A Tyrant, Sort Of

There was more Sable could talk to Roman about, but that would always be true. While informing herself on the world was important, so was keeping momentum.

She left the dark-haired necromancer behind and flew for Lake Plateglass. Looking down at the sprawling landscape from so high in the air was something that still invoked some wonder in her. Especially with how fast it flew by. The yellow, reds, and oranges of the Red Plains shifted quickly to the more vibrant greens where the weaker goblins resided. Soon, she’d arrived to the familiar glassy surface of Lake Plateglass.

[I’m going to do some power testing, then handle other tasks,] Sable told Aylin. [Do you and Granite want to level while I’m gone? At the dungeon?]

“Uh,” Aylin said. “Yeah, that’s probably best.”

She took care of that next. It was barely a detour, considering the speeds she could now [Soar] at. After her two minions set off into the depths of the low-tier dungeon, Sable got straight to power testing. She considered doing so in the dungeon but decided against it. Best to do it somewhere calmer.

With the environment not particularly mattering, she chose to experiment right outside the entrance.

First, she checked her status.

***

Sable

Juvenile White Dragon

Level 10 - Frostfire Sorceress

[ Hoard ] - MEAGER

[ Notoriety ] - RISING

Stats (base):

Might - 393 (525)

Grace - 323 (525)

Resilience - 515 (687)

Intellect - 758 (1011)

Wisdom - 758 (1011)

***

She wondered when the ‘juvenile’ qualifier would upgrade. She didn’t think it was tied to age, since her physical size wasn’t. Instead, it seemed more likely that either levels or her hoard and notoriety determined whether she was a ‘juvenile’ or ‘adult’.

Not that it mattered. It was just a word on her status page. But she suspected moving between age progressions would provide some tangible benefit. Regular sapients didn’t receive rewards for growing older, but they also weren’t called ‘juvenile goblins’ or ‘adult goblins’ either. Just goblin. So advancing from juvenile dragon to adult dragon, or whatever the next step was, seemed likely to provide a benefit.

Her stats continued to grow at a staggering pace. Exponentially so. Every successive level she was gaining more and more of the numbers. That fit with what she knew of the world. Level fifty beings were capable of nearly unimaginable feats, and could level cities by themselves. Sable could do the same, but it would require a slow, methodical destruction. The powerhouses of the continent could do so with a single skill.

So to go from her current strength to that, it would require exponential growths in power, even considering she had forty more levels to work through.

Though that logic held for ‘regular’ powerhouses. Normal people. A level fifty dragon would be even more of a calamity. The kind of threat that could reign over the entire continent. There hadn’t ever been a level fifty dragon, as far as Sable knew. The absolute strongest had been low forties—and even those had required the joined effort of the strongest individuals on the continent to exterminate, three centuries ago.

What would that be like, Sable wondered? To hit max level as a dragon, and be essentially the strongest thinking creature on the planet? There would still be stronger forces, but not thinking ones—in the sense of being a person. Most creatures of that strength were mindless or monstrous to no small degree. As a dragon should technically be.

The idea appealed to her more than it ought to, sending shivers of excitement down her spine. She reigned that emotion in. If she did reach that level of power, she would use it to unite the world. Tyranny, yes, but a beneficial sort.

Getting to the actual experimentation stage of her new body, she transformed. With a puff of frostfire, she stood in her much smaller form.

She checked how her stats had changed.

***

Sable

Juvenile White Dragon

Level 10 - Frostfire Sorceress

[ Hoard ] - MEAGER

[ Notoriety ] - RISING

Stats (base):

Might - 197 (525)

Grace - 197 (525)

Resilience - 257 (687)

Intellect - 379 (1011)

Wisdom - 379 (1011)

***

She winced at seeing her already-reduced stats diminished by half over again. Still, she still had stats in the hundreds; she was far from a weakling. She didn’t actually know what level of opponent she could stand up to. That depended on her health and mana, too, she supposed.

***

[ HP: 1,678 / 3,106 ]

[ MP: 412 / 1,255 ]

***

She winced at that information as well. The ninety percent reduction to her health was obviously the largest downside. She was more than ten times easier to kill simply from her diminished health pool alone—and that wasn’t even counting her reduced stats, and thus weaker ability to defend herself.

And her mana was smaller even than when she’d been level one. She’d started at 1,500, and now had 1,255. That was still an outrageous mana pool for a regular person, and likely her strongest advantage in halfdragon form compared to other humanoids. But it was still clear which of her halves were better in combat. The large majority of her campaigns across the world would require her staying in dragon form. She had increased spell dexterity, but she doubted whether it would make up the other detriments. Instead, that bonus sounded like a niche tool to use when appropriate.

Her ‘might’ stat was 197 after all debuffs had been applied. What did that mean, practically speaking? Stats couldn’t be an exact measure of strength, since when she’d first spawned into this world, she’d had 200 base stats and a ninety percent reduction to them—leaving her with 20. She’d certainly been stronger than a goblin with 20 stats, then.

