For some reason, that night I had a very HOT dream. When I say hot, I don’t mean I went all tomb raider style with a whip in one hand and jumping on sinkable platforms over a lava pool, but in the sense that I dreamed of Seryanna. White nightgown, sultry look in her eyes, the body movements of a vixen, and the rest was pretty much history. When I woke up, I was hugging and kissing an imaginary friend. My brain took a few minutes of loading time before it managed to process what was happening. The color in my cheeks went from pink to red, and I slapped my forehead.

What a dream… I thought as I remembered quite clearly every single detail about it.

The big difference between the beauty in my dream, and the one in real life was their outside anatomy. The version in my dream was a full human version with no dragon or monster parts like scales, tail, and draconic eyes. I was also 100% certain it was a side effect of what happened when I wandered off into the forest because what I remembered most of that moment was the soft sensation of her skin touching mine, the unique scent of a woman, the suppleness of her breasts, and the sound of her voice. The giant, scary, hairy, white tarantula in the back didn’t even register unless I focused on it. ‘T was but a mere background detail.

Usually, I walked out of the tent right after I woke up, but seeing how that ‘morning’ I was a little bit more excited than usual, I decided to wait until I cooled down. Practicing the multiplication table, remembering some scary stuff, trying to figure out what politician was bald and who wasn’t, and doing some basic stretching helped lower the flag.

When I was out, I was met face to face with Seryanna. She was standing at barely half a meter away. Luckily, she was dressed this time.

“Erm… Good morning?” I said with a forced smile.

“Good morning to you too, Alkelios. I was just about to wake you up.” she said and then lifted a bucket filled to the brim with cold water.

“Erm…” I squinted my eyes at the tool commonly used to drag people from their peaceful dreams.

“You have slept for more than eight hours. The sun will be up soon.” she said and then turned around.

My eyes landed right on her behind. I gulped and shook my head.

Me and my teenage hormones… I grumbled in my mind.

The second thing I noticed after stepping out of my tent was the carcass of the giant tarantula. Seryanna did well in stripping it of its flesh and sharp needle hairs. However, what I noticed about it and didn’t see in the others were a few organs left to dry above the fire.

“Cooking breakfast?” I asked as I pointed at them.

“What? Oh! No, those are poisonous, but if prepared right, they can be sold as alchemy ingredients. The only good part about a spider is the white meat. If it’s colored in any other way, then it’s poisonous. Some spiders release their own venom inside their bodies right before they die. It’s a revenge mechanism.” she explained as she walked over to the chitinous exoskeleton and checked it out.

“Revenge mechanism? Don’t animals usually have a defense mechanism?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, they do, but some monsters have a revenge mechanism as well. The most common one is self-poisoning. Demons usually ingest explosive crystals, which they detonate upon their death. I heard that giant monsters sometimes create a Magic Energy bomb. These are quite common on the Dragon Continent, but I understand that they are rare on the human one.” she explained while moving around, checking the parts of the monsters for any visible problems.

“A very bothersome thing…” I said.

“Indeed! Most hunters are trained to act fast and kill the monster before it can activate this mechanism, so that the spoils of their battle don’t go to waste.” she placed two pieces of white meat over the fire and near the drying organs.

“Something bothers me, though…”

“What?” she asked.

“This spider is quite different from the last one you caught. It also entered the area of the warding crystal. Shouldn’t that thing keep these scary things out?” I pointed at them.

“Yes, but this is a Syllian Spider, a rare breed which normally isn’t found around these parts. Their chelicerae and needle hair are very valuable for a blacksmith, while the organs are needed by alchemists. The interesting thing is that I was actually planning on going to hunt one of them after I dropped off the Blood Mushroom. For the treatment, I need the venom bag of one of these spiders as well as the soft tissue under their carapace, so meeting one is quite a fortunate thing. Maybe it’s thanks to your luck skill?” she explained.

“How can it be thanks to my luck?” I asked a bit confused.

“Well…” she furrowed her brow and looked down at the fire for a moment “Maybe because you wished to help me in my quest, you activated it? We could have met any other species, but we met this particular one, which I needed. Isn’t it thanks to your luck?” she asked and turned her gaze towards me.

