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The dragon’s tongue moved, and I exploded forward. Powerful jaw muscles and a slippery palate make opening the dragon’s mouth difficult. I felt the heat crawl up from the dragon’s gullet as I finally pushed its jaws open and dove between teeth like swords. The dragoness Kori turned in my direction and opened its maw, spilling flames as the dragon Tyrian prepared to unleash another blast of flame. 

I was still unprepared to move like I needed to with my spirit art. I expanded my channels with 5 pills and barely managed to get the explosive power I needed. 

Chi from my core turned into force beneath my feet as I moved. I crossed the distance from the inner room to the cave’s wall in the blink of an eye. Flames billowed out from the monsters, turning the hardening molten gold back into molten slag mixing with stone. I looked back to see stone pop, hiss, and crack before melting into a dribbling mess and mixing with the gold. Fresh air thinned, and I couldn’t afford to hold back any longer. 

I shot forward and threw a knee into Kori’s snout, blasting her head back into the rocky ceiling. Her paw lashed out, and I caught it. The dragoness had moments to rethink her strategy before I twisted it, dislocating the limb. I moved on to the other one and repeated the process. It was a minor cruelty, the least she deserved. 

Tyrian drew in another breath, and I shot forward. My fist drove into the dragon, piercing scales and muscle and stopping on bone. I wrenched my hand free, leaving a deep wound that stopped at my elbow, to a dragon a head taller than three stacked train cars that wasn’t much. 

I thought about emptying my core and unleashing an explosion, but that would only leave me drained. The blast hit everything, and it wasn’t focused. It was a wall of force, more of an explosion than anything. 

“You are no princess,” Tyrian said. 

I ducked under swipes and fired into his wound. Blood splashed out as the dragon took multiple rounds in the chest. Then I holstered my side arm as the dragon turned. I jumped on its back, put my hands together, and delivered a hammer blow to its spine. The beast shook, and I felt its knees buckle. My second blow hit harder, collapsing the old lizard to its belly. 

“Why do this to me? Is this revenge for your rulers? Humans don’t have feelings. They don’t love strangers, much less their rulers.” 

I slammed a third blow, and the dragon stopped talking. 

“This and that have nothing to do with each other.” I grabbed the dragon’s horns and planted my boot where his brainstem should be. “My dragon physiology is a little rusty, but this should end you,” I said. 

White light flashed around me as I yanked the beast’s head back and kicked down with one smooth motion. 

I felt a definite crack, and the dragon went limp. 

“No dragons will be annoying me while I use this inspiration.” To the side of my view, there was a clock counting down. I had only 179 days left. “What about you two? Will you be a nuisance to me as well?” I asked. 

“You won’t get away with this. Killing a dragon has consequences. We will burn your kingdom to the ground and eradicate your line.” Kori said. 

Komondor was still knocked out. 

“So, I have nothing left to lose and everything to gain. Tyrian may have fed them to you, but you ate them in the end. I’m assuming Komondor did the same. Is it arrogance or tradition that made you believe you could get away with eating humans forever?” I asked. 

“Killing a dragoness is a step beyond even the most foolish dragon slayers. Do you dare kill either of us?” Kori asked. 

I appeared in front of her in a burst of speed and hopped on her snout. Her eyes widened as I grabbed one of her horns for more leverage. 

I reared back my fists and smashed it into her head. Scales tore, but the skull didn’t crack. I pulled my hand out, drew my eagle, and fired into the wound. The dragoness shook her head back and forth, roaring and spewing flames in every direction. Blood gushed out of the wound as I fired round after round into the monster’s head. I holstered and punched again, and the dragon collapsed. The skull was still intact, and the dragoness continued breathing. 

…

While the monsters were knocked out, I grabbed some jewels from my bag of holding and then thought better of it. Anything I used here wouldn’t count in the real world. This place was in my mind. I had six months, but whatever happened here would only be in my mind. My spirit art couldn’t gain power, but I could get experience using it. I can’t get stronger, but I can improve my use of what I have. I walked over to the purple-scaled dragoness Komondor and leaned against her flank. 

“I know you’re awake,” I said. 

It was odd to feel support stiffen. I patted her side. “You can continue pretending to sleep if you want. I won’t hold it against you. I don’t want to deal with this situation either,” I said. 

She opened an eye and turned it toward me. The massive yellow eyes would be intimidating if I hadn’t just faced an eldritch abomination made of them. I rubbed my hand along her scales, thinking about how to best use my time. A war against dragons could be inspirational, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. 

Alchemists had their flame, but maybe it wasn’t exclusive to them. Perhaps it could be used in enchanting. The staff of Frodo Burnside remained pristine and separated from the cooling pool of metals. The gems weren’t really rubies after a closer inspection. I wanted to replicate that and dive deep into it. 

“What are you going to do with us?” 

“I don’t know. I can’t let you go; killing you would be annoying, and I don’t want you to stay. You’re a maneater, so I should kill you all by default, but this is not my world. I’m only going to be here for six months.” I said. 

Could I use my spirit art as a form of telekinesis? That was a question I needed answered if I were to move forward. Having my hands not attack me when working with hazardous materials would be helpful. 

“No human is as strong as you. So, in your words, there are other worlds with powerful humans that would take exception to us devouring your weaker cousins. Is that a fair assessment of the situation?” Komondor said. 

This inspirational item would cease to exist after only three uses. Each lasted an hour, and the time passed for me was determined by the item’s quality. In the corner of my eyes, I saw a counter slowly ticking down. 

181d 25h 20m 15s 

I opened the cultivation status app on my tablet. The AI in charge of categorizing everything was a little buggy but worked for the most part. Small recording machines built into the device, contacts in my eyes, and nanites in my bloodstream fed it information. Even my scouter was hooked up. There were cultivator populations in Weston, and there was a market for technology to support them. 

