Chapter 100: Chapter 100: Agonizing Enhancement

Mila

After sliding to the floor of the room, Mila just sat there for a full two minutes doing nothing. For one, she was in pain. Aalam had thrown her quite hard, and she was a bit out of it as a result. But the more important reason was she didn’t know what to do.

Aalam was back in his Id state, and he seemingly had been for a while. What had triggered it, she had no idea, but that wasn’t what was important. He was doing something to Isaiah and she had no way to stop it.

This wasn’t like when Aalam thought everything was a dream. Then his goals had a simple twisted logic, like he was playing a video game, and she was able to easily influence his decision making as he viewed her as a part of his own imagination.

This time Aalam was aware everything was real, so emotions were involved. Aalam in his normal state generally didn’t handle emotions all that well, often making rash decisions without considering the consequences. And that was before he had superpowers.

In the tutorial, Mila could beat Aalam in a fight, and the same was true at the beginning of their time on Hira, but things were different now they had both advanced to F rank and Aalam’s Territory had grown. Ever since the capture of the Shadow Thief’s soul fragment, the inheritance had become part of Aalam’s Territory, increasing all his stats even before his effective Spirit was multiplied by 12, and, unlike most F rank skills, the Heroic grade Telekinesis could handle Aalam’s currently D rank effective Spirit.

Were she to make a mistake in the tutorial, she could recover from it. Were she to somehow anger Aalam now, however, he might fail to control his own monstrous strength—the type capable of destroying an entire city with one blow—and accidentally kill her.

“Nana Xara, what is it Aalam is trying to do?” Mila sent, deciding she should at least understand the situation before she decided if she was going to try and do anything. “You were saying something about the formation being designed for torture.”

Mila could see the dragon heart, a somehow still beating giant red organ about the size of a basketball, floating above Isaiah, and it had three other race upgrading materials floating around it. One was a metallic bone, one of the two most powerful race upgrading treasures from the Shadow Thief’s ring, aligned with the metal element; the second was a non-material orb of energy around the size of a baseball which seemed to be made of purple lightning, the other most powerful race upgrading treasure, aligned with the lightning element; and the third was a normal looking brown stone about the size of a grapefruit, one of the weaker treasures for upgrading race, aligned with the earth element.

The orb containing the Essence of War was floating above the dragon heart and the can which had contained the Dragon Enhancing Powder was empty at the side of the room, Aalam seemingly having already dropped it all on Isaiah, the powder designed to work a lot like the Dragon Subduing Powder and easily enter into Isaiah’s body.

The indentation were Isaiah was lying was also filled with a red liquid which Mila guessed was a whole lot of high grade qi potions poured out, but Mila couldn’t sense anything from the formation at all, no energy leaking, and Isaiah was barely moving, so she had no idea what was going on.

“Yeah.” Nana Xara’s tone made Mila think she was both nervous and impressed at the same time. “It’s kind of ingenious and, with his effective Spirit having risen to D rank, I think it might actually work, but I doubt Aalam and Isaiah will be able to be friends after this.

“Upgrading race, racial abilities, and the like doesn’t work like someone from Earth might think it would. There is almost no modification of DNA for example, and this is why most race upgrades don’t change appearance much. For example, even though Isaiah is a half dragon, since he was born with a humanoid body, it is impossible for him to turn into a dragon with a race upgrade, at least until B rank, though he can gain the full power of a dragon in human form.

“This is because what race upgrades mainly change is the soul. And the soul is far more receptive to change and adaptation than a physical body made of matter. As an example, a common practice among powerful forces is to take control of a special environment filled with a certain type of energy helpful to the force’s main cultivation technique. If everyone in the force lives in that environment, over time their cultivation won't just be faster, but their souls will absorb some of that energy and their choice of racial upgrades will include races taking advantage of the energy their souls have absorbed.

“The original plan for Isaiah was to use the prepared magic formation the Shadow Thief left in this inheritance to allow Isaiah to slowly absorb the power of the heart of the B rank Harmony Dragon and the Essence of War. Given Isaiah’s bloodline, this would allow him to evolve into some variant of a Mettle Dragon, a more powerful dragon type which is also the usual result when a War Dragon and a Harmony Dragon breed, but most of the energy of the dragon heart would be wasted, dissipating into the air. The process would also take about a month.

“Aalam, however, has modified the formation so it doesn’t allow any of the energy to dissipate while also greatly increasing the infusion rate. This in itself is dangerous, incredibly so, but he’s also taken three of the human race upgrading treasures from the Shadow Thief’s ring and is using them as well, adding quite a bit more energy on top.

“Normally, doing such a thing to an F rank would quickly be a death sentence. Even given how gentle the power of a Harmony Dragon is, which will ease the absorption of the energies from the other treasures, there is just too much energy involved and, while a soul might be able to take it all in, the body housing the soul would not be able to survive.

“Isaiah, however, is a special case. He has the Troll Heart racial ability, so, as long as he has enough qi he’s unlikely to die, and Aalam has covered his body in pure high rank qi potion, which will automatically be absorbed into Isaiah’s body as his Core Container approaches empty. This, along with his Silver Body and Iron Skin racial abilities, should allow Isaiah to survive the energies, especially if those racial abilities take some of the energy to evolve during the process, which seems to be Aalam’s goal.

