Hoard of a dragon

As John went down the stairs, he knew soon what was wreaking havoc in the storage room. The closer he came to the storage area, the more static electricity was in the air, making his hairs stand at attention. If Brun's assumption about what was in the egg had been correct, then the beast inside of the egg would be some kind of lightning dragon/wolf hybrid. The only thing that surprised John about this was that the thing already seemed to have enough power to knock out the drones so that they couldn't reach it. Maybe it was a fear reflex? John would have to find out... To say he was giddy to find out about this little troublemaker would be an understatement.

As he stood in front of the door that was separating him from the storage room, he could hear a lot of clattering behind the door, probably the abundant amounts of Scrap Metal he had acquired. It sounded like they were falling to the ground with the carpet doing very little to stop the noises of the items bashing together. In between all the clattering, he could also hear some growling. How the hell was this thing already this far when it just hatched?!

When John touched the door, there was a shock coming from the door that made him yelp in surprise. The noises behind the door immediately stopped, followed by a loud crash.

As he pushed the door open, this time prepared for the shock, he was greeted by a room in complete disarray. Some of the shelves were knocked over, their contents spilled all over the ground; many of the empty ones were down as well, piling atop one another. Some of the Scrap Metal was bunched together in one corner, making a small hill of metal, and sitting atop this hill was the glowing red gemstone John had received yesterday.

What was missing, though, was the perpetrator... As John switched into most of his adventuring gear, minus the cloak, he slowly went into the room. Now that he was moving silently, he heard some whimpering from underneath the pile of shelves. Once he was near that spot, he could see small tufts of white hair and turquoise scales sticking out between two of the downed shelves. Something in that pile was struggling as two little legs were failing to find footing since they were stuck in the air. It now dawned on John that the thing, Zinogre if he believed Brun's words, was stuck face down in that pile, unable to move down or up.

John had to think about what the best way of action for now was. Should he free the little dragon to build trust or should he assert dominance as to who was the 'pack' leader? After a moment of consideration, he started to pull the Zinogre out of its 'captivity' by its hind legs and brought it up to his face. He could feel the electricity run through his body as his skin made contact with the scales, but the power behind it was a lot less than it had been with the door.

As the dragon was on his eye-level, he could see the cute dragon wolf thing in its full glory. Its face was distinctly canine, looking very much like a puppy aside from the yellow colored horns on its head. The body was small and littered with turquoise and yellow scales, and where there were no scales, the skin was covered in short, fluffy white hair.

The Zinogre looked at him with tears in its eyes, shaking on its whole body. John had to resist the urge to squeal at the cuteness of the dragon-pup in his hands as he turned it around and put it on to the ground again. "Well, well, well, look at you, you cute little thing. Didn't take you long to finally get out of that egg, now did it?" John said in a mockingly fatherly voice, as the dragon sat down on its hind legs, trying to sniff John's hand. John didn't mind it that much and let it do its thing for now, which resulted in it trying to nibble on his hand. It wasn't really biting hard, but the teeth were sharp enough so that it hurt a bit, even if not much.

The dragon looked at him with a curious look as John pulled back his hand. He himself was curious as well, so he casted Observe:

Zinogre (Baby)
Lv. 2 Wolf Wyvern
RP: +50
Relationship: Unmated
Preferences: N/A

Huh, so this thing had the same interface as 'normal' people did... That was surprising... As John was looking at the pop-up on his interface, Sarai popped up again and looked at him concerningly, "What should we do with this intruder, Master? It doesn't seem that hostile, it just seems... scared."

John then had an idea as he thought about how to not frighten the little dragon, "Hey, it's pretty dark down here, isn't it? Do you want to see some sunlight?" Technically, there was no sun around here, but natural light would probably be better all the same. As John asked that question he thought about another point just a bit too late: Did the dragon even understand him.