Status

Atom Walker 

Realm: Chi Gathering 

Stage: 6 

Spirit Art: 1/3

Wrath: Rank: 1 Stage: 2

Chi Techniques

Type                                                      Rank                                    Stage

Aura                                                      1                                             9*

Capacity                                           1                                             6             

Control                                              1                                             9*

Endurance                                       1                                             5

Enhance                                            1                                             9*

Fire Manifestation                       1                                             3

Kinetic Manifestation                1                                             4

Manifestation                                1                                             5

Movement                                        1                                             8

Pressure                                           1                                             3

Perception                                       1                                             6

Recollection                                   1                                             8

Simulation                                      1                                             9*

I made both more and less progress than I thought. Simulation was ready to rank up when I was. The same goes for Enhance, Control, and Aura. Wrath was still only a rank 1 spirit art and needed tons of experience. Getting kinetic manifestation to 9* was going to take some time. Here, it was possible to increase my stage with techniques. It was all just practice, after all. Killing the dragons with Wrath wouldn’t do anything for the spirit art’s stage or rank. 

Spirit arts were one of the few ways to raise a technique’s rank without going up a realm of cultivation. Someone with a rank 2 spirit art fit for combat wasn’t far from an actual rank 2 cultivator or classer. 

With that in mind, how was I going to spend my time? Did I want to try and raise kinetic manifestation to stage 9*, go all in on fire manifestation for my battle against the feathered serpent and eventually the count, or did I want to spread out? The staff’s enchantments looked promising, or I could try to tame a dragon with Chi. That would be fun. Kori would be a good test subject, but I’ve always wanted to be a necromancer until I learned that starting out involved lots of graverobbing. 

I shook my head. I was here for a reason. Fire Manifestation and possibly other techniques that came with the technique. 

“My jaw is broken. I don’t think I can hunt any time soon.” Komondor said. 

I stood up and stretched. “Let me get a look to see if I need to reset it. I know a little about dragon care.” I said. 

Summers spent taking care of my mother’s various monsters looked like they would be helpful after all. I slipped off her flank and approached her mouth. Brutal teeth peeked from her chops, each like a serrated saber curved to guide prey to the back of her throat to be swallowed. I felt along her jawline with my hands, digging into warm dragon flesh until I found a large knot. I tapped it, passed my Chi through the inflammation, and got a flash of her bones. The technique was better, like sonar or x-ray. She wasn’t terribly off, but should I tell her it’s broken and play it up or let her know she would be okay. 

“How bad is it?

“You won’t be singing anytime soon, but it isn’t broken. The bone shouldn’t have any trouble healing in a few weeks. Eating might still be an issue.” I searched my tablet for any information on dragons but must have deleted my old files. “I’ll see about chopping up your food before feeding you,” I said. 

I thought about it, and suddenly, I had a project. 

…

Day 2 of Inspiration. 

I tried making hands out of Chi, and they fell apart every time. My plan was smothered in the crib before I could try anything. Let me start from the beginning. 

That morning, I kicked Tyrian out of the cave mouth and let his body tumble down the mountainside. No dragon meat for me, not that I needed any. I haven’t felt hungry since coming to this place. Anyway, I found some horses, cows, and pigs left to wonder after the farmers left. 

My first real test of strength was transportation. A 300-pound animal is like a fully-grown hog. 

Dragging it wasn’t working. My options were limited. My storage bag was limited, and I wasn’t a space mage or cultivator. 

I gave up and tried something closer to home. Goats were plentiful and also bony. 

After killing twelve goats, I discovered I could not grind them up and feed the dragonesses. Kori showed signs of waking up, and then I would have to subdue her. So I decided to make my tools out of the metal on hand, gold and silver. 

I felt brilliant raising my hand and manipulating fire to start a blaze. When the metal bubbled and appeared pure, I tried to move it with Chi but failed. My Chi was more gas than liquid, and I needed a solid.   

“Just push your hands in and shape it like clay. Humans do that all the time.” Komondor said. 

“It’s too hot. I’ll cripple my hands,” I said. 

“I thought your kind of human was strong,” Komondor said. 

The flames I created moved about out of my control. I figured that out fast when I shut off the technique, and parts of the cave continued to sizzle and pop. 

Chi, in the shape of human hands from my senses, barely displaced the cooling metal and only managed to slightly shift the pool of molten gold. 

Day 3 of Inspiration 

I didn’t sleep and tried to go into another cave away from the dragons, but no matter what I tried, my mind wouldn’t rest. At no point did I feel tired, but I felt like I should have slept. Instead, I worked with my kinetic hands after manifesting them. I had the idea sometime around midnight. While I hadn’t planned to practice kinetic manifestation and, in this case, manipulation, it was a welcome tool. 

My kinetic hand could force matter away from itself but failed to hold the matter in place. I had to jump away or risk being burned by molten gold. 

Day 4 of Inspiration 

Komondor’s stomach growling was getting louder, and she tried chewing on a goat but had to quit early on. I cooked up some of the meat and tried the baby bird method, but the amount was too small to make a dent. The goat was also challenging. 

Gathering Realm chi was too soft to really do anything. A manifested element helped, but after the end of the 4th day, I needed cutting power. 

I abandoned making a tool from molten gold for the foreseeable future. Making a container to hold the goat remains that could be enchanted to hold living matter in a bag of holding wasn’t working. So, I had to work with what I had, not wanted. The goats needed to be minced bones as I tossed them in Komondor’s maw. 

Day 5 of Inspiration 

I placed my hand on a goat and manifested flames within it, evaporating its blood and killing it nearly instantly. Then, I slowly roasted only its meat, leaving its hide untouched. My first attempt split open, and blood steam lanced out of it. Control needed work walking while carrying a cooking goat, which was difficult while using Wrath to climb the mountain. 

My second attempt was better. I made an area without fire from the goat’s hide and cooked it inside its skin. This was only one necessary step to feeding the man-eating dragons I’ve decided to use as a project. 

