It had happened so fast that the pain was finally catching up just now. I grit my teeth as my vision became blurred. I was losing too much blood, I needed to close this wound as quickly as possible. I held back the urge to scream as I used fire magic on the open wound to cauterise it. The dragon stared at me with amused eyes and a sneer on its reptilian face, making all of its teeth visible.

“Don’t lament over your miserable fate. Many who have stood in your place would’ve died by now, I must commend you.”

My eyes were filled with madness as I stared at that stupid dragon. Why do the weak have to bow to the strong? Why does life have to be so….unfair?

Wait. No.

I was no longer that kid from before, I couldn't lament over every misfortune that came my way. If life was going to knock me down, then I’d just beat life too. I tried boosting my processing speed to the limit. I needed to find a way to defeat this dragon, escaping wasn’t an option. If I were to escape, that dragon would just follow me, and something told me the shelter wasn't going to stop him.

My vision turned grey, as if taking away all distractions to allow my utmost focus. One second was stretched to a minute, and after straining my eyes, I realised that some parts of the dragon were glowing. The dragon was too busy gloating in pride to notice that I was carrying an entirely different expression from my previously despairing one.

Both of the dragon’s eyes were glowing in my vision and so were some of his scales, so I decided to follow my gut and try to hit one of those scales. I started dashing a second time, but unlike before I wasn’t aiming for an obvious target such as the underbelly, this time I’d go for one of the scales.

The spot I aimed for was between the two horns, or at least that’s how it appeared.

When I was training my magic I decided to test a theory I had with stealth. If I could make my presence hidden from someone, can I make a different presence clearer?

The idea behind that was to create a sort of body double illusion for the dragon to focus on while I snuck in from behind. My control of the illusion’s aura was so skillful even a being as mighty as this one may be fooled for a few moments, I took that chance to sneak towards my real target.

I aimed for the scale at the base of Egyr’s tail, using my hellfire marble to do so, but I altered its shape to be closer to that of a miniature spearhead. This way, the spell would only be stable for a few seconds, and that’s all I needed. I threw the spell with just enough power to pierce a few inches deep, right before it exploded.

ROAAAAAAAAAR

His temperament reverted to that of a wild beast as his tail was blown off, giving me the chance to do a follow-up attack. I readied my elemental rain spell, draining nearly all of my mana. In return though, there were around two hundred rotating arrows ready to be fired as I gulped down a mana potion to give me some for spare use.

I fired all the arrows at once, but not randomly. Thanks to my parallel thinking skill I was able to aim each arrow at a glowing point on the dragon. More roars of anger and pain sounded out, as if trying to shake the entire area. After draining the rest of my mana potions to keep the attack going, a sudden change occured. The dragon’s massive body started to shrink, and the light in its eyes faded, but not completely. I halted my attack for a moment, enough to be surprised by what came out the dragon’s mouth.

“I’ve had enough, I submit”

“WHAAAT?!”

For the first time in what felt like forever, I had lost my cool. I tried to find any hidden meaning behind those words but I soon gave up and just asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“You have truly defeated me, and as per our culture, when a dragon is challenged to a duel and loses, they must submit to the winner.”

“How do I make sure you won’t betray me?”

“That’s the next part I was going to mention. When the dragon submits, they must form a pact with the winner to become their familiar.”

“So….how do we do that, and what benefit do I gain?”

“If I were to become your familiar then I would follow your every order, as long as it wasn’t something like killing myself since that would infringe on the laws of the contract. You would also get to use a portion of my powers due to me being a dragon. To form a contract you only have to repeat what I say while putting your hand between my horns.”

I stood there pondering for a bit before finally deciding to make the contract.

“Alright, so I just do it like this?”

“Yes, and now repeat after me. Pactum”

“Pactum!”

A thin line of mana started to form between the two of us, as if we were tied by the string of fate. Eventually more lines coiled around the first one, reinforcing it even further. The system finally sounded out:

[Congratulations! You have defeated the boss of the Xamzu Desert, Young Dragon Egyr The Deserted Ruler!]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Gained Skill: Critical Point Detection]

[Gained Skill: Taming Lv 5]

[What is the new familiar’s name?]

