A Fire Dragon?

[You have developed the Passive Skill: Fire Resistance.]

Luke kept staring at the System's digital message for a bit before dipping his hands into the lava once more.

Although he still bit his mouth to keep himself from screaming, the pain was a lot more bearable.

Also, his Health Points were decreasing a lot slower.

While he used to dip them for three seconds, he left them in for ten seconds this time.

After Luke got them out of the lava, his fingers were burnt like charcoal, but not the rest of his hands. Also, no bones were visible.

'I left them in longer, and yet am hurt less than before...'

After the pain faded, Luke felt goosebumps.

'According to Hunters, it is possible to upgrade your Skills by using them a bunch... I'll have to get this one stronger if I want to survive this...'

...

It had been three hours since Luke had fallen inside the hole that led him here. The group of teenagers and Hunters were now preparing to leave.

One of the Hunters called out the names of each teenager.

"Luke? LUKE?" The Hunter shouted.

"Uh... Umm... Uh... He... HE LEFT!" Mark answered.

"Yeah... Yeah! He left pretty soon. Luke got scared since it was pretty dark. He's a scaredy-cat." Carl added.

"Is that so?"

Zayn looked at the ground as he felt the guiltiest. Still, he nodded.

"Alright, we're leaving." Another Hunter said.

The three teenagers kept turning back towards the dark cave as they left.

Meanwhile, Luke was suffering voluntarily.

'Should I dip my whole body? No, I might lose too many Health Points that way...'

He continued and continued.

"Stats?"

[ Stats: Vigor: 20 (200 Health Points)

Endurance: 10 (100 Endurance Points)

Strength: 6

Agility: 8

Mana: 0 ( 0 Mana Points)

]

'Oh... My Vigor Stat went way up. Right, Stats go up when training. Although this isn't really training, is it?'

A week ago, when he had first received his System, his Vigor Stat was at 9.

From getting beat up, it went up to 11 and now it stood at 20.

'An average new System Holder has on average 40 Stat Points without counting Mana... The average value for the Strength Stat is 10, and I'm still stuck with this pathetic... Anyways, my average is now above 40, although it is only Vigor that's above average...'

As soon as Luke was about to dip his hands into the lava once more, something went out of it from his left.

It was a monster, and not any monster.

The monster's head got out of the lava first.

It was covered in red scales and had two sharp horns.

The monster's upper body got out of the lava and it put its forelegs on the path made of the rocks in front of Luke.

Judging from its visible upper body, the monster's size must have been as big as two elephants.

"Is that... Is it.... Is that... A dragon??" Luke stuttered.

He was extremely close to faint from the fear.

[Weakened Inferior Fire Dragon. [D-] Rank Monster.]

"Holy sh*t... It's a dragon... a real one..." He Luke whispered.

The monster looked at him with its yellow eyes before roaring.

The roar made Luke fall to the ground.

As he tried to crawl away from the beast, it opened its mouth.

The dragon showed its sharp fangs.

The next instant, it breathed out a burning stream of fierce flames.

Luke screamed as he raised his arms up defensively.

He was covered by the flames.

After two seconds passed, Luke opened his eyes.

He was in the middle of the stream of fire, but it didn't hurt too much.

Not even enough for him to bite his mouth.

The skin on his arms and his whole body was being burnt superficially.

'It's... colder than the lava...'

The dragon stopped its attack to devour its cooked prey.

To its surprise, the prey was still alive.

Not only was Luke still alive, but his superficial burn marks were already healing.

It looked at Luke with its yellow eyes before letting out a second infernal breath.

Luke's body was even more resistant than before.

'It's not... painful. It feels kind of warm actually....'

A second before the dragon finished its second attack,

[Your Passive Skill Fire Resistance has evolved into the Passive Skill Fire Immunity.]

Reading that message, Luke chuckled first.

But that chuckle quickly turned into a loud laugh.

If there were any bystanders, they would have thought Luke had gone mad.

"This is the best!" He shouted at the dragon.

Luke raised both his arms up as if to invite the monster.

"You can't do anything to me! Fire Immunity! Did you hear that? You can't...'

Luke was interrupted.

[You have lost 150 Health Points.]

The dragon hit him with its foreleg

Luke was launched away and his back hit the wall with great force.

[You have lost 40 Health Points.]

The dragon slowly started moving the rest of its body outside of the lava and towards its fallen prey.

It was in no hurry to devour the dead and weak being it had encountered.

'I got...cocky... WAY too soon...' Luke thought as he laid on the ground.

'Only 10 Health Points left, huh?'

He chuckled inwardly.

'If my Vigor Stat was lower by one point, I would have died... If those guys hadn't beat me up... If they hadn't raised my Vigor Stat by two Stat Points...'

The dragon approached the unmoving Luke.

'Gotta recover first...'

As soon as it showed its fangs and lowered its head to eat him, he dodged as fast as he could.

His Health Points were now back at full.

'Playing dead... I'm really not going to be a flashy Hunter...'

Luke was surprised by his own thoughts.

'Going to be...? Am I actually confident that I'll survive?'

The dragon turned towards him.

"Let's do this!" Luke shouted as he ran towards the dragon.

His previous fear and terror turned to courage and excitement.

The dragon let out a third fire breath.

'So you're used to doing this against your enemies, huh?' Luke thought as he ran through the stream of fire and towards the monster.

"From now on, am not going to be a punching bag anymore! Not for anyone!" Luke shouted as if to convince the world, or maybe himself.

He clenched his fist tightly, pulled his right arm back and used all his strength to throw the most powerful punch he ever did.

His knuckles broke as they hit the dragon's hard scales, but the pain did not even faze him.

It was nothing compared to dipping one's own hands inside burning lava.

The dragon was about to swing its foreleg at him, so Luke jumped back.

"How much damage did that do?" He shouted.

[The Monster has lost 3 Health Points.]

Luke's heart started beating faster.

"Well... How many Health Points does it have?"

[ 2497/2500.]

A weak smile appeared on his face.

'I should have expected as much...'