Trope World 8 Whelping A Dragon

I had my own fire burning beside me in a small kennel. It was an old clay pot once use for pill making. My wyrmling was lit within it burning and existing through my mana. Once I was sure it was hot enough it tossed the two cores within and closed the pot. The flame gained a hold of the qi and started burning at a much higher temperature. As it burned, I held my hand in the triangular position doing my best to hold my concentration.

A loud snort came from behind me. Od was there with a black stallion held still by its reins. It bucked and struggled but a single glare from Od froze its blood. "What are you doing with a child's Dao spell, a cracked pill kennel, and two monster cores?" I looked over at Od and felt my face break out into a grin. I couldn't help but laugh a little at the situation.

"You're the one with the half-crazy stallion. What's his story Mistress Od?" Od's ears went flat and a small smile graced her lips.

"You first, if I must ask again my whip will do the talking." She pulled a heavy whip from her bag of holding. It was pitch black, layered with silk, leather, and a spinal cord. The whip alone radiated its own BP up in the 100ks. If I touched the whip, I might explode from the qi backlash. That was the type of thing only heard of in mythology. It was Thor's hammer in whip form. A bead of sweat fell down my face.

"Gantalga said that there was a path to get stronger without cultivating myself. So I thought why not cultivate what I can." I said. Od looked at me like I had gone mad.

"Your thoughts were let's toss these valuable ingredients into a cracked put and set them on fire. Alright! Fine, if your Dao makes any progress then I will consider it ingredients spent on my precious human slave. Any impressive abilities you possess look favorably on me. If you fail, well I have more essence of orange to heal your injuries. Is your fire axe in your bag of holding?" Od asked.

"Gantalga said I couldn't use a fire axe. He taught me this child's Dao instead and told me to not damage any of your herbs." I said. Her mouth opened and closed for a moment. Her hooves stomped the ground and she tied the stallion to a post. She looked over at her garden.

"Point out the strongest weed for me." Od demanded. I glanced over the guarden at the many weeds pretending to be precious herbs. Many were very powerful but the strongest was the one in the center. It was a truly ma.s.sive tree with egg like fruit. It had already st.i.tched itself to the real tree. About 80% of the tree was the weed and 5% was the living tree. The rest was dead. I pointed to the tree with egg like fruit. "You must be mistaken. My white dragon tree has no copies. I've made sure of it myself." Od said.

"It's more weed than fruit tree now." When I looked at the tree, I saw the many eyes of the weed monster. I saw its many red vines surgically connected to the tree. The tree that we see is the original. Inside and peaking through a few cracks in the tree are the eyes of a weed monster in the foundation level. I had wanted to fight it.

Od took seconds to make up her mind. She raised her hand and a spear of black energy appeared in her hand. In an instant, I knew the Dao she used was so far above my ability, I may never learn it. In Sight slowly began to form.

The Dao was of the qi condensation level powered by core qi. Though its power was held back its destruction potential was beyond understanding. BP10m it launched from her hand and vanished only to appear a second later piercing through the monster.

The force from the impact made the living outer sh.e.l.l of white dragon tree explode revealing a red late stage palace formation monster. Its body was like congealed blood. It shrieked loud its cries were laced with its qi and killing intent. My nose, eyes, and ears bled, and I spat out a mouthful of blood. My body trembled from the terrifying presence this creature possessed.

It shrieked again as qi shot out of its body. The life force of the monster soon declined, and it fell off its perch on the tree stump and into the garden. Its body froze before oozing out turning into blood. "That vampire vine was almost ready to develop its core. If it had I might not have been able to kill it so easily. Monsters gain intelligence in core formation." She frowned and her ears flattened. Before she turned to me and the pill cauldron.

My eyes closed as my flame finally burned through the casing protecting the monster cores. The fire exploded outward and I struggled to contain the force. Mana began to drain out of me as my wyrmling Dao began to develop rapidly. No longer was it the mere embryo of a dragon and a soft sh.e.l.l. The sh.e.l.l soon hardened, and the dragon embryo began to move. Dragons were powerful predators and even before whelping their mother had to consume many powerful creatures to help them develop. That was my thought process.

My dragon was created from hand signs, my imagination of fire, and mana. That was ok, it meant I couldn't kill the goldfish by over feeding or loving it too much. No matter how many times I might accidently snuff out my cute little dragon. I could always make another one. The weed monster core fully melted away. My wyrmling Dao had a small but solid egg with a dragon that moved about dreaming of its day to hatch.

Dao Skill Level Up: wyrmling lv99; active cost 99mp; +9.9INT/WIS

I was at the bottleneck. Breaking through 24 only required the death of something. 50 required that I burned past the protection of the weed monster core. I shoved my last spirit stone in my mouth quickly recovering my mana. The pill cauldron acted like a buffer. If I let the dragon escape the pill cauldron then my control was too weak.

The fire from the dragon egg burned through the bull demon core and exploded with power. The fire pushed against my mana threatening to shatter my control. Cracks appeared in my mana sh.e.l.l holding the egg and keeping it contained. Fire shot out of the crack in the pill cauldron widening the hole and threatening to break the cauldron.

