Ali tried sending the egg into his inventory, expecting the usual prompt, but instead… nothing happened.
The large white egg remained cradled in his arms, completely unaffected.
'I guess it's considered a living being…' he thought, exhaling through his nose. Paradise didn't allow storage of anything classified as "living"—a rule likely to avoid abuse of the inventory system. That included eggs.
'I'll leave it here for now.'
Ali turned gently and leaned the egg against the charred remains of its dead mother, resting it in the warmest pocket of feathers he could find. The corpse still radiated some heat, and the thick plumage would protect the egg from the savage winds now howling at the mountain's peak.
He stood there for a moment, the breeze cutting across his skin, sharp as blades.
Then he turned his gaze upward—toward the true summit.
Without hesitation, Ali sprang upward again, digging his fingers into sharp edges of rock. He scaled the final vertical face of the mountain, his muscles coiling and stretching in perfect coordination. Hand over hand, foot over foot, he climbed with ruthless efficiency.
Every ledge he touched cracked with frost.
The air got colder.
Thinner.
Fiercer.
After three more minutes of intense vertical ascent, he finally grabbed the last ledge and pulled himself up to the true peak.
The summit was razor-thin—barely enough space to stand. The mountain's crown was jagged and narrow, shaped by centuries of wind and storm.
Ali stood, back straight against the roaring wind. His black hair whipped wildly behind him, the sky above pitch-black with flecks of stars glimmering.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out one of the two signal amplifiers Miles had sent earlier. The moment the object appeared in his hands, a quiet mechanical hum resonated from it.
A five-meter-tall, steel-grey pole, etched with embedded lines of blue circuitry that glowed faintly in the darkness.
'It's surprisingly light for something that looks like a siege weapon…' Ali mused as he examined it.
He located the perfect position—directly in the mountain peak's heart, where the most stability would be found—and flipped the amplifier upside down, gripping it near its midpoint.
SLAM.
Ali brought the pole down with brute force, slamming the base into the mountain's surface. The ground cracked beneath the weight and impact, a sharp CRACK echoing around the summit.
Then the amplifier activated.
BZZZZZTT
Blue electric lines ignited across the surface of the pole, forming a lattice of humming energy. The lower end twisted with a mechanical grind, burrowing even deeper into the rock to secure itself. Meanwhile, the top end of the pole opened like a mechanical flower, unfolding into a ring of antenna-like rods that extended outward like metal petals.
The entire device began to pulse faintly with electricity, projecting a beacon across the valley.
Ali stood tall beside the humming pole, the wind pushing against his back.
'Now Miles can send drones beyond the mountain… His espionage and recon ability will improve exponentially with this. In a fantasy world like this, his biggest weakness is the early-survival disadvantage. But once he gets breathing room…'
Ali's gaze drifted back toward the direction of his territory.
Down below, his newly claimed fortress stood like a forgotten ruin—crumbling stone, shattered wood, weathered banners. Beyond it, the village… no, the collection of huts, looked ready to be flattened by the next strong wind.
It was bleak. Pathetic, even. But Ali didn't see failure.
He saw potential.
'A lot of work to be done.'
[First Amplifier in place.]
Ali sent the message through his interface.
[Yes, connection established now. It'll take me an hour to finish putting up a firewall around the signal.]
Miles replied almost immediately.
[Do you have a carrier bot or something that can move cargo? I stumbled on an eagle's hoard—turns out this one liked collecting shiny things.]
[Yes, but you'll have to bring the cargo down to the base of the mountain. I just deployed the bot—you should see it soon.]
Ali focused his gaze and scanned the valley far below. Within seconds, his sharp eyes picked it up: a large rectangular machine with thick tires and coiled suspension springs, built like a cross between a cargo rover and a siege engine.
It rolled smoothly down the valley floor, adapting flawlessly to every bump and crevice it encountered.
Satisfied, Ali turned, leapt from the peak—and dropped into freefall.
The wind screamed in his ears as he plummeted, but with a calm expression, he timed his descent perfectly.
At the last possible second, he extended his arm and used the Force, slowing his fall and landing effortlessly on the ledge near the Storm Eagle's nest.
He got to work immediately.
Ali moved around the nest and began piling all the loot—the armour, and the treasure chests—into a single stack at the entrance of the cavern. Once it was organised, he turned to summon his dragon.
