As Eisen carried himself through the air, all he could think about was how great this felt. He was actually just flying through the air, seeing the desert deep beneath him. It seemed beautiful to him, that's all that Eisen could call it, really.
Underneath him, the old man could spot Fafnir in the form of a red blotch, and so he chose to just stop flapping his wings for a while to drop back down toward the ground. Just a dozen or so meters above the desert ground again, Eisen flapped his heavy, nearly shining wings and stopped his fall before just dropping the rest of the way like this, creating what was basically a small desert storm as he was at it.
With a broad grin, Eisen turned toward Fafnir, and with that the three monster children as well as Sigurd, and squatted down a bit. "I think we should just get straight back home now, don't you guys think?" Eisen pointed out, and then proceeded to extend his hand toward the three monster children to pick them up. With his fully increased size of roughly eight meters now, the size of his apron increased together with him and the apron's pockets were now large enough to actually house the three of them again. Of course they would need to use Sal's magic to hold on just in case, but this would allow for fairly quicker movement.
Especially once Eisen then picked Fafnir up as if he was carrying a pup, because that was the comparative size between them right now, and made sure to keep holding onto the young dragon as well. It seemed like he would really be able to get home a fair bit quicker now.
With a strong jump paired with a flap of his wings, Eisen shot up into the sky at a rapid speed and soon started flying forward again. Eisen was surprised to notice that this fair bit of extra weight didn't change anything about how well he could fly right now, so he thought it couldn't hurt if he added another extra layer to this.
Slowly he started to fill his wings up with his element as densely as he possibly could, even compressing it inside of them, and tuned his element completely toward flames.
With a few glances toward his wings as he was flying, Eisen could spot that this added an extra layer of golden crystals to his wings and actually fairly increased their size. Through this, Eisen's flight sped up even more, and he could see the towns and villages pass by underneath him.
Just a few hours later, he could see the terrain changing from a desert into a flat plateau covered in grass that kept becoming healthier and greener the further Eisen flew. It originally took them two days to get this far into the desert, but now they were able to get this far back within just six hours. With a broad smile on his face, Eisen slowly looked down.
"Are you all doing okay?" Eisen asked, his voice carrying surprisingly well despite the loud noise of the wind constantly passing them, and it seemed like everyone was actually enjoying this trip a fair bit. Even Fafnir was apparently quite happy about being this high in the sky. Eisen wasn't sure if he ever saw this young dragon this excited before.
And so, Eisen thought he came up with a rather good idea. He tried to adjust the way he was holding Fafnir so that he was just grabbing him by the sides of his body, and then started to instruct him.
"Alright, let's practice flying a bit now, alright?" The old man suggested, and could soon feel Fafnir's tail hit his leg after moving around excitedly, "Keep your body a bit tensed up to the point where you're actively controlling every part of your body. So don't slouch, alright?" Eisen said, and he could soon feel Fafnir's muscles tense up just like the old man instructed, and then moved on.
"Spread your wings out as much as you can." In response to this instruction, Fafnir slowly did as told and tried to spread his wings out while they were already travelling at this high speed. It seemed like the wind pressure was intimidating him a lot, and Eisen could feel that Fafnir was being pulled back a fair bit. So, the old man slowed down a little again and let Fafnir try again, while Eisen made sure that Fafnir was holding his wings correctly so that there was as little air-resistance as possible from the front.
"Sal, bind Fafnir and I together, but leave maybe ten meters of thread loosely." The old man suggested, and the spider boy, swiftly understanding what it was for, did just as asked and hooked the old man and Fafnir together for safety.
And then Eisen kept speaking to Fafnir some more.
"Keep your body like that. You know how to glide a little already, so just try to do just that." Eisen said, and after receiving a small grunt from Fafnir that seemed to be an 'Okay', the old man slowly let go of Fafnir's body.
He was just gliding there like this for a little while, albeit while constantly dropping in altitude. But luckily, that's exactly what the thread Eisen had Sal use to connect them was for. Like this, Fafnir could just practice gliding for a while without needing to worry about dropping down to the ground. It was basically like tandem-flying.
