How Tatsuya Almost Failed Dragon Hoarding 101

How Tatsuya Almost Failed Dragon Hoarding 101

The Bitcoin Origin Revealed

"Tatsuya Silvenwing!" Screeched a shrill voice as the loud thud of a hand slamming down on a wooden desk yanked me out of a daydream.

"Hu? What?" I asked, looking around, eyes wide mouth slightly parted as I blew the stray black strands of my wayward bangs out of my face. Snickers of my classmates reached my keen ears, and the fog cleared from my mind as the sharp wrinkled face of my teacher Mrs. Ironclaw loomed into my view. I felt the muscles in my body flinch back involuntarily as her hooked nose came dangerously close to my own.

"This is no time for daydreaming, miss Silvenwing. Graduation is in two moon cycles, and you have yet to mine a single gold nugget or jewel. If you fail to accumulate a satisfactory hoard of wealth by graduation, you will fail this class; you will not graduate, and you will be a pariah amongst your kind." My cheeks felt hot as my blood rushed to my face. "No respectable young man will want to align himself with a penniless maiden who would rather play on computers and solve math equations than search for treasures and accumulate wealth."

Chitters and condescending giggles bubbled up from the other girls in the classroom. I felt my shoulders slump as I retreated farther into my chair. My dark eyes darted to the clock on the wall; my ears twitched with each sweet tick as the final seconds of class slipped away.

"Well?" Mrs. Ironclaw screechy voice asked.

"Well, what?" I tried to keep my voice as even and innocent as possible.

"Well, do you have anything to say for your...." The shrill chime of the class bell cut her off. I scrambled quickly to my feet and grabbed my bag as I darted for the door. The blue velvet of my dress uniform swished around my legs as I sped down the stone halls of Grundlegold Academy. My feet took off into a sprint as I burst out of the ornate double doors into the open mountain air. When I made it far enough from the school, I zipped behind a large evergreen and slipped my slender frame out of my dress. The air was crisp, and the cold bite of the wind sent goosebumps dancing across my pale flesh.

I watched puffs of air dance up into the sky as I summoned the flames deep in my chest to keep me warm. The corners of my red pouty lips turned up as I relished the power surging throughout my body. My muscles twitched and wriggled as my soft skin hardened and shifted into silver scales. My fingers reached out high towards the sky, and I watched with wonder as my long nails sharpened into strong black talons. A high excited cry turned into a rumbling roar as my strong legs launched me high into the air. My silver wings caught a pocket of air and pulled me even higher into the foggy air. Flying outside of transformation class was frowned upon but not wholly forbidden, as long as you stayed within the barrier protecting the school from prying eyes. Blue and white flames flooded out of my jaws, heating my large fangs and scorching the treetops below.

"Patients!" I muttered to myself angrily as I snapped my teeth at nothing. Mrs. Ironclaw would eat her words at the end of the school year. A throaty chuckle rang out through the sky as I dipped and rolled through the air. I have done what no one else had done. I had created a new type of wealth! A kind of wealth that I could mine from the safety of my dorm. A wealth that I could collect without shedding blood or raiding tombs. I had started developing my new currency back in middle school and had finally introduced it to the world nearly two years ago using a false identity.

The ground shook, and a dead tree slammed to the earth as my four clawed feet connected with the earth. The flight had been breathtaking and had calmed the impatient anger that had been clawing at my chest. In another two moon cycles, at the pace I was mining my lovely new creation, the Bitcoin, I will have collected about thirty-six billion dollars worth. Virtual wealth was an unconventional way to start a proper dragon hoard, but no one in the history of Grundlegold had ever graduated with a hoard worth over six billion.

I laughed some more as I returned to my human form and slipped my dress back on. The dashed looks on the faces of all the mean girls who had made school so miserable would make all the years of misery worth it.

