Chương 23: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 23 - Explosive Dragon Form

[Anna Hathaway Favorability +5. Current Favorability: 55 (Close)] Ah... this... Su Nian, still wrapped in Anna's arms, was genuinely baffled. He'd figured she'd think less of him for flipping through that kind of picture book. He hadn't expected his favorability to go up. Goes to show, it doesn't matter if she's a little elven girl. Female is female, and female is impossible to understand. A woman's heart is a needle at the bottom of the sea. The great sage was right about that one.

Being hugged so warmly by Anna, Su Nian didn't entertain any inappropriate thoughts. The atmosphere wasn't right for that sort of thing. He nuzzled his cheek against her soft, smooth face, then gently picked her up and settled her back onto his shoulders. He spread his wings, gave them a few lazy beats, and blew the buried Kobolds free from the dirt." Cough, cough! Pfft — m-merciful Master, please, please warn your poor servants next time..."

Bolikri hauled himself out of the sand heap, face grey with grit, mouth full of dirt. The Black Dragon had been digging so fast. Before Bolikri could even process what was happening, he'd been buried under a mountain of loose earth along with the rest of them. That had been genuinely unpleasant. He'd nearly suffocated.

"Stop complaining," Su Nian said, his voice carrying a hint of mystery.

"We return to the lair for now. Take your spoils. I need a quiet cave to absorb the changes from this inheritance." He swept his gaze over all of them.

"Once I am ready, we march to take back our lair from the Ettercaps." That was all it took. The Kobolds erupted into frenzied barking, tails wagging, grief for their fallen companions dissolving into the wind. In the Silvermoon Forest, where the strong devoured the weak, something died every minute of every day. Grief was just the sad refrain beneath the song. Battle was the melody.

A short while later, Su Nian was alone in the private space the Kobolds had prepared for him, settled comfortably in the quiet of the cave. He'd already been thinking through his upgrade priorities on the way back. First: [Basic Dragon Breath Accumulation]. Non-negotiable. His two main methods of dealing damage were his breath weapon and melee, and right now, the cooldown on his breath was brutal. Even with Intermediate Devour helping him recover, a full minute to charge a single blast was too slow.

The root of the problem was that he was still a juvenile dragon. Adult dragons had breath weapons closer to basic attacks, fire at will, every ten seconds, no cooldown worth mentioning. By adulthood, their real damage came from Draconic magic anyway. But that gave him an idea. He studied the long upgrade tree for his breath weapon. If he pushed this skill all the way to its absolute ceiling... while other dragons were breathing molten fire, could he be firing an annihilation ray? Stolen novel; please report.

Just the thought made him want to grin. Second: his appearance. His current body was lean to the point of being scrawny. That wasn't the image he wanted. In his mind, a true dragon was a mountain of coiled muscle, a living weapon. Not a mosquito with wings.

"System. I want to upgrade Basic Dragon Breath Accumulation." [Ding! 1000 system points deducted. Basic Dragon Breath Accumulation solidification beginning. Please prepare, Host.] There was some pain — a deep, pressurized ache — but nothing like the agony of the Basic Furnace upgrade. He bore it without trouble. When it finished, Su Nian lifted his head. A low rumble built in his throat. The cyan-green glow along his neck intensified, brighter and brighter, until it blazed at its peak, and then he unleashed it.

A torrent of ghostly green breath erupted from his jaws and flooded the cavern. The surrounding stone didn't just melt. It hissed. A sharp, angry sizzling filled the air as the acid ate into the rock, and faint wisps of smoke curled up from the dissolving surface. He'd heard about fel flames on Hellfire demons. This felt like it could hold its own. Su Nian was very satisfied. This was proper dragon breath. It kept everything that made acid breath deadly, and layered burning damage on top of it.

And he could already feel the difference, the breath fluid was regenerating twice as fast. Half a minute to a full charge now, not a full minute.

"Next: the body." He thought it over carefully, running through every dragon boss he'd faced in games during his previous life. Top of the list, no contest: Deathwing, Neltharion. The definitive Black Dragon image. That ferocious, near-demonic skull. Scales like forged armor plates. A neck thick as a siege engine. Muscles coiled and knotted across every inch of the body.

And that crack, that glowing, molten fissure that started at the neck, traced down across the belly, and branched out toward the tail in veins like the pattern on a leaf, radiating the promise of catastrophic energy. Second option: Nidhogg, the Dragon of Despair. The one that gnawed through the roots of the World Tree. A calamity-class existence by any measure. Where Neltharion was raw power, Nidhogg was wrapped in shadow. Pitch-black scales with a deep, oily sheen. Ferocious spines running the length of its spine.

Wings soaked in dark energy so vast they could blot out the sky, with faint points of starlight glimmering within. Compared to Neltharion's sheer brutality, Nidhogg leaned more toward the traditional Black Dragon aesthetic, mysterious, almost elegant, but no less powerful. Still. Su Nian's heart belonged to Deathwing. That body. That was what a real dragon looked like. Violent aesthetics taken to their absolute limit. He made up his mind and fed the mental image directly into the custom transformation system.

If he could pull off even a junior version of that look, he'd probably scare adult dragons into stunned silence. [Ding! Calculating transformation cost for the template provided by the Host.] [Calculation complete: Appearance modification requires??? system points. Additional organ modifications require??? system points. Host's system points are insufficient. Transformation failed.]"... Ah." Su Nian stared at the prompt. He'd known it would be expensive.

He just hadn't expected the appearance modification alone to cost that much. A few minutes ago he'd felt rich. Now those system points looked like pocket change. The revolution is not yet complete. The Black Dragon still has work to do. He sighed. He was about to close the window and look at other upgrade options when the system popped up a new prompt: [Insufficient system points. Activate phased transformation plan?]"What's a phased transformation plan?" [Ding! Based on the transformation direction provided by the Host, the system will divide the transformation into multiple phases. Each phase requires only a portion of the total cost.]"Oh." Su Nian's dragon mouth stretched into a wide, jagged smile. Installment payments. No interest. His system was genuinely thoughtful. A good son, truly, only slightly below his SSR treasure Anna in the rankings.

"Activate the phased transformation plan." He straightened up, rolled his shoulders, and spread his wings. His crimson eyes gleamed with anticipation. [Ding! For appearance modification only, the transformation is divided into four phases.] [Phase One, "Explosive Dragon Form": 1500 system points. Full restructuring of the Host's physique, body shape, and internal muscle distribution.] [Phase Two, "Advanced Scale Density": 5000 system points.] [Phase Three, "Advanced Scale Strength": 5000 system points.] [Phase Four, New organ installation, "Molten Heart": 7500 system points.]... [Host's system points are sufficient to begin Phase One. Proceed?]"Do it," Su Nian said.

"I'm not waiting another second." ➤ Next: Aren't You Afraid of Me?