The goats didn’t explode in their own skin, so I decided to take my second challenge, mincing the goat from the inside out. For this, I made a blade from kinetic manifestation and let it hover in the air. It was only a white line to my sight, and when I pressed it against the goat, it struggled to sink into the flesh thanks to the abundance of fire chi. 

I knew Chi could interfere, but I didn’t know if it could block other interference. They were my Chi, but the remnants of the fire chi within the goat carcass fought valiantly against my attempts to mince the goat’s innards. 

After writing down my discovery so I wouldn’t forget, I sat against the dragon’s flank. “That smells delicious. I don’t care if it hurts; I want a bite of that,” Komondor said. 

“You might choke to death.” Her tail swished, and she winced. Every little movement seemed to set her injury off. I really did a number on her. “I will get it figured out soon.” 

I made a blade of fire and stared at the raging heat. It hovered above my hand, nominally under my control. The blade was as likely to burn the goat’s insides to ash as to cut it. Even a kinetic blade wasn’t what I wanted. But a chi blade was too gaseous to do the job. 

For a heartbeat, I stood in place, shocked. This place was filling me with so much inspiration. What if I made a blade instead of a tool that looked like a blade? Manifest could produce flames and kinetic energy, so why not manifest metal. 

My first attempt made a ball of calcified, expanding metal chi that scattered the moment it touched something. It was hard in the same way frozen chocolate was hard. I stared at my Chi, thinking before spotting a glinting piece of twisted metal. 

It hit me then; grinders weren’t blades. They were spinning metal wheels that ripped flesh into tiny bits. What if I did that with my Chi? My plan was to fill the corpse-like I would my body for an enhancement and then twist it in multiple directions. 

Day 6 of Inspiration 

Happy dragons are happy. I learned how to grind flesh into a meaty soup and turn goats into sacs of nutrition. From their bones to their muscles and organs, I turned them into a drink and poured them down Komondor and Kori’s throats. I had to massage Kori’s throat to get the slurry down, but their stomachs stopped rumbling, so I could finally get to work. 

Enhancement was an insidious technique. It is as defensive as offensive and protects its user from foreign Chi. As a man who can turn a goat into a juice box, I found that very convenient. After hours of trying, I brought my goat juicing time from 6 to 5 hours and 49 minutes. It was progress, more than I could say for my other techniques. 

The sword was an object of inspiration, but that didn’t mean it was all about fire inspiration. 

Day 7 

Kori and Komondor flew the coop while I was gone getting goats. Part of the countryside was up in flames, and I started renovating it. 

Enhancement was a broken technique. Not because it didn’t work but because it was a doorway to so many options I didn’t know existed. My chi usage had diverged enough to gain two new techniques: infuse and mince. Stone became more straightforward by infusing it with my Chi and mincing the parts I didn’t need. I widened the cave, creating rooms with support columns, and only had a few dozen cave-ins. 

Each cave-in taught me something new about excavation and building. 

Day 8

I found the dragon’s remains and took it back to the cave. What I planned to do was so unethical I would be killed if anyone found out. I could get away with anything in a simulated world, which was no more accurate than a memory. 

Day 15

 Refugees from the kingdom made it to my fence, and one managed to climb it. I ignored them and used Chi to slowly carve fiery runes into the dragon’s skeleton. I’ve never tried necromancy, and it sounded exciting to do without skills or mana. 

Many believed Chi was energy connected to souls and thoughts, so I thought I’d try anchoring a ball of it in the monster’s skull. It was bound to be fun to see what happened. 

Carving dragon bone with Chi was exhausting. Nothing else in the cave did any damage to it. I had to enhance a tiny section and mince it, but dragon bone resisted everything. When I managed to mince something, parts of the skull fractured, ruining the rune script. I needed to try something else.

Day 17 

Nothing worked. My Chi was too gaseous to damage the skull cleanly, like a cut. Kinetic manifestation only fractured or chipped the skull, wasting entire sections. I enhanced it with Chi to get a sense of the structure again and came to a realization. The dragon bone was still alive. Cells continued to seek out nutrients, failing that they cannibalized. Over time, the dragon bone would die, but not for months. I decided to throw goat slurry onto it to see what would happen. 

Dragon bone cells were among my rank’s most resilient things I’ve ever heard of. It wasn’t even ranked 2, but it had so much tenacity. 

Day 20 

All the damage done to the dragon skeleton healed, and it was slowly adapting to its new life. I used mince to take samples and enhance them. My goal was simple: I wanted to communicate with them. 

I later felt like an idiot because no matter how alive, a skeleton couldn’t talk. At first, I tried to use enhancement to guide the still-living bone cells to where I wanted, but that didn’t work either. After hours of holding onto a bone covered in rot and goat slurry, I changed my approach. 

Enhance filled the spaces between matter and reinforced structures. I was trying to get cells to use my Chi as fuel and then control them like a parasite. I could pull my Chi and use the filled-in mass to dig through the bone like a metal shovel parts dirt. My control wasn’t nearly enough to hit the spots I wanted. 

I had something to work on. 

Day 21

Control practice started with making sure the bones were repaired correctly. Dragon cells divided, and I minced any that grew out of place. There had to be something in the dragon’s body that culled rampant cell division. Whatever it was, it died with the dragon. 

Form Perfection was a combination skill that could work after I took care of my first problem. I stepped out of the cave and saw people building villages behind my wall as a strange mix of dragons and humans rampaged across the countryside. The dragons seemed to have struck back. 

I turned to see a red-scaled monster with massive reptilian eyes raise an ax. I drew my eagle and fired it, painting the cave wall with its brains. Pop mob or dragon plagued, as I heard an illegal refuge call them, didn’t have the limiting factor in their brains. The bone cells of the dragon grew faster where the brain matter touched it. 

Dragon bone cells are resilient. I’ve taken to using dragon-plagued slurry to direct the bone growth. I have grown a stylus and begun experimenting with fire chi through it. 

The dragon bone appeared utterly immune to all flames and was more rigid than steel. 