"Shadow."
The air shimmered behind him, and from a rippling portal, the enormous black dragon head emerged. Drool streamed from its jagged teeth. Its glowing violet eyes locked onto the dead Storm Eagle, tongue twitching with hunger.
Ali held up a hand.
"Open your mouth."
Shadow obeyed immediately, its giant maw unfolding like a monstrous gate. The inner tongue quivered with anticipation, rows of dagger-like teeth gleaming in the moonlight.
"Good. Now hold it open—take this down."
Ali began placing the two heavy chests on top of Shadow's enormous tongue. They clanged against its hardened flesh, but Shadow remained completely still, obedient.
"Take it to the carrier at the mountain base. Gently. Do not destroy the machine."
Shadow gave a low growl, turning away with visible reluctance from the eagle's corpse. Then, it launched into the air—vanishing in a blink through a portal of darkness.
Ali watched intently as Shadow followed his orders to perfection, the great creature's tongue gently cradling the heavy chests as it carried them to the bottom.
'He can't move far from me—I've tested it. Bahamut's summons stay bound to me. That's their weakness. If I can summon a true, dragon, hopefully it can roam freely,' Ali reflected.
'Still amazes me how something so… unintelligent can follow my commands flawlessly,' he mused, shaking his head at the contrast between raw beast and refined utility.
He returned to the nest one last time to carefully bundle up the large silver egg—and the high-quality armour that lay beside it. Each item found its place atop the cargo robot now wheeling through the dark toward the fortress under cover of moonlight.
[There's an egg in the cargo—large Storm Eagle's. It can use lightning and wind magic. Be careful with it] Ali cautioned Miles through the interface.
[Got it. I'll build a large incubator for it.] Miles replied confidently.
'This kid's truly a jack-of-all-trades—extremely useful,' Ali thought.
Straight away, Ali climbed silent as a shadow, using the Force to soar across the small gap between peaks to the opposite mountain. Though wild and barren, the summit allowed him to reach the large slab of smooth rock at the top in mere seconds. With a few precise strikes of his glowing lightsaber, he carved a flat surface to anchor the second amplifier.
'Now I wait for my Spirit to recharge before summoning—two true dragons.' He gazed outward, eyes tracking a broad expanse of terrain. Below, rolling hills spread before him; to the right, slender ribbons of smoke disrupted the night air—perhaps from a distant campfire. To the left, beyond a hill, a single tall wooden structure stood out against the dark—possibly a small outpost reachable in a four-hour walk.
He inhaled deeply, drawing in the crisp, supernatural energy pulsing in this foreign world. Then he closed his eyes and slipped into meditation; he needed stillness, clarity of mind, and concentration on the air itself.
'Magic is real here. Every breath, every wind carries potential,' he reminded himself, centring his thoughts on the energies swirling around him.
Meanwhile, far away in a larger village cloaked by chaos…
A woman's blood-curdling scream rent the night air as men in black armour swept through the streets, hacking, plundering, capturing the helpless. Children wailed, and wives wailed even louder as they were torn from their fallen husbands.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
A young villager woman clutched her husband's blood-soaked corpse to her chest while heavily-armed knights formed a ring around a group of defeated villagers. Their husbands and brother—tied to the ground, weary, defeated.
A young women hugged her husband's feet as he was dragged through the mud by a large knight who shook her off and threw her husband onto a pack of captured men, their wives and children shouting from behind the circle of knights around the captured men.
"He's the last one, my lord. The rest fled to Old Man Stork. Shall I pursue them?"
"Let them go," murmured the lord softly. His voice was velvet laced with poison. "There's nothing waiting for them to the south."
He slid silently from his saddle, dismounted with feline grace, and advanced toward the crying villager women before him. A few inches now separated him from the sobbing wife, her once-pretty dress soaked with tears and dirt.
He crouched before her, lifting her chin with a single finger under her jaw. Without breaking his gaze, he snapped another finger—and a tiny crimson flame flickered to life on his index finger—illuminating both their faces in fire.
"Do you want him back?" he asked, the red light dancing over his cold features.
Her eyes flickered from his face back down to her unconscious husband between the pack of captives. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she drew a ragged breath, voice trembling with despair and defiance.
"Lord Nolan will avenge us—and you will pay with your life—"
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