"Hey, Tatsuya." A haughty voice sneered as I approached the school doors once again. A curtain of blond hair flipped into the corner of my vision as Rayza moved to block my path. Steam puffed out of my flared nostrils as Rayza extended her perfectly manicured hand as I tried to step around her.

"What do you want, Rayza?" Rayza rolled her blue eyes and tilted her chin up, sticking her pointy nose in the air.

"No need to be rude." Rayza curled the side of her lips up in what I assumed to be a smile. "I just wanted to offer some friendly advice."

I snorted a little louder than I meant to, throwing Rayza off a bit. Her eyes narrowed into slits, and her lips pinched together tightly.

"Sorry." I tried to make the single word sound sincere, but it came out more like a taunt. Rayza's cheeks began to flush red, drowning out the pink blush she had applied a smidge too generously. I felt my inner flame start to heat in response to Rayza's growing rage.

"All I was going to say is Mrs. Ironclaw is leading a late-night tomb raid in the Amazon tonight. I'm sure if you came, one of us could spare a coin or a small gem, you know, one of the ones that don't hold up to our standards. It would be beyond pathetic to graduate without at least one piece of treasure. Although..." Her fake half-smile spread across her face viscously. "Your poor wings are probably too withered from lack of exercise to keep up, and your timid heart probably couldn't handle it if we have to fight any monsters guarding the tomb. Maybe it would be less pathetic to graduate with no treasure than to be caught feinting on a raid."

The sound of fabric ripping stopped the malicious giggle bubbling out of Rayza's throat. My uniform laid in tatters on the cobblestone walkway, and the fading daylight glinted off my silver scales. I flexed my shoulder muscles extended my strong wings, and beat them once, knocking Rayza on her backside. It had been years since I had been in transformation class. I always used that time to work on mining my Bitcoin hoard. No one had seen me in my dragon form since I stopped attending class. My classmates had wrongly assumed I was embarrassed by my dragon self. Up until now, I had let them believe their assumptions were correct. Rayza quivered before me, her mouth flapping up and down like a fish out of water.

Murmurs lifted in the air as a crowd began to gather. Rayza's reputation for being the school's fiercest raider was dying a slow, painful death right in front of her eyes. The murmurs grew louder, pushing Rayza back to her feet. She let out an angry scream as her black scales burst out of her blue dress. Her shrill, angry voice turned low and gravely as she grew to her full height. She reared back on her haunches and blasted a hot jet of red flames into the heavens above.

The crowd of students stepped back, and I rose to meet Rayza, my head towering several feet above hers; our clawed hands were tangled together aggressively. I unhinged my jaws and blasted white and blue flames into her red inferno, overtaking it as I forced her down to the cold hard ground.

"I am going to destroy you!" Rayza bellowed as she wretched herself from my grip and got back to her feet. I fell back as the air was snatched from my lungs by Rayza's large spiked head slamming into my chest.

"Bring it on!" I roared back as I leaped into the air and slammed my full weight down on top of her.

"Ooof," was the only sound I heard escape Rayza's smothered muzzle after I landed on her. Stunned whispers began to fill the air, and I couldn't help but feel a little bit smug. After I stopped feeling wriggling beneath me, I stepped back. I looked down at the crumpled mess at my feet and was worried I had overdone it. I sighed and used my head to help my opponent to her feet, careful not to gut her with my sharp, twisted horns.

"What on earth is going on out here!" All the mutters and whispers stopped abruptly at Mrs. Ironclaw's rabid tone. The pinched expression on her saggy, angled face slipped away as a first-year boy whispered in her ear. She sniffed the air awkwardly with her sizeable hooked nose and made her way over to me. "Miss Silvenwing, is that really you?" Her shrill voice held a hint of disbelief. I nodded slowly, not sure if she was angry or impressed. Maybe she was both?

"I was surprised too." Rayza huffed. Mrs. Ironclaw's eyebrows shot up at Rayza's confirmation.

"I don't understand...I...It just doesn't make sense?"