Day 25

Success through the careful use of fire manifestation, I have burned dragon bone. All it took was 9 hours of concentration. With my success, I enchanted my bone stylus with the new method seen by the staff. 

Day 29

I have broken pieces of the Tyrian’s skeleton off and thrown it in pits of dragon-plagued meat slurry. Enchantments anchoring waste disposal skills down an incline ensured the dragon bone remained healthy as it grew endlessly like cancer. 

I could finally carve into dragon bone after training my fire manifestation technique through my stylus. This opened a whole new world. 

Day 30

The dragon was a mistake. On my first try at reanimating, it only worked on the head, and the ghostly light within the skull stared at me judgingly. There was no input from the rest of the body for the most part. Even if there was no way it would move the rest of its body. 

Day 60

The plague continues to be an easy source of nutrients for the dragon bone. I’ve gained bone manipulation, dragon bone manifestation, and necromancy techniques. After numerous communication attempts, the colony of bone cells within the dragon screamed at me in agony. 

Their lives are apparently hell as they live without a purpose, only consuming and replicating. I told them that I would give them a purpose. 

Operation Skeletal Dragon was a go. 

With my vast pits of dragon bone, it was easy to sculpt the dragons in myriad forms with entirely different enchantments. The golden one covered in gems, the one built like a kite, the one made of silver, the bone organic, and the new enchantment method. I’ve never made a skeletal dragon before, so it promised to be a fun experience, and I felt absolutely inspired. 

Day 99 

A heroic dragon stepped into my cave. Somehow, I was the bad guy for killing Tyrian, the elder, and summoning the punishment on my people. The lizard’s name was valiant. I flicked a bone spike and used kinetic manifestation to drive it through the dragon’s eye at supersonic speeds. The dragon’s legs kicked, spewing fire everywhere, proving ineffectual thanks to the dragon bone. Moments after its brave declaration, it died, and I dissected its body. 

I found the gland that stopped the cancer cold. A dragon’s cells were all naturally immortal and cannibalistic. If a cell divided that didn’t match a particular filter, the chemical marked it for death, and the other cells devoured it. There was a gland in its brain that produced the chemical. Without the gland, the dragon’s body would become a giant tumor. I had whole walls and floors made of dragon bone that only needed a little input to keep from becoming cancerous growths. 

Veins of enchantments flowed through the cave, acting as a superhighway to feed the cave and pass waste. I used another method to ensure only the strong survived. A skill built into an enchantment destroyed the cells that didn’t belong. I could modify it with some work to allow certain forms of evolution. 

Day 120

My bone dragon was moderately complete. 50 dragons had come to challenge me and declare themselves heroes, and each one allowed me to study them. I got an excellent picture of the dragon’s inner workings through infusion, enhancement, and mincing. I was also gaining some insight into dragons themselves. 

Skeletal dragons raising the hard way had numerous issues. Bone supply was surprisingly not one of them. Making a brain from enchantment was beyond difficult. Enchantments that created artificial muscle and ligaments and stored mana or Chi put more hours into the problem. The actual flight was a pipe dream. I would end up with a ground-bound dragon that might move a few feet before failing. 

Day 150 

Test 1 ended in failure. 

Day 170

Test 139 saw minor improvements, but all were failures. Bone, even with the techniques to work with it, was stubborn since the cells infuse them with my own Chi. I focused the rest of my time on practicing my spirit art. The bone lining the cave crawled down the mountainside and fed on goats until it reached the mountainside. Enchantments to spread nutrients, remove waste, and direct its growth continued to function. Something had changed with the colony of bone cells after I left. 

I watched it flood town after town and consume everything living. The monster grew in size not as a cancer but as a system of caves. Bone tools rolled out of it like the ones I directed the growth of. 

Day 175

I deactivated the enchantments and watched the colossal thing fall apart. With nothing distributing food or removing waste, the creature warred with itself. After 5 days of terror, the monster ceased all movement and died. 

Day 180 

I returned to the real world inspired to do great things.

…

I stared at the half-melted sword after activating it. Nothing happened; only a 1 month or 100-day timer began counting down. My head was pounding, and then the memories hit. Nearly two months of life flashed before my eyes. 

When the pool of glowing nectar came into view, I could only curse myself. No consequences meant my inspiration self-indulged in the worst kinds of depravity. The memories felt like a half-remembered dream. 

I pointed at the ground, and fire chi burned a rune in place. The action felt as natural as a 2 season crash course tends to be. 

“Can your fire burn a dragon now?” I rolled my eyes hard enough for Satan to feel it. “Okay, then what was the point?” 

“Beating a feathered serpent with fire wasn’t ever going to work. I wanted a way to counter his breath, curse, and environmental skills. I might have gotten something to pierce its hide if I had been fortunate. My other self instead indulged in childish acts of necromancy.” 

“We’re back to the planning stage then. How will you pierce a feathered serpent’s scales and handle its fire and sun-based skills?” 

I planned to get some mind magic protections ASAP because experimenting on dragons was illegal. A mind mage might crack open my memories while I slept and find out. So, I put that on my list for when I got back home in the safety of my workshop. In my immortal’s cave, I had almost no options. 

Dragons of rank 1 I could handle with my overpowered spirit art, but dragons of rank 2 were exponentially more powerful. 

So, I rolled the D20 on the ground, hoping the next inspiration item was better. I went ahead and rolled all my spirit art rolls. They wouldn’t give me a new spirit of art but possible combinations of techniques and intents to create them myself. That was fine. I had 6 hours left of the day and was only supposed to scout it anyway. 

“You just want to solo battle a feathered serpent a rank above you.” 

“Yes, it isn’t fair on my team to force them to fight it,” I said. 

“Liar, you want it for yourself and all its materials. Skeletal dragons aren’t illegal so long as their DNA isn’t studied or messed with.” 

“Dragon bone gaining sentience from enchantments are too much trouble to deal with.” My argument was sound. “Besides, I don’t have time to research enchantments to resurrect it. also, a rank 2 undead dragon would only be useful until high rank 2.” I said. 