“Hm, so… You are saying that’s it’s something like a passive skill with an active ability?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe…” she shrugged, showing that even she wasn’t sure about it.

“Then, if I wish for something, I’ll get it, but it might depend on time, location, and probably stuff like that? And if I don’t wish for anything, it simply puts me in a ‘lucky situation’ depending on my current circumstance and the people around me?” I asked.

“Well, I do hear rumors once in a while of adventurers having more encounters and finding more items with certain members in their groups. There’s also a temple for the God of Luck where one can make various offerings to improve their luck, but they say that after a while, you lose that blessing and need to obtain it once more.” she explained and then shook her head “But I never thought those rumors to be true.”

“I see, well… when we get to a safer location, would you mind helping me figure it out by seeing if I can make it so that we can encounter certain monsters or other things? You know, form a party with me or something like that?” I asked with a smile as I laid my proposition on the table.

“I don’t mind. You helped me a lot, but aren’t we already in a party?” she asked tilting her head a bit to the left.

“Erm, don’t we need to cast a spell or something for that?”

She giggled when she heard me ask that.

“No, silly! You only need to think of me as part of your group and I of yours. When you first met me, and I agreed to tag along, I already formed a party with you. Didn’t you feel the tingly sensation around your left wrist?” she asked me with a smile.

“Erm, no… Hm, wait. It might be because of this strange system of mine.” I lifted a finger up and said “Let me try something.”

“Alright.” she nodded.

“Form a Party with Seryanna Draketerus!” I said out loud.

A messaged popped up in my mind.

There was also a small yellow dot next to my name, just like you would see in some MMOs to signify the leader.

“I never received a message like this before.” she said a bit surprised.

“Hm, I wonder? Seryanna’s Status.” I said, and the following window appeared before me.

[Name]: Seryanna Draketerus

[Species]: Superior Draconian of the High Flame

[Awakened Status]: 2 of 4 Conditions attained.

[Level]: 273

[Strength]: 1254

[Speed]: 988

[Dexterity]: 1004

[Magic]: 754

[Luck]: 12

[Magic Excellence]: 27%

[Current Buffs]: [Dragon Tamer]

[Current Debuffs]: [Unawakened One] [Unlucky One]

“What is it?” she asked me after she saw me staring for a while at the window visible only to me.

“I’m… I’m looking at your stats… You have two debuffs. One is called [Unawakened One] and the other [Unlucky One]. The first one drops your Luck by 60% of your initial stats, and the second one by 50%, but that doesn’t make sense. If you add them up, you get 100% Luck debuff, but your luck is 12, therefore, the last one must be removing 50% of the remaining stats, not the initial ones, so… if I’m right, your true Luck is 60, not 12. You are also 60% weaker than you should be… and 40% ugl… less beautiful. Although, I have the feeling the last one’s broken. I don’t see how that works, you are already quite beautiful in my eyes.” I explained shaking my head.

She blushed faintly, but didn’t make any remarks on my compliment.

“Sigh… I know about the first one, but I didn’t know of the last one. Usually, when you awaken you do get a lot stronger and faster, but you also become more appealing to other dragons. It’s the sign of maturity, of being an adult.” she explained.

“But it says here that you need to accomplish 4 out of 4 conditions to awaken, but you only have two so far.” I pointed at the status screen, but of course, she couldn’t see it.

“It does?” she asked blinking surprised.

“Erm, you didn’t know about this?” I asked.

“N-No… What else does it say?” she asked and took a step closer to me.

“Well your level is 273, which would explain why you can slaughter those spiders, and you are a Superior Draconian of the High Flame. The rest are stat points. Oh, and you have my buff as well, but what I find odd is that it doesn’t say 2X level up, but 2X Life Force and Magic Energy Absorption from kills/Learning Speed… Guess that’s the translation in your terms.” I scratched the back of my head and then closed the window.

“I see… It doesn’t say what conditions I need to fulfill does it?” she asked.

“Nope.” I shook my head.

“Well… this much is still good. It’s better than nothing…” she let out another sigh.

After we had our breakfast, we packed everything and crossed the river. While we did so, I kept praying none of the monsters felt like attacking us, and none did. I was starting to get the hang of this ability of mine, so with Seryanna’s permission, I started to experiment, wishing for various monsters to appear before us. They were all weaker than the pretty dragoness, but all of them appeared in front of us at one point or another, some sooner, while others later.

