The Long-Aged Elixir
The Long-Aged Elixir.
Resisting the urge to swallow it had taken no small measure of patience and effort. By that standard, Yujun's self-control sat comfortably above average. A single trait had been his for the taking all along, and still he had held out until now, just so the luck effect would be in place when he finally gave in.
At last. I'm actually going to eat it.
He could have gone after still more luck items before taking the elixir, but that would have been a spectacular waste of time. He didn't draw it out. He swallowed the Long-Aged Elixir at once.
The moment the pill mixed with his saliva and slid down his throat, the hologram window surfaced again.
You have consumed the Long-Aged Elixir!
You acquire one trait at random.
You have acquired the trait Swordsmanship (B).
Wait... Swordsmanship?
Yujun dragged in a breath that did him no good. The elixir had a reputation for producing respectable traits, and with the Luck Ring already in him he had allowed himself a certain amount of hope. He had not, for one second, expected Swordsmanship.
This is insane.
The trait did exactly what its name promised. It raised one's skill with the sword. Put that way, it sounded almost ordinary—and yet Swordsmanship was harder to come by than most traits or skills of S-rank and above.
Swordsmanship is a jackpot on the same scale as becoming the Primordial Player.
The low grade was a flaw. It was not, however, a flaw without a cure.
Kill the ancient dragon, and evolve Swordsmanship with the reward.
The Luck Ring had come from the far end of the trap stretch. That made it likely the ancient dragon's rewards would match what they had been in War of the Gods.
Tap-tap. Pat.
Yujun walked the trap corridor back the way he had come. A trap, once broken, never armed itself again, and so he returned to the fork without the slightest trouble.
Mei took one look at him—whole, unhurried, not so much as singed—and smiled as if she had never expected anything else.
"Unhurt after all."
"Of course."
"Thank you."
"Hm?"
The thanks came out of nowhere, and Yujun tipped his head.
"I don't think I thanked you properly before."
"I thought you did."
"No. I was too rattled then to do it right. Thank you. Truly. Because of you, my friend lived... and even now, with the dark elves hunting us, you've helped me again."
"..."
"If you ever need help, just say the word. Not only me. My friends will help you too. Elves never forget a benefactor. You know that, right?"
Yujun nodded. Elves and dark elves did not treat a debt of gratitude the way humans and the other races did. It wasn't that elves, as a people, were especially kind. It was that they settled gratitude and grievance without fail.
"Shall we add each other on messenger?"
"Yes! I was just about to ask..."
And so Yujun's first messenger friend of another race became Mei the elf.
She had been watching him for a while now with a look heavy enough to be uncomfortable. He sidestepped it and spoke.
"Let's go kill the boss."
"You said it was an ancient dragon... I won't just get in the way, will I?"
"I'll be done with it quickly. You'll be fine."
"That confidence is something else. Not that you don't have the skill to match it..."
He had meant to fight the ancient dragon the prepared way—items stacked on items, every advantage he owned. Swordsmanship had made that unnecessary. A trait that amplified everything done with a sword was precisely what a man holding a blade of frankly broken performance needed.
This really is the last stretch.
Yujun and Mei broke into a run and did not slow until they reached the end of the third path, where the ancient dragon slept.
The passage opened into a vast cavern, and filling half of it was a dragon of staggering size.
"Eek..."
Mei flinched back from the sheer mass of it.
"I-it's huge."
"It is."
Yujun had only ever seen an ancient dragon rendered in game graphics. The real thing was another matter. The pressure rolling off its bulk was no joke; goosebumps prickled up his arms from the sight alone.
True to the dungeon's name, the ancient dragon was deep in sleep. Only for a moment. It sensed them, and eyelids crosshatched with scars lifted.
"A human... and a child blessed by the forest."
The voice was thick, clotted, and it rolled through the cavern. Some unknowable power rode in it, and the body wanted, of its own accord, to shrink.
"You set foot in my lair... Have you no fear?"
At the word lair, Yujun let out a short, incredulous breath. What kind of lair was this? The ancient dragon before him no longer had the strength to defend a hoard, which was why it slept in a cave this wretched.
A dragon's lair ought to have treasure in it.
There was none, of course. Kill the ancient dragon, though, and the reward would be worth more than any pile of coin or relic.
Yujun didn't bother answering. He drew his sword. The meaning of that was plain enough, and the ancient dragon's fury broke.
"Begone!"
Fwoosh!
Red flame poured from its maw. The breath was simply too vast to dodge. Mei stood well back. He did not. He was close.
The Essence of Fire would be a waste. This, then.
He swallowed the Potion of Flame Resistance he had set aside and drove straight through the breath. Breath or not, the heat fell far short of a dragon in its prime.
Bearable.
The pain was bad enough to twist his face as far as it would go, but it didn't slow him, and it didn't burn him. Thanks to the potion he reached the space directly before the dragon's face without spilling a drop of blood.
Once a dragon has loosed its breath, it is briefly helpless. This was the moment.
Cleaving Strike (B)
A full-force swing with a bladed weapon.
