The sin of pride
[1st POV—Ethan]
'Fuck, not now…'
I cursed in my mind, the damn trial couldn't have come at the worst time. As I was preparing to endure hellish pain, black blood suddenly escaped my mouth.
*Cough* *Cough*
(System, why am I spitting black blood?)
Glancing at the puddle of black blood, I asked the system.
[Nothing to worry, Master, it is just the impurities accumulated inside you. The pills purified your body and made it more solid while maintaining flexibility.]
So they are the impure substance accumulated inside me.
"No-no! Not again! Please, don't go!"
'Ahh, my head hurts! Ahh!'
"ROOOOOAAAAAAAAAR!"
Turning my head back, my eyes landed upon an Alizée clutching her head with a pained expression. Dazzling, azure light surrounded her from all directions as she continued to release wild howls one after another.
"Fuck! Shit certainly got bigger!"
However, I didn't have much liberty to think about her condition as staggering pain assaulted my forehead.
"Ahh!"
'You don't have to worry, Ethan, just concentrate on yourself.'
I heard Tiamat's words in my mind as our surroundings turned dark for an instant before I returned to the palace. She teleported us to our palace.
********
[1st POV—Alizée]
My life had always been nothing but a struggle. My father supposedly died when I was born, leaving behind me and my mother. My mother worked hard to raise me successfully, as a result, her health declined and she succumbed to illness and died. Leaving me alone in this world.
Fortunately, I got myself a job as a maid for a noble elf. My future was looking peaceful as the noble was decent in his conduct; didn't abuse his power to commit atrocities. However, everything turned upside down when the newly announced crown prince visited the territory of the noble.
He was an utter piece of garbage, harming numerous women, killing whomever he wanted. The moment he laid his hungry and malicious eyes on me, I knew my fate was sealed. The noble also was not able to help me, he only warned me to run away before the pervert tried to harm me.
Alas, the bastard caught wind of my escape and it was none other than the same noble son of a bitch who sold me out. He betrayed me and send his forces after me together with that bastard prince.
I managed to flee till now, but today I ran out of options and they apprehended me here. Left without a choice and hopeless, I choose to end my life by jumping into the bottomless abyss.
Yet, right at my lowest, an extremely handsome young man with white hair and red eyes dropped from the sky and killed everyone with only brute force.
My hope to live got reignited by him. When I gazed at his back facing me, my heart got filled with reverence and gratification.
However, he soon coughed blood and his expressions indicated his discomfort, my heart tightened. My memories of my mother's death resurfaced and I felt despair, again, someone got hurt because of me.
'Why, why…?' I cried in my mind, unfortunately, I received no answers.
As despair muddied my sanity, something inside me broke and horrible pain attacked my head. I could feel huge amounts of mana radiating from me. But I didn't know why something like this was happening to me.
'Endure the pain, little girl, and don't lose focus.'
Suddenly, in between the pain, I heard the gentle voice of a woman. The next moment, my surroundings turned dark and I was brought to an unknown location.
*******
[1st POV—Tiamat]
Ethan went out to wander outside again. I don't know why he's so obsessed with travelling.
I'm keeping an eye on him since he flew somewhere casual until he heard a loud explosion and went in its direction, there, some weak elves were chasing some azure haired half-elf towards the bottomless abyss. This kind of situation was common in this world, strong prying on the weak. However, the next thing that occurred caught me off guard. I saw Ethan flying near the group of elves.
I was more surprised to see him flying toward the elf with Master stage power, I panicked watching this since he was no match for the elf. Yet, something crazy happened and he blasted the elf's head off. I was completely stunned, how come no one sensed his presence?
What shocked me more was how he began killing the others in cold blood, I thought he'd have a hard time killing someone for the first time since he never punched someone, much less try to take a life.
My emotions were complicated, I was delighted to see him mature as a fine man and not a wishy-washy. On the other hand, watching my cute grandson slaughtering them like cattle was somewhat sad.
Even more so when he mocked them disdainfully saying he could take their life because he had the ability. However, I soon regained my composure and thought everything rationally and realized this was for the best. Being kind to enemies is being cruel to yourself and the world was ruled by might, decisiveness is a very good trait to have in the path of the strongest. So I kept watching him as he fought the two Adapt elves, he already obliterated all Beginners.
Soon, he finished killing everyone and just stood there pondering. His body took some hits and got injured but nothing severe.
Then suddenly, he coughed black blood and cried out in pain. Sensing the chaotic mana around him, I realized he was about to undergo the second trial. I knew he would need some kind of stimuli to break through, It seemed he was required to have a good battle to unlock his potential.
Yet, another situation grabbed my attention, the girl was glowing in azure mana while she clenched her head and screamed in pain.
Realizing the origin of the abnormal mana inside the girl, my expression turned serious and I teleported both of them in here.
********
[1st POV—Ethan]
"Huff, I honestly don't want to go through this hell ever again."
Some time has gone by since I finished my second trial. My horns have grown out, they are also black the same colour as my wings. Thankfully, no mutation occurred with them; are normal jet black horns.
'I can finally start using magic~'
This was the most exciting news, our horns are not just for decoration, they work as the command centre for our magical circuit. It helps us better control and utilize our mana, although an old dragon could effortlessly cast magic without any horns. It is especially necessary for the young dragons who have just begun to cast magic.
(Status)
[Status:
Name: Ethan
Age: Seven years
Level: 11
Race: Chaos Dragon
Major sin: Pride
(Pride has a 20% debuff effect on the opponent and bestows 30% buff when fighting against someone stronger than you.
