Forged By The Apocalypse - A LitRPG With Draconic Potential

The quiet of the desert was broken by the uncomfortable noises Naea continued to make. I made the mistake of watching, curiosity getting the better of my common sense, and I doubted I’d ever get the image out of my head. How does her mouth open that wide?

I shook my head and turned instead to the prompts I had been putting off. I probably wouldn’t get the drum roll it deserved, so it was time to check. I opened the achievement which had jingled for my attention when the boss died. My breath caught in my throat. “This is-”

Achievement Unlocked - Dungeon Boss Destruction (World First) (Solo)

A dungeon boss does not fall idly. This opportunity does not fall into the lap of the weak. Congratulations. As the first to receive this achievement on your world, your gains are greater.

Effect: +2 Attribute points per level, Attributes +10%

Even the System was reverent about my actions, which made the whole situation sink in. I had done it. It wasn’t a dream or hallucination. None of this was. I had fought, bled, howling in agony and dominated the dungeon until one of the three bosses fell. Naea’s help couldn’t be ignored, but as she was a familiar I guess the System counted her as part of my solo strength.

“Incredible…” I murmured. I checked quickly and felt my roll slow down a little. The points weren’t retroactive, but the smile soon crept back onto my face. I flexed my fingers before curling my hand into a fist. Yep. Never going to stop chasing this feeling, I reconfirmed mentally.

Muscles all through my body shivered, my eyesight sharpened. The heat in the air became more manageable yet also more acute. The smell and taste of poison in the air became pungent. The effect of all these changes were drastic. I was interested to see what it was like interacting with the old world. I’d smash most tables just by bumping into them at this point.

I looked over to the site of the scorepion massacre, but Naea wasn’t even close to finished. There wasn’t much sense in rushing while she was still getting experience from the clean up. She had shown me her character page earlier, but I would check again once she was finished. Looking at the huge, crushed mass of the Scorepion Manager, I shuddered again picturing Naea’s feeding methods.

Yuck. Fortunately for my working relationship with my familiar, I had other things to focus on. I had levelled from 25 to 29 in the battle against the dungeon boss, so I had some maintenance to perform. I had some left over from previous levels in case I needed healing, but I could sense the effects of the recovery were weakening as I levelled up. My Survivor achievement didn’t balance it back out. I’d still keep two on hand, but that left 25 points to allocate.

My preferred attribute split wasn’t being met, but I’d do what I could. My initial plan still didn’t feel wrong, though the temptation to throw all of my points into Fortitude and Speed was fierce. It was hard to argue with pure strength, and the System wasn’t exactly handing me spells. However, Mana Control was a potent tool which hadn’t let me down once.

After taking ten minutes to get used to the raw strength flowing through every cell in my body, I found a flat space and sat down. My mind may have been enhanced by the System, but it was still human. I needed to calm down and I could feel it. I sat in silence, slowly blocking out the stimuli of the world from my physical senses.

The arid burn of the desert sun became a blanket. The taste and smell of scorepion venom faded. The various moaning and cracking noises from Naea’s feast dulled to nothing. There was no tracking of time, but in a suitably short order, I had found a state of zen. Comfortable and confident, I dove into the depths of my inner core.

My first experience with the Scorepion Manager’s poison had been enlightening in multiple ways. Of course, being humbled and nearly killed was an important lesson but it was surviving that very ordeal which had opened my mind and shown me the possibility. I remembered with intense clarity the feeling of swaddling my mana, protecting the wellspring of my core against the poison of the dungeon boss.

I had stumbled onto the power of meditation slightly after my first battles, but I now had additional understanding. My eyes closed, the world ignored, I stepped into my inner world. I’d heard the term “mind palace” in the past, but always thought of it as a grandiose way of describing memory. Seeing a sprawling landscape within my own soul, I felt sheepish at my previous snobbery.

I inspected the inner world with a contented sigh. The air in here smelled beautiful, hints of sage and the smoke of wood. I wasn’t actually breathing, and the space around me wasn’t really aflame. My perception was a visualisation of the different energies within me, how each detail fit together showed how the interwoven magicks interacted with each other.

A rolling field of green, healthy grass lay before me. The field looked sunlit and comfortable, which was incongruous with the sky and smells. Above the landscape, the sky was roiling. Thick clouds of smoke were all I could see, the dark night sky you might see above a roaring flame. Occasionally, small areas of the grass would ignite, and the smoke would rise to the sky. Amongst the grass, yet somehow separate, were a growing assortment of random wildflowers.

Before I began working, I simply took it all in. This was my magic… and it was beautiful. I fell in love with the feeling all over again, vowing to fill this inner world with wonder after wonder. The more I inspected the beautiful surroundings the more glaring the empty spaces were. Just what Aspects could I fit in here?

The rolling grassland was my mana. The vastness of the space felt correct. I didn’t know how I stacked up against other magic users, but I could burn my mana for days without running out at this point. As I looked around, daisies and dandelions, wildflowers of various species came to life. That was Naea’s presence, pressing her way into my soul unconsciously. The burning gouts of flame and aromatic smokes floating around was my connection to the Aspect of the Dragon.

Seeing it laid bare, there was an obvious separation between myself and the draconic magic. The idea was disturbing, but I hoped I could remedy the situation over time. Right now, the Dragon was draining my core mana to fuel itself, but the rate was slower than my recovery. Things were fine as it stands, but the situation could cascade if ignored. Instead of having two separate mana sources, as I seemed to, they needed to become one.