The sword's performance had already made his attack power monstrous. Swordsmanship pushed it higher still. Cleaving Strike was nothing more than putting everything behind a bladed swing—the motion spare, the result anything but.
BOOM!
Yujun's sword met the ancient dragon between the eyes, and a blast loud enough to numb the ears tore through the cavern. He did not stop there. He triggered Cleaving Strike again and hammered the same spot, blow after blow.
Bajur's Mana Sword carried an option that mattered a great deal just now.
Mana imbued in the blade manifests at 200% amplification.
A two-hundred-percent amplification did not simply mean the sword hit twice as hard. It was not the damage that swelled by two hundred percent, but the mana poured into the blade. An attack carrying mana was on an entirely different scale from an ordinary strike—which meant that amplifying that mana by two hundred percent lifted Yujun's attack power five or six times over, and then some.
And the ancient dragon's body was already failing with age.
Boom! Crash!
Every time the sword came down, clumps of flesh tore away.
"Graaa..."
It didn't even try to fight back. It only took the hits, reeling, unable to gather itself under the chain of blows.
For a dragon, it is holding up.
Even that had a limit. He drove it to the brink far faster than he ever had while hunting it in the game—proof, if he needed any, that his strength now outstripped the character he had played.
"Get off my body this instant!"
The ancient dragon raged. Rage did not turn the fight around. Yujun packed the blade with mana and brought the last stroke down, and—
BOOM!
The ancient dragon died.
◈ You acquire the Legendary title Ancient Dragon Slayer.
◈ Impossible Achievement!
◈ You have acquired the Essence of Strength.
◈ Legendary Item Box (Choice)
◈ You have acquired the Fruit of Evolution.
◈ You have acquired Rare-grade equipment.
◈ Heroic-grade equipment acquired…….
◈ ….
Yujun checked the reward messages and clenched his fist.
The Fruit of Evolution. It really dropped.
In War of the Gods, the reward for killing the ancient dragon had been the Fruit of Evolution as well. A laugh broke out of him before he could stop it, too full of joy to hold.
The rest can wait. All I need is the Fruit of Evolution.
Equipment below Legendary was none of his concern. Setting the fruit aside, the only other thing that caught his eye was the Essence of Strength.
Grade: Heroic
Option: Permanently increases Strength by 15.
An essence that permanently raised a stat was brutally hard to obtain. Overshadowed by the Fruit of Evolution or not, this was an enormous reward in its own right.
Title effect first.
He decided the Fruit of Evolution would wait until every other reward had been checked.
That was the effect of the title he had just earned, and it was an excellent one: every stat raised by a percentage. Even allowing for Legendary grade, there was no mistaking a top-tier option.
I didn't get Ancient Dragon Slayer last time.
He thought he knew why. When he had hunted the ancient dragon before, No-Pay Casual Gamer had already been past level 200. Now he was only about half that. The Impossible Achievement modifier seemed to have handed him a better title than the one he had missed.
Looking over his status window, Yujun felt a deep, quiet satisfaction.
Eight titles already.
Had he ever gathered so many in so short a span? And most of them were Heroic or higher.
Level's up by ten, too...
He swallowed the Essence of Strength. Strength surged up from low in his abdomen.
Now the last of it. The Fruit of Evolution's turn.
"Yujun!"
Mei came running.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes. As you can see. Perfectly fine."
"Whew... Thank goodness."
"Did you get anything?"
"Just a level. And one Rare title. For watching from a distance, it's an excessive reward."
"Good thing we formed a party."
"...I feel guilty, taking so much help. Really—just like I said. If you need anything, contact me anytime."
"All right."
Young as she was, Mei was a strong elven warrior. There was nothing to lose by staying on good terms with her. Whether they would meet again was another question.
"Shall we head back?"
At that, Yujun shook his head.
"One moment."
He drew the Fruit of Evolution from his inventory and, for the first time in a very long while, checked what it actually did.
Grade: Legendary
Upon consumption, designate one skill or trait you possess and raise the grade of that trait or skill. Also permanently increases all stats by 10.
No matter how many times he read it, the item was absurd. A flat increase of ten to every stat was already worthy of Legendary on its own, and on top of that it raised the grade of an ability. He had not coveted the Fruit of Evolution for nothing.
He had Equanimity. Even so, this once, he was tense.
Please. Just let it land at S-rank or higher.
If Swordsmanship so much as reached S-rank, he would have nothing left to wish for. That alone would put out more power than most skills or traits of SSS-rank.
It only has to be worth the Luck Ring.
S-rank was what he was aiming for. A-rank Swordsmanship wouldn't be bad, exactly, but set beside S-rank it fell a long way short.
It's not even that greedy. Please. I'm begging you.
Only after offering a prayer he had never once made in his life did he pop the Fruit of Evolution into his mouth and chew. A sweet fragrance circled his tongue, his head went light and clear, and the hologram returned.
You have consumed the Fruit of Evolution!
Please select a trait or skill to evolve.
Yujun thought of Swordsmanship. Light burst open in front of his eyes.
Tremendous luck alights upon the player!
The Swordsmanship trait is evolving.
Calculating grade...
He crushed the pounding in his chest and poured every nerve he had into the hologram before him.