One thing I tried out was to pray to find a suitable weapon for myself.

“I wonder what I’ll get? Maybe Excalibur?” I said with a confident smirk as I followed Seryanna.

“I doubt a demon sword is something you would wish for.” she giggled.

“What? Excalibur is a demon sword?” I asked a bit surprised.

“Yes. I’m guessing you aren’t asking for that but a Godlike or Holy Sword, right?” she jumped over a large trunk.

“Yes…” I replied a bit disappointed and jumped after her.

“Hm? I think I found your hehe sword.” she said with a giggle as she picked something up.

“Show me! Gimme! Gimme!” I said excited and eager to acquire my first weapon in this Fantasy world.

I wonder how powerful it is? Maybe it’s some sort of secret weapon, or a mecha sword! Or a plasma sword! That would be so awesome! I squealed in my mind.

When Seryanna turned around, she offered me the result of my prayer. It was a half-broken wooden sword children usually used for practice. There were no runes on it or any sign of it being powerful. Down to its very core, it was just a harmless piece of wood.

“Here you go, oh brave warrior!” she offered it to me as one would a real sword, but I could hear her snickering.

“Very funny…” I said and took it.

Nothing happened when I picked it up, so I tossed it away in a nearby bush.

I must have used the wrong formula for it… I thought as I walked after the giggling dragoness.

About half an hour later of hoping not to get a wooden broken sword this time, I finally managed to find an actual steel sword. Unfortunately, it was already being wielded by a draconian bandit.

You know what they say: be careful what you wish for. I thought as I watched the man looking with big eyes at us.

Although armed only with a simple steel sword and wore basic leather armor on top of a pair of linen pants and shirt, he had dark-brown lizard eyes, a long, spiky tail and a pair of wings on his back. All those were signs of an awakened one. For a moment, I thought he might represent a danger towards us, but I quickly remembered that I wasn’t together with just any dragon, but with an actual knight.

Seryanna unsheathed her sword and stepped in front of me, showing not even a single sign of fear.

“Stay behind me.” she told me with a calm tone of voice.

I gulped and nodded.

Here’s a good wish. I hope this guy will be beaten quickly by Seryanna! I kept repeating in my mind.

“Oho! And here I thought I’d be lost for days in this damned forest! Who would have thought that I would find such a busty babe out here? Boy, hand over the girl, and I won’t get rough with ya!” he threatened me and saw Seryanna only as a simple woman.

I could only blink surprised at first.

Is he joking? Maybe he doesn’t see her as a possible danger because she doesn’t show the signs of an awakened one? I thought.

“Erm… dude? I’ll give you a hint. Simple clothes on me, plated chain mail armor on her. Bag on my back, sword in her hand.” I told him with a raised eyebrow.

“Huh?” by the time he realized Seryanna was the dangerous one, it was already too late.

The dragoness moved in, and with a single strike, she disarmed him. The sword flew out of his hand and into a nearby tree. Realizing he just got disarmed, he tried to charge up a magic spell, but Seryanna’s punch came flying straight into his nose. The 1254 points in strength showed themselves as he got tossed into the tree behind him, shattering into small splinters half of its trunk.

“Ugh…” he groaned and dropped on the grass, unconscious.

“Hmph! Weakling!” she puffed and left him there, walking away while sheathing her sword.

“Ah! Wait! Shouldn’t we do something about it?” I asked quickly as I went to get the sword impaled in the tree.

I took it out with ease to my surprise.

“I can’t. I made a peace deal with his group.” she said and pointed at the stitched mark on his left shoulder.

“Erm… another world, remember?” I asked pointing at myself.

“Oh, yes. Erm… how should I say this. Sometimes, knights and city guards make deals with the large bandit groups they can’t control to keep them out of the small towns and villages. As long as they don’t behave bad inside the walls, they won’t act against them. This keeps other bandit organizations from popping up and reduces crime rate in the city. It’s a win-win situation unless they directly attack us. There’s also another catch. Purse rings of this capacity aren’t that easy to come across. Regular stores don’t have them, and where we are going now, only the bandits carry them. I made a deal with them. I don’t kill them, and I get to use this ring as long as I desire. This, however, doesn’t keep me from beating them when I come across them.” she shrugged.

