The massive dragon swept over the pack of wolves with neon red glowing eyes, like close air support, and a thick stream of magma launched out of his mouth, passing through the pack and incinerating them in a scorching orange inferno.
[+150 XP]
[+150 XP]
[+160 XP]
…
Ding!
//
You are now level 23
All stats increased!
+5 stat points
+1 ability point
//
Finally, the first rays of sun came from behind the horizon, pushing away the darkness. Suddenly all of the red dots vanished as if they never existed.
The dragon finally folded his wings, sitting down on the cliff facing the river in the valley under him. The deep, circular hole in his armour was still pulsing with dim red light even though it got dimmer with time. The waves of pain kept pushing on his scales even though the red energy didn’t manage to pierce through them.
Winds were howling around him as the orange glowing sphere of the sun kept slowly rising from behind the horizon, its warm rays heating up the valley.
‘Curse element, why isn’t it lowering my stats as it should? Did my scales isolate it enough for it to not affect me, or is it my overall dragon physiology that makes me immune to it…’
The dragon refocused on the different issue, and the pouch hidden in the crevice of his volcanic amour glowed as three glass-like spheres appeared lying on the boulder in front of him. Two of them, the size of a mandarin, were sparkling with electrical lightning, with a small storm trapped inside of their glass-like material. The third one was much bigger than the first two, the size of an orange. It was glowing in a neon red light. Under its glass-like surface were red clouds, moving and whirling inside of it.
The dragon’s reptilian eyes focused on the three balls, his mouth quickly opening in a grin, ‘This one was a lucky find. To get an elemental core out of miniboss is chance one in one-hundredth… Level fifty is still far, but maybe I should already plan for my metamorphosis. There is never too early for that as I need to start collecting the right materials for that.’
In LOMM, level fifty was an important boundary creating massive strength differences between players. It was the first time that a player could proceed with metamorphosis. Most players called it the big brother of evolution as it was only once every fifty levels instead of ten, but that couldn’t be more wrong.
During evolution, players were evolving into more advanced versions of their species, but they had little control over it, only able to choose from a few premade options. However, during metamorphosis, players could use different materials to add new properties to their species or change existing ones, and these changes would stick with them during future evolutions. The only limitations were their materials and their total stats as they determined the maximum amount of changes they could make.
‘That is the point where my knowledge of builds will come into play.’
After living for a while as a dragon, he already knew about a few improvements that he could make, ‘I have only one set of my breath-producing glands. If I double them during metamorphosis, my ability to mix multiple elements in my breath will become much easier to use. Also, the pressure and concentration of my breath would increase tremendously. On top of that, this change should be cheap, not needing any specific material, just points… and with my stupendous stats, I should have plenty of them.’
Then his reptilian eyes fell once again at the three glass-like spheres in front of him, especially the big red one, ‘With this one, I should be able to add curse properties to my breath, weakening enemies hit by it. And if I farm more of the storm cores, I should be able to bost my electrical and lightning powers.’
Finally, he sighed, imagining how hard it would be to gain the materials needed for more changes that he thought of, ‘I need lots of cores from fire, magma or volcano-attributed elementals to boost my powers with these elements… but I can’t just travel across the continent to farm some.’
‘Also, I must be careful about not destroying my draconic perfection with stuff that doesn’t belong on dragons like tentacles.’ he couldn’t but frown, imagining some not dragon-like additions to his body, turning his near-perfect noble shape into something not fitting a dragon.
His frown grew, even more, thinking about the biggest change he wanted, ‘I want to add some strong regenerative powers…’
The dragons already had strong regenerative powers, allowing them to heal from heavy injuries in just a matter of days, but Vesuvius wanted more, ‘Together with my already solid defence, regeneration would turn me into an extremely hard-to-kill being, and that is exactly what I need. I can’t risk just by turning myself into glass-canon.. this is not a game. One death would likely mean the end.’
He could just shake his head about the benefits of such regeneration, stone under him cracking as he unconsciously applied pressure on it in his frustration, ‘Problem is materials for this… They are immensely hard to get if I want it without any setbacks like getting weakened in daylight.’
The dragon rose his head towards the sky, ‘Ooo mighty and greatest of all gods, the dragon god, please allow this proud dragon to fulfil his wish.’.
Vesuvius was feeling silly for trying it out, but he needed to try, ‘Gods are real here, and with the dragon’s god decreasing number of worshippers, maybe I will get lucky with them pulling some strings for me.. who knows.’
Clouds of dust come from the distance down the river, catching the dragon’s attention. The huge herd of cows and sheep started to move with figures in black evenly spread around it.
The dragon repositioned himself lying with his chest on the ground, masking the hole in his armour as he, as a dragon, felt an aversion towards showing any signs of weakness.