“Skeletal dragons can rank up, and you could make it into a part of a new spirit art.” 

I bit my lip and stared at the enchantments I managed to sketch into the stone with fire manifestation, manipulation, and infusion. With those techniques, I no longer needed crystals or crystalline structures to enchant. Once I mastered the techniques, I would qualify as a journeyman enchanter. My enchanting would no longer need to follow tread ground. 

On the ground near where the table had been, a skill-anchored enchantment hummed. The skill I placed was a fusion of gambling, dice roll, and reward. It was called a grand wager, and its power was focused on a single spot. The price for activating the skill and losing the gambit was system experience points. For a viable system skill, xp was rewarded by the system and dungeons, and I must have managed to gain quite a bit I couldn’t use. 

“But what does that mean?” 

“Why, my dear Satan, the dungeon must fork over a larger piece of the pie. Skills affect reality, and while powerful and able to bend reality’s rules, dungeons are still entities that exist in reality.” 

I tossed all five dice into the small circle, hoping for big money. The bonus was automatically added to my rolls. 

1: Empire of Ash

4: King of the Forest

7: Derelict Ship

8: Trapped In an Undersea Cave

17: Broken Peak

Items fell to my feet. Two different medallions for the attacking and defending sects. There was a sizeable obsidian key for the spire of Baal, a banded piece of shifting dark matter for the nightmare plane, and a red plastic button for the Undersea Voyage. I tucked the items in my bag of holding and debated my next move. 

“You’re strong and fast, so why not scout it out?” The demon in my head was making some sense. Beating it wasn’t possible, but who said I had to? Let’s go take a peak.” 

I climbed out of my immortal’s cave to blinding sunlight. Birds chirped in the distance, and the mountain air felt good on my skin. As my eyes adjusted, I caught the glint of a blue feather in a tree. Small birds were ripping it up and returning parts to their nests. When I saw it, I didn’t get a fire vibe for some reason. The feathers felt more like well feathers. 

The climb was fast enough with Wrath active. My stamina was satisfactory while wearing my medallion, and I had a good time. A single step pushed me forward at a rapid pace. The higher I climbed, the hotter the temperature rose. Trees drooped and leaves crinkled on their branches the higher I climbed. White specks covered the top of the mountain. I had thought it was snow. My first step on the whole patch revealed the truth. 

At the top of the mountain, there was only ash. The air thinned the higher climbed until each breath was a struggle. Clouds of ash flew up in my wake as I struggled to reach the peak. I moved from mound of ash to boulder as I stepped beyond the cloud covering. 

When I looked over the clouds at the burnt peak, I saw a blue and gold serpent floating in the air. Its gaze was pointed toward the sky, and the air grew hazy from the heat blasting from its body. I could approach no further. 

It was only rank 2, and I’ve fought them before. Those were my thoughts, but even though my spirit art, I felt the heat. I tried pushing the heat away, but it clung to me and everything beneath the serpent. What could I do against a being that completely altered the environment with its presence alone? 

First, I needed to advance my spirit art until it covered the rest of my body. More ranks required fuel, and I had already cleared the one below this mountain. I stared at the small pool of nectar just beneath the serpent. After staring at the burnt ground and the incline, I understood. 

This place was a basin that held the nectar. Unlike the corrupted stuff under the mountain, this stuff was an item I could use. Unfortunately, it would take time. 

This wasn’t the only mountain; maybe there were other mini-dungeons in this place. With enough kills, it was possible to reach stage 3. 

Kahlua told me about the cave, and I shuddered. Maybe the other girls and, I shuddered, their brother knew of similar places. I needed to be clear enough to strengthen my spirit art and maybe get more loot. Once my head felt better, I would use one of the rank 2 inspiration items. 

Raven probably had the place of a nice dark raid boss. Claudia probably knew something. The MILFs might also know of some good spots to grind. I shook my head; Gabriel would have to chug a health potion. I had one in my bag, and we needed locations to fight mobs and gain power. The Lee clan was moving anyway, so they might be willing to share some secrets. 

I took a step back and instantly felt better. The feathered serpent floated nearly 3 miles over the mountain and burned me with its presence. It was a Peak Rank 2 it had to be. Dragons or dragon variants always had broken abilities. It’s why dragon king Galbadorf declared he would get to war with any race that studied his kind. He also rewarded those who turned in their own kin and spared them as part of their reward. I needed mind protection ASAP. 

…

The castle’s shadow loomed overhead, just beating out the tree in height. Stepping onto the mountain’s peak would have killed me. I had only two more spirit art slots, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to use one for environmental skills. The shadows grew more profound as I approached the castle. The sounds of snarling hounds filled my ears, drowning out the wind in their fervor. 

White boots and gauntlets appeared as the first monster jumped me from behind. I felt its hot breath on my neck before I whipped around and punched through it. Blood, broken bones, and ruptured organs spilled out of the monster as I stepped into my blow. The next monster lunged at my flank, only to suffer from my follow-up blow. 

A steady stream of monsters erupted from the shadows, streaming unending like a flood. Their yellow eyes and lithe bodies made them hard to hit. Only my spirit art lets me compete with them. Bites connected, and claws raked at my sides as I attacked with all my might. My fist flew through shadows and smoke, tearing apart forms and feeding my spirit art. 

The sea of monsters that had troubled the caravan was whittling away. I turned my attention to a monster standing on two feet, ears down and teeth exposed. A smile spread across my face as I showed off my teeth. It shot forward, claws brandished, moving no differently than a werewolf. 

I could have used my eagle and killed it, but I chose not to. As I moved, killing with kicks, punches, and grapples, I could feel my spirit art improve. Stage 3 was far away, but I was making progress. 

The standing hound lunged, aiming to bite me as I twisted and turned his lung into a submission hold. I shifted, pushing him forward toward a nearby boulder. My momentum forced him to follow or be dragged as I shifted position and turned my hold into a piledriver. With a jump, we were airborne, and my knees held his head in place. I heard a crunch, and a slightly more significant amount of spirit energy entered my spirit art. 

