The First Ascension
With how fast they were moving, they went to the next floor in 1 hour.
Most of the monsters on the floor were triceratops. Although it has similarities with the ones that roamed the Earth in the past, they had a different diet altogether.
The ones on Earth are herbivores and the ones inside the dungeon are carnivores. With jagged teeth like a white shark, they ripped through meat like how hot knife cut through butter.
Artoria also decided that it was the best for Ray to grab a random stick and use his [Physical Reinforcement] to beat the monsters to death.
Most of the sticks can't sustain itself after several hits. So he summoned his wooden swords and use that instead, with Artoria's approval of course.
Luckily, it didn't have the same fate as those poor sticks of wood, so both of them moved on.
They advanced to the next floor, the forest was thicker than the previous floor and with a lake that spans 3 KM and an empty horizon, it was the widest floor yet.
There were winged red monsters near the horizon. With a closer look, those beasts looked like wyverns. Some have wings larger than their own body, beaks comparable to the jaws of a crocodile, and legs with claws sharper than a knife.
Although wyverns can be intimidating, a person can look at the color of the wyverns scales to determine on how to defeat them. Wyverns with green scales meant that they can use only wind element, red is fire, blue is water, and yellow is lightning. Although, there is an exception to this.
Wyverns can be found as a pack, just like wolves. The leader of the flock usually has mixed colors that represent the majority of what elements are used in the said pack. If, for example, a big flock of wyverns has a leader that has 4 mixed colors, then the distribution of elements between wyverns are equal.
That also means that the leader can use 4 of those elements, which is bad news.
To defeat a wyvern, they need to use the opposite element than the wyverns. Water is strong against fire, fire is strong against wind, wind is strong against lightning, and lightning is strong against water.
Also, an important note, the leader of the flock that has 4 mixed colors has a great magic resistance. So to defeat one, it is wise for the unlucky person to fight it with physical attacks.
Wyverns can be a challenge for common people, but it will be a different story for Artoria.
She can simply jump to the air and kill them with a single punch. The same could be said for Ray if he wields his Excalibur that is.
The scales of the wyverns are hard enough to deflect steel, not to mention a wooden sword.
Ray's task from Artoria was to use his wooden sword to annihilate the flock of wyverns.
"Why can't I use a proper sword instead?"
"Even if you use a proper sword, killing those wyverns still requires hard work. Since you have gained new skills, I want to increase your mastery further by defeating enemies. Don't worry, you can use Excalibur when the time comes."
"...Can I know when?"
Artoria answered with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. Afraid of pissing off his teacher, Ray went straight to the wyverns.
Artoria knew that he will need to fight someone or something else to develop further. Fighting with just 1 person can limit his fighting style. Since there is no other person that he can challenge besides Artoria, at least for the time being, defeating monsters in the dungeon is an alternative way to train.
With how fast Ray was running, about 100 km/s*, he arrived at the bottom of the wyverns in less than 5 minutes.
Ray was covered by the trees surrounding him, so the monsters can't see him. Ray saw this as an advantage and prepared to jump.
Unfortunately, he didn't notice a white wolf on his right. By the time he wanted to jump, the wolf howled, alarming its pack and the wyverns above.
"Shit!" Ray never hunt an animal in his entire life until now, so he was still a little careless.
He knew that he needed to kill not only the wyverns but the wolves as well. Since the white wolf just howled, Ray needed to kill the monsters above him fast before the white wolf's pack appeared.
The wyverns screeched and one of them fly straight through the air to catch its prey.
He saw that the wolves started to gather up quickly. Ray avoided the attack and ran through the forest with his fastest sprint to avoid both wyverns and wolves. But to his dismay, both monsters caught up to him much quicker than he can avoid them.
Ray fired [Fire Breath] to kill some of the wolves. Some went down and some trampled on their deceased brethren to avoid the fire residue. Due to Ray's *Sealed* dragon race, his fire was more potent than ordinary ones and almost as hot as the sun.
Unfortunately for Ray, his [Fire Breath] went everywhere, causing some of the tress to be on fire and those trees caused a chain reaction that made other trees on fire.
As a result, a forest fire emerged, adding more trouble than necessary.
"Damn!" Ray said as he ran away from his crime scene into a more opened space.
The monsters didn't get slowed down by the forest fire, it alarmed more monsters to him instead.
The reason Ray ran instead of fighting was that his fatal weakness. Those monsters can easily go for the head, especially with more than 50 beasts that are pursuing him.
He didn't want Artoria to look at him as a coward fleeing from simple-minded beasts. So when he arrived at an open space, he stopped and went to his fighting stance.
"Kakatte koi!" Ray felt stressed to the point that his inner otaku appeared.
He tried to reinforce the sword using his [Physical Reinforcement]. But no matter what he did, he cannot seem to reinforce it.
'I need to calm down.' he thought as he took a deep breath.
He 'tricked' his mind into thinking that the sword is the extension of his body. At first, he successfully reinforced just the handle of the sword, which he didn't want.
But his focus was already divided due to the onslaught of monsters from his sides and above.
Although his [Instinct] helped, it was not sufficient.
Soon, his wounds began from just a mere scratch into literal holes on his bodies from the wolves that managed to bite chunks of him.
