System Change

Derek checked the system time as everyone went silent in thought. It had taken just over five hours for Lyra to finish her evolution from an Immature Amphithere to a Mature Amphithere. Blitz’s evolution hadn’t started too long after Lyra’s, so he expected the wyvern would finish evolving any minute now. Then, Edgar could finally figure out what Achievement Avery had been talking about, and Derek would be able to figure some things out as well.

Sure enough, not thirty minutes later, cracks began to form in the lightning sphere. Then, the cracked sphere started to fall apart while the pieces that fell off vanished into thin air, like they were never there. It reminded Derek of how the fragmented pieces of the sky fell off and disappeared as a Void Beast broke out of the void.

In just a few minutes, Blitz appeared in all his glory. The formerly red wyvern was now a bluish-silver color, a color that also now encompassed his massive eyes. Currents of electricity flowed through the legendary beast as he got his newfound powers under control. Tara’s hair actually stood up, and Derek could feel the hairs on his arms standing. Soon, showing more control than most humans, the electricity flowing off the beast vanished and everything stabilized.

“So that’s what he meant!” Edgar exclaimed. Avery still hadn’t made his way back after taking his new companion for a test drive, but Derek knew that was what Edgar was talking about.

“Well, are you going to leave us hanging?” Derek asked.

“It’s an Achievement called Dragon Tamer,” Edgar said. “You get it for bonding with a legendary dragonkin. It granted me the passive skill, Dragon Riding.”

Interesting, Derek thought. It really was interesting that bonding with a certain type of beast would allow for specific Achievements. That meant that it had to be incredibly rare to chance upon a legendary dragon, and even more-so to tame it.

“So, what does it do?” Derek asked.

“It doesn’t level, but it stabilizes the rider while on a dragon. Seems like it makes it almost impossible to fall off… at least with how the wording is. It also increases the dragon’s speed while the rider is seated, and allows for increased accuracy when battling from the dragon’s back,” Edgar explained.

Holy shit! Derek inwardly exclaimed, shocked. It was one hell of a skill. The only downside was that it was only activated while the user was on dragon back, but still. It provided so many passive benefits. Derek wasn’t sure how much it would help Edgar, but for someone like Avery, who used a bow, it would be a game changer.

Images of Alanah’s right-hand man soaring through the air, loosing arrow after arrow from dragon back flowed through Derek’s head. For the first time, he finally felt a tinge of jealousy purely based on how cool one would look while doing such a thing.

Derek began to speak, but before he could, Edgar flashed, then appeared on the back of Blitz. Before anyone said anything, they took off. Derek let out a sigh.

Derek, Tara, and Jasper waited for half an hour, but there was still no sign of either Edgar or Avery. Derek was getting impatient. He needed one of them back to test something, but he didn’t want to take away their ‘training’ time with their new partners, so he didn’t try to contact them via crystal or telepathy.

Soon, Derek gave up and decided to do something he had been against before. He already had his vitality and endurance at the third threshold, so breaking through with the others shouldn’t be too hard. His main problem was he didn’t want to breakthrough while around others, so he had planned to wait until back in the main dungeon, then venture off a good distance away from the rest of the group.

But the more he thought about that, the more he decided against it. Breaking through would take no more than a few minutes for each stat, and two of the four people he was in the trial with, he trusted. And he very much doubted Tara or Jasper would go against anything he said right now. Outside, there would be a much higher chance of someone getting curious and seeing what he was doing. Plus, he didn’t really know what powers everyone else had.

So, with his mind made up, he turned to the healer and support mage and said, “The two of you stay here and wait for them to get back. I have something to do, and I need to be alone to do it. I should be back in less than an hour. If Edgar or Avery get back before me, tell them what I told you. Also, tell them not to leave again, because I have something I need to test before the next wave… if there is one.”

The two could only nod, as Derek hadn’t asked, but told. With a nod back, Derek kicked the ground and dashed away. He even used Void Shift to limit the amount of time it would take him. He also headed in a different direction than both Edgar and Avery had. He wouldn’t really mind too much if either of them saw him, but he would rather not take that chance.

Once he was more than a dozen miles away from their camp, he stopped. He also found a crumbling building that still had some structure to it and went inside, so he would have a bit of cover, at least.

From there, he didn’t waste any time, and began. Before anything else, he removed his shirt and jeans, wanting to avoid ripping and destroying them. Then, he put one stat point into strength.

As soon as he spent the point, every muscle in his body swelled. Then, the muscles tore and rebuilt themselves. All in all, the pain wasn’t unbearable. It was just a lot of popping, tearing, and repairing. This went on for a couple of minutes. It had nothing on the itching of increasing his endurance or the fire and pressure that came from his vitality. Though, those were both at the 1500 point breakthroughs, so he hadn’t expected the 1,000 point breakthroughs to compare.

