章 66: Dario the Face-Slapped Dragon (1/3)

****(POV)

Dario the Dragon was a very down-to-earth man. Even before the whole Tower situation he already was the head of a training hall.

Well, Draconic had never been ordinary. While others focused on one thing and one thing only, Draconic covered it all. It encouraged fighting above all else. Discovering one's self clearly involved fighting others according to their philosophy. Was it accurate? None of the people joining actually cared.

Yes, Draconic had always had a reputation for attracting battle addicts. People that knew them better instead called them madmen.

Dario had never cared much about the small details. Whatever was considered a weapon could be used at his place. Many times, some smart-asses had actually shown up with guns to a fistfight…only to be defeated nonetheless. After all, there were laws in place to restrict the usage of the truly dangerous ones.

Dario's students were extremely infamous in Metropolis C. Before the Tower, they kept wandering and challenging all the other similar training businesses. In fact, they did it so much that Draconic's competitors all decided to move shop. After all, they would be challenged daily without fail.

There was only one group that could reliably defeat any Draconic member back then. They were the cyborgs. Their whole body was a weapon that no normal human could destroy and many were martial artists to boot. But, the cyborgs actually evaded the training Hall like the plague.

Why? Because everywhere else they were invincible gods amongst men but there not so much. Against Dario's students they would still win…but at what cost? Sure they'd break many bones of these mortals, but they themselves would have to get intensive repairs.

Now, it had to be understood that cyborgs were pretty much immortal beings lest a natural disaster happened or someone REALLY wanted them dead. Now, what did these immortal beings fear more than anything? Death. Quite ironic how the ones the less likely to die were truly the ones fearing it the most.

Did they fear getting killed at Draconic? Not really, but they would need repairs afterward for sure. The operation to turn a human into a cyborg was one that was extremely dangerous, expensive, time-consuming, and overall required lots of fail-safes before being attempted.

A similar process was needed for the repairs. That was the price of immortality and none wanted to pay it just to fight some madmen. There was always the option to try one's luck with no preparation but that could prove fatal easily as the mind could suddenly start to reject the body.

So before the Tower Draconic was a place that sent martial artists, gunmen and cyborgs alike running. Then the whole Climb the Tower for power happened. With the system, the normal Draconic members were given wings. They turned from dragons to…12 winged demonic bloodthirsty dragons or something.

Draconic officially became one of the few S-Ranked guilds in Metropolis C. Given that there were only 5 of them initially that was an extremely prestigious thing. Now, there was one thing defining them. Was it the training business? Not really.

If there was one thing defining Draconic it was the willingness of their members to fight. All of them actually. Where else than in Draconic would one find even the support Classes rushing to the front-line to get some of the action?

Even with such a quality, Draconic wasn't even the fastest guild to climb, far from it. In Dario's eyes, the Tower wasn't a sprint but a marathon. The ones that would go the farthest would be the ones that had honed their skills all along.

Dario had already decided long ago that he would complete every one of the alternative missions he would encounter. These were extremely hard to fathom since they seemed very random and lacked a clear apparition pattern.

Dario had in fact just completed such a challenge. He could be seen bloodied from head to toe from his own blood. He had used rare healing items as if candies and had gotten all the buffs possible before the fight. The sheer quantity of Credits he had spent on this single fight would have made even the eyes of the top Rankers pop out.

Still, he had done so willingly all in order to defeat <Lizzy the Weak Pet Tamer Lv72☠️> on Floor 45. The name sounded cute, especially with the 'weak' in the name, but it was a true nightmarish monstrosity.

Fighting Lizzy wasn't really fighting Lizzy, no it was fighting its legion. The monster was an incredible tamer. It would pop creatures out of its magical bag with the excitement and the speed of a youngster making it rain at a strip club.

It would have been so easy had it been possible to simply kill the summoner, oh so easy. Nope, it was protected by some truly perverse skill: As long as all the creatures weren't defeated it was invulnerable.

