"Just to be clear," Ventus inquired, "That silver beast chasing us right now has POISON in its name right?"

"Yes..." she replied quietly.

"And that thing that has over 20 meters in length and has a humongous big mouth that could swallow us both in a single go also had DRAGON in its name right?" he said as his voice trembled slightly.

"That's correct, why are you asking the obvious?" she replied somewhat annoyed.

"Because the first thing that comes to mind when I hear DRAGON in the name of something," he replied shouting, "Is something that can spew flames and is very strong"

"But since that thing has POISON in its name..." He complained, "The only thing I can infer is that the beast chasing us either has a very potent poison with flame-like properties in its composition that can make the victim feel as if it is on fire,"

"Or that it can hurl poison at us like a dragon spews flames." he explained.

"Actually...." she sighed, "both assumptions are correct."

"WHAT!?"

"Yes...." she explained, "the silver sand poison dragon has a terrifyingly strong body that boasts a high defense and laceration power thanks to its scales, but also, it produces a strong poison in its body that has flame-like attributes in its effects as well as its ability to spew it like a dragon would in the form of gigantic clouds of poison gas or liquid poison shots that it can accurately fire on and reach a distance of about a hundred meters."

"We're actually even more screwed than I thought huh?" he whined.

At this time they could no longer focus on conversing as the distance between them and the beast was decreasing by the minute. The sandboard was quite fast as it was in its strongest ambient when on top of the golden desert sand it had its body built of, that quality helped Ventus reduce the amount of mana he spent controlling the board after he had painstakingly constructed it as well as having a speed boosting attributes to it.

Nonetheless, he still was expending mana even if at minute amounts. His core already had dangerously low levels of mana within it to begin with, and as such, he was in danger of running out of mana at any moment as his current mana level was about 7%.

"We have a more immediate danger to deal with than the beasts to deal with" Ventus warned.

"Really? what could be more dangerous than the twenty-meter long poison spewing scaled beast chasing us?" she inquired with a bad feeling.

"I'm running out of mana and really soon we are going to fall on our faces in this sand and most likely die." he spoke indifferently.

"I thought I could outrun this beast with my sandboard, but with my mana reserves at such a low-level, it was really a foolish hope."

"Who would've thought that a beast would be so persistent?"

At this moment he heard a loud hiss and then a liquid like noise. Luna looked behind to verify and instantly her grip on his body tightened even more.

"Hey!! Are you trying to break me in half!?"

"Shut up and dodge to the right!" she replied.

"What the? you don't order me!"

"JUST DO WHAT I SAID ALREADY!" she screamed.

Sensing the urgency in her voice as well as the loud ringing in his ears from the shout he obeyed and willed his board to slide to his right. A second later a splash was heard in the sand and sizzling noises rose in the air in the place they had just been. He turned his head to look and saw the sand being corroded by a green substance, it obviously was the poison projectile he heard of earlier. He looked to the beasts and saw that it fired several of those projectiles aiming at them, its chasing speed diminished slightly every time it fired, but the range of the projectiles more than made up for that speed.

"Keep tracking the attacks and tell me when to dodge," Ventus spoke.

"Okay, but what about you mana expenditure?" Luna inquired.

"I will try to refine world mana whilst controlling the board."

" But won't that interfere with your control over the board?"

"That is a possibility, but unless you can control the board yourself or supply me with mana, we do not exactly have any other choices do we?"

"...."

Ventus then left the navigating to Luna whilst he started executing the whirlwind revolution refinement. World mana flew in his direction in the shape of dim glowing white particles and the wind started slightly rotating around him as he did his best to refine mana as fast as he could.

His meridians looked like they were in a storm as the world mana raced through them in the shape of rotating wind arrows. As the seconds passed, the world mana was condensed into the liquid like inner mana and stored drop by drop at his core.

As mana was slowly refilled in his core he felt a refreshing feeling wash over him. It was like his body was a cracked dry land that was being watered by the rain, recovering its previous optimal state, but although he felt good as his mind was cooled by the refreshing feeling, he did not let his focus slip. He knew that if he relaxed he could die, and as such, did his best to use that more stable mental state to increase his focus on controlling the sandboard.

Thanks to his minute expenditure in controlling the sandboard and the speedy refinement of the whirlwind revolution he was able to actually refill his core. His expense was lower than his refinement speed and that made him even more impressed by his father's work, making him wonder what the following levels and other techniques from the tornado policy would be like once he was able to practice them.

The poison shots bombarded them and constantly Luna's guidance helped them avoid it even though Ventus's reaction time had slowed down as he had to split his attention between refining mana and controlling the sand board. But even though they could dodge, all of the dodges required a high prediction and calculation effort of Luna, and as such, their dodges were always close calls.

"Ugh, we can't continue doing this for long." Luna complained.

"We don't really have a choice right? I can't refine any faster than I already am and that damned viper won't give up!" Ventus grumbled.

"I know I know..." Luna sighed, "Its just that this constant pressure is taking a real toll on both of us, if only there was a way that we could make refining mana was more automatic or perhaps enable a way to double your refinement speed so that you could promptly refill your mana to a sufficient level and let you fully focus your attention on getting us out of here."