Kicks taught by Master Yang Da snapped necks or shattered spines as I cleaned up the pack. More hounds walking on two legs appeared, and I continued the fight as the sun fully set and the moon loomed overhead, driving the shadows into darker shades. 

Blood and guts covered me as corpses covered the ground. A wound on my side was slowly mending under regeneration as I stacked the bodies. My feet hovered slightly off the ground on a pocket of force from my spirit art. 

“What do you plan to do with them?” 

I punched and hit only air as Raven stepped into the moonlight. She smirked, revealing slightly longer than a human canine’s. I held up my hand, and the blood-soaked battlefield dried. My amulet briefly refined the blood and dumped it into my core as I continued my work. I tried picking up the body parts with Chi, but it was still too gaseous. 

“If you want them, you have to give me something in return,” I said. 

“Do you have the nectar my father demanded?” 

I debated pulling out a sample from underground. 

My beating heart was calming down. I wanted to have more fun, but the boss monster among the hounds hadn’t shown up. The pack was practically gone, but there was no sign of it. 

“No, and you’re a grown woman.” 

“Yes, and my hand is valuable. Not just anyone can ask for it without dueling my brothers. You are fortunate to be human, and the thought of taking you seriously is ludicrous to them.” Raven said. 

I felt the ground shift and turned to see shadow and sand spiral into the air before a form floated down. A humanoid form with a jackal’s head faded wrappings and an ax growled at me. Black sand turned into spears pointed at me. 

“You shouldn’t fight it; this is one of Father’s subordinates.” Raven stared the monster down. “Know your place. This human is our guest. He could even become one of us.” 

The monster pointed its ax at me and growled. The sand spears fired, and I dodged from side to side. Pain lanced through my body from my side at the worst moment, and a spear stabbed into my thigh. I reached out to grab the spear’s shaft, only for spikes to lance out and nearly skewer my hand. I grabbed it anyway. 

My might and spirit art crushed the spikes as I ripped the spear out. I could forget about the feathered serpent if I couldn’t beat this guy. I tapped my scouter, and it filled me in on some new information. It wasn’t a lot, and that was the point. With a tap of my scouter, I knew it wasn’t stronger than Count Lee. I burned more blood stored in my amulet to heal my wound as I yanked the spear out. Sand poured out as the wound closed, and I hoped that wouldn’t be a problem later. 

I threw a punch, and a wall of sand appeared, blocking my blow. The force behind it only displaced some sand. I gnashed my teeth as I skated over the ground, crossing distance but never getting into range. 

“Run away. You can’t win.” 

Her lack of faith was disturbing. After my inspiration, I had a better handle on my spirit art. While I wasn’t rank 2, moving like one wasn’t an issue. Tiny force jets pushed down and around my boots on command, helping me strafe my opponent’s shooting spears as I figured him out. I crossed half the distance and felt a change in the mana. Suddenly, sand moved around us, the beginnings of a storm.

That made sense. If I managed to get into melee range, the battle was done, so the intelligent thing to do was use an AOE to kill us both. 

Sand flew up and gathered around the monster as that thought crossed my mind. Smaller spears blasted from behind as the small storm moved. Black sand gathered around the boss monster, and I didn’t know what to do except circle around and dodge spears. 

The sand formed a hard shell that looked a lot like obsidian. Heat wafted off the spell in waves as I circled the monster. Half my focus was on keeping from falling by controlling the force output, and the other half was invested in the transformation. I heard animalistic screaming. 

An orange glow filled the inside of the obsidian barrier as I heard flesh sizzle. Then the ball of obsidian cracked as incredibly sharp claws reached out. I jumped as sharp claws tore into my leg as I got airborne. The monster was covered in obsidian fused to his body. I punched, and the monster didn’t bother raising a sand wall to block it. 

It cackled as a fist made of pure force impacted its armor and did nothing. I punched again, aiming at a nearby boulder, and watched half of the massive rock explode into shrapnel. My blows were strong, and I could extend them nearly 20 yards with my spirit art. 

Resources went into healing my leg as the monster charged. I smirked as it let with its right claw, just as I expected. I caught the creature’s wrist and punched it hard in the stomach. Then I let go and dodged to the left to avoid a bite. I stomped on its foot and elbowed it in its unguarded throat. The monster slashed with its left claw and raised a foot to claw my leg. I moved to the left and close-lined the monster as I accelerated. 

The monster swung its ax, and I blocked it with my left arm. I felt the blade jump on my gauntlet and bury itself into my chest. Ribs cracked, and blood poured from the wound as the monster fell, clutching its throat. The only weakness I could see in the monster was its neck, which slowly rose after my direct attack. Rank 2 monsters were so much stronger than rank 1. 

I had speed on my side but nothing else. Then I looked down to see the ax sticking out of my chest. I took hold of the weapon using regen the entire time and ripped it out. My wound closed slowly as I crushed the head of the weapon. The monster roared, and sand spears erupted around me. I jumped, catching air as small force bursts kept me in the air. Kinesis helped me maneuver the battlefield, but my opponent controlled it. The wild dog boss howled, and the slow-moving sandstorm around us picked up. 

Sand filled my view until we were isolated. I had a plan, but my movements had to be perfect. As I landed, I stayed out of spear range long enough to catch my breath. 

When my feet touched the ground, I shot off toward the monster. I waited until a spear almost pierced my eye before dodging. The wild dog summoned axes of molten glass that rapidly cooled. He swung one at my head and followed up with the other toward my groin. I ignored both, balled up my fist, and punched the monster with all my might. 

The monster flew back just before I would have felt the icy bite of the axes. I lowered my stance until I nearly touched the ground with my forehead before shooting forward. Black glass spears appeared just a step behind me. I moved, and obsidian spears failed to find me as I caught up to the monster’s flipping form and lowered myself until my hands touched the ground and shot up. My kick smashed into the monster’s side, blasting him up into the air. 