“This just means Isaiah will survive, however, not that he won’t be in excruciating pain. As his soul is forced to absorb the energies of the dragon heart and the other treasures, an extremely, extremely painful process, the contained energy will also repeatedly destroy his entire body over and over again, Troll Heart healing him each time.

“And I would only ever wish such pain on an enemy.

“The thing is, though, what Aalam is trying to do will probably work. It’s incredibly crude, just forcing energies inside a soul, but Isaiah’s race is already a half dragon, the main source of external energies is from a dragon heart, and a Dragon Enhancing Catalyst is being used, which will help guide the other energies to enhance the two dragon energies instead of working against them. Isaiah also hasn't practiced a cultivation technique yet, so there shouldn’t be any sources of interference which could alter the energies’ natural flow.

“As for what Aalam is actually trying to do, he seems to be attempting to advance Isaiah’s race to a level beyond a Human Form Young Mettle Dragon to a race called Human Form Young Balance Dragon, a type of dragon one tier below the top three.

“Balance Dragons are Legendary grade from birth like those of the top three dragon types, but they have quite low affinity for light, darkness, space, and time Laws, so they are considered a tier below Chaos Dragons, Order Dragons, and Divine Dragons.

“Aalam is planning to accomplish this upgrade by following the normal pathway for advancing to a Human Form Young Mettle Dragon and adding in energies of the earth, wind, metal, and lightning elements to increase the power of the transformation. The wind and a bit of the earth elemental power will be gained from not allowing the power of Isaiah’s bloodline, which holds those powers, to leak out of his soul, while the lightning and metal elements will come from the strongest of the two extra race upgrading treasures, and the extra earth element power from the third.

“Other than the extreme pain, it’s actually pretty impressive, showing Aalam has understood a great deal more of the first volume of Alashan’s Book of Runes than most crafters who’ve studied for hundreds of years.”

Mila took a deep breath. “Should I try to stop it?”

“At this point, no.” Nana Xara’s tone of voice had changed, back to its normal joviality, and Mila got the distinct impression the woman was enjoying the show. “The time you could have safely stopped it already passed while you were stunned and if you tried now Isaiah would probably die, with you and Aalam having a good chance of being blown up as well.

“The pain has already started. You just can’t tell because Isaiah physically can't scream and his aura is suppressed by all the energy flowing through his soul.”

Mila found herself sighing and she just started running her qi through her body to heal the damage Aalam had done by throwing her into the wall, using one of her minds to monitor Isaiah’s System notifications.

Then, a couple minutes later, the first System notification appeared.

 

Congratulations!

Your racial ability Iron Skin (Epic) has upgraded to Dragon Scales (Legendary)

 

Dragon Scales (Legendary): Increase the effectiveness of the Toughness and Attunement stats by 12.5%

 

Isaiah’s pain resulted in his weakest racial ability rising to Legendary grade like his others, and it even gained an increase in effectiveness to the Attunement stat, which was quite rare.

And this was only the first of multiple notifications.

 

Congratulations!

Your racial ability Troll Heart (Legendary) has upgraded to Dragon Heart (Heroic)

 

Dragon Heart (Heroic): Qi and mana are passively drained whenever injured to boost the healing of injuries and the normal flow rate of qi and mana is increased with better burst potential

 

The second to advance was Isaiah’s Troll Heart ability, gaining the power to passively heal from mana as well as qi and increasing the potency of Isaiah’s qi and mana, which would make his cultivation speed and skill activation time noticeably faster.

 

Congratulations!

Your racial ability Silver Body (Legendary) has upgraded to Golden Body (Heroic)

 

Golden Body (Heroic): Increase the effectiveness of the Strength and Agility stats by 25% and the Vitality stat by 12.5%.

 

Then his quarter Heroic grade skill rose to a quarter Fabled grade skill.

The System notifications stopped at that point, however, and it took about three hours for the next one to appear.

 

Your bloodline has been lost

You no longer have the bloodline Phantom Wolf (Fabled)

No bloodline has been awakened to replace it

 

It was expected, and it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing so long as that energy went somewhere useful, but Mila could only imagine how painful having a bloodline stripped from your soul could be.

Bloodlines weren’t actually genetic, more a special type of energy infused into a cultivator’s soul, and Isaiah’d had his from birth, so its loss was likely as much psychologically scarring as metaphysically painful.

And that pain continued for half a day, no new notifications appearing for Isaiah.

Aalam, on the other hand, seemed to be gaining a lot from the experience, raising a Law Larva to middle grade almost every hour, and, when Mila checked his status page, it seemed he’d advanced all his darkness and light element Laws before they’d returned. The elemental dao guide had apparently been quite helpful for his darkness Laws and, as all his darkness Laws formed pairs with his light Laws, he’d found it easy to raise them as well.

It took about a day after the process started for Isaiah to get another notification, and this time it was the second advancement of his Dragon Scales ability.

 

Congratulations!

