Chapter 5: Basic

In the temple of Origin...

A group of man in white robe with different decoration looking up at the broken glass window on the roof. Some of them kneel down, ignoring the broken glass littering the floor, praying up to the pale-cyan dragon floating just outside the window.

"Please come back to us!" "Please don't leave us!"

They scream out different things but the dragon ignores them all and flies away. Instead of saying something like "How cocky." or similar, they bow down and makes depressed moans.

"What will become of us?" "The prophecy is coming true! The end is near!"

The old man with the most solemn design robe - one of the high priest with the highest rank in this temple, try to console the other priests. "Don't worry, as long as the Dragon of Origin stays in this world, the world will still receive life force from him."

In the forest on the other side of the mountain...

The wolf is now sitting on its hint legs while his front legs support his body, I sit right in front of it. After all the apologize that it made, I have it explain to me the basic and common sense of this world.

It seems to have a passive skills which it got at lv5 to see others' lv and race. As in my case, it sees "Lv1 Dragon" floating above my head so it decides that I would be an easy prey. However the trait "scale changes color based on element it touches" is unique to the Dragon of Origin - the name that almost everyone in this world use to call me. It seems the deity who created monsters imprinted the order to not harm me on every monsters in this world as the wolf doesn't know why or where that order came from. I guess that deity wants to pay some respect to his or her creator...

After learning some common sense from the wolf (which I didn't ask where it got those knowledge from), I realized that the blue moon I saw earlier is actually in the South and move along North-South axis while another red moon would move East-West. These 4 direction are named a bit different than my last world; but I translated them (for your convenience) based on where the Sun raises (East) and sets (West). I wonder if they draw map the same way though.

The wolf has never left this forest. It only hunts around the northern area of the deeper part and rarely a human would appear in this deep, so it doesn't know much about other race.. Judging by how the wolf describe human, if an average human is 1m8 in height then I'm around 12m. Also, they seems to use dragon-scale as currency because the wolf always found leather pocket of dragon-scale on the belt of every human it ate. That's good because I don't have to worry about money now.

Lastly the wolf tell me about the common sense about how the stats work. Now I'm sure that I accidentally replicated the system to this world while I was sleeping. Even the exp system is the same as that game. One would get exp when they deal damage or heal an ally, not when the enemy is dead. The wolf said it got 4 exp from biting me earlier. I ask it to bite me again but lightly to confirm the exp formula that I already know; but it refuse. Although no monster is allowed to purposely damage me, I find it annoying. I don't want to hit someone who can't hit me back. Where is the fun in that?

As the wolf finishes its explanation, the sky has became dark. We talked from noon to night. Either I forgot about the flow of time or a day in this world is really short. The wolf says it's dinner time but I don't feel hungry. I've been sleeping without eating anything for 12000 years after all. I feel bad for the wolf who had to skip its lunch to explain things to me, I want to compensate something to it but all I have is my body and I don't think it would take the "Dragon of Origin" for dinner...

After thanking the wolf and see it run away into the dark forest, I take off while thinking about what to do from now. Before any idea pops into my mind, I see some light from a forest clearing a bit away and a faint pillar of smoke raising from that spot.

"Human, I guess."

Chapter 6: Human

In the dark of the night, a group of 5 men in shining armor sitting on fallen tree logs around the campfire. The light from the fire is barely able to dispel the forest's blackness. Only a few stars - symbols of different domains of different deities, are visible and both of the moons aren't up tonight. So outside of the men's circle, it's a dangerous world of monster with night vision. A dragon is flying toward them from the South.

I don't have night vision... I'm flying under the night sky with only the fire before me as beacon to lead my way. I created this body with only normal eyes but I don't regret that. I know some Dimension Travelers who always make themselves Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent when they get into an empty dimension like this one. Exploring without knowing what I might run into and not in control of everything is way more fun and exciting than being like those boring god-wannabes.

Now I'm experiencing something like that. My two hearts are beating fast. The chilly wind is probably making my scale all pale-cyan now. If I had human skin, I'd probably had goose bump all over. It's not like I'm afraid of the dark. An empty dimension is even darker than this.. but without any potential danger. Now I'm flying toward the unknown, feeling slight fear and excitement.

What if that group of human are dragon-slayer? What if the "Dragon of Origin" is their enemy? It won't be strange if it's true, there might be a lot of different conflicting religion in this world.

As I get near the campfire, I can now see the shadow of the 5 men in armor. I try to land gently at the border of the small clearing but I underestimate my own size and weight. To those human, I just made an earthquake enough to startle them. Two of them who see me first quickly pull their weapon - typical looking swords, and point at me. The other three who stumbled forward, now turn back and do the same.

"A lv1 dragon. It will be easy." One of them regain their composure and say.

"Don't underestimate your enemy! Even if it's lv1, it's still a dragon. There might be more around!"

Oh well, this is bad, they're pointing their weapon at me. They doesn't seem to care.. or even know who I am. It might be good for me, actually. Best case scenario, they worship me and I find that really troublesome. Worst case scenario, "Dragon of Origin" is their target and I would get slaughtered.

"Wait! I'm friendly!" I say when a man carefully step on step forward. So much for my attempt, my voice doesn't seem to have "friendly-mode" as he is startled and jumps backward. Somehow they seem to be more alert.

"Be careful! It can talk so it might be able to chant a spell!"

Oh, I can chant spell if I can talk? What kind of logic is that?... Of course I know the answer to that rhetorical question: It's the logic of that game, again. In that game, the player can "command" the mana to do something. If the game system can "understand" what the player said, a spell is cast. With enough practicing and high enough DEX, the player can instantly cast that spell later...

That information is really handy. I try to make up the shortest "command" I can think of, just in case those human in armor decide to attack me.

"Trust me, I just want to.. ask for direction.. Here, I have 'money'." I say then point at the scale on my forearm. I'm not sure how long it would take for my scale to grow back, but currently I have a plenty of them and a few wouldn't be too bad to give myself the first trust in this world. But it was just my wishful thinking...

"Why should we take a few scale from you when we can skin you clean later?" One of the man say then dash forward, swinging his sword.

Immediately, I try to chant. However, with my DEX value of 1, I suddenly find it hard to speak and the shortest chant I thought of become long and clumsy speech.

"I am Unknown. I command the element of fire..." Some red light faintly appears before I get interrupted.

"Too slow!" The man screams as his sword slashes down, cutting me to two...