A wave of intense killing aura rushed towards Eric from all four dukes. They could not tolerate his impertinence towards the king. The combined pressure from all four was truly terrifying, in his current state, Eric knew that he had no way to fight against them, but he knew they could not lay a single finger on him.
Any act of violence in the throne room without the king’s permission was not permitted and will be treated as an offence. All he could do now was to clench is teeth and endure the overwhelming pressure.
Eric stood in front of the throne, eyeing down the Crystal Duke, daring him to make a move. Tension in the room was so thick, that it was becoming difficult to breathe in. The paralyzing atmosphere was then shattered when the king raised his right hand, signaling the dukes to back off. Even when backing off, they threw death glares at him.
**
[Name: Manik Verdias Mirthstar] [Race: Human] [Age: 42] [10th Circle – Mage King] [Magic: Gravity, Ice, Summoning Art] [Ability: Singularity, Summon Symbiosis, Frozen World]**
‘That is pretty impressive,’ Eric thought. ‘For a human to reach this level of power at such a young age, he must be a genius. Though he has reached the pinnacle of what humans can achieve, if he wants to overcome that limit, he’ll have to become something… more than human. The human body can only withstand so much.’
During the Endless War, for humans to fight on the same stage with Vampires and other superior beings, they had to break beyond their limits. Humans came up with a method called forced integration. The process was to extract the blood from a superior race and merge it with their own, after this process is done several times, the human body will then start evolving and expanding it’s magicule capacity. Whichever race they merge with, they will take on some of their characteristics and strengths. This practice was frowned upon, but as War only cared about who was the stronger one, it was excused.
Though Eric did not bow before others, he had respect for the strong. To defuse the situation and not make it any worse, he acknowledged the king.
“My name is Eric Pendragon, and I greet the King of Erewhon.”
“I am sure you have your reasons, and for saving my daughters life, i will excuse you. I heard you have fought against an entire horde of monsters to protect my daughter. Your courage and bravery is commendable.”
“I thank you for your kind praises, but i believe i have been brought here for a reason.”
“Hahahahaha, straight to the point i see, you young ones sure are impatient. Alright, for safely delivering my daughter from a life-threatening situation, i will reward you. Now speak, what do you desire?”
Eric thought for a moment, there was only one goal he had right now, which is to get stronger, so there was only one logical thing he would ask for.
“10 S-ranked monster cores.”
Everyone in the throne room was shocked at the absurd request that Eric mentioned. There was complete silence before the Crystal Duke broke out, “This bastard, how dare he ask for such an outrageous demand!”
Eric looked around in confusion, he was certain what he asked for wasn’t all that much.
“Ahem, I am afraid that request i cannot fully accept, Mr Pendragon. The amount of mythical beasts we have hunted in these past few years doesn’t amount to much. Thus, we have only collected little S-ranked cores. The amount you asked for equals to half of what we have. I’m afraid i’ll have to decrease the amount that we can give you to 5,” the king coughed in embarrassment.
“But what we lack we can make up for in other areas, what else do you want?” He continued.
“Hmm, a visit to the Royal Library.” Eric said after a brief thought.
“Interesting, i did not take you for the scholarly type, but that can be easily arranged. Now, come forward and receive.”
Eric walked up the stairs leading to the throne, he saw Anastasia smiling at him.
When he was a few feet away from the king, he suddenly froze solid. His heart started beating wildly and his eyes, which were disguised as human, briefly reverted to his dragonic ones and shone a pale blue light. His breath hitched and he slowly looked up at the king, eyes wide.
It was faint, but the smell he whiffed on the king was undeniable, it was kin.
Eric stared at the king for a moment and slowly asked,” Do you have relations to a person more powerful than you?”
King Manik’s eye went wide upon hearing the question. Never in his wildest dreams would he expect someone to guess something personal, that not even the dukes and generals knew about. His brain went into overdrive trying to find a way to answer him. Looking at the boy, he could not see anything that stood out to him, but when he studied him again, he found two very ancient and intelligent eyes staring back, it reminded him of someone. At that moment, he felt chills go down his body.
“I will neither confirm nor deny, but if you want to find out, there is one condition. Each year the Bloodcrest Empire host this competition as a way to showing the alliance of all three kingdoms. Only the best representatives of each kingdom will compete. If you win this years Inter-Kingdom Tournament , i will introduce you to the person in question.”
“Very well, I will come back champion and you have to keep your word,” Eric answered in a dead serious tone.
After receiving the 5 cores, Eric returned back to the dungeon entrance with Anastasia to check up on Parzival. He decided to visit the Royal Library another day.
“How are you bud? Eric asked.
“That ability really did a number on me, i really hate using it,” Parzival mumbled from the hospital bed.
“I’ve already let the teacher count the cores, so how about we split them 60:20:20, i get the 60%, is that fair enough?”
Anastasia and Parzival looked at each other and slowly nodded in agreement. They both knew that Eric did the most out of all of them, so they did not have any complaints. With that split, Eric received 51 B-ranked cores.
With nothing else to do, Eric returned to the school dome and got ready to devour his buffet of cores. 51 B-ranked and 5 S-ranked cores later…
Ting~
Ting~
Ting~
**
[Eric Pendragon] [Race: Dragon (weakened)] [Age: 8500] [8th Circle – Supreme] [Novice fighter] [Magic: Fire (Green), Earth, Lighting, Magma, Summoning Arts, ??? (sealed)] [Ability: Eye of Truth, Devour, Colossal Strength, Telepathy, ??? (sealed)] [Word: ??? (sealed)]**
<Summoning Arts> The power to summon forth a creature or spirit you have contracted. The more powerful you are, the higher tier your contracted beast or spirit can be.
The moment Eric finished the last core, he felt all his attributes vastly increased, and a change over his body. Looking down, he saw familiar dark blue matte scales on his arms and legs. He flexed his fingers and his claws popped out.
“Summoning arts huh, i wonder how’s that guy has been doing, time for a reunion.” Eric drew a magic sign in the air and sent power into it. After a moment, it glowed brightly and a tear in space appeared. Something stepped out from between the space.
“Hello master, it has been a while.”
