The stench of decaying flesh assaulted his senses once more while Blackthorne worked tirelessly to clean the rot and filth from his latest round of gathered materials. The graveyard was not the best place in the world to hunt for various reasons, but for him it proved to be a veritable gold mine of useless trash that might become his useful treasures.

Sonja snored loudly nearby, a sight and sound that amused him to no end. She worked hard, and he did not begrudge her time to rest. He, however, needed to make the most of the time that he had remaining. Archers beckoned. As much as he detested his job in general, and loathed the idea of answering the questions that would soon come his way, it was an important aspect of his current identity on Earth.

Blackthorne hefted his badly decayed piece of leather armor. Worse than trash, it should normally be nothing more than extra weight in his bags. Yet, for him it represented one more step on the road to true power.

Briefly, he wondered at how rare the synergy skill seemed to be. No one in town was considered to be a notable user of it. The only real excuse that he had discovered was the fact that it took up so many materials alongside a constant high-end life force cost. Most normal people could not study when they were at a low level due to these requirements. In truth, before his race-shift into a dragon, he had largely reached a plateau in his growth. One that might soon have become a decidedly imposing wall. There were some advancements, but they were tiny little things in comparison to what he could do now.

Even if his innate skill was no better than before, his nearly obscene levels of life force allowed him to do things at level one that most might not be able to do until level ten or even level twenty.

It was while he pondered such matters that something interesting happened. A soft, familiar, voice echoed in his ears. Excited, Blackthorne immediately checked his status!

"Man, I so miss those bonus skill points!" Blackthorne sighed softly at one of his few legitimate downgrades. Of course, the fact that he now earned twice as many ability points as before was not a bad tradeoff.

"Fifteen more life force.... score!" He nodded at his status for a moment then contemplated how he should spend his points.

Given everything that happened recently, it felt to him like it had been forever since the last time he increased his level. After spending a moment in thought, however, he realized that he did indeed level up faster. Only a few days had passed in total on Earth since he became a dragon. If he practiced the methods he learned to actually increase his levels swifter, namely taking jobs and interacting with people regularly, he was certain that his next level would come soon.

"It will be a while before my age category growth reaches juvenile. I need to make the most of things now." Blackthorne eyed his stats once more. While he was a bit lacking in strength and vigor when compared to someone like Sonja, he was well above the curve for most people on Earth. Only the truly dedicated, or higher level dreamers would have better stats in that regard. Though, the possibility of other race-shifts did enter his thoughts. Ashton no doubt had a serious edge in her agility over him. It was hard for Sonja to keep up with her at times.

"Biggest strength is synergy, which means I need charisma and to some extent luck." Vigor, another useful stat for synergy, was not quite as big of a deal to him due to his absurdly high life force.

"Strength would rise to the next modifier point, but I don't really need to be stronger at the moment. My racial bonuses already make it seem like I have twenty-two points of strength..." Blackthorne eyed his intellect stat for a moment. Both intellect and agility were on the verge of gaining a new modifier point.

He glanced at his four statistical candidates then opted to raise intellect and agility. As much as he did want to raise his luck, it could wait. Agility was his lowest stat, and that extra modifier point in intellect meant that he would be able to get five more skill points per level. It might not have been worth it when he was human, but without the bonus points human dreamers gained, every little bit helped.

"Guess I should upgrade my skills, too." Blackthorne opened his skill menu then blinked. A sly grin slipped across his lips. "Not bad at all... Seems I really do gain skills much faster now for combat and magic."

He noted that despite only using the form a few times, his midnight shadow transformation had increased in rank twice. Briefly, he considered upgrading it to ten and then acquiring one of his other racial skills for use in his shadow form. He discard the idea, however. If he could train it so easily, then there was no reason to waste points at the moment. A few days spent grinding the skill would suffice. His human form had already reached rank twenty-eight. Increasing it to thirty was far more tempting, but again it was easy to gain ranks in it at the moment.

Several different options appeared before his eyes, but he dismissed most of them. There was one thing he lacked most at the moment, something drilled into him once he witnessed the fight between Sonja and Ashton. He could take a punch, but his actual damage dealing prowess was limited. He needed to work on building his attack power, especially since his synergy skill would grow quickly on its own through use.

Blackthorne made his choices, and looked his skill menu over once more. He also checked over his status menu to be sure he had not missed anything.

MAHORELA ABAIVONIN RACIAL SKILLS

Mana Sense

Rank: 18

- Sub-Skill: Life Sense

Rank: 9

Mana Manipulation

Rank: 17

- Sub-Skill: Draw Mana

Rank: 8

Mahorela Abaivonin Magic

Rank: 36

- Sub-Skill: Draconic Racial Ability Mastery

Rank: 25

- Technique: Aura of Terror [LVL 1]

***

- Technique: Breath of Darkness [LVL1]

***

Metamorphosis

Rank: 34

- Master Form: Midnight Shadow

Rank: 3

- Master Form: Human Form

Rank: 30

- Technique: Mana Manipulation [LVL 1]

***

- Technique: Mana Sense [LVL1]

***

- Technique: Draconic Combat [LVL1]

***

Draconic Combat

Rank: 10

- Sub-Skill: Tail Whip

Rank: 1

PRIMARY SKILLS

Dark Magic

Rank: 36

- Sub-Skill: Basic Dark Lightning Mastery

Rank: 24

- Technique: Imperious Jolt! [LVL 2]