In fact, this small Lizzy had single-handedly caused the collapse of an entire S-Rank guild somewhere in Metropolis Z. Furthermore, a few other S-Rankers had died even after that event from not receiving the information in time.

Now, all the S-Rankers actually knew about it and the A-Rank guilds would also be told when they reached such progress. Most of the information about the upper Floors was closely guarded for it was slowly getting more and more challenging. Well, there were many political reasons behind such a decision, not that Dario cared.

He couldn't help but feel his entire body quiver as he recalled what had just happened. Not out of fear of course, but excitement. At some point, he wasn't sure if he was going to survive the fight.

Well, that was to be expected because of the difficulty. Upon reaching Floor 45 one would have to choose one Lizzy to fight. It could be:

These were the options. Lizzy the Weakest was actually comparable to the usual difficulty of the previous Floors. This meant that the last option was complete suicide, or so most people said.

In fact, Dario had a Class that was kinda broken. Well, many rankers did but his Class was particularly suited to fight many. That point combined with all his preparations, his crazy fighting sense, and his tenacity made a miracle possible.

Dario had accomplished the impossible. Something that people considered pointless too. This specific enemy gave taming emblems. It had just been discovered and would likely remain nothing but an expensive trinket to prove one's status. That was because the creatures couldn't become stronger and there was a requirement to the User's level.

The strongest emblem so far had been obtained from <Lizzy the Very Weak Pet Tamer Lv72☠️> and had allowed taming a monster that any of the current Rankers could dispatch in one attack. It was theorized that the one Dario had killed would be slightly useful right now but useless in a near future.

Why had he gone through so much trouble then? Simply because Lizzy was a Lizardman. This also meant that it would help Dario grow for he had a very special bloodline skill. He didn't wait and activated his special bloodline. Instantly he could feel his power grow stronger and he roared in satisfaction.

Rank S- Draconic Bloodline: Blood Absorption

Kill creatures of draconic descent to absorb their power. +10-1000 to Stats / Bonus doubled in draconic form.

Unlocked Rate 0%

Now, this ability of his was a special case of bloodline, one that was related to his class. This rank-S ability was clearly phenomenal but there was a limit to it too. For Dario to absorb the bloodline of a creature he had to kill it himself.

The ability was probably S-Rank because it could absorb the blood of very strong foes, but would the current Dario be able to defeat them in the first place? Of course not.

Still, it had incredible potential. One had to know that the stats it already gave at 0%, not even 1%, gave as much Stats as 11% of his level. As a passive it was huge! That would even climb to greater heights when he took on a draconic form.

Dario would diligently hunt all creatures with possible dragon blood no matter how diluted at the highest difficulty for it increased the power he was getting. Here diversity and quality were beating quantity.

Dario hoped to see a dragon's descent every new Floor that was explored. So far there had only been the kobolds on Floor 9, the Lizardmen on Floor 44, and now Lizzy on Floor 45.

It was only after being done with this power-up that Dario finally checked the messages he had just gotten from the Tower system. He couldn't but roar in satisfaction once more! His roar of pure jubilation resounded across the entire realm.

[Status!]

Dario Ignas

Draconic Champion Lv 45

#STATS# (0)

HP: 9000+2750

Mana:9000 +1750

Magic Ability:450+50

Strength:900+350

Agility:900+275

Defense:45+10

Magic Resist:45+23

#SKILLS#

-C Weapon Mastery

-C Valiant

-C Mana Cleave

-C Aspect of the Dragon

-C Dragon's Presence

-D Dragon's Vitality

-D Dragon's Might

-S Draconic Bloodline

クリエイターの想い
ClasslessAscension

Lizzy was a great enemy, to be honest. It killed many just because of the Weak Tag in its name. Sometimes, I'd wonder if there were some gods currently betting on how many dumbasses would fall for such an obvious trick. (I'm betting yes)