The debuff ability may or may not work depending on the mental fortitude of the opponent, it can also make them lose the will to oppose you.)
Title: Empty
Class: None
Sub-class: None
Strength: 320
Speed: 350
Endurance: 325
Vitality: 720
Mana: 685
Intelligence: 92
Luck: 50
Charm: 90
Active skills:
1. Destruction magic: (1-order - Lvl.1)
(Ability to use destruction magic)
2. Space: (1-order - Lvl.1)
(Ability to use and control space using magic)
3. Super control: (Super-rare, evolution not possible)
(Ability to completely control the molecules of the user's body to a subatomic level)
Racial abilities:
Chaos magic (As a chaos dragon you can use every spell under the chaos magic.)
All magic immunity (As the dragon of chaos you are immune to every kind of curse and magical attack.)
Passive skills:
1. Thought acceleration (Lvl.2)
(Increase the users processing power to 15x than normal.)
2. Multi-tasking (Lvl.3)
(Allows the user to work on more than one task at the same time. Limit: 3)
3. Super comprehension (Lvl.1)
(Let's the user understand everything 5x faster than normal)
Free attribute points: 18
Free skill points: 22
Affection points: 45000, Battle points: 28000]
'Impressive!'
My stats have increased a lot, Thought acceleration and Multi-tasking, two of my three passive skills have upgraded one or two levels each as well. Super comprehension didn't level up since I wasn't learning anything complicated.
The other important upgrade was the shop. Now that the shop is opened, I could buy more skills, training manuals and weapons to use, also collect resources to grow stronger.
'The only area I'm lacking is the skill levels, they are too low.'
As I was yet to use magic, I didn't upgrade any skills and decided to accumulate as many skill points as I can to make a rapid increase.
Now, it's a hard choice to make, should I invest all my skill points in space, destruction equally or spend them all in any one of them?
'Let's think about it later...'
I choose to contemplate more after I go through the assessment by Tiamat.
"So, you woke up already?"
As I was lost in my thoughts as Tiamat entered my room and sit beside me.
Looking at her face, I could say she was very curious since she was also staring at me. Fortunately, she didn't interrogate me, I'm sure she watched everything with her omniscient.
"Yes, this time it was more painful than before since the pain was in my head," I said to her as she nodded in understanding.
"Still, I got these horns and I can feel some kind of warm energy running inside me."
"Yes, that's your mana. The horns compel dragons' magical circuit complete and allow them to use the mana inside them to cast spells," she explained while touching my horns with her hand and caressing them. That movement surprisingly made me feel good, and I soon melted in her blissful stroking.
'Ahh, so comfortable~'
She just giggled seeing me like that but didn't stop what she was doing as I laid my head on her lap and relaxed like a kitty. She proceeded with her talk.
"But we still have to test if you have any other affinities other than chaos magic."
Just like I expected, she wanted me to test my magical affinities.
As I said, testing your affinity is a common practice, especially for humans because rarely humans with specific affinities are born. Nonetheless, other races similarly use the same technique to examine if children born between different races have more than one magical affinity because their parents can be different magic users.
Nodding my head, I asked the question I wanted to ask her for a while.
"What happened to the girl I saved?"
From what I remember, Alizée is an Oriental Dragon hybrid. Born between an Azure Dragon and an elf woman. Her dragon bloodline was dormant from birth and it was said that her mother didn't know his father's true identity as an Oriental Dragon.
Oriental Dragons are a deviant sub-species of True Dragons, they are wingless and have a longer body similar to serpents but they can fly. Their species are very unique and are smaller in number compared to us winged, True Dragons. The reason is the special type of mana necessary in the process of their birth is not generally found in nature.
Let's take Alizée's father as an example, he is an Azure Dragon and can use storm magic, thereby allowing him to use both lighting and wind magic at the same time; he can even combine them to create a thunderstorm.
Still, that doesn't mean they are stronger than we are or Tiamat would have been dethroned by them long ago. It's just they are trickier to deal with.
She stopped the horn massage and her face turned serious as she replied.
"She is fine, but it would seem she wasn't an ordinary elf but a hybrid Oriental Dragon though her bloodline was dormant till now. Due to her earlier mental breakdown, she managed to awaken her bloodline. She is currently resting."
She explained the truth, she was the one who told me all about the dragon race; from its history to various sub-species and whatever there is to know. There was nothing to hide.
I showed a surprised expression as if not expecting such news. The following moment, my surprise morphon into delight. This will be my first time meeting an Oriental Dragon, my feelings were of genuine excitement.
"Really? So, where is she, can I meet her?"
I asked her with puppy eyes, not taking 'No' for an answer.
"Of course, you can, I'll take you."
Tiamat chuckled while caressing my horns. I again melted on her lap.
"Ohh, why do I feel so good?"
I knew our horns are incredibly sensitive, so touching them would stimulate us and it's pleasant too. But I never thought it would be this good.
"Giggle~ It's because your horns are young and they're still in the process of calming the chaotic magical energy inside your body. So they are relatively sensitive," she said while giggling at my powerless situation.
'Oh, that explains...'
I nodded in understanding to her words. Basically, my horns are alleviating my violent magical energy, as the sudden awakening made them hyperactive.
"Okay, let's get going, I'll take you to her."
Tiamat stood up and stopped stroking my horns. She began walking while I followed right after her.
Walking a few steps, we reached a room where Alizée was resting on a bed. All my aunts were also present, they were all staring at her.
[Edited by Ramen_Sensei_MC]