"yeah..."

Refining mana took a great deal of concentration as it had to be carefully controlled or the core and especially the meridians could get damaged. In Ventus's case, it was even more so as his refinement technique was unique, it was far faster than ordinary refinement techniques of the entry-tier due to its feature of rotating mana at high speeds so that the overall mana flow sped up, and by consequence, the refinement speed rose as well.

But any carelessness in executing the refinement could make the high-speed rotating mana inside his meridians crash and cause him harm in the process. As the saying goes, "high-risk beget high-rewards". that could perfectly describe Ventus's situation.

"Wait a second....double refinement?" he murmured.

At this moment, as if a light went on inside his brain Ventus a crazy idea sprouted that brought him hope.

"Luna, you're a genius!" he exclaimed pleased.

"I am? What did I do?" she inquired confused.

"Double refinement!" he explained, "My technique relies on rotating the mana inside my meridians so that the mana flow is sped up and as such the speed of my refinement is explosively increased."

"So?"

"So...that I only rotate the mana inside my meridians!" he laughed crazily, "What if I rotated the mana inside my core as well to increase the absorption speed?"

"What!? did you go crazy from the danger!?" she shouted.

"What do you mean?" he inquired confused.

"Executing techniques inside the core is extremely dangerous!" she replied, "If they work, they grant an explosive boost, but if they fail the core could crack or even break from the damage!"

"And considering the nature of your technique, if you fail, you'll immediately become a cripple or die! and you will also take me along with you!"

Ventus frowned. His idea was indeed a dangerous one, if he succeeded, he would be able to save them, but the chances of his failure were so high even in a stable environment, let alone in a crisis-like situation he found himself in.

"Well, we don't really have any other options..." he lamented, "At most, if I fail you could drop me and run by yourself, perhaps you could even survive this."

"..."

Luna could not find any words to reply. Taking everything into consideration, she knew that he was right. The situation was truly THAT precarious. After managing to dodge another round of poison shots and gaining some breathing room as the viper seemed to have spent some strength firing all of those poison blasts, she exhaled loudly and finally spoke.

"Very well, let's try your idea"

Ventus simply nodded and turned 90% of his attention to his body making his reaction speed to outside events sharply fall. He noticed as soon as he attention reached his core that he only had managed to fill his core back to 20%.

"So slow" he complained.

As he thought he knew that his statement was outrageously offensive to the magi around the world. It was already a miracle he managed to refine so much mana whilst being in the situation he was in and at the speed he managed to do so. He shook his head and refocused on the task at hand.

He tried to will the mana to move inside his core and found the task surprisingly difficult as he met with the core's surprisingly huge resistance to movements inside of it. It was as if he tried to violate the law's of a sacred space, and as such, he was met with its response.

But he did not give up, he kept trying and commanding the mana to move, and sure enough, after a few dozens of tries, he managed to make it do a simple rotation. When he did he noticed that a huge mass of world mana was pulled inside the meridians and all the way to the core in an instant before being refined at a speed never experienced by him before that allowed his core to fill by 5% In seconds.

Luna, on the other hand, noticed the changes in Ventus as the surrounding wind around them explosively converged at him when he successfully rotated his mana inside the core a single time. She smiled lightly as she knew he had somewhat succeeded in his crazy plan.

Ventus cheered in his heart and tried to rotate his mana once more. It took him several tries and once more he succeeded, this time it took fewer tries than the first time he managed to rotate his mana, the mana in his core managed to refill by another 5%.

He kept trying for several minutes and the following tries reduced time and the effort it took to rotate the mana. Luna noticed the increasing success as each time Ventus managed to rotate the mana a disturbance would occur as the surrounding wind converged and rotated around him.

His core had filled to the 75% mark when he was finally forced to stop. He failed in completing a full rotation correctly and actually crashed his mana at core's walls sending an electrifying pain through his whole body. The core wasn't actually wounded thanks to Richard's pill that reinforced his core's structure, but the pain scared him so much he was forced to stop.

Luna noticed his body trembling as his face paled and his face exposed an ugly frown as it contorted in pain. She knew something had gone wrong and immediately got worried. The silver viper had finally recovered its speed and was rapidly closing the distance between them intent on eating them for lunch.

"Ventus, are you all right?" She shook him trying to drag his attention back to the outside.

It took a few moments but he returned and was fully focused on steering the sand board now.

"Yes, my idea somewhat worked and I managed to recover my mana a sufficient level." He reassured her.

"Did you wound yourself?" she asked still somewhat scared.

"No, I accidentally crashed the mana inside my core, but luckily, I managed to avoid disaster." he sighed in relief.

"Now, let's get out of here!" He roared loudly.

He increased the mana infusion on the sand board making it somewhat glow with an almost transparent light. Instants later they shot forwards at four times their former speed leaving a massive trail of sand clouds behind them and two huge sand waves at each side of the board as they sped up across the golden dunes of the desert as they rapidly left the silvery beast behind them with the humming tune of the powered sand board to give them a soundtrack.