Chapter 97: Eyes of the Dragon*

Valerian walked back to his dorm room, clutching his chest in pain.

’Fuck, taking another person with me is still too much...’

The pain he felt after teleporting himself and Clara was even worse than it was before he used [Genesis Spark] to heal his soul partially.

But he managed to suppress it for long enough to say to her what he had to say without showing the piercing pain his soul was experiencing.

The walk back to his dorm took longer than he had anticipated as walking became difficult with the pain in his whole body. But after almost half an hour he managed to reach his dorm room.

The second he stepped inside he took off the apex uniform and threw it into his spatial pocket space. Reaching into the pocket dimension a new outfit appeared around him. It was a simple dark grey sweatpants with a dark t-shirt; he didn’t really want to go out today and after finishing his business with Clara wanted to go straight to bed.

He walked to the sofa that stood in the living room and let himself fall onto it, spreading his limbs across it. In this quiet moment of peace he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the banquet.

And with the topic also came the memories of his interaction with Seraphine.

She wasn’t wrong when she said that they weren’t a couple, but he still didn’t want her to think that he was going around and seducing other girls. It just irked him.

And then there was Arthur, his oh so loyal friend that used the first opportunity he had to spread rumors about him.

’I should have beaten him harder...’

-Don’t act like that, what did Arthur call it again... oh right! You are a tsundere!-

’I’m not a tsundere!’

Rolling around on the sofa, Valerian engaged in a heated debate with Valerie, trying to prove to her that he wasn’t a tsundere like she and Arthur liked to frame him as.

Time flew by and without Valerian realizing, half an hour passed and the figure of Clara appeared at the entrance of the dorm room.

’Oh she’s here.’

She changed from the evening dress to tight dark jeans and a crimson red hoodie.

Removing the annoyed expression from his face, a serious mask appeared on his face. He stood up and walked up to Clara.

"Good, you are on time."

-Pfft, as if you would have noticed if she was late.-

Ignoring Valerie, Valerian guided Clara into the dorm room and to the living room. While she followed behind him she couldn’t help but look around at the massive living space.

She was in the top 20 of the academy ranking, but even her room wasn’t as luxurious as Valerian’s, and the sheer size of the rooms left her speechless.

Walking up to the sofa, Valerian took his seat and gestured for her to sit. Without putting up any resistance she walked to the sofa across from him and sat down nervously.

Valerian could see the fidgeting of her hands, the shifty eyes, and the sweat that appeared on her hands.

"The reason I asked you to come here is that I want you to teach me."

Clara stopped fidgeting and looked at Valerian with pure confusion written on her face.

"Teach you? What could I possibly teach you?"

She truly didn’t know what on Eldoria she could teach Valerian. During their fight in the ranking tournament he defeated her without even lifting a finger, and even today in the alley, she wasn’t even able to move a muscle under the pressure she felt.

"Haa..."

Valerian let out a sigh, his hand unconsciously moving to his horns.

"I’m a dragon, but I don’t really know anything about them. I was raised by humans and it’s not exactly easy to get information about the dragon race."

Her eyes softened a bit at his story. The dragons, terrestrial or cosmic, were a race that rather kept to themselves than to be involved with other races’ politics. Of course there were outliers like Valerian’s mother Aurora Aevum who fell in love with people that aren’t dragons, but these cases were extremely rare.

Even the information about them is very scarce; the only thing that is known about them is that they have a natural high connection to mana and were considered a prime species on Eldoria, but that was it.

So learning that Valerian was raised by humans made her realize that he truly didn’t know anything about the dragon race.

"Is there anything in particular you want to know about?"

Her nervousness was still there as she remembered the oppressive feeling she had only an hour ago, but now Valerian seemed more like a person and not the powerful apex from back then.

Valerian went quiet for a moment and thought about the question.

"I want to know about the racial abilities a dragon has, as well as about the dragon transformation, and if you know anything about it, please tell me about the cosmic dragons."

Clara thought for a second, collecting her thoughts.

"To start off, I have no idea what a cosmic dragon is. This is the first time I have heard about them."

Valerian’s face dropped at the answer; his source with the highest chance at answers proved useless.

"But maybe there is something in the grand draconic library back in the capital. If you want to know something about a dragon subrace, I’m sure you can find it there."

’The dragon capital... I guess I have to visit that.’

Valerian nodded, signaling her to continue.

"Now about our racial abilities. As dragons we have access to [Dragon Eyes]; it is a visual ability that allows us to see the truth of things, see through illusions, or even look at the status of another person. The strength of them is different from dragon to dragon; some can only see the name of another, while other, more talented dragons can see the whole status."

Being able to see through illusions, lies, and even the status of another person was truly a powerful ability.

"How do I activate it?"

Clara was slightly taken aback by the question.

"What do you mean? Shouldn’t you know instinctively?"

Annoyance flared in Valerian as a pressure crashed onto Clara’s shoulders.

"If I knew it, I wouldn’t have asked you to teach me."

Clara gritted her teeth and just nodded.

"Right... I’m sorry... It’s a bit difficult to explain how to activate it since it’s mostly instinct, but maybe channel your mana to your eyes and imagine that they turn into truth itself."

It was definitely a vague explanation, but Valerian followed it nonetheless and channeled his mana into his eyes.

’Imagine they become truth itself...’

After a few seconds of nothing happening, Valerian could feel his eyes undergo a fundamental change, and the world began to look completely different.

The mana in the air seemed brighter; the spatial distortions that were present everywhere were suddenly visible instead of only detectable through his spatial perception.

’Woah...’

The sight was utterly beautiful. With his [Dragon Eyes] now activated, he turned to Clara and a window appeared before him.

