"Ugh... why ?" Alex groaned, his massive fra sprawled like a crushed boulder in the center of the training arena.
The floor beneath him—adamantium-enchanted and supposedly indestructible—was cracked beyond reason.
Veins of glowing runes pulsed weakly across the room, struggling to repair the damage.
It was nding, yes, but it was clear this ti: it wouldn’t be enough.
The room was created with the power of children in mind. Raven’s power after transformation, however, exceeded that limit.
The arena couldn’t handle that power.
One had to know if the adamantium floor was in this situation because Raven, then he had the power to destroy a building with a punch.
After all, adamantium was one of the strongest tals in this world, and although the training room had mixed adamantium, it was still the sa tal.
However, unlike the room, which could be rebuilt soon, the people lying over it couldn’t, not anyti soon.
Alex rolled onto his side with a grunt, the movent earning a fresh chorus of groans from the others scattered around the battlefield like war victims.
Jake was on his back, staring at the ceiling.
Clara was curled slightly, nursing her sword arm with a pained expression. It was this Raven—the one who would beat the shit out of her but not bat an eye—that she didn’t like.
But what could she do? He was Raven.
Rufus, on the other hand, had a chunk of ice pressed against his ribs, while Jessy just lay there, blinking up at the flickering lights, her aura spent.
"...Since when was Raven a dragon?" Jessy muttered. She couldn’t believe she had been dreaming of catching up to that monster of a human.
"Fuck," Rufus croaked, coughing. "Why does he have that kind of power?"
He felt like crying.
It was already hard enough to survive Raven’s bullying, but after so much effort, he mustered enough courage to do it, only to find out he couldn’t do anything.
’Will he bully more, now?’ He wondered inwardly, fearing Raven’s retaliation for his courage as he recalled how much Raven hated those who didn’t know their place.
Jake didn’t speak, but his hand twitched slightly as if still gripping his wind sword.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t. It was snapped in two beside him.
Yeah, Raven had snapped his swords in two.
Fortunately, it was his secondary sword and not the main sword.
"One second, he was a plate three," Clara said, managing a bitter smile. "And the next, he wasn’t."
"His aura didn’t change," Jessy said, her voice low and eyes distant. "But the pressure..."
"Yeah." Rufus nodded, his eyes red as he tried not to cry. "We didn’t stand a chance."
Clara clenched her fist. "It wasn’t even a real transformation. It was... incomplete. Crude. Yet it still made us look like bugs."
Yes. She could tell sothing was off.
It seed like Raven had tried to cover his whole body with those scales, but he couldn’t.
That ant it was incomplete, or he wasn’t strong enough to use the complete technique.
Alex groaned again, pushing himself halfway up before flopping down again like a pancake.
"What the fuck were those scales anyway?" He grumbled. "They looked... alive."
None of them answered.
Because none of them had an answer.
A silence settled over them. It wasn’t bitter. It wasn’t resentful. It was just... exhausted awe.
"Where is he anyway?" Jessy suddenly asked.
"Dunno, but he left in a hurry, and from his face, it looked like he wanted to shit," Alex huffed, trying to beat Raven verbally.
Clara, however, stared at the door leading to the upper floors, concern evident on her face.
Others couldn’t tell, but she could.
Raven seed to be in pain when he left.
’Was it because of the power he used?’ She wondered, but couldn’t be sure.
......
anwhile, in the upper part of the Vaise mansion, deep within the cool stone walls of the biggest room, Raven lay curled in his bed.
His breathing was ragged, sharp gasps that sounded more like burning.
His shirt was torn, damp with sweat and blood. One hand clutched his chest, fingers digging into the skin like he was trying to tear sothing out.
"...Hh—AAARGH!"
The scream was muffled by his pillow, but the pain was very real.
It felt like soone was stabbing a molten dagger into his heart and twisting.
Veins along his neck bulged unnaturally.
His whole chest throbbed with a pressure that had nothing to do with mana.
His heart... it wasn’t just beating fast.
