Not much longer

We all studied up on the planet we were going to, and the beasts we were the most likely to face when we got there. Goliath put me through every stamina work out he could think of every afternoon since I was close to being able to transform three times in a day. Sometimes he had me stay in my human form. Other times he had be use my real body. The workouts were way worse when I was in my dragon body since I'd have to take a nap before leaving.

Otherwise I wouldn't have enough energy left to pull off a transformation. There was ONLY one word I could use to describe Goliath's workout routine. Nightmare. He had me do a thousand pull ups with my tail. Just my tail.

I didn't think that was too bad until he told me there was a time limit. If I didn't finish on time he kept me in there practicing all night. Five hundred push ups for each wing. A thousand for both wings together. The stuff he made me do in my human form was just as ridiculous.

I didn't know I could get so exhausted, and still be awake. Days passed this way. I couldn't really complain since Goliath had successfully gotten me some stat points in everything physical except damage resistance. I didn't really need help with that one. I was pretty good at getting myself hurt without Goliath's help. As frustrating as that was.

Then there was only one day left until we would be headed to another planet. I went to the simulation hall after class like usual only for Goliath to send me back to my dorm room. By now it was a well known fact that I was Goliath's favorite punching bag. I looked so haggard, and worn down by the time I left Goliath's soul crushing workouts that even Baron just smirked, and left me alone. Some people complained at first when they saw Goliath giving me special treatment, but now they were just glad it wasn't them.

I didn't even bother stopping to do anything on the way back to the dorm room. I healed quickly so my muscle soreness never lasted longer than eight hours, but that soreness had been slowly cutting into my sleep time. I switched back as soon as I got to my room. Ruining another uniform, but I didn't give a shit about that. The only thing on my mind was sleep.

I didn't have to worry about selecting equipment since I'd sent my order in ahead of time, and Neither did Savannah or Ethan since I bought them light armor, and weapons already. I just had to be there by ten. That was the cut off to pick up your equipment. It made sense. We were supposed to be crossing through the portal around noon so if we couldn't get our equipment by then then we were really screwing the pooch. Especially since most of the students had long since gotten used to waking up at six every morning.

Four hours was considered to be plenty of time to make our way to the portal station a few blocks away. Half the building was reserved just for our school after all. It wouldn't take long for all the first years to get through the portals, and get the bearings. Once we were on the planet there was only one group event, and it wasn't supposed to include any fighting so I was optimistic. The canyon event that everyone was supposed to take part in on the third day.

We would meet up at the death chasm at noon on the third day. If you didn't show up you would be drug there by force. Severely court marshaled, and you'd loose a hundred points. Now a hundred points doesn't sound that bad until you take into consideration how many beasts we had to kill to get those points. Tier one was one point.

Tier two was two points. So on, and so forth until the beasts reached tier five when the point values doubled. Tier five was supposed to be beyond our abilities as students so it made sense. It doubled again at tier ten. Tier five would be worth ten points instead of five while tier ten would be worth forty.

Then we could sell their mana crystals afterward. I kind of wanted to absorb them. There wasn't much I could do to increase my mana reservoir. Savannah wasn't strong enough to force it to expand, and I couldn't absorb mana fast enough to force it myself. But if I absorbed enough mana crystals at the same time.

I still wasn't a hundred percent sure I could absorb the crystals faster than my normal absorption, but it was still worth a shot. I had only had time to practice spellcasting when I went to my inner world to sleep, and I'd come up with some interesting ideas while I was in there, but my mana reserve couldn't keep up with some of the spells I created. Ice needles was a good example of a spell my reserve couldn't keep up with. Sure a half a dozen of my ice needles weren't all that expensive to maintain, and the almost clear ice that made them was almost invisible. I was thinking about making something similar to go on the edges of my scales.

Turning the rounded edges into tiny little blades. If I could cover myself in a spell like that then no one would be able to grab me. Not without thinking it over first, but the problem was the amount of Ice needles I could maintain. I could maintain, and accurately control ten, but it wasn't anything spectacular. Simple things I could kind of control fifty.

Just making as many as I possibly could at the same time. I could pull off about two hundred, but once I got past that number I couldn't keep them in the air anymore. It just took too much focus. I guess I could focus on accurately controlling one for now, and worry about fine tuning them one by one until I could control all two hundred at once to do more than just float nearby.