My bones broke, and my fingers were twisted, but the smile on my face wouldn’t go away. I embraced my spirit art entirely, relying on its power. My knees bent as I enhanced myself to the fullest extent and launched myself. A massive force ejection allowed me to catch up and surpass the monster’s flight path. I raised my leg into an ax kick and slammed into the boss monster’s side. The body of the monster started rotating at incredible speeds. 

I spread my arms and legs, ejecting another blast of force behind me, stopping my upward momentum and aligning myself with the monster’s path of descent. He had a single weakness with his armor that I would exploit. My hands latched pinned his legs, and my knees pinned his arms. His head pointed down as I arrested his spin as we fell. 

We slammed hard into a spear-covered ground, the monster’s body taking nearly all the impact. I stared down at the monster’s head, only attached by a few meaty tendons. My spirit art absorbed something larger from the monster, taking it to stage 4. The white aura that typically surrounded me intensified as my spirit art erupted with more power. 

I stared down at the spear, fully impaling my chest and eating away at my amulet’s blood supply. My heart wasn’t beating, and half of it was behind me. I fell into damage control. 

“Let me handle this focus on the fight.” 

Satan enhanced my body and moved my blood manually. The inspiration taught me how to do it roundaboutly, and he also learned. I snapped the front of the spear and pushed it out with kinesis. The broken vessels yawned open, spilling my life’s blood on the ground. My breath hitched. The spear had also caught the side of my lung, and blood had filled it. 

“Demon of mine, I hope you learned better than me.” 

The coin-sized wound was slow to heal, and my heart wasn’t beating. My blood supply was slow to decline, but it would eventually. I needed to sleep sometime, and if I did without my heart beating, I would die.  

The armor of my spirit art began to spread up my arms and legs, covering the joints with stretchy white material and small metallic plates. I felt heavier, not physically but aurally. The weight of my spirit art had increased with the consumption of the werewolf’s soul. 

“Spirit art is more like soul-eating art. Am I right?” 

“Atom, you’re dying. Help.” 

I focused inward on my healing to see everything that could happen. My heart wasn’t growing back right. I scrapped whatever Satan had cooked up, and he left me to guide my regen while he kept my brain alive. 

Raven stepped through the field of shadowy spears with tiny holes in her dress. She stared at the remains of my heart on the ground, then back at me. Her glowing blue eyes locked on mine. She opened her mouth. 

“No,” I said. 

“You don’t have a heart. How are you alive?” Raven asked. 

“Wishful thinking,” I said. 

I had to focus, but the only hearts I’ve ever studied were those of dragons. Tumors kept appearing, and I was running out of time. Dragons had small but powerful hearts with an equally powerful blood circulatory system. My brain wasn’t wired to use a dragon heart, and I was inexperienced. Rewiring my brain was more complicated than making a new heart and much more difficult. 

Anything I made was a bad idea, but If I did nothing, I would die. I stabbed into the lower right side of my abdomen and did a minor hands-on surgery. The pain was immense, but Satan blocked it out. We knew enough about manipulating the body to be dangerous. I gripped the growing flesh that had no way of making a new appendix and used enhancement on it. From there, I began mincing parts to form runes while guiding the mass of flesh into the shape of a dragon’s heart. Dragons had two; they could work independently while the other recovered if necessary. 

I didn’t have dragon cells to work with and had no idea how to make two new foreign organs work in tandem with flesh shaping alone. Anchoring skills were the height of my enchanting skills. With my latest inspiration, I could enchant without crystals in minimal script. It was inevitable that what enchanting knowledge was publicly available was a tool for the enchanting guilds to monopolize enchanting techniques. 

Public enchanting knowledge required expensive materials and too many esoteric rituals. I expected alchemy to work similarly. 

I took a small mana circuit from the dungeon’s environment and powered my enchantments. There was no need to have crystalline anything or rituals to gather power. I doubted many of the runes I used were anything more than decoration. After nearly 2 seasons of memories from the inspiration, I knew far more about enchanting and dragon flesh than ever before. I thoroughly planned to go back at my first opportunity. Or maybe use another. 

Both dragon hearts were finished after only 5 hours of constant focused work and enchanting. Satan kept my blood flowing the entire time. I managed to create 2 empty slots for skills on both hearts. They were my ticket to getting blood to flow and stay alive. 

I searched my memory and my tablet for anything that could solve the problem in the short term. One slot was needed from each to get this working. I placed entanglement as a base so the slots taken will work with both organs. 

Skill smiths were rare, not unheard of. Out of 100,000 people, one might have the talent to read skill scripts. Smiths sometimes worked with enchanters to anchor skills on items, creating things like my amulet, an artifact that could upgrade naturally. Organs were things, so it was logical that my heart would also become an artifact. 

“What’s going on? Have you found a solution? I can get Father. He might be able to help you even if you don’t want to be a vampire.” 

I blinked and stared at Raven. The buxom vampire with black lipstick and glowing blue eyes didn’t seem so stable. Her mascara was running, and her eyes were puffy. 

“Have you been crying?” 

“You’re the first guy I met that has a chance of sticking around. Two of my sisters like you, and you piss off all my brothers. Do you need me to go on, you inconsiderate, rude, mortal-faced jerk?” She was breathing hard. “I’m hyperventilating, and I don’t need to breathe. That’s how much you’re stressing me out.” 

“I’m 90% done. I had to take my useless appendix out to make room for an extra heart, just in case, and I upgraded the model. Right now, I’m finishing up enchanting them to beat.” I said. 

“That would have been good information to know before you started ignoring me, and I thought you died on your feet. Then you kept standing.” Raven said. 

“I apologize for being inconsiderate of your feelings. My hearts are still not beating. I need another hour. Please inform Theodore and Gabriel that I’ve returned from scouting the feathered serpent? Its peak rank is 2 and burns the mountain top.” I thought about it and dumped pieces of a fire resistance skill into my bloated skill, which I was pruning. Also, thank you for staying with me. I could have died there.” 