“I see, well… Can I take his sword?” I asked.

“Feel free. It’s probably stolen, but unless it belongs to a merchant or has any specific signs on it, then it won’t be reclaimed. If it does, you are obligated to return it or ask to buy it from the original owner.” she explained.

“No tag means finders keepers and losers weepers, right?”

“Indeed. At least out here, in the forest. The city is teaming with guards, and a thief is usually caught fairly quick.” she turned around and continued to walk.

“Really? And here I thought you usually killed them all.”

“As a knight, I am entitled to pass on judgment to the likes of them, so I may kill them if I find it necessary or if the situation calls for their immediate elimination.”

“Erm, so knights are sort of judge and jury?” I asked.

“What’s a judge?” she stopped and looked back at me with a raised eyebrow and furrowed brow.

“The guy with the hammer thingy that hits the table thingy when the criminal is…” she tilted her head a bit, showing that she wasn’t getting any of what I said, so I stopped and thought about how to put it in a more sciency-fancy way. “Erm, back in my world, the criminal is usually taken in front of judge. After analyzing the evidence brought against him, the Judge can either declare his sentence as a guilty party or exonerate him from the crime if he was proved to be falsely accused. I think in the USA, they had a jury as well, but I have no idea what their purpose is…” I shook my head and shrugged. “But in other words, the judge is someone who passes judgment to the criminal only after he analyzed all the evidence pointing at his crime.”

It was hard to explain the complicated juridic system of Earth, actually, I doubted I could. Most of the things I knew about it were from watching the news occasionally and streamed TV series. If I were to be asked to give a detail report about how the entire thing worked, I would most likely fail horribly.

“This judge of yours sounds like something the King or Lord of the land usually does.” she said, and we left it at that.

For the rest of the day, we collected various interesting plants we found along the way as well as killed weak monsters I called out with my luck. Seryanna finished them off rather quickly and then we proceeded with gathering their useful parts. She tried to teach me how to do it, but it was clear I wasn’t handling the knife very well. I just needed some practice and a bit of getting used to with all the gore. For the moment, I was just glad I never was weak to seeing blood even back on Earth.

With so much fighting and gathering to be done, I completely forgot to ask her about the various rules in this world as well as how far the human kingdoms were from this one. Remembering how the planet looked like from above didn’t help much. From all I knew, this could have been a rather big island or an actual continent the size of Asia.

This was how another day came to pass, and I found myself laying down in my tent, looking up at the cover and listening the crackle of embers in the campfire. As I stood like that, I realized I didn’t actually take a look at my own stats. With so many monsters we killed, I knew I leveled up a few times, but I had no idea how much.

“Show my status…” I said.

[Name]: Alkelios Yatagai

[Species]: Human

[Level]: 63

[Strength]: 16+313.5

[Speed]: 14+247

[Dexterity]: 20+251

[Magic]: 16+188.5

[Luck]: 100

[Magic Excellence]: 1%+6.75%

[Skills]: Show? Y/N

[Skill Points]: 62

[Stat Points]: 620

Huh? I thought as I looked at my level.

In just a few days, I went from a level 1 to 63. That was a 62 levels increase. We didn’t even kill that many monsters, but seeing how this was the most dangerous forest, I felt it was quite normal. Then again, I only wished for the weakest monsters to appear before us. I was certain there were some even Seryanna would wish to avoid, for example, the four headed dog I had the pleasure of meeting the first time I arrived in this world.

The first thing I thought about doing was assign some stat points. Although magic sounded good, I currently didn’t know even the simplest of all spells: Fireball, however, I was aware that ignoring those stats wouldn’t be a good idea. There was probably a big difference between my buffed stats and basic stats. Maybe there were some requirements for various skills as well.

The last question that popped into my mind was the following: My stats seem to grow normally so far, and my strength increased quite a bit. Should I actually put points in my stats now or wait until it becomes very hard to increase them?

I decided to stay away from stat points for now and focus instead on my skill points. As soon as I selected those points, a message appeared before me:

That… that freaking God-like! I growled in my mind, but instead of shouting like some annoyed 12 years-old, I decided to take a deep breath and relax.

Instead of complaining about an impossible to change system, I had to think of a way to better use that said system.

