A Dragon

[ You have ten seconds to make your choice. Would you like to leave the trial grounds? ]

[ YES ]    [ NO ]

Juliette read through everything and glanced towards Damien, who did not react whatsoever to the new notifications.

Instead, he turned his head towards a certain direction. A direction she deemed to be threatful from her intuition, and her natural born instincts.

She even trembled from just following his glance, even though nothing could be seem from where she stood.

[ 5 ]

[ 4 ]

[ 3 ]

[ REPEAT: Would you like to leave the trial grounds? ]

[ YES ]     [ NO ]

[ 2 ]

[ 1 ]

Juliette did not agree, and just watched as the count down finally reached its end. And with that, more notifications followed after.

[ 0 ]

[ TING!!! ]

[ TING!!! ]

[ TING!!! ]

Three notifications, colored blood red flashed in front of her eyes, slightly making her hold her breathe, and focus on what was to follow.

[ You have been trapped within a restricted Draconic Mana Zone ]

[ You have been affected by the "Discouraged" status effect. All Stats decreased by 20% ]

[ You have been affected by the "Fear" status effect. All stats decreased by 25% ]

[ You have been affected greatly by the Mana Zone due to being weak. "Will Break" status effect has been automatically applied. All stats have decreased by 30% ]

[ Your stats have been overally decreased by 75% under the effects of the Draconic Mana Zone ]

[ You have been affected by the "Mana Explosion" effect due to being weak. Mana absorption has been increased by 200% until the Domain is deactivated ]

[ As someone favored by Mana, the effects have doubled specifically for you ]

[ ... ]

"..."

Addled, Juliette could not believe her eyes no matter how much she read through everything. When she checked her stats, they were so low, she felt weak once again.

There was no way she was going to survive what was to come. At least, not like this.

She then looked up at Damien, and he stared back at her, his apathetic gray eyes flashing briefly before he spoke. His words were melodic, yet his tone extremely cold.

"Stay still and focus on absorbing Mana. You should be able to absorb four times more than normal with all your status effects." He concluded.

"..."

Juliette pursed her lips at his tone, but obediently did as he suggested.

Thanks to being the first to manually learn Skills, she was aware with the boost of absorbing 200% more Mana than usual. Then her "Pioneer of Mana" Epithet gave her 100% increased Mana absorption.

Throughout the twenty seven minutes that they had been fighting for after that battle with the Void borne spirit, she used two thirds of it absorbing Mana.

And now, her Mana was quite vast. Over half way to what normal Apprentice had.

Unfortunately, Damien was unaware that she could actually absorb seven times more Mana instead of just four.

And she was not going to tell him. She was dissatisfied with the attitude he gave her. Yet deep down, she did not dislike it. But still dissatisfied nonetheless.

"..."

She pouted cutely, then crossed her legs to slowly begin to absorb Mana. She wanted to go over the limit of one hundred units that Apprentices had!!

Meanwhile Damien did not give her much attention. He just stood before her, and set his gaze towards the direction where he felt a threatening presence looming over.

In the mean time, he mentally commanded The Primordial Source to Level him up all the way towards the peak of mortality, and into the level of Apprentice-hood.

[ TING!! ]

[ You have leveled up ]

[ TING!! ]

[ You have leveled up ]

[ TING!! ]

[ You have leveled up ]

[ TING!! ]

[ You have leveled up ]

[ TING!! ]

[ You have leveled up ]

[ Congratulations for becoming the ninth ever Combatant to reach the peak of mortality. You have been awarded with 100 units of Life Essence, 1 free Stat Point and 1 free Ability Point ]

[ Note: The Stat point can be distributed evenly among your base stats. Ability points can be used to Level up Abilities, and possibly, evolve them to the next level ]

[ From here on forth, every level up increases all attributes by 0,1 Stat Points. With a class, the distribution might differ ]

[ Due to becoming a First League Combatant, an extraordinary being, you can now absorb Mana to be capable of unleashing skills and inhuman feats ]

[ Due to becoming a First League Combatant, you have awakened your three extraordinary stats; Intelligence, Wisdom and Affinity ]

[ Due to becoming a First League Combatant, you can officially equip a Class/Sub-class (Note: Wait until you have succeeded your trials) ]

[ Once you have succeeded in absorbing Mana, you can view the information of your weapons, resources and materials while still within the Trials ]

Damien skimmed through every thing. The reward was the same for all the top ten to first Level up. So he did not put much focus to it.

