Bab 40: Flight
A couple of hours passed as Li Qiu and Akiko rushed to and fro to finalize with their preparations.
"Myra, come here" Li Qiu suddenly called for Myra.
"Yes?" By the time Myra responded with a response, she was immediately dragged away by Li Qiu to a secluded corner in the tunnel, away from the prying eyes of others and Katsurou's monitoring toys.
"Keep one with you and distribute the other two to Enbi Arin and Aurella," Said Li Qiu as he handed over three red coloured bracelets that were embedded with a blue coloured gem on it.
"Wow, they are so pretty" Exclaimed Myra as she began to drool over their allure and moreover, it seemed as if the words of advice by Li Qiu fell on deaf ears the moment Myra was enamoured by the beauty of the bracelets.
"Ooi, listen carefully" Li Qiu withdrew and hid the bracelets away from Myra's gaze which once again made her focus her attention back onto Li Qiu.
"They are not accessories that are supposed to be used for decoration. These are made from my flames that would aid you guys in the face of threat while I'm away" Said Li Qiu.
"But Katsurou said that…." Myra was interrupted mid-sentence by Li Qiu.
"I just don't trust him completely, and moreover, they would defend you only once against an all-out attack of an Adept Stage expert. So, keep that in mind"
"That's awesome; these could surely help us survive from unexpected ambushes" Exclaimed Myra.
"No, they won't. They don't have such a convenient function within them; my current capabilities are extremely limited to design such a sophisticated product. So, if you want to defend against an attack, then you would have to break that bracelet into two" Said Li Qiu as he gave a wry smile towards Myra, clearly feeling a bit apologetic at his lack of ability in this field.
"Ohh" Myra just gave an awkward response as she stretched out her hand towards Li Qiu.
"Those shiny and beautiful bracelets, gimme them."
Li Qiu sighed a little as he handed over the three bracelets to Myra and walked away, clearly not intending to waste much time on unnecessary banter.
While he was on his way to the entrance of the ant nest, he met Katsurou along the way who currently happened to be leaning over a wall beside the entrance to the ant nest.
"Are you done?" Questioned Katsurou.
"Yeah, let's get going" Replied Li Qiu.
Both Li Qiu and Katsurou walked for about 100 metres as they arrived at an open spot that was cleared of all the overlaying rubble.
"Black Dragon" Katsurou muttered in a soft tone as a silver coloured elliptical gate that was about 10 metres in height and 15 metres in width formed before him.
A blood dragon that was 10 metres in length flew out by flapping its massive wings as it roared into the skies.
After that, a head slowly popped out from within the gate, lazily blinked its eyes in annoyance as it gazed at Katsurou and retreated back into the gate.
"Come out you lazy puddle of blood" Katsurou shouted out towards the silver coloured gate.
The 'Abyss Turtle' once again slowly walked out from the gate as it grunted in annoyance and slowly dragged its massive body towards Katsurou.
"Abyss Turtle, give Black Dragon a full powered energy boost" Said Katsurou as he slapped onto its shell and produced a crisp sound.
"Foosh" The 'Abyss Turtle' opened its mouth and released a breath of blood mist onto the 'Black
Dragon' that was hovering in the sky. The breath full of blood mist formed a huge cloud of blood mist around the Black Dragon as it slowly got absorbed into its body while producing various bone cracking and muscle snapping sounds.
'Kaka' 'Schish'
The breath unleashed by the 'Abyss Turtle' lasted for about 20 seconds followed by the occasional howls and roars of the Black Dragon from within the cloud full of blood mist and finally stopped when the 'Abyss Turtle' had shrunk to about a metre in size.
"Rooooaaarrr"
It was later followed by a huge roar when all of the accumulated blood mist got absorbed into the body of the Black Dragon as it revealed into existence a majestic crimson coloured western dragon that was about 30 metres in length and with a wingspan of 45 metres, it had now become a colossal existence.
The Black Dragon now had huge deer like antlers on its head with ruby gem-like eyes, intimidating scales that shone with a crimson hue that radiated with the Aria Intents of domination, sovereignty, and unrivaled power.
"That's similar to…." Li Qiu didn't complete his statement as he gave a complicated look towards Katsurou.
"It's not as powerful as compared to mine, but it should suffice" Said Katsurou with a smile on his usually lazy and stoic face, thankful to the fact that Li Qiu took caution to not even casually utter about his Blood Devil form.
"But…. it's difficult to balance ourselves over it, not to mention the lack of reins or a cover to shield from all the wind resistance" Complained Li Qiu as he looked at the rugged back of the Black Dragon.
"Oh, I almost forgot about that" Said Katsurou as he made a 'tee-hee' sound and coagulated some blood mist over the Black Dragon's head.
The blood mist immediately formed into a rein that got attached to the Black Dragon's antler-shaped horns and a comfortable 3 seater sofa that was fixed above its back at a position just at the periphery of its neck. There was also a translucent reddish screen that acted as a cover to divert the wind resistance that they would face while sitting on the sofa away from them.
"Don't worry; it wouldn't easily as fall as you imagine it to. I have ridden over it before and I can guarantee a safe ride. Moreover, I have even placed seat belts in the sofa, so you can fly without worries" Said Katsurou with a smug look on his face, clearly proud of his own creation.
Li Qiu just gave a thumbs up to Katsurou as he climbed atop the Black Dragon.
But, at the next moment, the Black Dragon's tail swatted Li Qiu to the ground and created a human-shaped crater at the place of impact onto the ground.
"You! Doggy turd bastard" Bellowed Li Qiu as he slowly climbed out from within the pit in the ground.