Finally, the tearing and repairing stopped, and Derek examined himself. He… looked like a bodybuilder. Gone was his toned body. Instead, he looked like a man jacked up on steroids, and he felt slow. Needless to say, he hated it. So, he quickly put a point in dexterity, increasing it to the threshold as well.

Again, the breakthrough wasn’t bad. His tendons broke and repaired over and over, just as his muscles had before. On top of that, though, his strengthened muscles began to stretch and reform over and over again, until his mass decreased significantly. Once it was finished, Derek was still slightly bigger than before, but not by much. His body just had more definition to it than it had recently.

Nodding, and thankful that he was no longer muscle-bound, he increased his intelligence.

That hit him with another wave of fire. Almost exactly like what he had experienced when he broke the 1000 point threshold with his vitality. However, instead of it all focusing on his heart, it converged on his brain and caused a burning sensation in his head.

It lasted another few minutes, and he withstood everything with no problem. His endurance was no joke. When it finished, he channeled his void throughout his body to see if there was a difference.

There was. The purple aura that always flowed through him was now much darker and thicker. It was more… pure. If before it was the consistency of a gas, now it could be considered a liquid. He could also sense that without a good amount of points into wisdom, it would be even harder to control that it was. As it stood now, he would need to practice with it, and he wouldn’t be able to neglect his wisdom as he had planned.

The same was almost true for dexterity, but he could deal with a bit extra mass from the strength stat for a while until he got his dexterity up to match it. If nothing else, this experience really showed him how much stats correlated with one another. It wasn’t bad early on, but after breaking through thresholds, it became more and more obvious.

Derek stood and brushed the dust off his body from where he had been sitting in the destroyed building. Then he put his clothes back on. Instead of summoning them through his storage bracelet like normal, he dressed himself so he could see the changes.

His shirt was tighter than he liked it to be, but it still fit without threatening to rip. His jeans were another story, though. They were already a little tight in the waist from his previous upgrades. Now he was barely able to button them, and he felt that any sudden movements would cause the button to fly off and become a deadly projectile. Maybe Tyron will have some tailoring skills and can help me with this problem.

Still, he chose to wear his jeans for now, but he summoned a pair of the shorts he used for training underneath them.

Now, he didn’t dare to put any of his remaining points into strength yet, but he wanted to make things as easy as possible for himself, so he threw 325 of his remaining points into intelligence. That would put the stat at 1325 points, which was just at the point where it wouldn’t cause Silvi to break through.

With that added, his mana became even thicker, but not to the extent that it had when he broke through. He had a feeling that as long as his wisdom was on the same threshold as his intelligence, he would be able to control it well enough with a bit of practice.

With a frown, Derek checked to see if he had gained any Achievements after breaking through the 1000 point threshold with each stat, but he hadn’t.

Finally, before he went back, he looked at his current stats.

Stats

Strength

Dexterity

Endurance

Vitality

Intelligence

Wisdom

Stat Points Remaining

1000

1000

1500 (???)

1500 (???)

1325

1003

73

He nodded his head in appreciation, then let out a breath and slipped into the void before slowly pulling his way back to the group, hoping that either Avery or Edgar had returned.

True to his word, Derek was gone for less than an hour. Actually, he was gone for less than thirty minutes. And in that time… neither of the dragon riders had come back from their rides. With a handful of hours left before they found out whether there was going to be a next wave or not, Derek decided to give them three more hours, then he would have to call them back.

Luckily, he didn’t have to do so, as Avery came back just over an hour later with a giant grin plastered on his face. Lyra landed on the ground, then coiled up like a snake as Avery stroked the back of her head, then jumped off.

“That… is exhilarating!” he said as he walked over toward everyone. “I saw that Edgar’s companion finished his evolution.” Then, with a conspiratorial tone, he leaned in and whispered for them to hear, “Me and Lyra are stronger than Edgar and Blitz.” He laughed.

The two men had obviously met each other and had a spar or something. It made sense, as Avery was built for and had a class well suited for fighting on dragon back. Of course, Edgar wouldn’t be a slouch with his lightning attacks at range, but with Avery’s range, he would obviously have the edge. Especially after receiving the extra stat points from his new Achievement and now legendary class.

Derek snorted at the thought that he may actually now be the third strongest in their current group. But he let that pass, as it wouldn’t be that way for long. He still had over fifty levels to get.

“Avery!” he said. “I need Lyra’s help with something. Do you mind?” Derek asked.

Avery frowned, then looked at Lyra. “Will she be in any danger?”

“No, none at all. You can stay with her as well. It’s just a thought that I had, but if it works, I’m sure even you will be happy.”

Avery shrugged. “Okay, what is it?”

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