Your racial ability Dragon Scales (Legendary) has upgraded to Dragon Scales (Heroic)

 

Dragon Scales (Heroic): Increase the effectiveness of the Toughness and Attunement stats by 25%

 

Throughout the entire time, Mila had just sat there, unable to interfere but also unable to go away. She could sense Isaiah’s aura. He was angry and he was in pain, and there was no way he was going to forgive Aalam, so what was the point of making him more powerful at all.

 

Congratulations!

Your Law Larva of The Healer has advanced to middle grade.

 

Your soul is affected by your understanding of Law.

Base Stats +16, Soul +48

 

And that was the reason. Thinking about Isaiah and the medical marvel he was going through, Mila managed to advance one of her Laws, and Aalam was advancing a lot more.

Unwilling to continue doing nothing, Mila walked down the stairs to the inheritance’s warehouse, grabbed several Primal Energy Stones suitable for F rank, and sat back down in her spot. Only this time, she was using the energy of the stones to start leveling up.

Two days later, the process was finally done and Isaiah started getting System messages again.

 

Congratulations!

Your race has upgraded from War Dragon Hybrid (F-Legendary) to Human Form Young Balance Dragon (E-Fabled)

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Human Form Young Balance Dragon (E-Fabled)

A young dragon in the form of a human, balanced four elements, balanced stats

 

Racial Abilities: 6

No limits, but a higher chance for abilities which raise the effectiveness of all stats

 

Max stats:

Strength: 62208

Agility: 62208

Endurance: 62208

Toughness: 62208

Vitality: 62208

Perception: 62208

Magic: 62208

Spirit: 62208

Soul: 62208

Aura: 62208

Attunement: 62208

Luck: 62208

 

Stat Growth Per Level:

Strength: 72 (12)

Agility: 72 (12)

Endurance: 72 (12)

Toughness: 72 (12)

Vitality: 72 (12)

Perception: 72 (12)

Magic: 72 (12)

Spirit: 72 (12)

Soul: 72 (12)

Aura: 0

Attunement: 0

Luck: 0

 

Advancement Criteria:

Live for 72 standard years. Comes with automatic grade increase.

 

Requirements:

???

 

The race was far more powerful than War Dragon Hybrid, with two extra racial abilities and quite a bit more stat growth per level, the values in parenthesis how many stats the race would grant per level before Isaiah officially entered E rank.

And the notifications weren’t over.

 

Congratulations!

You have gained a new bloodline, Ideal Human (Legendary)!

 

Ideal Human (Legendary)

The ideal of the most common intelligent race in the universe

 

Effects:

Increase the effectiveness of all base stats by 3.125%

Raise cultivation speed to half that of an Ideal Human’s if your race would make it less

 

Aalam had managed to give Isaiah a new bloodline using the non-elemental energies of the treasures designed to boost the human race and the bloodline of Isaiah’s human mother, and it was a very useful one, even if it was weaker than his old Phantom Wolf bloodline, helping to solve the biggest problem with dragon races, cultivation speed.

Because of it, Isaiah’s appearance also didn’t change. Granted, his hair might have changed color, but all the hair all over his body had fallen off and no new hair had grown in yet, so it was impossible to tell. And, as he’d fallen unconscious, his eyes were closed, so she couldn’t see if they’d changed either.

The notifications weren’t done, however, and a couple of Isaiah’s racial abilities rose to Fabled grade as well.

 

Congratulations!

Your racial ability Dragon Heart (Heroic) has upgraded to Dragon Heart (Fabled)

 

Dragon Heart (Fabled): Qi and mana are passively drained whenever injured to greatly boost the healing of injuries and the normal flow rate of qi and mana is greatly increased with better burst potential

 

Congratulations!

Your racial ability Dragon Scales (Heroic) has upgraded to Dragon Scales (Fabled)

 

Dragon Scales (Fabled): Increase the effectiveness of the Toughness and Attunement stats by 50%

 

And, finally, his own non-Legendary grade skill advanced as well, as it had also been originally formed by dragon energy.

 

Congratulations!

You have used external energy to advance the skill Dragon Drive (F-Epic) to Dragon Drive (F-Legendary)

 

Dragon Drive (F-Legendary) Magic, Activation, Dragon

You burn your health to destroy your enemy

 

The skill was now more efficient and with a higher effect, greatly increasing Isaiah’s strength further, and Isaiah’s base stats had all even risen by more than 300. Sure, he was passed out, but he was now certainly stronger than her and, when he woke up, he’d almost certainly try and kill Aalam, so the entire strengthening was pointless.

Aalam then walked up to her, a big grin on his face like he’d done something really praiseworthy, instead of something incredibly stupid. “Pretty cool right?”

“No, Aalam.” Mila didn’t quite know what to say, so she just decided to go with the unfiltered truth. That generally worked best on Aalam and he seemed in a good mood, so he probably wouldn’t squash her into paste. “You just really hurt a teammate without asking and he’s probably going to hate you now.”

“Right, asking people things.” Aalam looked like he just remembered something. Then he knelt down on one knee in front of her, summoned out a small box from the Left Hand of the Runescribe, and opened it to show a simple Moonlight Iron ring with an inset Fire Ruby. “Li Mila, will you marry me?”

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