"What doesn't make sense?" I asked hesitantly, shifting my weight from my front legs to my hind ones, preparing to take to the sky if things got messy again.

"It doesn't make sense that you have failed all of your raiding scenarios. You always did well on the written exams but refused to go out into the field. We all assumed it was because of your lack of physical ability...but now...but. Now I see you have been failing on purpose! Absolutely despicable! You disgrace your family name! I...I...I!" Her face went red, and for a moment, I thought she was going to transform too. Black smoke rolled from her mouth as it gaped up and down to furious to speak anymore.

"I assure you it will all make sense when graduation comes. I haven't been wasting my time; I have been using it for a specific purpose.

"What purpose?!" Mrs. Ironclaw's voice was even more grating than usual, and she made even a parrot's voice seem smooth and deep.

"You will see when final hoard evaluations come around. I have always said my intellectual abilities far exceed my physical ones, and I still stand by that statement." I pushed off the ground as hard as I could and spiraled into the air showing off just a bit as I made my way to the transformation pitch to get a spare uniform. My heart bubbled as I thought of Mrs. Ironclaw's slacked jaw expression.

"Man." I laughed to myself. "I can't wait to see how she reacts to my thirty-six billion dollar Bitcoin hoard during finals. She may even pass out." I did a front flip and swooped down for a landing on the green grass of the pitch.

Two months later, I stood in the courtyard staring at a blank screen with hundreds of other students crowding in around me. The air was still despite all the people jammed together as if everyone awaited the end of the year hoard numbers with bated breath.

The corners of my mouth twisted up triumphantly as I thought back to my final presentation earlier that same morning. Smoke snorted out my nostrils as I held in a laugh at the image of Mrs. Ironclaw lying prostrate on the ground. The shock of my Bitcoin project and the astronomical wealth it had given me had caused her to faint in a most unladylike manner. She even had to be taken to the nurse's wing to be examined after my presentation.

I felt as if I was flying high in the air, although my feet were still planted firmly on the ground. My eyes shifted to one worried face after another. No one was sure if their wealth was enough to put them near the graduating class's top. No one except me, I couldn't help but puff my chest out a little as my emotions gurgled up in my chest like a rising tide. I knew without a doubt that not only would I be at the top of the class, I would also be setting a new all-time record.

The blank screen began to blink to life, and the crowd packed in tighter. Some girls stood on tiptoes others sat on their boyfriend's shoulders, all desperate for a good view of their name.

Suddenly names and numbers appeared on the giant screen, and an unnatural hush fell over the courtyard. A loud shriek rang over the crowd. Gasps and whispers began to spread like a ripple in the water.

"Number two!" I felt my face stretch in a grin at the hysteric shouts of Rayza. "No, no, no! Ahhhh!" I flinched slightly at the loud thump of a fist striking flesh.

"Ouch! Don't take this out on me." Shouted a tall blond boy who had been standing too close to Rayza when she started her unladylike snit. Giggles and scoffs echoed in the air as Rayza shrieked in the boy's face and tried to take another swing at him. The boy sidestepped at the last moment, causing Rayza's momentum to drag her down to the ground with a loud thunk.

"It's impossible! She must have cheated! No way does lazy nerdy Tatsuya graduate above me!" Rayza slapped the ground with her open palms. The gazes of all the students tore away from Rayza to look at the screen. Tatsuya heard her name whispered over and over again as everyone else realized who had beaten Rayza. Heads turned this way, and that, and fingers began to point in my direction. Soon all eyes were on me. I flicked my long black hair over my shoulder and began to exit the courtyard gracefully.

The crowd parted as I went; I looked down at Rayza and gave her a little wink as I passed by her. Her brows drew together as if she only had one, and her face was the darkest shade of red I had ever seen, but she said nothing.

I had been playing a long game for years, and I had just made a checkmate. A relieved sigh escaped my lips as I looked up at the sky. I was finally free to go out and live my life without judgment or pressure. After all, no one would dare question the wealthies young dragon in the world.