Zilan spent quite a substantial amount of time going through the seemingly endless amount of flames within the cave. The second he finished perusing through the contents of one he would immediately move towards the next one, his movements machine like.
It was only after he had completed going through approximately fifty of the wisps that Zilan finally stopped.
“It’s clear that he wanted speed. All of the earlier versions of Rain Drizzle that I’ve seen so far centre around it. Each is different, with their own unique improvements on the ones that came before them.”
“It is interesting though…”
Zilan was somewhat surprised by the techniques especially after he had read the backstory behind them.
The Rain Dragon King in his quest for speed initially wanted to make use of his species innate ability to summon rain. From this ability is also where the name “Rain Dragon” originated.
According to the Rain Dragon King’s journal though, the traditional, true name of his species of Dragon was actually “Stormchaser Dragon”. Unfortunately, as time passed and bloodlines thinned only the special amongst them could awaken the Stormchaser blood within them.
The Rain Dragon King was not one of these lucky individuals. The only thing he could say he received from being a descendant of the Stormchasers was his immense size. Too bad, in the early stages of his life that particular aspect was one that brought him more grief than happiness.
Going by his inherited memories, he would need to survive for at least a thousand years before he could mature and eventually gain the ability to defend himself. He however could not wait that long. He was born in a time of war, a time that saw countless behemoths and tyrants fall. Just hiding and waiting was impossible nor did the Rain Dragon King want that. He was after all a Dragon, one of the most inherently arrogant beings in existence and he was particularly special.
The Rain Dragon King knew from a young age that his intellect was superior to others and this only fed his arrogance. That is why he could not stand seeing others look at him as if he was an ant. He wanted to show them just how superior he was but before he could do that he needed to survive.
Only when he reached his developmental stage would his growth accelerate therefore he needed to stay alive till then. This is where his obsession with survival tactics began and it was also the birthplace of the mindset that allowed the name “Unkillable Rain Dragon King” to echo across the Universe.
Zilan’s mind wandered as he thought about the various techniques the Rain Dragon had created before eventually stumbling upon [Rain Drizzle].
He was so immersed in his thoughts that he failed to notice that the water level in the cave was steadily rising.
The wisps of flame, one by one, started disappearing finally alerting Zilan towards the change that was occurring. It was too late though as the dark water suddenly shot up and covered the entire cave. He was now completely submerged.
Surprisingly, Zilan did not panic. He effortlessly floated in the pitch-black water, quietly awaiting the next turn of events. The reason for his unflustered-ness was simply because the entire area was nothing but an illusion. A powerful illusion but an illusion nonetheless. Not to mention it was the kind of illusion meant to boost his strength/help him therefore there was nothing to fear.
He did not have to wait long as the pitch-black water suddenly turned into a screen projecting images of none other than the Rain Dragon King practicing the first version of [Rain Drizzle] he had ever created.
Despite his huge size the Rain Dragon King was zipping from place to place at speeds that should not be possible. If one looked closely they’d notice that right before he moved, the gigantic nimbus clouds above him would all simultaneously tremble. This, was an unavoidable by-product of the technique he’d created.
In order to move faster than his huge body allowed, the Rain Dragon King as a species that could control the rain to a certain extent devised a method that could allow him to not just control the rain but also use some of its concepts to his benefit. In this case, the concept he was ‘stealing’ was that of momentum. Gravity was too profound for him at that time thus he stole the concept of momentum from falling rain.
It worked in an easy to understand way. He would first begin by summoning rain which was a fairly easy task. What would then follow was that nimbus clouds would gather before rain drops begun falling. The Rain Dragon King however, would use his method to steal the concept of momentum from the falling rain, using it to propel him forward in a straight line at incredible speeds. The rain drops as a result of his method would instantly evaporate thus the trembling of the clouds.
This technique gave him speed but it only worked in a straight line which needless to say limited his mobility greatly. There was also the fact that clouds would form whenever he activated the technique which naturally wasn’t the best evading tactic.
The images continued flashing by, showing the development of the Rain Dragon King as well as highlighting how the techniques changed over time. By the time it got to the end, the concept of momentum that was being used before was nowhere to be found on the latest iteration of [Rain Drizzle].
The dark water slowly drained and the wisps of flame resurfaced in the cave. Only this time, all of the flames Zilan had gone through were no longer there.
“Hmm..” Zilan understood the purpose of the dark water. It was to basically organise and show him the proper sequence of the flames he had seen. So far, the number of techniques he’s seen numbered in the fifty’s and the number of scenes projected on the screen were around the same.
“I cannot tell if all of these are memories extracted from the Rain Dragon King or if some are artificially constructed.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter.” Thought Zilan.
After internalising everything he’d seen, there were a few things that did surprise Zilan but the concepts the Rain Dragon King was working with was not one them. Not because they weren’t profound but rather because they originated from worldly insights.
In essence this means that these techniques will not work or will have no influence in worlds and places in the Universe that were of a higher threshold. For example, a powerful attack from someone who has surpassed the soul-compression stage may be able to crack space in a small world like the one Zilan was in however, in grander, more Ancient planes even causing the air to tremble would be easier said than done.
The concept of momentum in Zilan’s world would be easy to ‘steal’ but to ‘steal’ the concept of momentum from Universal Rain? That would be asking for death.
Even if it wasn’t Universal Rain but a more profound rain in the Universe instead, to steal a concept from it would require insane strength and guts.
Luckily the Rain Dragon King abandoned the method of ‘stealing’/using and instead opted to “comprehend” other concepts and use them to create techniques that could allow him to move swiftly, in every direction, silently, explosively as well as efficiently.
“I still have some time left. Let’s see what the Rain Chamber is about.”