I simply noted the issue and planned to deal with it later. I had no way to force that, and it’s not why I was here. I was here for the sensation deep underground. It was this sensation which I had chased into my inner world. Putting my hand to the ground, I felt the warmth underneath. The real core of my soul and the pressure on top of it.

I had arrived to this world, but it was also mine. The fields were just a metaphor, so was the smoke, it could just as easily have been an ocean with lightning streaking above. I closed my imagination, I couldn’t let my mental image shift. I already had an idea in mind and if I distracted myself, I wouldn’t be able to create it.

Something which relieves pressure, I reminded myself. Connection to dragons, if possible.

I had a few choices, but it was best to keep it simple. I leveraged every ounce of skill I had with Mana Control and began to shape the world. Function over form. Shaping and manipulating the energy from within was giving me some insights but they shifted into my memory while I focused. I pressed my intent upon the world, envisioning the geyser of power I wanted to see. The world, my core, resisted the change but I kept pushing.

With a colossal crack, my inner world buckled. I felt my core pop, like a balloon with a puncture and my eyes went wide. “Oh shit,” I cried, desperately trying to maintain a calm mental state. My core had broken. “Wayyyy too much for function, not enough form.” Instead of my initial idea, I had essentially just created a massive vent in my mana pathways. The result was as dangerous as internal bleeding.

I had to fix things. My hope had been to create a bridge for the power I gathered from battle, which I could feel locked in the centre of my inner world. I had pictured a geyser, shooting the charged energy into the sky and watering my inner world with strength. Every last drop of power I currently contained was lost, all progress to the next level thrown away with the mistake, but that was just the start.

My strength was falling. If things stayed like this, I might even start losing levels. Was that possible? I didn’t care to find out. I smashed my teeth together and set my jaw. The discomfort was turning into pain and I couldn’t let myself be distracted. The idea of just giving up was worming its way into my head as my body started to flag.

No. My mind rejected the principle. I would never give up when it came to survival. Fuck that. This way my world. It was my pathways which had broken and if magic was real then goddamnit, nothing was impossible. Even fixing my shattered core. With a rising shout, turning into a rebellious roar, I contained the puncture by sheer force of will. My hand was covering the faucet, but the pressure was building.

I needed somewhere pressure could build up and release, without constant loss of power. My entire soul was a reservoir for my mana, but I needed another. My eyes went to the smoky sky and my design evolved immediately. Could I possibly solve two problems at once?

The draconic mana in the sky was my own to wield, but intrinsically linked with the ideals of the Dragon. This meant that while I could use it, I needed to understand the facets of a dragon to truly understand the energies at play. I quickly thought of it as using high-tech equipment in the wrong way, like smashing a hard drive into a nail and calling it a hammer.

As my understanding of the Aspect grew, my uses for it would, too. The first piece of the dragon I had taken for myself was power. Dragons were some of the strongest beings in most fantasy, and from the description of the Dragon Slayer title, the same was true in the System. This was the most simple, base level of understanding. Now, I needed to use another facet.

The greed of a dragon. I was losing power which was rightfully mine and that simply would not do. My own greed was easily catching up to the feelings I got from the sky above. In sync with the potent mana rolling like the clouds, I forced my demands upon my inner world. I bent, moulded, sculpted and otherwise redesigned the very core of my being. My haste and lack of understanding had led me to this place, but that same intrepid experimentation would bring me out.

I didn’t need a geyser to expel power, I needed somewhere to gather it. At the same time, my draconic mana had no fuel of its own, taking from the fields instead. “Let’s fix that shall we?” Another great rumbling echoed about my soul but the sensation of wrongness, the pain of the mana leaking out, all of it vanished at once. A sense of pure bliss came over me. I gazed upon the inner world with wonder.

A gargantuan mountain rose in the distance. Smoke leapt from its peak, the bubbling energies of battle burning away deep within. I sighed with relief. Everything was okay. More than that, I suspected. With a flick of my wrist, I pulled some power from the volcano. A mote of power danced in my grip, wriggling with energy as though it wanted to be free. I let it return to the source. I was done here.

Opening my eyes to the real world, I blinked a few times. The sun hadn’t travelled far at all, though I could swear I had been working for hours. I looked down at my lap and saw that Naea was sleeping in between my crossed legs and smiled. She must have eaten herself exhausted. Then I saw the System prompt. It seemed my inner world had more advantages than I had thought.

I knew now that my first goal was impossible, and I had nearly paid the ultimate price in learning it. No more trying to break the System, at least not internally. While I hadn’t succeeded in my initial goal, which was to essentially make it easier to level up, I had done something more important. Not only had it made me stronger, I had discovered a precedent I would need to stick to.

Skill Unlocked - Infusion (Dragon) - Upgraded from skill Mana Control

If you can picture wielding the power, you will.

The System-given skill of Mana Control was gone, but I didn’t need it. The System had taken the training wheels and given me a reward for using my Mana Control in the most complex way. The overall boost I received from cycling my mana was a constant at this point, so time to up the complexity. “I like your style, System.”

I tried poking Naea awake, standing and dropping her into the sand when she ignored me. “Whuyadoin’?”

“Come on, Wings.” I held out a hand, which Naea sleepily buzzed over to. Dropping her on my shoulder, I started moving. “I’ve got some upgrades to try out.”