Summary
Blaming his body for not being able to handle the blight of wyrmscale, Phares prepares to move his research of the disease into its next stage.
Dialogue
Phares: (I can't feel my limbs. Can't think. My voice is...)
Phares: RAAAAAGH!
Phares: (THAT is my voice? ...Yes, I see. I have finally become a dragon!)
Phares: ...Ah. That dream once more.
Phares: (I have seen it countless times. It used to fill me with fear, but no more.)
Phares: (Now I am simply filled with curiosity. If anything, I cannot wait for that fated day to finally arrive.)
Phares: But for now, back to my research. I must see my plan to fruition.
Phares: Hmm? Well, how interesting. How did this book end up here?
Phares: Just seeing it brings back memories. ...I forgot how worn it had become.
Phares: (There are very few books on the subject of wyrmscale, so when I first began my research, I searched high and low for anything even remotely of interest.)
Phares: (This was one such book.)
Wyrmscale is an unusual disease
that afflicts a small number of the
dragon bloodline.
Its origin lies in that bloodline's
especially close ties to dragons.
But occasionally, a child is born
whose mana is nearly identical
to that of a dragon.
As this child's mana develops, they
gradually become less human
and more dragon.
The first sign is the appearance
of scales on the body, followed by
turning into a dragon entirely.
However, the human body is not
capable of completing such a
transition, meaning the afflicted
suffer a prolonged, horrible death
as their status progresses.
This has been the way of wyrmscale
throughout recorded history.
It is a terrifying, terminal disease.
Phares: Ha! What a childish analysis.
Phares: (If we resign ourselves to defeat at the first hurdle and declare the unachieved to be impossible, we will never grow.)
Phares: (Why does no one even stop to question whether wyrmscale even IS a disease?)
Phares: (Wyrmscale is not the problem—the frail human BODY is the problem!)
Phares: I've long since outgrown this book.
Phares: Others may be content to live in the past, but my plan to move forward is already well and truly underway.
Phares: (If my body cannot handle the transition into a dragon, I will simply remake it. But to do so, I need a power that is not of this world.)
Phares: The first phase of my plan was a success: the Other has been successfully revived. Now we move on to the second phase.
Phares: It is time to awaken our family's secret...