Chương 79: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 79 - Transformation Complete

As the saying goes, you are what you eat. Eating rocks can indeed make you harder, but that kind of hard is all-encompassing, the kind that makes it impossible to move. That wasn't what Su Nian was after. So to work out the rules of Advanced Devour, he spent the next morning roaming Silvermoon Forest and sinking his teeth into everything he came across. [Ding! Devoured 36g of gold. Scale armor strength increased by 0. 00008%. Fire resistance increased by 0. 00012%.] [Ding! Devoured one mountain wolf. All attributes increased by 0. 0002% when hungry.] [Ding! Devoured one Blaze Rabbit. Fire element affinity increased by 0. 0001%.]... [Ding! Devoured 500g of Black Dragon meat. Purity of dragon gene regarding "Kangnai·Niaolid·Waterus·Stupak..." increased.]"The hell is Kangnai? Some dragon big shot?" Cradling his bleeding tail, Su Nian searched his Inherited Memories. Among the ancient dragons currently living in the Material Plane, not one had a true name beginning with Kangnai anything.

There were two ways to explain that. First: this dragon big shot simply wasn't under Dragon Island's jurisdiction. They'd never sworn to Tiamat or Bahamut, so the Inherited Memories had no record of them. Second: this dragon big shot had deliberately hidden their existence. And was no longer in the Material Plane at all. Whatever the reason, this big shot shared his bloodline. If male, that would make them his great-great-great-great-grandfather. If female, his great-great-great-great-grandmother.

And the reason his wings and foreclaws had been fused together at birth, that might be connected to all of this. Su Nian shook his head. Bloodline was just a credential. It meant nothing to him right now. Getting stronger was what mattered. He could hardly devour himself in the name of bloodline purity. After a round of testing, he confirmed that only gold ore and silver ore produced zero side effects. Both increased scale armor strength. Gold ore boosted fire resistance; silver ore boosted poison resistance.

He suddenly understood why gold dragons could pin red dragons down in lava and beat them senseless. They just didn't care about fire. Conveniently, the Kobolds had been running a silver mine near the Dragon's Nest. Daily output was modest, but the stockpile had been building up for a while. It was a respectable haul. He spent some time swallowing all of it. End result: scale armor strength up 5%, poison resistance up 12%.

On his actual body, the change showed as a faint streak of dark silver running through his scales. Su Nian made a bold prediction. Devour enough silver ore and he'd cross over into something entirely new, a Silver-Black Dragon. Gold was another story. Even after the recent battle, they hadn't collected much. The coins barely covered a quarter of his sleeping platform. He wasn't about to throw them all down his throat for a negligible stat bump.

Better to wait, find his way into a human kingdom's treasury at some point, and handle it properly. If he could win the fight, devour on the spot. If not, devour and run. That sounded like a plan worth looking forward to. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Su Nian spent a pleasant few minutes daydreaming about it, then called up the system.

"System. Open the second and third stage transformations." [Ding! System points sufficient. Second stage 'Advanced Scale Density' and third stage 'Advanced Scale Strength' transformations initiated. Mild pain is expected. Please prepare, Host.] It told him to prepare. The transformation started before the words finished. High-temperature liquid metal materialized under the system's direction and began spreading across Su Nian's body, covering him layer by layer.

Su Nian had never felt what it was like to have a branding iron pressed against living flesh. Now he did. A wet sizzling sound filled the air. The pain bored straight through him, like something was being stripped off him one layer at a time, and the whole thing was accompanied, inexplicably, by the smell of roasting meat. That smell distracted him a little. He swallowed. Maybe he should've cooked his tail before biting into it earlier. He turned on Insight and examined the liquid metal. Adamantite.

The same ore that formed the primary material for Deathwing's first suit of armor. No wonder the system point cost had been reasonable. If it were Elementium — primordial ore — the price would've been ten times higher, at minimum. For now, adamantite was more than enough. He could upgrade later if needed. He wasn't the real Deathwing, after all. The real one had to maintain that armor constantly or risk his body tearing itself apart.

With the system handling integration, once this transformation was done, the armor would essentially be part of him. Future upgrades would build directly on top. Time passed. The dragon body's sheer adaptability did its job, and the pain slowly became background noise. Anna was sleeping nearby. He kept his eyes on her face while the liquid metal spread, and after a while he stopped feeling the burning entirely. [Second stage 'Advanced Scale Density' transformation complete.] [Third stage 'Advanced Scale Strength' transformation complete.] [10, 000 system points deducted.] [Please inspect, Host.] The notification tone cut out. A light screen blinked into existence in front of him, visible only to him, showing a rotating 3D model of his current form. He could spin it freely, zoom in anywhere, every angle of his dragon body rendered in perfect detail, down to the fine hairs on the barbs. He looked at himself for a long moment. His chest swelled with something he couldn't quite name.

Dark adamantite scales covered him from end to end. Sharp impact ridges jutted out at the joints. Even the edges of his wings were plated with adamantite. Along his thick neck, a row of V-shaped plates ran in clean formation, gradually widening as they descended toward his chest, reaching their maximum span at his sternum, encasing his thoracic cavity completely, then continuing all the way down to his tail. No iron jaw. No blazing molten core.

An extra pair of forward-curving demonic horns instead of the right ones. Other than those details, he looked almost identical to Deathwing, Neltharion. Su Nian lifted his head. His voice came out low and rasping, edged with something dark.

"My name is Su Nian·Waterus·Stupak. Worldbreaker. The end of all things. Unstoppable. Unyielding." A pause.

"I am the Cataclysm." He tested the body. Two heavy steps forward. His footprints sank clearly into the stone floor, but his agility was untouched, and he felt no sense of drag or extra burden. The system answered before he could wonder about it. [Advanced Scale Density: Scale density increased by 100%. Weight increased by 100%. Speed reduced by 20%.] [Advanced Scale Strength: Scales metallized. Strength increased by 200%. Weight increased by 300%. Speed reduced by 20%.] [Warning: Speed reduction severely impacts host agility. Transformation effects are temporarily unlocked at 50% capacity. Full unlock will occur once host muscular strength reaches the required threshold.] [Author's Note — Lore drop ahead. Feel free to skip.] Tiamat. Like her eternal rival Bahamut, Tiamat is worshipped as a deity across many parts of the world. All evil dragons hold her in reverence.

Green dragons and blue dragons go further, they openly and willingly acknowledge her absolute sovereignty over them. Good dragons respect her too, though they make a point of never mentioning her name aloud, never letting themselves linger on it. In her natural form, Tiamat is a colossal dragon with five heads and a wyvern-style tail.

Each head is a different color: white, black, green, blue, and red. Her enormous body is striped in all five. She has taken many consorts over the ages, ancient white, black, green, blue, and red dragons among them. Doctrine: Tiamat's concerns are simple. Spread her evil will. Crush the so-called good. Grow the numbers of the evil dragon race. Her preferred recreation is total annihilation, a village, a city, a kingdom, or an entire region, leveled completely.

She is a presence more sensed than seen, felt in the spirit before she ever appears to the eye. She never stops looking for ways to extend the power and reach of evil dragonkind, especially where territory disputes with the Metallic Dragons are concerned. She demands reverence, worship, and tribute from her followers without end. Alignment: Chaotic Evil Divine Rank: Lesser ➤ Next: Unknown Magical Creature