

"Time Dragons are a rather rare tribe in the Dragon Mountains. They do not reproduce as well and thus their numbers were dwindling. However, their leader is one of the most powerful and mysterious Ancestor of the different Dragon tribes. His control of time is feared by many, he can even predict the future with fairly high accuracy. They are not as talented as the Destiny Cats in this aspect, but they are much easier to find so a lot of different tribes try to enlist the Time Dragons' help." Hearing of the Destiny Cats, Greyson was no longer too interested with the Time Dragon in front of him.

"Destiny Cats?" He decided to play dumb. Although he felt he could tell his sister about Lucius, he did not know her friends well enough.

"Oh, it would make sense if you have not heard of them. Barely anyone in the Beast Empire knows about them, too. They hide away in a different part of space most of the time without leaving until they have a certain amount of power. Their special abilities are extremely coveted by other races and even other magic beasts. They're an extremely reclusive tribe that almost never shows themselves to avoid inviting any trouble to themselves. They can divine future, bless their owners with good fortune, they even have an ability that lets them directly bring someone to a site of treasures." Rosalie did not seem to interested, but she knew how much other people always wished to catch a young Destiny Cat. Hidden away in Greyson's eyes was a trace of unease, but there was nothing he could do now since he was not able to locate Lucius.

Seeing that Rosalie was done speaking, the rest of the group all chimed in with their greetings.

"Hello, Greyson! It's nice to meet you!" In unison, the two twin brothers shouted their hellos while ruffling Greyson's hair. Pouting slightly, Greyson straightened his hair before saying hello back. Hayze did not say anything but just nodded with a small smile on her face. Greyson nodded back with a similar smile. Sloan and Aeos both gave him warm smiles before also welcoming Greyson.

"Well, Cerul was not lying when he said that you were a good-looking one like Rosalie." Sloan mentioned with a wink. Although she was also pretty in her own right, Sloan was almost as tall as most guys with lean muscles showing her power. She held herself with strength and charisma that was more heroic. She did not have the same reticent attitude of Hayze or a cold beauty like Rosalie, but stood out with her own individuality.

"I will take that as a compliment." Greyson mouth twitched into a smile as he looked over to the still sulking Cerul who was touching his face in pain. Looking at the large round bruise around his left eye that was swelling badly, Greyson couldn't help but chuckle at Cerul's new face. Sensing Greyson's amusement, the rest of the group looked over before laughing out with mocking laughter. Cerul just pouted at all of them but did not say anything before sighing. Suddenly, he disappeared from his spot. Before anyone could react, he picked up Greyson and gave him a tight hug. Everything happened so quickly that even Greyson was not able to react before he was already let down.

"I should at least have actually gotten a hug to be punished so, or else it is just too unfair to my handsome face."

Everyone just shook their heads while Rosalie glared at him in anger and looked to hit him again. Watching the two of them go at each other, the rest just laughed and began chatting happily. Greyson joined the rest of the group and started getting to know all of them better. Honestly, he was not that disgruntled about the hug, he just chalked it up to being a habit that comes with Cerul's odd personality.

...

The talked and caught up for almost the entire day. Once night rolled around, they all decided it was time to go back and went their separate ways. Greyson flopped down onto his bed once he was back at his room in exhaustion. He had never spent so much time talking to people before and while they were all great people, he felt tired from socializing for so long. Before he could even change, his eyelids grew heavy and he fell into deep sleep.

*ROAR!*

Greyson was lulled from sleep by a loud roar from some beast. Thinking it sounded really close to himself, he decided to get out of bed to take a look. Walking from his room, he looked around but did not notice any magic beasts in the surrounding. Feeling like it might have been something actually far away, Greyson turned to go back inside until a faint smell of blood wafted his way through the night breeze. Turning towards the scent's direction, Greyson followed it until he saw a mess of white and black fur that was stained with blood. Trembling on the ground was a small injured Cloud Leopard cub. Unsure what to do, Greyson thought it would still be better to save it. Gingerly picking up the cub into his arms, he used his water element to clean off the traces of blood and cut off the trail before he carried it to his room. He was not sure how the cub was injured so for now he believed it would be safer if no one was sure that it was him who saved it. Summoning his light element, the cub was slowly healing from its heavy injuries. Although he got through some of the surface wounds, Greyson still would have to continue the next day. Draining his mana to heal the cub, Greyson quickly fell back asleep after setting the cub down on the floor wrapped in some blankets.