Thick clouds of steam and smoke drifted across the small valley covered in a thick white layer of snow. Cold winds were howling between the tall spruces growing all around it.
The massive black dragon with magma leaking out of the cracks in its armour was unmovingly lying in the middle of a large burned circle.
Ding!
//
[Draconic Magic (LV 10)] –>[Draconic Magic of Anger (LV 10)]
//
In an instant, a massive influx of knowledge exploded in the dragon’s mind. New magical circuits, together with improved versions of the old ones, were uploading into his mind.
,m His brain absorbed and processed an impossible amount of information, causing him to feel a stabbing pain in his brain. The dragon grunted his teeth as the information kept surging into his brain.
At the same time, the heat radiating out of the dragon intensified, the bright white glow radiating out of his magma turning even brighter.
Finally, it passed, and Vesuvius breathed out in relief. He wasn’t planning to check his new knowledge right away, so he pushed it out of his thoughts for now.
‘I still have fourteen more ability points. If I want my plan to work, I need to boost my magic scaling even more.’
His eyes quickly fell upon one of his latest acquisitions.
‘It only costs ten points while having a promising future.’
Without regret, he spent ten more ability points.
Ding!
//
[Draconic Curse Magic (LV 5)] –>[Draconic Curse Magic (LV 6)]
//
The dragon quieted down, attentively listening for anything around him. His senses and power over the curse were scanning through the whole valley. Finally, he settled down after noticing only a few smaller animals.
‘Time to begin.’ The dragon closed his eyes, the blackness filling his sight.
His heartbeat started to slow down while he cleared his consciousness of all of his useless thoughts while following instructions on meditating.
His senses slowly dulled down, all of the sound turning distant as his mind drifted deeper and deeper into his subconsciousness.
Two small dots in the infinite depth of the darkness appeared before his eyes.
‘This must be it!’
His consciousness dived straight towards them. They kept growing quickly as he kept getting closer. One was glowing in bright blue light, and the second in bright green light.
The blue one looked more like a floating orb of energy, with the green one looking like a blob of glowing gas. Their surface was constantly swelling and whirling.
The dragon’s consciousness stopped close to them. His ability already gave him all of the information that he needed. He focused his will towards the two blobs.
Immediately the green orb started to grow smaller, with a stream of energy leaving it and flowing into the blue one that began to swell in size, with its glow turning even brighter than before.
‘It is working!’ Vesuvius cheered.
The green blob kept growing smaller and smaller, while the blue one kept getting bigger and brighter with each passing second.
Finally, the dragon moved his will, stopping it when the green one turned from a watermelon size to a small marble size.
The dragon opened his eyes, his eyes shining brighter than ever before. The air around him was bending, with the whole forest creaking under the immense magical energy radiating out of his body.
The heat radiating out of him turned even higher, the magma in the cracks of his armour gaining a blue tint.
The already bright glowing runes littering his claws, spikes on his backs and horns started to glow even brighter as if they were going to explode.
Powerful lightning was surging around his body, each arc thicker and brighter than before.
Vesuvius felt his magic power going through the roof, but at the same time, he started to feel sick, his whole body feeling heavier.
Ding!
//
VIT : (392 + 5) x2.95 –> (25 + 5) x2.95
MAG : (512 + 10) x3.95 –> (879 + 10) x3.95
//
‘Luckily, no one is around me to use my current state to their advantage.’
That was the whole reason why he decided to go deep into the cursed mountains, where everything was under his power.
He felt like a single injury that got through his defences could easily turn out to be highly fatal.
It was a risky move, but with how insane was scaling of his magic, he knew that the boost he would gain during his metamorphosis was more than worth it.
‘Still, I have my regeneration and defences, so some random thing can’t just hit me and kill me in one attack.’
The dragon lifted his clawed hand, his eyes observing the brightly glowing claws and runes with lightning dancing around them. He felt in ectasis with the sudden and immense jump in his magical power. He felt like he could destroy anything. He felt all-powerful.
An immense amount of mana flowed into his claws, and bright white flames with a blue tint ignited around them. The flames were so bright that even looking at them would hurt someone’s eyes.
The dragon’s eyes were shining brighter and brighter, but then he shook his head as his rationality returned.
‘Sure, I went a long way from how weak I was initially, but there is still a long journey before me.’
The dragon suddenly turned his head towards the horizon, his golden eyes brightly glowing as he looked into the distance.
‘What is that?’ his mana-overcharged eyes noticed something he would have missed before.
A faint cold feeling of mana was radiating from a distance. It was so faint and weak that it almost felt like an illusion. It even kind of felt familiar to him.
He tried to feel it with the curse, but it always got repulsed as if there was some kind of invisible barrier.
He was in a dilemma, ‘Should I go check it? Even in this imbalanced state, I am powerful. If nothing else, I can always fly away.’
He finally decided, shaking his head, ‘No, I am so close to the major power-up now. Exploring some random source of magical energy would be testing my luck. I can easily mitigate most of the risks by just exploring it when I am done with my metamorphosis.’
Vesuvius decided to continue as there was only one last preparation that he needed to do.
The small pouch between the dragon’s scales glowed, multiple objects materialising on the ground in front of the dragon.
There were multiple shiny balls of different colours and sizes. There was a large sphere filled with fire. It was the core of the big fiery tree.
Then there were two other large ones. One blue radiating pure mana was an energy core from the giant mech. Finally, there was the last large core that was neon-red with a malevolent aura radiating out of it.
Countless smaller cores littered the ground. Some of them crackled with lightning, with others burning in fire or pulsing with pure mana.
‘Finally, all of my hard work will bear its fruits.’
A dead body of a cyborg without a head with prosthetics materialised out of nowhere in a flash of light, blood still leaking out of its injuries.
Finally, the pouch glowed again, with random ingots, feathers and more materials materialising on the ground.
‘I doubt I will use most of these, but I will rather prepare everything, just in case.’
The dragon closed his eyes, his mind activating his metamorphosis.
Ding!
//
Metamorphosis starting…
Activating effects of all relevant titles…
Loading the available materials…
Calculating meta points from the total stats…
Available meta points: 6,497
//
A 3D model of the massive dragon looking like Vesuvius appeared before his eyes. Everything around was black, with only the model of the dragon faintly glowing and rotating.
POV Thief:
A figure in a grey cloak and hood hung from a tall cliff, holding a dagger stabbed into the stone wall with his left hand. Under him was nothing but clouds and long fall. His cloak was swaying in the powerful winds howling around the tall peak.
‘The wyrm is gone! They flew in a direction deep into the mountains, meaning they should be gone for long enough time.’
The man looked up at a tall black tower rising from the top of the peak that he was climbing.
The massive black structure was throwing its shadow towards the valley deep under it.
The man moved his right arm and stabbed another dagger, its blade piercing deep into the stone cliff.
He pulled out his left dagger from the cliff, a few small rocks falling down with loud rumbling. He stabbed the dagger again above his right dagger and pulled his body higher.
His heart was beating loudly, all of the adrenaline flowing through his veins after seeing the wyrm destroy everything in the plains. However, instead of fear, excitement erupted within him.
‘Haha, I can’t wait to see that wyrm going berserk after finding out that their treasures are gone when they return home.’
He started to move faster, his body jumping higher and higher, metallic clanging resounding through the depth of the valley under him each time he stabbed his dagger into the cliff.