(AN: Ok, so I read your suggestions about the system, and it looks like you are evenly split, so I will make a compromise with the system being gone for a few chapters and returning soon after, but temporarily in a limited form just to show the progress. Then eventually, it will return to the full version. Thanks for your suggestions.)
POV Vesuvius:
A shadow moved above the tall white peaks hidden between dark clouds. It moved so fast that it left a line in clouds, like an icebreaker in a frozen sea.
Suddenly a bright red light ignited in dark clouds, painting them in red, the red shine constantly pulsing. A thick neon red beam exploded from the sky the next second.
The beam descended and hit the ground, everything around it melting or evaporating under the bright light and immense heat, leaving a deep gash filled with magma. The heat was so immense that the air around the beam ignited, setting the sky on fire.
The shadow in the clouds moved forwards, the flapping of the wings resounding through the mountains with the pulsing beam constantly blasting against the ground leaving behind a line of destruction.
Finally, the dragon closed his mouth, his heart still loudly beating after witnessing the power of his new magical breath lense. It was even better than he expected.
Thanks to their reactor-like properties, his breath glands worked for free and gave him lots of extra energy that he fed into the amplifying circuit, turning the thin ray into a beam of death.
He calmed himself down and flapped his wings as he quickly flew back towards the peak where the ancient wyrm rested. He was full of eagerness and energy after witnessing the huge improvements just after the few advices from them.
His finger with the ring to copy abilities was itching on his finger, nagging him to use it and learn one of the wyrm’s powers. He was waiting for a long time to find an ability that wasn’t just strong on itself but would make a great combo with his existing ones.
The dragon quickly soared through the sky, and the silhouette of the wyrm sitting on a tall mountain quickly got closer and closer. Lightning was striking around them, constantly hitting the surrounding peaks with thunders loudly rumbling.
‘No, their powers are strong and would make a great combo with mine, but I can get their stronger variants by myself eventually. I want something different. Something that would be almost impossible to learn otherwise.’
The dragon braced his wings and landed on a nearby peak. A massive avalanche of snow and stone fell down as his enormous body settled upon it. He folded his wings on his back. He felt fresh and eager to learn more from the wyrm.
The wyrm slowly turned their long scaly neck towards him, their voice loudly booming, “Ohh, you have returned. Now let us continue.
“I saw it. You have never used any kind of defence magic. Sometimes it is better to burn some mana to form a barrier to isolate your body from a dangerous force.”
Vesuvius remembered how he was launched and thrown across the sky by the wyrm’s wind attacks, the winds constantly messing with his ability to fly. Even though he managed to avoid any serious injury, he lost control of his flight. There was no trick behind it, just physics.
“All of the magic barrier magic is complex, but you are a dragon, so you don’t need it. You can already shape elements around you. It will not be a strong barrier to protect you from large attacks, but it will be enough to block some nasty tricks and isolate you body when needed.”
The two long horns on the wyrm’s head suddenly glowed, strong winds rising around them. The winds kept getting stronger and stronger, picking up dust, small stones and snow from the ground, all of it rotating and whirling around the wyrm at an immense speed.
It kept speeding up, the wyrm behind it turning blurry with loud howling akin to jet engines echoing through the mountains.𝒪𝓥xt.𝑶
Seeing it, Vesuvius felt like an idiot for never even realising that he could use his horns in such a way. He wanted to bang his head against a stone, feeling it was so obvious yet a perfect usage.
‘When under enough pressure, water and air can turn into a powerful barrier, and as it is not directly connected to my body, it will not transfer any force or weird effects to me.’
He pushed his own mana through his veins and bones, feeding them into his horns that immediately flared up in bright light, with lightning around them intensifying. Their whole crystal material getting filled with glowing energy.
‘What element should I use for my barrier? Earth feels too bulky and wouldn’t really work. The wind would work, but I don’t really have the best affinity with it. Maybe magma or water? They could work. They are dense enough while still being flexible.’
A magma started to flow out of the dragon’s body, levitating around his massive body as if there was no gravity. Then a large force grabbed all of the magma moving and forming a giant super-hot bubble. Its burning walls started to rotate and flow around, creating a highly pressured barrier.
The dragon could only see the orange light filling the whole bubble, the magmatic barrier obscuring his view.
‘How could I even miss this? This also opens a question how can I see through my smoke?’
With just a single thought, the barrier dispersed, falling down like a rain of fire, burning everything under it.
The dragon focused once again, water condensing around him and forming small streams that started to flow in a dome-like pattern around him. The water immediately started to evaporate, turning into clouds of steam.
Vesuvius focused, even more, reducing the heat radiating out of his body to a minimum. Finally, the water stopped evaporating and instead started to rotate faster and faster around his body, forming a transparent dome.
His sub-brain finally took over, keeping the water rotating around him without any need to focus. It wasn’t efficient to use it to stop every attack, with stronger ones capable of simply breaking through it. Still, he could feel like it had its use in preventing or at least reducing some attacks.