A particularly agile Goblin tossed a crude spear at Dominic, which scraped across the top of his hand and left a deep gouge that burned with whatever toxic filth was on the blade.
His next [Arcane Blast] tore the creature apart, and the wound quickly began to close, pushing the filth back out of the wound as it did.
"Now that's some Enhancement Core that you've got, Sorcerer. Being able to use a healing on kill type item must mean that your ancestor was a brutal sort of creature, though." The Ranger commented, clearly impressed by the magic.
"A dragon of balance, actually. Life for life." Dominic explained.
That was the way of the World Dragon that his lineage was supposed to have come from. Nothing was for free, and even the greatest of gifts often seemed to come with a caveat.
For most of his life, Dominic had considered them to be the whims of a bored magical beast, putting conditions on its help for personal amusement, but later, the Clerics had explained to him that it was the way of balance.
Too much of a good thing would breed arrogance, so the World Dragon tempered its gifts to its mixed blood descendants with a cost.
He still suspected that was utter nonsense and that his theory about a bored Dragon was the correct one, but he never dared to speak up against the Clerics, especially after his parents both fell ill when he was five, and the Clerics were the only ones who could help at all to ease their pain.
A foreign sense of amusement entered the back of his mind, and Dominic nearly missed with his next spell.
He had never heard of a Dragon interacting with any of its descendants before, much less directly intervening in their lives without a request or a dragon-scale talisman, but as a Royal descendant of the mighty World Dragon, it wasn't completely unreasonable to think that the creature had taken an interest in him.
Perhaps his notion that the World Dragon was simply bored and watching its descendants from afar wasn't so far-fetched after all.
The two warriors were holding the Goblins in place, but they were heavily outnumbered now that the other goblins had heard the sounds of battle, and the three students they had come to rescue were no help at all.
"Get up and fight if you don't want to be desecrated and killed by Goblins," The Guardsman's daughter shouted at the two girls, who were still cowering on the ground in horror.
That was the wrong thing to say, as she realized the moment that the girls got to their feet and fled screaming. That was two fewer allies for them, and the boy they had rescued was barely stable at the moment.
"Does he have a healing potion? Get him to drink it." Dominic instructed the Ranger, who was closer to the boy.
"Alex, Alex, you need to drink the healing potion. You're not dead, but you need to drink the healing potion." The Ranger pleaded.
Slowly, the boy started to focus, then took a small red bottle from his pocket and downed the contents in one shot.
Dominic sighed at the waste.
That looked like a high-grade potion, and they were only kids without any physical enhancement abilities, much less high ranked ones that would require that much healing to recover.
It would heal him for many times his total health instantly. But on the bright side, he was now up on his feet with his blade back in his hand and ready to fight.
"Thank you, Princess. I don't know what I would have done without you." The boy formally declared, complete with an elaborate bow that dropped him down on one knee.
He nearly lost his life for his idiotic gesture, and only Dominic's fast reflexes managed to block the goblin's club with a dagger before it made contact with the back of his head.
"Save the formal announcements for when you're not in combat. Royal Protocol, Section Seventeen, Part 6." Dominic informed him instinctively, reciting a line that he had heard many times before.
He had many fond memories of day trips around the village, and the guard training grounds were next to the market, where his parents plied their trade as magical item vendors.
For him, it was just common sense not to do stupid formal things in battle, but the group of Noble children all looked at him strangely.
"How did you know that? Section Seventeen is all about the Royal Guard Protocol. Nobody studies that unless they're planning to guard one of the Princes or Princesses." The freshly recovered boy asked as he attacked the Goblin in front of him.
Dominic just shrugged and breathed a sigh of relief that the two nations' Royal Guards used the same set of training manuals, and he hadn't quoted some completely erroneous section of the local Royal Protocol to these students out of instinct.
At least his speech seemed to have gotten the boy moving again, and he was no longer an easy target.
His trade skill gem, mounted on his necklace, said that he was a Rogue, the base skill core for spies, personal bodyguards and many similar jobs. So he should be decent in combat, even if the gem was an apprentice one at Level One.
He had clearly been training, and his actions were quick and agile.
If Dominic had to guess, he had tried to be a front-line fighter in the previous battle and had gotten overrun by the Goblins who were more interested in getting to the girls behind him. The same girls who had fled and left him behind the first chance that they got.
Dominic fired off another [Arcane Blast], and the Ranger looked at him in confusion.
"How is your mana doing? You can slow down if you need to. Nobody expects a Commoner with a level one spell gem to be doing constant damage." He reminded Dominic quietly.
That was a good question: how was his mana pool doing?
The [Arcane Blast] didn't use any of his body's stored mana, it just pulled it from around him every time that he activated the spell.
That wasn't something that the skill gems could do though, it was an ability unique to him as a Dragonkin, and he didn't want to draw more attention to the fact he was not like them when these noble kids were being so kind.
"I think I will be fine. It's a Blessing thing." He replied, not sure how to explain to someone else without at least somewhat referring to his lineage.
Shot after shot, Dominic fired his [Arcane Blast] at the Goblins, taking them out with precision that was increasing with every kill.
They were a trash mob to the skilled guards in most villages, and in any case, they normally only held value for the mana core that they would grant. Anyone with a trade skill core, a suitable magitech item, or a magical lineage, like the dragonkin Sorcerer, could extract it, or any other loot granted by the Monster Blessing.
The extraction was done by touching the body, and then a mana core would appear in the person's magitech storage item, or a pocket that they focused on during the process.
The magitech storage item was preferred, as it would keep the fragile mana core safe until they wanted to use it to barter or to enhance a skill gem.
The only time that the physical gem would normally appear in the hands of the extractor was if the Monster Blessing happened to have formed an enhancement or spell gem. Those were much more valuable and could be mounted into clothing or weapons and attuned to the user to gain access to new abilities.
If the kill granted an item, it was an entirely different matter.
It would appear near the body as a solid object if you didn't have a Magitech Storage Item. It could only appear somewhere that held a larger volume than its exterior dimensions, so you could be in for a hard time getting your loot home if you didn't bring the right equipment.
Dominic had one, inherited from his deceased parents. It wasn't of high quality, but it held great sentimental value to him, and currently held all his worldly possessions.