As the hours passed by, and Lex came nearer to the castle, the aura grew stronger. While it was well within the range that Lex and Fenrir could tolerate, Lex found it interesting that the assassins also remained unaffected. As a subsidiary race of the dragons, weren't the Frigals supposed to be even more vulnerable than others to this aura?
Based solely on what he saw, that did not seem to be the case.
As the hours wound by, another question took hold in Lex's mind. What was 'aura' exactly? He himself had an aura, and more than one. The first and most obvious aura was that of the Innkeeper, but that originated from his Host Attire. It gave others great mental pressure, and within the Crystal realm even affected the environment.
Based on that he could study the effects that aura could bring about, but he was wondering how aura was nurtured and its effects differentiated. The second aura that Lex had was his own. It was heavily influenced by his time spent as the Innkeeper, and could evoke feelings of confidence, competence and warmth. It was also influenced by Regal Embrace, which nurtured the sensation of indestructibility and gave one the confidence to face anything and everything. His state of flow, for some reason, also affected his aura from what he could tell.
Lex had used his aura to influence certain actions and reactions from others, even though he did not understand it fully.
Lately, he had even felt his aura grow when he was cultivating his foundations once again, as well as during the first few moments when he was fighting insects and his fighting instincts awakening.
Based on this analysis, aura could be innate, such as that of dragons, but could also be influenced by environmental factors, as well as the actions of the person who owned the aura.
He wondered, did his act of biding his time, time and time again in the face of insurmountable opponents affect his aura, or had it not? Maybe it was because he made those decisions out of pure logic instead of fear, but there seemed to be no trace of the will to retreat in his aura - yet!
The more he marinated in the Dragons Might and fought against the auras effects, the more he began to wonder if he could influence the growth of his own aura, and what benefits it could bring.
As an experiment, he closed his eyes and focused, summoning his aura forth in its most raw form. But he quickly discovered that such a generic state of mind caused the aura he summoned to be very loose. He summoned it, but it dispersed quickly under the impressive Dragons Might.
Although such a result was predictable, Lex frowned.
He summoned his aura again, but this time in defiance of the Dragons Might. As powerful and influential as a dragon may be, he was not insignificant either. Yes, he had the help of the system, but even the most awesome tool in the hands of an incompetent man would yield no results. He never thought less of himself for relying on the system.
This time the aura he exuded was more focused, and did not disperse under the weight of the Dragons Might, though it was heavily suppressed and was limited to just a few feet around him.
Lex felt a subtle, additional strain on him as he maintained his aura, and felt that if he continued to fight against Dragons Might in such a way, he would soon find himself drained of energy. Yet, odd as it was, he could not identify what energy was being exhausted, for it definitely wasn't his spiritual energy, nor was it any other energy he consciously cultivated.
Over the next 30 hours, he continued to perform such experiments, until the castle finally appeared within sight.
The 'castle' was in fact an entire mountain range that had been carved to form the most elaborate and majestic building Lex had ever seen - and he could not even see all of it!
Though, what he could see was the epic fight being fought at the foot of the mountain range.
Even from a distance, Lex could tell that the conflict was between armies that were hundreds of thousands in numbers, and was incredibly fierce. Neither side had a clear advantage, and from the number of assassins who kept arriving, it seemed like the size of the fight was only destined to grow. Fortunately, the 'castle' was extremely large, so Lex could just circumvent the fight and still approach the castle.
The Inn had already established its connection by now, so Lex was no longer concerned about escape. He simply continued to approach, though it seemed entering would not be as easy as he initially assumed.
This close to the castle, the power of the Dragon's Might was practically a physical force pressing them down into the ground. Although Lex and Fenrir still had no issue resisting the aura, the sheer might of it was interfering with Fenrir's stealth abilities.
The pup could no longer guarantee if they were even working at all or not, so they had to rely on conventional stealth to approach.
That meant that they practically held their breaths and stepped as softly as possible during their approach, making sure to be as far as possible from any potential guards. One drawback of turning an entire mountain range into a singular castle was that there were too many areas that were left unsupervised.
After they finally approached the castle, due to the pups reluctance to depart mid-adventure, despite Lex's many assurances that he would summon it again shortly, the pairs actions gave birth to a very unusual sight. A man and a wolf climbed the vertical walls of the castle carefully as they tried to approach a window.
As odd as it was, there were no protective formations anywhere around the castle. Perhaps the dragon never felt like it needed one, so they were able to enter completely unintended. Now they just had to navigate what was surely a labyrinth to find what they were looking for.