The tube-shaped mantrap door slid open and Jayden stepped out, watching the door close behind him. Now it was just him and who or whatever was down here.
Tension was rising within Jayden, but it intensified when he noticed the type of lock that secured the 'Store Room'.
"How the hell are we supposed to get in?" his legs began shaking, and the tension made the hallway feel like an isolated vast space where he could easily be spotted.
The door was locked with a rotatory dial lock, numbered zero to thirty-nine, and only one number would open it.
"How am I supposed to know which number it is?" Jayden bit his lips, adjusting the pointer to point random numbers quickly, but the door didn't respond.
'Should I break it? No. Even if I could, that would draw unwanted attention.' He thought, sweat dripping from his chin, and each fibre of him was screaming like a MAGEO staff was standing just behind him.
Though it was just minutes, it felt like hours before luck seemed to grant Jayden a priceless miracle.
Ting....
The door opened at number seven, which Jayden had sped past countless times until he finally took deep breaths and took the numbers one after the other.
Jayden ruched in, cautious not to leave his fingerprint on either the door or the walls and also not to lock the door behind him.
He leaned against the wall with his back, exhaling deep breaths as he took in the room's environment.
At opposite sides of the room stood a rank each, one labelled 'Research and Experiments' filled with countless, documents, laptops and flash drives. The rack opposite it was labelled 'Stock,' embedded with numerous dragon parts, including bottled crystals.
And to the wall opposite the door, another rank labelled 'Elemental Crystals', carrying well-arranged crystals and a refrigerator placed beside the rank.
"Get what we need and get us out of here", the dragon said.
But Jayden wasn't thinking much of himself right now, the dragon farm he had just seen, which stood as evidence that the MAGEO was hiding something big, still couldn't leave the back of his mind, and even worse, the faint possibilities that the president, as well as his own father, were part of this.
"First, let's uncover a bit more mysteries", Jayden whispered, headed straight for the 'Research and Experiments' rack.
"Is that really you're priority?" The dragon spiked in his mind.
"Sorry, but I can't help it", Jayden whispered, taking an overview of the items. He needed to choose wisely before touching since he couldn't leave behind a mess of his fingerprints everywhere.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
The sounds of footsteps against polished tiles approached from afar.
"Shit", Jayden immediately tensed at the sound, confusion and dread formed a chaotic mix on his face.
"Get us out of here, you fool", the dragon roared.
Despite his shaking limbs, Jayden managed to pick a random flash drive and tucked it in his pocket. He quickly ran to a corner of the room and squatted, murmuring in prayers as the step drew closer.
But this time, lady luck wasn't on his side, and even if she were, the fact that a top-secured door was left open was an inevitable attraction.
A polished Florsheim shoe appeared at the door's threshold, and pitifully, whoever it was, is certainly a first or third-generation Tamer—ranked A, S, or even SSS.
Did D-rank Tier 3 Jayden stand a chance?
He wrapped his mouth with his hands, heart pounding within his chest and eyes perplexed at the black polished shoe.
The foot took a step forward but when it touched the ground this time, ice jutted from the tiles like knives slicing the air, trailing a path towards Jayden.
"Tch..." Jayden hissed as he sprouted out of the corner, mounting a stance at the centre of the room.
'Fuck. His using the ice elements meaning his a third-generation tamer and most likely SSS-ranked for him to conjure those ice so fast'
"Who the hell are you? Who gave you the passkey?" The tamer shouted, eyes gleaming at Jayden with both confusion and fury.
His eggshell disguise already told him off as an intruder, so lying was useless. Not like he could even talk, in such a modern age, his identity could be known from his voice and Jayden was cautious of that.
'This is bad... really bad' Jayden scanned the room, but it only became more evident that there was nothing he could do. Fighting such a tamer is off the chart, and the only escape route was where the ice blue-haired man was standing.
He could feel the immediate shift in temperature and ice spreading like shallow water from beneath the tammer's feet.
"I'm talking to you bitch! Who the fuck let you in?" The man stumped his feet on the ground and more spikes of ice snaked towards Jayden.
"Bro, what are you doing? You'll get us both killed." The dragon grinned, Fear lanced in his tone.
Jayden barely avoided the ice spikes with a sidestep, only to land on a bed of ice.
'Fuck. He caught me' jayden bones screamed in terror as ice crawled up his leg, holding him firmly to the ground.
'What now? What now, what now?' His effort to pull out his leg was futile against the SSS-RANKED tamers' ice. And now the man was slowly approaching him with malice in his gaze and the intention of removing Jayden's disguise.
"That's it. Swap with me" the dragon snapped.
Jayden's face dulled. 'What?' He replied in his thoughts.
"Look within you! Fast"
Jayden still didn't understand, but out of all times, he could tell the dragon wasn't bluffing.
He closed his eyes and looked within himself. At first, nothing, but after calming down with a faint imagination of what he was looking for, this vision skyrocketed through him like a comet through space.
'Found it!'
Two golden hexagonal cores hovered in a dark void, one in front and one behind, and apart from them, four other cores hovered around them, coloured blue, red, earthen brown and a transparent blue, representing water, fire, earth and wind elements respectively.
'The dragon wasn't bluffing, he can use all four elements, ' Jayden thought, baffled.
"Now move your core to the back and give me the lead" the dragon said.
Jayden understood what he was saying now, as all he had to do was think harder, and the dragon's memories would come to him since they had shared one mind.
What Jayden was asked to do was impossibly hard. Moving his core, which was the golden hexagonal core in front, to the back felt like moving his soul, but he did it after emitting some sweat.
The air shifted. The wind spiked. Jayden vanished, leaving two golden cores and the four elemental cores hovering midair.
Then—the dragon emerged. A creature with golden streaked scales, deep blue eyes, long-bodied like a Dachshund's with four short limbs, its spine trailing into a tail and from its back jutted two small bones, the promise of wings yet to grow with proper cultivation.
"Who the heck are you?! Where did you get that dragon?" the man tensed, his stance tightening, frost steaming from his nostrils.
Due to repositioning after the body swap, the dragon's limb wasn't in the ice that crawled up Jayden's leg.
It leapt to the 'Stock' rack and quickly but randomly snatched a bottled core.
"Drop that, you beast!" the middle-aged mad rushed at the dragon, but it easily evaded by jumping past its head and landing on the rack labelled 'Research and Experiments'.
"Don't do it beast, stop what you're about to do!!!?" The man screamed.
The dragon shrugged
It began pushing down valuable documents and gadgets and eventually shoved the rank off balance with its feet.
The man was in a complete state of confusion. In fact, he had forgotten the dragon and was now caught between what to catch from falling to the floor.
"That's his access control card. We might need it while leaving" Jayden said, his voice ringing in the dragon's mind.
The dragon jumped down and caught the card off the man's trousers with his claws then bolted away.
"Let's fucken hope we don't see more like him"