8. Baby Dragon
Michelle is undergoing a process called mortal shedding; it's a process where one's body undergoes a massive enhancement and will evolve, shedding one's old body.
All attributes will increase five times, which is the first step in becoming a superhuman.
Michelle burned the heat produced by her body with sheer willpower. As the price of modernization, almost all humans have never experienced excruciating pain in their life, as society is always in peace.
Michelle, having her first most painful experience, almost gave up; she cannot take it. Having a strong body doesn't mean high pain tolerance.
Painful muffled screams quietly echoed through the whole house. She knows fainting during this process will waste all her effort, so without caring about her body breaking down, she released her final struggle.
*Boom*
A dragon was born, a weak dragonling oblivious of the world around her.
Sometime later, Michelle opened her eyes, and a mix of things was scattered throughout her whole room.
"What happened?" she said while she helped herself stand using the chair.
*Creak*
The wooden chair cracked under the pressure of her hands.
Looking at the palm print on the chair, Michelle looked puzzled, then a flash of memory returned.
"Hmn, I cannot control my strength yet."
Michelle looked at her hand while walking toward the door.
'I must test myself first.'
...
Michelle managed to make it out of the courtyard after almost destroying the doors of her house.
She picked up the 100-kilogram weights without any effort. She wasn't surprised anymore.
She already knew everything that was going to happen till rank 6, but beyond that is blurry.
Shedding her mortal skin, the world around her felt clear, the wind that touched her skin was pretty visible, and the smell of the grasses and the polluted air.
She almost threw up; the smell burdened her mind. It was like smelling an uncleaned canal up close.
Shutting her sensitive senses down, her world view returned to normal.
She proceeded in trying two hundred kilogram weights, and it was still not heavy.
She put it down, then walked toward a weight machine.
Her personal best was only 120 kilograms when she was still unaware of aura. She relaxed her muscles before gripping the rope tightly.
She needed to pull the lever with all her force.
*Ding*
The machine showed 920 kilograms, which surprised her.
Having a slim body with this kind of strength means that she can knock down anyone with her fist.
With a sturdy body, speed, and strength, she can already punch a hole into a body.
Throughout the whole day, she practiced and trained her strength using every kind of object, from chopsticks to branches.
Imbuing aura on an object can make it sturdier and harder.
A branch imbued with aura can cut a steel pipe; a thrown stone can even pierce a hole in a 5-inch wood block.
After Michelle managed to estimate her strength, she proceeded to finally utilize aura control.
Imbuing aura on objects is not hard as objects don't have sensory nerves; as for humans who can feel pain, it is a very hazardous process as one mistake means pain.
If she manages to amplify her strength using aura, she can double her attributes again.
That means touching the peak of superhuman abilities that almost all kids dream of.
Jumping through buildings, climbing walls, and running on water can be an easy feat.
...
While that event could be recorded in history as one of the first superhuman transformations, it doesn't even compare to Dante's work.
Dante has been tinkering with a Rubik's cube, making an artifact he thought was the best for him.
'What is the best artifact a reality manipulator like himself needs?' he thought.
Pondering about it for an hour, he managed to come up with this: a Rubik's cube painted in dark green with ethereal green mist surrounding it.
It keeps rotating as it floats in his hand while its compartments arrange themselves in a random way every 2 seconds.
After the event of him searching and finding the two kids he managed to give the artifact to, whose names he still didn't remember,
Dante also managed to find a traditional blacksmith. After many days of searching, he convinced the blacksmith to make him a complicated set of toys made of metal alloy. As it didn't matter what kind of metal, Dante just gave the blacksmith enough money but was still generous enough for the blacksmith to start making his pre-ordered toys first.
And now, he managed to create his artifact.
**Cube of Akashic**
Made from the bones of a metal dragon, the blood of an Illusionist Fiend Demon, and a Blood Stone. It can store countless pieces of information the owner can browse and use anytime, enchanted with space magic that can hold inanimate objects infinitely. It is invulnerable to any magic and indestructible to any damage.
**Show Code**
Dante was excited about this artifact, as he had been crafting almost his artifact just for practice, but now he finally managed to properly make one.
A perfect one without flaws, a perfect outer appearance that is worthy of being called a legendary artifact.
Looking at his previous works and comparing them to this new one,
"Mehh.. this one feels the coolest compared to those trash," Dante said.
If someone saw him saying it while knowing the function of those toys, they might have cried out of envy.
Tired of seeing those 'trash,' Dante stored all his work in the cube with another purpose in mind, thinking of his next actions.
He pondered that now that he had started this charade, he still felt responsible for the death of the humans after the world update, so perfecting the update was always on his mind.
Going upstairs, Dante opened his computer while he changed some of the code needed to be changed for the peace of his mind.
He managed to have an idea of what to do; he just needed to transfer the consciousness of a person into a game, yes, a game.
As a self-proclaimed game developer, Dante is creating a game that can adapt to the minds of humans and control the digital avatar he is creating.
With unlimited resources and energy, he can transfer some of it to isolate the game and turn it into reality.
A huge dome will be constructed in the real world to host the game, and in any situation, it cannot be breached.
He just needs to adjust the space inside the dome to multiply its space ten times.
As the Dome of the Playground, which he calls it, is 5 kilometers wide multiplied by 10, Dante needs to have enough space to hold millions of humans.
Dante focused all his attention on the screen of his computer as the world around him stopped as his fingers danced around the keyboard. If it were a normal keyboard, the keys might have been flying around because of the speed, but as it's influenced by Dante's abilities, it managed to withstand his frightening capabilities of 100 thousand words per second.
After a while, Dante sighed as he stretched his arms while bending his back, then pressed enter.
*Boom*
...
All around the globe, ninety-nine domes made of transparent glass suddenly rose, towering twenty kilometers high and five kilometers wide, springing into existence with numbers counting down.
If one looks closely, they can deduce that it is a clock with 5 months remaining.
The government was alarmed; the domes just sprung out without any clue what their purpose was, and people caught in them were thrown out.
It is located in any part of the world randomly, which Dante purposely did for mystery and nothing else, as it might luckily give the people some clue of the creator's identity.
As the creator and maker of it, Dante wants to give people some chance to unearth or maybe find some clue leading to the dead end for some thrill.
Dante rubbed his hands while looking at the window. His sight pierced through the clouds and stopped at the dome structure, looking beautiful and mysterious in its own way with what is inside shown to almost every viewer.
A crowd of curious spectators was walking toward it with fear and expectations on their faces, and coincidentally, it was one of Dante's alumni classmates, or should I say crushmate.
Lea Mae, a girl with a short height and cute face, red hair, and a well-proportioned body that can be called average in terms of beauty, was an energetic girl with a rebellious tendency. Don't ask how Dante liked this girl, as it's been 6 years since they last met.
Dante was flabbergasted by this coincidence, as he put an Easter egg for the first person to touch the dome in any part of the world to have his gifts, so 99 gifts are waiting for someone to unearth.
Dante watched as Lea touched the dome hesitantly. As her finger touched, a flash of soothing light erupted, as her eyes also flashed with white light.