As I saw that message, the dragon also requested with pleading eyes for a new name. The expression he showed was miles away from the evil dragon who had claimed my left arm. I took some time to think of one but I finally came to a conclusion.

“Bahamut”

[New Familiar, Bahamut, has been tamed]

I named him that to represent the norse god of dragons, showing my hopes for his potential. As I was thinking of what to do next, a system message sounded out at the same time that Bahamut let out a cry of confusion. Before I realised it, he had shrunk down to the size of two fists, and reverted to an egg.

[Young Sand Dragon Bahamut has evolved into a Blank Dragon Egg]

[Blank Dragon Egg: The base state of a dragon, untainted by the surroundings. The environment around the egg shall determine what kind of dragon hatches.]

Well, this was a predicament…. I was kind of looking forward to riding a dragon into battle. I couldn’t do anything about this situation at the moment so I placed the egg in my inventory and opened the rewards for clearing the dungeon.

[Dungeon Rewards Obtained]

[1000 coins]

[20 Skill Tokens]

[Black Box]

[White Box]

I was still lamenting the fact that I couldn’t restore my left arm, how was I going to explain this to my mom? I was still having such thoughts until the system sounded out again, but this time I could almost sense a hint of urgency in its voice:

[Authorization Activated]

[Administrator Access Given]

That really came out of the blue, why would HE of all people appear now?

{Admin: Hey there young lad, I see you’ve grown since I last left you.}

Why are you here?

{Admin: Wow, not even a “hello”? Well, I didn’t necessarily come here to catch up. I see that you might need a hand over there if I’m not wrong.}

Haha, very funny….

{Admin: Not even a sense of humour I see, well let me get to the point. A certain error happened to the system and the dungeon’s time axis started working backwards. From what I see as well, you seem to have gained a few extra skills and status points you shouldn’t have been able to get.}

Wait wait wait, slow down. What does the time axis going in reverse even mean?

{Admin: It means that instead of 1 hour in the dungeon being equivalent to a minute in the outside world, 1 hour here became equivalent to 3 days on the outside.}

WHAT, HOW DID THIS EVEN HAPPEN?!!!

{Admin: That’s the problem, I don’t know how that happened. I don’t control the dungeon, I merely manage it, so changes to space and time inside of it are out of my hands. Now onto the next problem, I see that you’re no longer human, I’d like to ask how that came to be but you are the least likely to know.}

….thanks for the confidence….

{Admin: Anytime, so let me propose a deal for you. In exchange for 2 thirds of your stat points, I’ll return your arm and I’ll give you a skill you’ll definitely need in the future. Also in case you had any funny thoughts, your magic can’t heal missing limbs, at least not in your current state and your…innate nature still hasn’t appeared, at most you don’t need to eat or drink to live.}

I had to think about this choice. On one hand I could keep my status points to grow stronger, but I’d be missing my left arm and a chance to obtain a new skill. On the other hand, I could gain my left arm and a possibly rare skill in exchange for skill points that I could regain later. The choice was obvious.

I’ll give you my skill points

{Admin: HAHAHA, I like a good businessman. Alright a deal’s a deal, here you go}

I felt a pang of pain in my skull and where my left arm was, followed by the system’s voice.

[Limb Regeneration Started]

….

….

….

[Limb Regeneration Complete]

[Adding New Skill]

[Error. Error]

{Admin: Hmmm, seems you aren’t ready for it yet, so let me try this.}

[New Skill Obtained: ■■■ (Rank F)]

[■■■ (Rank F): ■■■]

What did you do?

{Admin: I merely put a progressive seal on the skill, the more you grow the more of the skill’s powers you’ll unlock. Also I may have forgotten to mention two things. The first one, from now on for every level you only get ONE extra allocatable stat. Second, the event I’ve told you about is most likely happening right now.}

WAIT WHY

{Admin: Simple, with the time axis ruined, more time passed outside than here, and I had already been told that the event was on the horizon. As for the stat points, that was the way they were supposed to work, an error merely happened in my perfect system}

Doesn’t sound so perfect now does it?

{Admin: Funny, well now that we’re done here, you won’t be able to access the dungeon for a bit now that this “event” has transpired, but when you do you better be prepared. The third floor makes this one look like a joke. See ya later~~ }

[Connection has been severed]

[Commencing ejection from the dungeon]