Katsurou just tilted is head in the direction opposite to that of Li Qiu as he kept whistling some random tune, acting as if he hadn't witnessed anything that had happened just now.
"Roarr…..roar" Even the Black Dragon tilted its head in the other direction as it snickered in its weird roaring tone, happy to get some revenge on the guy who burned its insides just the previous day.
"What's with the ruckus?" Questioned Akiko as she slowly walked over to their spot.
"Nothing worthy of mention, just that, my Black Dragon had swatted Li Qiu like a poor eeny, peeny, tiny little fly. Nothing much really" Replied Katsurou, desperately struggling to his utmost capability trying to rein in the laughter that felt oh so satisfying to him to see Li Qiu getting swatted like that.
"Humph, I'll deal with the both of you at a later date" Li Qiu snorted towards Katsurou and then gazed at the arriving Akiko.
"Double check if you have taken everything necessary for…this....Holy damsel in distress, Prakash, did you seriously loot Sun Wukong's Ruyi Jingu Bang?" Li Qiu rubbed his eyes to check if what he was currently witnessing was really reality or just some hallucination that he had apparently coughed up.
'Screetch'
'Tsssch'
'Ting'
'Tong'
Prakash slowly walked over from behind Akiko as he slowly dragged a long piece of cylindrical metal rod that was 3 metres in length and 20 centimetres in diameter.
"…Ahahaha…." Prakash gave a wry smile as he carefully positioned the huge metal rod near the Black Dragon.
"This will be my weapon for now until I find an Artefact that is suitable for me. Don't worry, I'll further shrink its size so that it doesn't occupy much space" Said Prakash as he once again began to use his innate ability to modify the dimensions and density of the metal rod.
This was the result of Prakash's contemplation session, the ability to change the density of an object and increase its properties such as strength, toughness, etc.
According to the initial usage of his innate ability, such a feat would have been impossible for Prakash.
But, the moment he tried to use his ability over two or more places along the same object, Prakash came to discover that he could modify their properties a bit according to his Will.
But this line of thought didn't net him with any significant results since the rocks on which he initially tested soon shattered into bits and pieces.
Slowly, after a couple of hours had passed with multiple failures, suddenly, as Prakash was met with yet another failure, but this time, there was a weird humming sound that was produced from the rock just before its breakdown.
This humming sound felt familiar to the sound produced by the rock on which Prakash had earlier demonstrated his abilities over to Li Qiu.
"Resonance, I must have reached the natural resonant frequency for this rock"
As Prakash came to this conclusion, he repeated the same experiment with many other rocks of different sizes, shapes, and mass and felt their resonance frequencies based on the amount of power that he had used as a benchmark.
"I still feel too much resistance within them while I pass my Aria through them….is there….right…..my skill!"
As he slowly pondered about his next step of action, Prakash used his skill 'Refinement' over the rock and tried to attain resonant frequency with the rock.
"Huuummmm"
The rock started to produce a consistent hum once its resonant frequency had been attained and didn't break as it did before due to the complementary aid provided by his skill 'Refinement'
After that, Prakash tried to compress the stone by activating his innate ability 'Moving Nature' on differing sides while the rock was still being maintained in resonance condition with the help of his 'Refinement' skill.
Blobs of sweat rolled down his forehead and neck as Prakash slowly witnessed the rock getting compressed.
"Success….."
Prakash continued to change its shape, surface finish, hardness, etc when he suddenly felt a spark of information flash through his mind.
"Unique skill, Primary Reinforcement"
This was the skill that Prakash obtained as a result of his contemplation.
And unlike the other normal skills that he had obtained, this was a unique skill, which meant that only someone with the same set of abilities such as innate abilities and skills that were the same as Prakash would be able to create the same skill 'Primary Reinforcement' as Prakash did under similar circumstances.
This skill allowed him to pass his Aria into an object with the help of his innate ability and change its primary compositions like density, volume, shape, grain structure, etc.
But it couldn't change the intrinsic property of the object such as: a piece of copper will still be copper even after the 'Reinforcement' skill has been used over it. It may be 10 times denser, harder, anything that Prakash Willed and could achieve, but in the end, it will still be copper.
Prakash then tried to salvage the biggest piece of metal that he could find in the rubble. Luckily for him, he came across a huge piece of iron that was probably used as the load-bearing structure for the concrete building which had previously stood majestically tall in that place.
Prakash used his 'Reinforcement' skill on that huge chunk of iron as he slowly compressed and modified it into the current cylindrical rod that stood 3 metres in length and 20 centimetres in diameter.
"That's what happened," Said Prakash as he gazed at the others who stood in front of him.
"Yeah, that happened to YOUR GRANDPA!" Shouted Katsurou in a frustrated tone, "You've been staring blankly into space ever since you arrived here with that piece of metal junk"
"Ugh, sorry, my bad" Prakash mentally berated himself for zoning out like that as he saw Li Qiu who had portrayed an expression on his face that implied 'I don't know this weird dude' and just kept making circles on the ground.
"So….can your dragon carry this extra weight?" Questioned Prakash.
"Rrugh" The Black Dragon snorted in disdain with a face that implied 'As if that toothpick could weigh me down'.
"Sure, any way you'll have to make up for the speed difference with your innate ability" Said Katsurou with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Uh…sure" Prakash didn't have any other choice other than to go along with the flow.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Overlord_Venus
Overlord_Venus Network issues in inkstone=I couldn't upload on time
My average per chappie word count is between 1600-1800 but all of my recent chappies have been between 2000-2200 words. What is this sorcery????
Anyway, please tell me in the comment sections about how you're feeling about this novel till now, I'll be grateful to know about your opinions.
-Trainee Chef Antarctica