Not only that, the brute force of the elemental attacks from the wyverns made burn marks on his body as well.
Overall, he was not in his best.
From afar, Artoria already gripped Excalibur tightly. She knew that if she interferes, Ray won't grow strong. Ray needed the experience so that he can learn and improve from it.
But Artoria's heart was torn seeing her student in such a state. She grounded herself and just supervise Ray from a distance.
With Avalon healing him nonstop, Ray won't die because of some monsters.
Little by little, he can predict the wolves' movements. He was getting better at dodging the incoming attacks from both wolves and wyverns.
When the wolves stopped attacking, the wyverns start their attacks. Some fly towards Ray using their claws and some attacks using their elemental breath. Coupled with some of the wolves attacking when they had a chance, Ray can be considered a genius to improve at such a frightening rate while being in the center of an assault.
Ray can now put his focus more on improving his skill, especially his [Physical Reinforcement]. He didn't want to add more forest fires when the one that he created earlier already went and burn more trees than Ray expected.
As time went on, Ray still cannot see the end of the barrage. He was already in a state where he stands on his will.
Although Ray fainted, his body moved on its own, dodging and counter-attacking those who went too close to his range.
Even the wyverns above didn't stand a chance. It is as if Ray's body was being controlled by someone else.
Ray's movement was refined as if Ray's amateur fighting style has evolved into something else. Even Artoria from afar was surprised by it.
With the last monster defeated by beating it to death, so does his movement and his body was going straight to the hard ground if not for Artoria immediately catching him.
"Well done, Ray. You may now rest." Artoria laid Ray's head on her lap. After some thought, she started to caress his head as well.
Deep in his slumber, Ray met the dragon once more.
"Why are you here again so fast?" the dragon said.
"Well..." Ray told him the story, including the time where his body started moving on its own.
Unknown to anyone, Ray was conscious of everything at the time. He was absorbing new knowledge about his fighting style and will implement it when the time to spar comes.
"Can you tell me what happened to me back then?"
"That was your dragon-side doing plus that [Instinct] skill that you have. That was also your first ascension of becoming a True Dragon. So, you should check with Hana about your status just to make sure." The dragon opened its eyes and continued,
"I will teach you another spell. Since you have gained a lot from that single encounter alone, I think you are ready for this spell."
"Umm, can you just teach me the foundation of magic? I appreciate you teaching me spells, but I need to know the basics of what I'm using or I won't get stronger." Ray looked at the dragon with determined eyes.
Ray was thinking a lot about making himself stronger. If he can learn the basics, he can not only invent spells on his own without the help of 'Ray' and Hana's shop but also getting his revenge fast.
The unknown enemy is always at the back of his mind. He didn't want to regret losing everything that he loved because he is not strong enough.
His [Instinct], or something else, screamed inside his mind to finish his business on Earth as fast as he can while also getting stronger.
"Hmmm, I might consider teaching you..." the dragon grinned before continuing, "If you can defeat me, that is."
The cave suddenly replaced by a colosseum larger than 10 soccer fields.
The dragon was also disappeared and a man with white hair and golden eyes replaced 'him'.
He wore a black jacket with his direct skin underneath, uncovering his muscles on his torso.
He also wore black jeans with dark brown boots.
This man looked like the most handsome male model if not for 2 red dragon wings on his back.
The man held a sword. On the outside, the sword looked like an ordinary iron sword. But, in the right hands, the sword can take out even Gods.
"Well, let's get started."
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Hello Readers,
I know this is a 'bit' late but I hope you have a pleasant Christmas for those who celebrate it and happy early new year.
I just realized that I need to write another fighting scene and a 'dating' scene as well after this. I suck at writing fight scenes and also I haven't been on dates for 4 years of being single (a bit of confession won't hurt) so I need to dig up those dating memories with my exes for a reference.
For those who are new to the novel, I hope you enjoyed this so far. This part of the chapter is just me writing what I'm thinking after editing so not reading this part is a OK... not because I want to add more words or anything...
Certainly not that...
Anyway, I have been writing a document about a new novel that I want to write. But instead of writing a new one, I decided to just add those ideas into this novel instead. Most of it is about world-building (or multiverse-building?), which I plan to add as a sneak peak for the sequel of this in the future. Because this novel sucks, I intend to write some more in that document and try to add it here instead.
I also really wanted to add a harem IN THAT SEQUEL since I really like some of the female characters from several anime that I used to watch + read the manga... ehem FT ehem.
Want to ask readers opinion about adding a harem on the sequel? You need to remember that it's the sequel, not this one.
Why? Because I want to write romance scenes between Ray and Artoria before deciding to delve deeper and add more women.
Please remember that its for the sequel, not this novel. Since this novel used our own planet as the world, I don't want to add more women.
Speaking of Earth, I wonder if I have to add a chapter where Ray and Artoria travelling the globe. I probably will and I also need your opinions about which countries should Ray and Artoria went (besides Indonesia since it's my own and I already plan on doing).
Well, sorry for the long "author's thoughts". Please give your opinions and write a review if you have the time.
P.S.: Thanks for the power stones for the people who gave them to this novel. Although I should've note your names, me with my stupid brain didn't. So I sincerely thank everyone who donated their power stones.