***

- Sub-Skill: Basic Dark Fire Mastery

Rank: 10

- Technique: Imperious Burn! [LVL1]

***

- Sub-Skill: Basic Dark Frost Mastery

Rank: 1

Conjuration Magic

Rank: 1

Synergy

Rank: 29

- Sub Skill: Improved Synergy Refinement

Rank: 17

- Technique: Metal Salvage and Refinement LVL 1

***

- Sub-skill: Improved Low-Grade Material Synergy

Rank: 8

[Empty]

[=]

SECONDARY SKILLS

Heavy Armor

Rank: 1

Blade Mastery

Rank: 24

- Sub-Skill: Basic Longsword Mastery

Rank: 4

- Sub-Skill: Basic Shortsword Mastery

Rank: 3

Arcane Ring Mastery

Rank: 1

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

TERTIARY SKILLS

Jewelry Crafting

Rank: 2

Enchanting

Rank: 3

Alchemy

Rank: 1

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[Empty Slot]

[=]

STATUS

Professional Title: Gentleman of Darkness

Name: Scott Logan

Dream Form: Blackthorne

Race: Mahorela Abaivonin

Age Category: Hatchling

Level: 2

Ability Points: 0

Talent Points: 0

Skill Points: 4

Life Force: 152/152

Armor Class: 12 [0]

Strength: 19

[+6]

Agility: 14

[+4]

Vigor: 18

[+7]

Intellect: 16

[+5]

Charisma: 21

[+7]

Luck: 16

[+5]

"Best hold onto those four skill points for when I reach a milestone during training." Blackthorne shut down his skill and status menus then brought up his information for Imperious Burn!

"Ah, I need to create a mana circuit for it," he said softly.

He moved a reasonable distance from Sonja then took up what he thought of as an imperious sorcerer's stance. He stood boldly with the palm of his hand pressed outward while his other hand held his wrist as a form of psychological reinforcement.

His life force began to circulate rapidly along the energy channels of his body, then flowed toward the palm of his hand.

~Echoes of the dying blood-red embers, rekindle anew...

His hair began to rise up, even as his already red eyes took on a dangerous glow. It was as though fire lived inside of him in that moment. He finished his chant quickly.

~Become my sword and cleanse all that stands before me! ~

Motes of bright red light flew toward the space before his palm then converged to give off a hellish afterglow despite the fact that it was broad daylight.

"Burn!" he cried ecstatically. A piercing lance of flame shot forward in search of a target to engulf in the flame of wrath.

The spear of burning flame dispersed anemically approximately one foot from his palm. His eyes ceased glowing, and his hair drooped back into place.

"All that build-up and you can only manage that much?" asked Sonja. She sat up then offered him a lewd smile.

Blackthorne grunted at her, a sarcastic barb quickly coming to his lips. He was forestalled in his righteousness, however, when the system voice informed him that his dark fire mastery and dark magic skills had increased dramatically.

He happily checked them both, then grinned. Both skills increased by multiple ranks. Of course, they were single digit increases but that did not matter. Any time he could gain more than one rank in a skill at once through training, it was worth it!

At any rate, he looked back at Sonja. "It's not the size of the fire, it's how I use it."

She snickered at him then flopped back down onto the ground. "You keep telling yourself that, my oh-so powerful master."

Blackthorne snorted derisively at her antics, though he continued to offer her a slight smile. She was no doubt impressed by his awesomeness, whether she would admit to it or not.

He checked the information for Imperious Burn! then nodded. It was literally no different than Imperious Jolt! mechanically speaking. The only legitimate difference was that burn produced fire while jolt produced electrical current.

There was one more matter to attend to, however. He upgraded Imperious Jolt! to level two earlier. He should be able to upgrade its capacity now.

"So weak..." groused Blackthorne as he looked the spell over. None of his skills, stats, or equipment would increase its potency. Only an increase in its level would improve its capacity. He could increase two aspects of the spell. Currently, its biggest issues were casting range and spell damage, so he improved those. Unfortunately, increasing those aspects also made the life force cost per second increase. It became obvious that he would need to spend future upgrades to reduce that cost, if he did not simply move to a better spell before that time came.

Imperious Jolt!

After countless hours of experimentation you have discovered a method to simplify the casting requirements for the Jolt! spell.

Spell Type: Dark Lightning

Spell Level: 2

Casting Range: 2'

Life Force Cost: 8 per second

Spell Force: 10

Spell Damage: 1-3 [+1]

Special Requirements: Charisma Modifier +1

Restrictions: Imperious spells do not gain the benefit of the inclusion of your charisma modifier when the spell is cast. However, a minimum charisma modifier is required in order to maintain the mana-circuit.

- Items, skills, and spells will not alter this spell's capacities.

- You must increase the spell level in order to increase the power of an imperious spell.

- Upon increasing the spell level, you may choose to upgrade two appropriate aspects of the spell.

Even though he called it weak, there was a certain expectation for his imperious skills. They could be used at will, provided he had the needed life force to utilize them. Once he properly gained the ability to use mana as a substitute for his life force when he used imperious spells, he would be able to potentially steal the life force from his opponents and use it to cast his spells continuously.

It was possible to do so, he could feel it to be the case. No doubt, he needed only to increase his casting abilities and mana related skills until he could acquire the needed techniques. As things stood now, he could use his arcane ring mastery to cast such spells, so external energy sources in general should work. The problem came when it was time to make the effect continuous. His rings would run dry of life force and he would lose his focus on the spell. As with most things in the dream world, he probably just needed to train more.