Roman had indicated that stat comparisons were a bit odd. At least between similar races, they could be used as a decent standard, and even between human and goblin, they held up mostly—though not perfectly. But like usual, Sable could intuit that things became even foggier for a dragon. Twenty stats across the board or not, she’d been in a dragon’s body—she’d been more than capable of tussling with Granite, a hulking golem who’d certainly had more than twenty strength.

But now, she wasn’t in a dragon’s body. She was a halfdragon. So did any of that apply? Were her stats now more directly comparable to a regular person?

Rather than continuing to muse endlessly over the topic, she simply tested her capabilities. She got to the empirical part of her experiments.

She walked up to the nearest tree. The tree’s trunk was about as wide as her, so healthy, and fully grown, but not some towering oak, either. She placed a hand flat against it and felt the rough bark. Digging a finger in, she found she could easily pry the brittle material apart. In her Earth body, of course, she wouldn’t have been able to do so, and if she had somehow, then it would have hurt. Here and now, her fingers barely noticed the pressure as the bark tried to jab into her as she pried around.

Getting to the real test, Sable clenched her hand into a fist, then threw a solid punch into the tree.

Bark splintered and flew away. The entire tree shook, branches and leaves rattling as the shockwave reverberated through it. Her eyes widened at the exaggerated effect, even if Sable had already expected it—she’d done the same to Roman’s front door with a simple knock.

Becoming strangely giddy, Sable threw another punch into the tree, putting a little more heft into it. Her knuckles dug into the interior of the tree, now, cutting into the fresher white part of the trunk, and the tree vibrated even more intensely. Cracks of wood rang out through the forest, though the tree held. Her knuckles were unscathed; the punch didn’t bother her in the slightest.

So. Two hundred might was still an appreciable amount of strength. Definitely nothing to sneeze at. At the same time, in her dragon form, a single solid smack of her tail would have even a thick tree snapping like a twig. She’d used the ability to great effect to turn Gadenrock into a bonfire. Her strength was even more diminished than a ‘fifty percent’ reduction would imply.

At the same time, Sable reminded herself she was now capable of delving dungeons and collecting powerful gear. She could close the gap by doing so. Gear, as far as she knew, was fairly important for adventurers, and even more so at the higher levels, where finding legendary pieces of loot could vastly improve a person’s strength.

Magical gear was something she still needed to figure out for her dragon form. Roman hadn’t been able to offer much, besides that the dragons of old hadn’t flown around in giant sets of dragon armor, or even used rings and trinkets—except in their humanoid forms, which dragons had rarely been seen in. Sable suspected why, now that she knew the detriments that came with it.

But monsters, at least in monster form, didn’t get stat bonuses from dungeon loot. Built-in effects, like a spear enchanted to be sharp, could still provide a benefit, though. It was another field she’d need to experiment with if she wanted to use her human form for delving.

A flurry of blows, topped off with a vicious forward kick, had the tree finally snapping. She nodded, pleased, as it went toppling into the ground with a satisfying thunk. Yes, she wasn’t remotely as strong as her dragon half, and maybe even Banr, the lead warrior goblin from earlier escapades, had more physical might to call on, but she was far from a weakling. Might and grace were her weakest stats by far. She was a mage. She’d just wanted to test them.

Snapping off a long splinter of wood, she slowly tried to stab her palm with it. The pressure grew, and she thought she might even draw blood, but then the wooden spear snapped. She rubbed the sore spot on her palm where she’d almost punctured herself.

Durable, but, as with her strength, not nearly to the level of her dragon half. The gap might even be larger, since she had both reduced resilience, and a ninety percent cut to her HP. Certainly, her dragon self wouldn’t have almost been able to puncture her skin with just a long wooden splinter—even without scales. Without a doubt, she could draw blood with a dagger, should she turn it her way—which meant others could as well, at least with enough strength. A higher-level classed in the city could lop off her head with a single strike, probably. That sobered Sable’s previous giddiness with experimenting with her new powers. There were very real, very prominent dangers to being in this form, and she had to be careful when she wanted to use it. Certainly never around enemies.

Why had dragons of old ever used the form, then? Had the downsides been different? Maybe they reduced as she leveled, and received a [Halfdragon Form II], or something? Surely, the glaring vulnerability had to be shored up in some way in the future, or perhaps the benefits increased. Or maybe it was as simple as being able to transform back whenever she wanted. Unless caught by total, absolute surprise, she could return to her dragon form in an instant.

She paused as she wondered how that would work in, say, a house. Or underground, in a dungeon corridor. Would the ability refuse? Would she turn in a compact dragon cylinder and instantly die? The imagery was amusing, but the reality not so much.

Her mind moved to the next stat to test. Grace. Her eyes tracked a path forward through the dense tree trunks. Just how fast could she run, now? And with what sort of agility?