Let’s see… This means I can add 6 skills and make 12 improvements, right? I thought.

Opening the skill window, I was showed my current skills:

[Hero] (Passive)

[Dragon Tamer] (Passive)

[Veggie know-how] (Passive) (34% Learned. Assign 1 skill point to reach 100%)

[Skinnathron] (Passive) (2% Learned. Assign 1 skill point to reach 100%)

[Grabby Grabber] (Passive) (15% Learned. Assign 1 skill point to reach 100%)

[Smooth Talker] (Passive) (1.5% Learned. Assign 1 skill point to reach 100%)

I blinked surprised when I saw all those weird names.

Skinnathron? What the heck is that? It sounds more like some sort of machine or an ability one has in a post-apocalyptic game. What? Was ‘skinning’ already taken? What about Grabby Grabber? And Veggie know-how? Seriously? I sighed and closed my eyes for a moment

It was most likely the God-like’s way of being funny, although, through his attempts, he could only end up confusing us. I wouldn’t be surprised if some poor fellow ended up getting a useless skill by mistake because he thought it sounded cool.

Then again, I was probably part of that group, however, I was starting to doubt the part about [Dragon Tamer] being completely useless.

Letting out a sigh, I looked through the details of each skill. [Veggie know-how] was the ability to identify herbs and plants used in alchemy. Once learned, I would be able to easily identify only those sort of plants. [Skinnathron] was Basic Skinning skill commonly found in most video games, but with a fancy name. This skill allowed me to skin most critters and monster except for bosses and certain legendary ones. I could technically still do it, but there was a high chance I would ruin the product. [Grabby Grabber] referred to the ability of gathering plants and materials of all kinds. Translation in normal language: Gatherer. As for the last one, [Smooth Talker], it was a skill that made my compliments 50% more effective.

I decided not to waste my skill points with any of these, seeing as how I could gain them with ease by continuing to perform the respective task just as you would back on Earth.

Regarding the skills which I could choose from my list, I was certain they were all unique one way or another. My intuition told me this pick a skill once in 10 levels wasn’t supposed to be wasted. Therefore, I decided to add my luck in the equation and try to influence what I picked.

“Let’s see now…” I said and closed my eyes I wish to find a good gathering skill, a good spotting skill, a good appraising skill, a good attack skill, and maybe something to help travel around faster. Oh, and something related to alchemy or potion making? I thought and repeated those words a few times before I opened the menu.

Browsing the kilometer-long list, I went by instinct and pure luck when picking the first skill. It was already proven that logic in regard to how the God-like named these skills wasn’t going to help me out much. If I could see the details of each skill WITHOUT actually choosing that skill, it would have been great, but the system didn’t allow such a convenient thing. On the bright side of things, ALL of those skills were unique and if what the God-like said was true about all 10 million of us sharing the same list, then it all depended on luck if one picked a cheat-like skill or not.

Out the giant list of weird names, which weren’t in alphabetical order by the way, I picked the ones I thought sounded ok-ish. I got six of them for the grand total of 45 points. Regarding how big the list was, let’s just say I would have broken a few mouse wheels trying to scroll to the bottom only once. It was a scroll to infinity and beyond!

Either way, these were the skills I picked:

[Kitty Eyes]: Changes the Hero’s irises to those of a feline when this ability is used. Can see anything in a 10 m radius around the Hero. Cost: 50 Magic Energy points.

[Identificus Processus Juridicus]: This skill allows the Hero to Appraise anything. Cost: 10 Magic Energy points.

[I_R Roboticus]: Allows the Hero to mine anything. Allows the Hero to gather any type of herb. Allows the Hero to harvest any material. Passive.

[Bartender]: Allows the Hero to create all types of potions of the Basic Rank up to the Advanced Rank. Requires Alchemy Laboratory. Requires the right Amounts and Types of ingredients before intuitively offering the formula of the potion. Requires a Storage type Item or Skill. Cost: Depends on Potion.

[Speedy Rooster]: Summons Gragh’jaggar, the armored giant chicken mount of level=Hero, stats Hero-100 points except Luck. Can carry up to 5 persons. Cost: 250 Magic Energy points.