│─────── STATUS ─────── │

│ Name : Clara Vermillion

│ Age : 16

│ Race : Fire Dragon

│ ─────── ORIGIN ─────── │

│ Bloodline : Ancient Red Dragon [Purity: 42%]

│ Physique : None

│ Core : Rank B+

│ ────── ATTRIBUTES ────── │

│ Vitality : B+

│ Strength : A-

│ Agility : B

│ Dexterity : B-

│ Intelligence : C+

│ Mana : A-

│ Charm : A-

│ ─────── AFFINITIES ─────── │

│ Dragon Fire

│ ─────── TITLES ─────── │

│ Crimson Drake

│ Scion of the Flame

│ ─────── SKILLS ─────── │

│ [Racial Skills]

│ Dragon Tongue

│ Dragon Claws

│ Crimson Scales

│ Dragon Breath

│ [Unique Skill]

│ None

│ ─────── BOND ─────── │

│ Bound Entity : None

’That’s interesting...’

The status in front of him looked slightly different than when he looked at his; for example, the bloodline purity and the racial abilities were something a normal status screen wouldn’t show.

’What if I use it on myself...’

What information would appear when he used [Dragon Eyes] on himself? Well, there was only one way to try out. Valerian looked down at his hands and activated [Dragon Eyes].

│─────── STATUS ─────── │

│ Name : Valerian von Astrea

│ Age : 16

│ Race : Primordial Celestial Dragon [God seed]

│ ─────── ORIGIN ─────── │

│ Bloodline : Primordial Celestial Dragon [Unawakened]

│ Physique : Infinite Cosmos Physique [Infant Stage]

│ Core : None

│ ────── ATTRIBUTES ────── │

│ Vitality : ???

│ Strength : S+

│ Agility : S+

│ Dexterity : S+

│ Intelligence : S-

│ Mana : SS (Restricted)

│ Charm : SSS

│ ─────── AFFINITIES ─────── │

│ Space

│ Cosmic Fire

│ Void Lightning

│ Event Horizon

│ Absolute Zero

│ Starlight

│ Genesis Spark

│ ─────── TITLES ─────── │

│ Last Celestial

│ Child of Mana

│ Primordial Progenitor

│ Candidate for Godhood

│ ─────── SKILLS ─────── │

│ [Racial Skills]

│ Dragon Eyes

│ Dragon Tongue

│ Polymorph (Restricted)

│ Dragon Fear

│ Primordial Scales (Partial)

│ Dragon Breath (Locked)

│ [Unique Skill]

│ Law Breaker

│ ─────── BOND ─────── │

│ Bound Entity : Twilight, Valerie

’Woah.’

Valerian looked at the status in front of him, and for the first time he truly felt like he saw his status. All his stats resembled more what his true capabilities were instead of staying at just S-.

Also there was the restricted behind his mana stat. That was probably the reason why he could never really output the firepower he should be able to with his mana; his body, as powerful and perfect for mana as it was, still had a limit.

And then there was his rank and vitality. The normal line about the core was replaced by none, which made sense since he technically didn’t have a core anymore. And his vitality only had ???; the culprit for that was his Physique. The amount of vitality and survivability it gave him just wasn’t able to be shown on the normal status, and even his current [Dragon Eyes] weren’t able to fully grasp it.

The information about Valerie, that she was bound to his soul like Twilight was, made him lightly chuckle, causing Clara to look at him weirdly.

Valerian deactivated the [Dragon Eyes] and turned back to Clara.

"Just continue..."

After collecting herself, Clara continued her explanation.

"The second racial ability is [Dragon Tongue]. This might be the strongest ability we as dragons possess, because it allows us to manipulate and change reality to some degree."

This was an ability that Valerian found more than interesting—the ability to manipulate reality.

"Let me guess, channeling the mana to my vocal cords?"

Clara just nodded.

Valerian channeled his mana to his vocal cords, and like with the [Dragon Eyes], after a second of nothing, he could feel that his throat and mouth felt powerful in a way that wasn’t normal.

Channeling his mana, a small dagger made from darkness appeared in his hand. After looking at it for a moment, Valerian opened his mouth.

[ Glow]

Mana quickly drained from Valerian’s body as his voice took effect. The darkness dagger began to glow with a bright light, causing Clara to cover her eyes.

Valerian canceled his [Dragon Tongue] and the dagger turned back to normal.

’This is insane... but the mana drain is just as unbelievable.’

’[Dragon Tongue] is like a more expensive [Reality Weaver]. But still, it’s insanely powerful.’

"The other racial abilities are pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t ask about them, but there is something I still want to know. My [Polymorph] is restricted, why?"

Clara went quiet and thought about the question; after a while, she shook her head.

"I’m sorry, I don’t know. I have never heard about a restricted [Polymorph]. Normally it lets us transform into a male and female version of any race we know of, as well as giving us access to our true dragon form. So I have no idea why yours is restricted."

Valerian let out a sigh as he stood up.

"Okay. I don’t have any more questions for now. You can go."

Valerian waved his hand and walked back to his bedroom, leaving Clara just standing there.

’That’s it?’

While she was slightly confused by the abrupt end of the conversation, she couldn’t be happier to leave and go to her own room, so she quickly ran out and left Valerian alone.

Valerian walked to his bedroom and threw himself onto the bed.

’So much happened today... and it’s not even the first day.’

-I doubt the other days will be as exciting.-

’Probably.’

Valerian turned around and looked at the ceiling.

’But I’m glad I came here.’

Valerie didn’t answer, and Valerian closed his eyes to finally put an end to the long day.