What he was interested in was the fact that either than his small family of three, plus Juliette, there were actually five more people who went through their Trials, and became First League Combatants.

Either through the Trial, or somehow outside, after they went through their Trial.

After all, Damien and Juliette have been her for over 45 minutes now. That was a lot of time if one carefully thought about it.

"..."

He then moved on, as he used his single Stat point to carefully distribute it through the Wisdom Stat to give himself 1,0 point worth of magic defense value.

He then called out his Template.

[ Name: Damien Gray ]

[ Mana: 0 units ]

[ Epithet: First Blood ]

[ Class: Lvl 6 Classless (0/90) ]

[ Sub-Class: None ]

[Alignment: Unknown ]

[ Stats: STR - 34,2 || AGI - 7,59 || END - 46,0 || INT - 0,1 || WIS - 1,0 || AFF - — ]

[ Stat Points: 0 || Ability Points: 1 ]

[ Abilities: None ]

[ Equipment(10): Spear Head(Superior), Gray Mask(Superior), Bracelet of Oid(Superior), Phantom Cloak(Superior), Heidi's Club(Superior), Red Cloak(Superior), Wings of Ash(Superior), Gouge Maker(Superior), Seven-Pieced Boomerang(Perfected Superior), Undying Ten Piece Armor(Perfected Superior) ]

[ Resources(12): Tier 1 Treasure Chest(×10), Demon Fragment(1/7), Angel Fragment(1/7), False Angel Feathers(×36), Spirit Shard(2/4), Tier 1 Monster Core(×1), Hardened Bones(×16), Extra Sharp Beak(×1), Mole Claws(×8), Tier 1 Beast Cores(×7), Memory Shards(×10), Tier 1 Undying Vaccine(×1) ]

It seemed completely different from what it used to be. And the major differences were his stats, that became far monstrous compared to what mortals could unleash.

And his Equipment and Resources. They were above ten at minimum, which made sense as he went over ten Trials by himself.

As for his Mana, it was zero due to suddenly breaking through to the First League right now.

He then decided to equip a few equipment as he realized that the coming threat was not something he could take lightly at all. Especially with only 25% of his stats.

He wore the [Gray Mask] which increased agility by 10%, the [Bracelet of Oid] which increased agility by 5% and magic defense by 10%, the [Red Cloak] which increased endurance by 10% and the [Wings of Ash] which increased agility by 10%.

They further went to increase agility by 10% when flying. But he was not done. He wore the [Undying Ten Piece Armor], which increased both his strength and endurance by 20%.

Then finally, he wielded both the [Seven-Pieced Boomerang] and [Heidi's Club], which both increased his strength by 20% and 15% respectively, and agility by 20%.

Overall, the current Damien was armed for war, being 55% stronger, 45% faster, and endurance increased by 30%. As well as magic defense by 10% as well.

Juliette behind him was still not aware of this. And of how her Damien looked funny with the mismatched gear he wore.

"..."

Damien did not take that into mind though, and instead watched as a shadow flying at extreme speed within the clouds was heading towards their way.

The shadow was beyond sonic speed, and was quite large. It's close-appearing visage was accompanied by a mighty, and magnificent Roar.

ROOOAAARRR!!!

An Earth shaking roar broke out from the sky, like thunder, like a god's maddened roar, and like the end of the world, it shook every living being hearing it to the core.

...!!!

Juliette felt her concentration easily broken, her face completely turning pale with fright.

She hurriedly opened her eyes and looked up, only for her mouth to hang open in shock and  bewilderment at what she saw.

Magnificent.

Deific.

Such words hung within her mind when her eyes laid themselves upon the gigantic creature suspending itself within the sky, it's wings spreading out with a wingspan of over fifteen meters.

"..."

It's body was metallic, or rather, the glimmer flashing over its skin made it seem so. But it was not indeed as such.

Instead, those were its scales.

It's draconic head stared down at both creatures with a gaze of disdain. It's golden eyes flashing with nothing but majesty.

It was a dragon.

"You should not worry yourself with that thing." Damien spoke from the side, and casually threw a black cloak towards her.

Juliette looked up at him, and the first impression she got from his attire was 'Strange.'

But she did not put much focus into it, and instead wore the cloak that he gave her. Once worn, it gave her the impression that she was airy and transparent.