Seemingly so, it didn't, as it just looked at John weirdly with a tilted head. Didn't the Bond ability tell him that it would be able to understand him once he bonded with it? Would he be able to bond with the beast? No time to try it out like right now! He then slowly put out his hand again, this time in a position to pat the dragon on its scaly head.

The little wolf slowly seemed to understand that John wasn't a predator or an enemy, so it brushed its head against John's hand. Without him even using the ability, the insignia appeared on the forehead of the creature as it happily rubbed its head against him.

In an instant, they both understood one another. Not on a language level, but on a 'personal' level. John could immediately understand the fear, confusion and hunger that the little guy felt, while the Zinogre pup understood John's curiosity, excitement and patience. In a matter of seconds, they had some kind of kinship, some deep connection between each other.

They both knew that some fresh air and some natural light would be good right now, as John stood up and held the door open for the little dragon, running up the stairs. It took John a moment to notice that the static in the air had dissipated, making it safe for the drones to move into the storage room again to put the items and shelves back up.

As John was moving up the stairs, he asked Sarai, "Do you know why I didn't need to use the skill to bond with the Zinogre?" to which the AI just shook her head. He didn't even have to use any Mana for it, which was the most curious thing about it.

"I have no prior information about that, Master. But if I were to guess, it would be the connection you have with the Nexus itself. Maybe the fact that part of your Mana builds the very core of this world makes it react to your intention?" That was the most plausible explanation he had found yet, so as long as he didn't find out more about it, he would leave it at that.

Once he reached the top of the stairs, he came to see another quite funny situation: The Zinogre (who he would call 'Zin' for now) was stuck to the base of the Mana Well, covered in spider webs. Gary, meanwhile, was running victoriously around the bound dragon, as if to mock it (Him? Her?). John had to suppress a laugh as he removed the webs from the dragon, "Gary, be nice to your new friend. You two will probably spend a lot of time in here together." This seemed to shock Gary as he made some unintelligible sounds that sounded pretty angry.

As Zin was freed from his confinement again, he huffed annoyedly and ran to the door leading towards the garden. John looked out of the big window from the living room and instantly saw the changes made by the drones. The plants were now contained again, staying neatly in their own flower fields while the lake in the middle of the garden now shone in a vibrant and clear blue. It was still empty though, which made sense since living beings didn't just randomly materialize (or did they?).

John stepped outside into the garden to see Zin frolicking around enthusiastically. He then decided to pursue his original plan that he had in mind when he returned to the Nexus: finding food. Sadly, none of the trees bore any fruit. Thinking about what to do, he came to the conclusion that he had two possible options:

One, he could use the Construction menu to look if he could create something edible, or two, he could eat the Dick... Seeing as how the GFD was made entirely out of chocolate, it didn't really appeal to John as a viable food for lunch...

Looking into the Construction menu yielded a way better option: He could create a special tree with the help of the Nature Essence and 40 MP of the collected Mana, which he had 104 MP of by now. In itself, that didn't sound too good, but according to the description, the tree would bear multiple kinds of fruits and would be harvestable on a daily basis, starting at the moment of creation. There would even be more kinds of fruits showing up on the tree as it grew older!

Now that sounded more like it! As he selected the tree, another prompt opened up to ask him what kind of fruit he wanted. The list was pretty damn long and most of the stuff on there he hadn't even heard up until now.

He had no idea what to choose.

[Helloo, RazorSwift here! I want to take this moment to get some reader interaction going. As stated above, I'm looking for fruits. Now these don't have to be earthen fruits, they can be of any fantasy world you can think of or anything you come up with yourselves.
They can even have some minor buffs ;) I won't be using too powerful stuff though, so no Eden's apples and no devil fruits, or at least nothing that would give him anything permanent.
Maybe I'll even rotate through various fruits if I get enough suggestions. I'd like to see what your minds come up with ;) I'll pick the first couple of fruits in two days, just before posting the next chapter.
Oh and if you have a good name for a Wolf/Dragon hybrid, post that one too ;)]