Since the thread also helped Fafnir keep the same speed that Eisen was going at up a bit more easily, the dragon could just concentrate on learning how he needed to move his wings. The method of how to do so was ingrained in his very soul, so he was actually able to learn this fairly well.
With a broad smile on his face, Eisen happily watched while Fafnir was starting to get the hang of it. Although a few hours later, it seemed like both the dragon, and the draconic demon, were both a little exhausted, so Eisen chose to descent nearby in a relatively open area.
There were only a few rank 3 monsters around here as well, so there was no need to worry all that much about being attacked either. And so, Eisen just cut the thread that was connecting him and Fafnir and let the Dragon sleep for a little while, while Eisen just leaned against a giant boulder and relaxed a bit while Sal, Caria and Melissa went out to stretch some.
Slowly, mist started to stream out of the amulet connected to the necklace around Eisen's neck and turned into the figure of Kirisho on top of the old man's palm.
"You have quite enjoyed this trip back so far, haven't you?" She asked with a light chuckle, and with a laugh on his own, Eisen just nodded his head, "I really have. It's been fun. And I'm glad that the trip back won't be taking too long. Since I have my level-up quest now, I can start working on it really soon as well." The old man pointed out, and slowly chose to just pull up the screen of his Level-Up Quest. He had briefly looked at it already, but he didn't really register too much about it. In the first place, he hadn't expected to all of a sudden level up a couple more times like that, so he wasn't entirely sure how to react to all of a sudden getting his quest far earlier than he thought he would.
[Level Up Quest – Road to 300]
[Description] You have reached level 299 and as such, have gained the right to work toward reaching level 300. These are your requirements as calculated by your actions so far:
-Blacksmithing, Tialoring, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Alchemy Skills at Rank 5
-Racial Skills at Rank 5
Occupation Skill Crafting Space at Rank 5, Crafter's Mind at Rank 4, Ego-Item Creation at rank 3
-Mana Manipulation, Flame of the Earth Magic at Rank 5; Mana double, mana copy at Rank 4
-Woodworking, Cooking, Drawing, Tool Connection, Soul Engineering, Farming, Mining, Masonry, Woodcutting Skills at Rank 4
-All Draconic Gifts at rank 4
-Become a King
-Spend a total of 3 days in flight
[Reward] Level increased to 300
[Failure] Not possible
Eisen looked through the skill-rank requirements and just ended up glancing at them just so slightly, since he had already basically expected such requirements in the first place, but he was a bit surprised because of the 'Become a King' thing. Sure, these requirements were specifically calculataed by the system for Eisen, so it knew that he was relatively close to becoming a king, but it still felt pretty easy to become something impossible to accomplish.
Since this was the easiest, or rather only, thing that could be messed up by external forces, Eisen was slowly starting to grow a bit more nervous. A lot of things depended on him becoming a King. Without that, they wouldn't be able to unlock the puzzle-box anymore, and that would most likely result in completely stagnant self-discovery. Meaning, all five originals would have a harder time finding out who they used to be. And that wasn't something that Eisen wanted to happen at all.
With a slight groan, Eisen waved the quest-screen away and grumbled a bit to himself. All the other parts, those that were related to generically leveling up skills, weren't all that big of an issue. Eisen just had to spend some time crafting as much as he could. It would literally just be a matter of time until Eisen managed to get his skills to rank up again. It would most likely take a lot of time, to be fair, but even that was something that Eisen didn't necessarily mind.
He loved crafting, after all. So he didn't mind doing so constantly, he just didn't like that it would still take so long until he was able to finish this quest.
Either way, thinking that Eisen should try to get ready to keep flying, he stood back up and just stretched a bit. His whole body created loud cracks that were at the level of a building collapsing, although that was really just Eisen's body adjusting to his movement again. He picked the three monster children back up, had Kirisho return to her necklace, and then asked Sal to connect him and Fafnir again.
And so the old man picked the dragon back up and continued flying. Once he was ready to do so again, Eisen let Fafnir try to fly alone once more. Just like that, they continued along the rest of the way, until they could spot the harbor town and the ocean in the distance.