I could feel the dragon struggling against its sh.e.l.l. Even as I struggled to keep all the heat from the pill burning on the dragon, it beat again its prison. It needed all the heat to emerge. Fire was its life as much as my own mana was what its life fed on. I condensed the fire with all my might pushing it back on the dragon. I pushed the heat back down doing everything I could to give the dragon more time.

Less than thirty seconds after I popped the spirit stone the egg cracked. My reserves were running on empty; I was seconds away from an uncertain decline. It cracked open a side of the egg and the heat soared growing ever stronger. I forced that heat back on the dragon losing more mana in the process. My MP bar was depleted, and I had only my uncertain mana left. A terrible headache swept over my body as my stamina bar began depleting rapidly. The dragon emerged and let out a small chirp.

It wasn't over yet. I was nearly there but not quite over the hump yet. Wyrmling was still evolving but there was no more monster core to feed it. All I could do was feed it my mana and force the heat back on to it. Who would have thought hatching a dragon egg was so exhausting? I smiled as my health bar vanished. The dragon leapt from its egg and started eating the sh.e.l.l. Once it was finished it squawked for more food. My body shook. My health, stamina, and mana were depleted. I spat out some blood and canceled the spell. The dragon chirped forlornly as it died.

I felt something enter me. An energetic energy entered me full of new life and hope. I threw up a pint of blood. It felt like my body had ground itself into paste to pay for mana I didn't have.

Skill level up: Mana Manipulation lv50; pa.s.sive; +25INT/PER

Dao Skill Level up: Wyrmling lv100; active cost 100mp; +10INT/WIS

Power Skill Level up: Condense lv10; pa.s.sive; +50INT/PER

Intelligence has surpa.s.sed a milestone INT 148

Next milestone 1000

Power Skill Discovered: a.n.a.lyze lv1; Active 1000mp; +10INT

Perception has surpa.s.sed a milestone PER 94

Next milestone 100

Power Skill Discovered: Focus lv1; Active 50sp; +10PER

Perception has surpa.s.sed a milestone PER104

Next Milestone 1000

Power Skill Discovered: Detect lv1; active 100sp; +10PER

Personal BP 3275.31

Wow I was officially a fifth as powerful as Li Jing. I looked over to see Od looking at me with her mouth open. She quickly closed it and put her whip back in her bag of holding. "Did Gantalga teach you that?" I laughed still tasting pennies.

"No, he taught me the wyrmling technique and said don't mess up the herbs." I smiled, there would be no mercy for that guy. He might have acted nice but if I was a normal human. I would be dead.

"I will see to it that he is punished accordingly. You taught me something about the Dao that I hadn't known. Though most would consider burning two monster cores to enhance a low-level Dao a waste. You used enough spirit energy to raise a qi condensation cultivator from third stage to fifth. Perhaps it was the pill cauldron's fault. A cracked pill cauldron can't compare to a functional one. Your cauldron was also made of cheap clay." She tapped her chin for a moment while I was on my back feeling like a star that winked out.

"A better cauldron would be great. In the meantime, I could patch this one up for next time." She nodded at my words. The weeds were dangerous monsters. They could disguise themselves as precious herbs and trees and no one would be the wiser. I would have plenty of chances to gather more monster cores.

"The Dao of alchemy doesn't require a high base for qi condensation level pills. Unless you can find another way to sacrifice something in exchange for a low cultivation base, you won't excel far." I nodded. I had grown in mana three times over and she couldn't sense it.

"So tomorrow we're leaving for Low Port." I said. She nodded then turned to the stallion. The beast had its member out flexing it. It jerked its head against the reins trying to mount Od. Od looked to be on the verge of kicking the Stallion.

"He shall be your mount. I will not go at a slow pace again. He has shown promise in the past. If you can take his wild side, then stronger herbs can be given to him. In time he may become your spirit beast. Though, if he tries to mount me while we are on the road, I will have to kill him. You will walk." I looked at her like she was insane. Od simply smiled and trotted off. There were a million ways to fix this. All she had to do was get me a mare. A gelding would also do the trick. I glared at the stallion who hissed at me. I thought about punching him in the nose but held that as a stick.

I had a single night to tame this horse. He was at the 1st stage of qi condensation and currently at a 2500BP. He wasn't stronger than me. Then again, I drew my strength from my mana not my physical strength.

Just before I moved to inspect my new mount, a piece of metal caught my eye. It was shining in the moon light. When I picked it up, I realized it was a piece of my flying sword. The fight had whittled the blade down and snapped the point off. I took the shard and put it to my nose and sniffed it. It didn't smell like metal, it smelled like something I lacked. My stomach let out a rumble, I threw caution to the wind and tossed the piece of metal in my mouth and swallowed it. As it slid down my throat cutting everything on the way down, the horse nickered at me. I threw up a fountain of blood before the piece of metal settled.

Power Skill level up: Iron Diet lv2; pa.s.sive; +20CON