I shook my head and focused on what was important. Pacemakers weren’t a new technology and adding a piece of an electrical skill to start my hearts wasn’t a bad idea. Timekeeping and synchronizing skills were ripped to shreds to form parts of my colossal skill. Then, I started pruning it to fit a copy into each heart. 

The dungeon sent me a message 

Feat Achieved

Skill Creator 

5,000pts

Drumbeat of Avarice 

Rank: 2 

Description: A skill designed to enchant two hearts shaped like a dragon’s organs. The hubris of their human creator knows no bounds as he enchants as they grow, turning organs into homes for this skill. Feed Chi into this skill to cause two hearts to beat; when one is destroyed, the other keeps a blueprint of that heart’s shape. Regeneration is then guided by that blueprint, ensuring the heart grown is an exact copy of the one lost. Experience from enemies slain goes to level an artifact when slotting with this skill. 

Feat Achieved!

Artifact Creator 

10,000pts

Kingdom Hearts lvl1

Artifact 

Rank: 1

 Description: Twin dragon hearts are enchanted with a rank 2 skill and 1 slot open each. While they beat within the user’s chest, DNA is exchanged along with attributes. Experience gained from monsters will be absorbed by Kingdom Hearts to level the artifact. 

Effect: 5% of artifact attributes empower the user. 

Abilities 

Trans Amp – Apply all attributes to the user for 1 minute

Uses: 1 per day

Attribute Choice 

Mind 

Body 

Spirit 

I stared at the screen and found that it originated from my hearts. The interface parts had worked, and my hearts were linked to the system like monsters tangentially were. I could gain attributes through this means but had to choose one of three types. Most people only had the choice of mind or body, but spirit looked interesting. My chi techniques, fortunately, had that covered, so I chose the body. 

Attributes: 

Body: 10

Description: The health, strength, speed, and endurance of an entity. The higher this attribute, the harder the physical artifact is to destroy. This attribute can be specialized into Vitality, Strength, and Endurance at the next rank. 

I felt a thrum shoot through my chest, and for a second, it felt like my blood vessels would explode simultaneously. As more beats echoed through my mind, I felt my heart slowly synch its rhythm. Then I felt the 5% increase. 

0.5 of an attribute point might not seem like much, but I was a small amount tougher, stronger, and faster. It was something else. An experience I couldn’t quite quantify. My effectiveness had already increased by 60%, and that amount was amplified by my heart. It might seem small, but when my spirit art multiplied my striking power by 100, it became much more, and I could level up my artifact. 

An ocean of xp had long since gathered around me, wasted until that moment. 

Kingdom Hearts lvl10 

Body: 10 

AP: 18 

I shoved 10 into the body, giving me a grand total of 1 body, doubling my singular attribute. To think for a single minute of every day, I could multiply my base by 20. I felt overpowered until I remembered I still probably couldn’t approach the feathered serpent. A Peak Rank 2 was beyond me; I didn’t even have to try with the simulation. 

“I’m going to take a rest,” Satan said. 

…

The sun crept up, and Raven had long since gone to bed. I sat in an unused room with my brows staring at the mountain. 

“You seem stronger,” Clint said. 

“Do I?” I asked. 

“No, but it was the polite thing to say. I sense you have gained two artifacts, but they are weak like you.” The orc said. 

“Enough, we are meeting about the dragon,” Theodore said. 

“Feathered serpents aren’t dragons. They are snakes that fly and exude fire instead of breathing it. They breathe life beams that cause tumorous growths on their enemies.” Gabriel said. 

“Thank you for that information, Gabriel. We won’t get to call ourselves dragon slayers if we kill it. Gabriel probably won’t get a cool dragon slayer apprentice class at rank 2,” Theodore said. 

“I don’t want it anyway. Blood Knight seems more likely and useful.” 

“Yeah, Canite had plenty of vampires and vampire kin,” Theodore said. 

I clenched my fist, feeling the increased power. The book in my lap was a tome on artifacts from the castle’s library. To get more attribute points, I needed to feed my artifact items in a way that was similar to theirs. Ranking up will also require it. But that was to be expected. Nothing was free. 

Hearts from various rare monsters were needed. I could feed them opposing elements and get a yin-yang thing going on. Space and time, fire and ice, and light and dark would work, but that would take time and lots of hunting in different dungeons. I was about to be outed as a farmer or a heretic. One of those was trouble, but both were a disaster. 

I had two seasons until my birthday, and then there was the fallout, which I had to deal with and confront my mother. What could I even do? 

After learning about my class, I cut my connection to the system using skill-smithing techniques. Grandfather knew, which meant it wasn’t that big of a deal, but Mom would double down. Maybe we could have our heart-to-heart at the dungeon she promised to take me to. I also needed a plan for my life. Despite the size, scope, and freedoms I was allowed, living at home was still somewhat smothering. 

Theodore snapped his fingers at me. “Atom, do you want to contribute?” 

“Why do we need to kill it at all? The plan was to wait out the 30 days and leave.” I said. 

“Think of the points. I think we should go for the high score.” Theodore said. 

“Do we have something to get close to it? I stared at them both. 

Gabriel smirked despite being covered in bandages. “I found this in the library and have a carriage ready to take me to a town nearby.” 

I stared down at the blueprint and felt it could work. “This will either work perfectly or blow up horribly in our faces. We are betting the family name here.” I said. 

“With this, we have a shot, and Clint has a skill for hitting unlikely targets.” 

I fished out some gold from merchant caravans. “Find an alchemist who knows what they’re doing and buy us heat-resistant potions. I don’t care how much it costs; it is the merchant’s money,” I said. 

“They’re all dead, so it doesn’t matter. The vampires and ghouls go through NPCs like fire to gasoline. Only a few of the daughters show any restraint.” 

Theodore stared me in the eyes. “I call dibs on taming the feathered serpent.” The tamer slammed a book with a blue moon on the cover.