[Lightning Chicken!]: Summons a giant Lightning Phoenix of min level=999, max level=Hero. Cost: 585 Magic Energy points. 1 minute initial duration, afterwards it costs 100 Magic Energy per Minute.

Those names… was all I could think after I picked the skills and saw the descriptions. They barely fit at all, especially the last one. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even use the last 3 on account of Magic Energy cost. I got some really cheat-like skills with this go, but those requirements were absolutely ridiculous!

Least to be said, I tried to use the first skill: [Kitty Eyes]. The way to do so was quite simple: I just had to think about the skill’s name and then say: Activate. The Magic Energy was taken out of my pool, which was identified as the value of [Magic] in the stats window.

Everything around was perfectly visible in the utmost detail even if it was night. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see inside Seryanna’s tent or under the ground, only where I would normally be able to look normally. The spell seemed to ignore the current location I was in, but it did make me wonder if it could only get past the first room or it actually didn’t matter?

The first thing I did with my new acquired ability was to check for nearby monsters. There were none as far as I could see. After that, I looked at the pretty dragoness sitting down by the fire. She was writing down in some sort of journal, but although I could see the letter perfectly fine, I had no idea what they meant. Maybe my language ability didn’t include writing as well?

After staring to my heart’s content at her cleavage and nice round rump, I decided to try the Improve skill thingy the God-like mentioned in his message.

With my recent purchases, I was left with only 17 Skill Points, and I could improve my skills only 6 times.

I had to pick carefully.

I went first with [Dragon Tamer] which was my main Skill. Two points went into improving the basic function, but it only raised X2 to X3 level up boost. That was nice too, but I wanted to improve the stat gain bonus.

Still, one thing tickled my noggin. The God-like said: improve, not advance, upgrade or something like that.

Why improve? I thought.

It was already clear that he had a very bad naming sense, although there was a high chance of it being intentional from keeping us from hogging or jumping at the OP skills like the [Lightning Chicken!].

“Upgrade [Dragon Tamer].” I said, but nothing happened. “Hm. Advance [Dragon Tamer].” I tried again, and this time, it worked.

[Dragon Tamer] [Level 2]: This is a passive, buff type skill. When a Hero develops any sort of friendly or intimate relationship with someone of a Dragon origin, this skill will allow the creation of a special bond between the two of them. The bond is indestructible by any other skill unless the Hero wills it. The Hero gains 25% of the Dragon’s Stats, and the Dragon will gain the ability to level up 3X faster when in the presence of the Hero. [Advancement I]: The Hero can sense the direction in which he can find his [Selected] Dragon friend. Number of dragons that can be sensed at the same time: 1.

This was actually quite great. I had something like radar now. I tested it out on Seryanna, and a small transparent white arrow pointed the way towards her.

“Sweet!” I said with smile, and I couldn’t help advancing this skill again.

What I got now, was another interesting Advancement: All dragons gain 10 stat points upon level up and every ten levels gained in the presence of the Hero allow the dragons to gain an improvement in any of their skills. The Hero can choose where to add the stat points. If bond is broken before applying them, they will be added automatically to the stat with the highest value.

All of these only cost me 6 skill points, leaving me 10 points to add to make three more improvements. I decided to upgrade and improve [Kitty Eyes] once. The Level 2 improvement cost me 4 points and the advancement cost me 5 skill points, leaving me with a total of 2 left, however, now I could see everything in an 25 m radius around me, and I could also detect anything invisible. This ability could prove quite handy.

I was excited about my new skills, but instead of jumping out and telling Seryanna about it, I decided to play it cool and simply go to bed for the night. I saw absolutely no reason in rushing with this.

When I get to level 65, I’ll try to improve [Dragon Tamer] again… The faster she levels up, the more points I gain from the buff! I thought as I closed my eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.

________

Note from the Author: Thank you for reading! :) I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

EDIT: The skill name [I_R Roboticus] was missing. I had to use _ to connect I and R, because otherwise the site took it as Italic code.

This chapter marks the end of the "daily updates" of this story. It's exactly 1 chapter behind the one on my website. Chapter 10 is already posted there. I won't post chapter 10 here until I'm done with chapter 11 on my website.

Usually, this story is updated weekly on my website, but in general, it depends on my time and real life worries. Anyway, thank you for understanding! :)