It felt like it was breaking.
The scales that had protected him earlier were long gone. Now, only the price remained, and the price to use that power now, when he wasn’t strong enough, was quite steep.
"Shit...!" Raven gritted his teeth, eyes glowing faintly red in the dark room. "Human heart... can’t... handle it..."
He recalled what the crackhead of an old man had told him.
"You need to be at least a Plate-five to use this power completely."
Crisaius had told him how his physique grew as power grew, making it easier to summon more scales when he was stronger, but there was one part that didn’t grow as fast as his physique—the heart.
Raven had a draconic physique, but his heart was that of a human.
No matter how talented he was, he couldn’t make up for that.
The raw strain of channeling draconic power through a body that wasn’t ready for it left him on the brink.
Of course, he did sothing impossible.
Crisaius had predicted Raven would have to use this power—Dragonification—soon, but only for a second or two, as he had found it to be the limit of a Plate-three.
Crisaius had warned Raven not to use this power for causes other than defending against a surprise attack, as prolonged use can put a lot of pressure on his heart.
In the worst case, he might die with his heart exploding within his body.
But Raven knew sothing Crisaius didn’t.
He had a dragon soul.
Not only the physique but also the soul.
After all, his soul dragon bloodline, which he had awakened while he was an infant, provided with a strong draconic soul.
Thanks to that dragon soul, he could sustain the transformation longer—his soul shielding his heart from rupture.
Suddenly, his vision blurred.
’Fuck. I shouldn’t have tried to push my limits on my first try,’ Raven cursed as he bit the pillow harder.
Trying to avert his attention from the pain, he started recalling his training—or at least what his crazy master called training.
It was hours of beating.
Crisaius would keep beating him like he was a bag of his pilled up frustration, saying that it was training, and despite knowing that those words were the truth, Raven never got used to it.
Yes, he grew stronger because of that, feeling his body growing strong because of the beating, but just when the pain started to dull, that crazy old man would increase the force behind it.
"This is all for your own good," Crisaius used to say that, but Raven never believed it.
In his eyes, that crackhead simply liked beating the shit out of him.
However, as if beating him wasn’t enough, the old man would throw him toward the beasts the mont he thought it was all over.
"You need to push your body to the limit."
Another line of his echoed in Raven’s head.
’Fuck you, Old Man!!’ Raven yelled inwardly, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek to stay conscious.
No matter how hard that training was, Raven could tell that it was worth it, especially now when he could see improvent.
Yes, the old man never taught him any martial arts, but Raven didn’t lack fighting techniques. He was talented enough to copy that from others.
What that crackhead of an old man thought was how to control his powers, which in turn helped in manifest his dragon scales.
"GHH!!!"
A sudden jolt of pain brought him back to reality, and clenched the pillow harder.
This wasn’t a story he used to read. It was his story now.
He had the power that many couldn’t get, he just needed control it.
And no matter how long it took him, he would control it.
After all, this was the signature skill of his master, a respected ancestor of the Vaise family, and the skill that gave Argon Von Vaise, his father and the current patriarch of the Vaise family, the ’Dragon Duke’ nickna.
He had such an OP power.
So, he couldn’t lose to re pain.
Soon, minutes passed.
His breathing began to slow.
His heart rate stabilized, though so pain still pulsed with each beat, it was now bearable and it was slowly subsiding.
He lay there, drenched in sweat, blinking up at the ceiling.
Silence.
Then—
Ding!
A chanical chi echoed in his mind.
He knew what it was—his system.
He hadn’t touched it since the morning, so he should check it now.
He knew he should, but recalling sothing, he groaned.
"Man, I’ll have to listen to his whining again," he rolled on the bed like an uncomfortable cat.
But he knew he had to do it.
For a brighter future, he had to open the system and look at the notifications.
"Hah..." With a sigh, he sat up straight, willing for the system to appear and so it did.
There, on the translucent blue screen hovering in front of him, a single tab blinked furiously.
[TRADE CHANNEL: New ssage in three chats.]
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