Dragon Gods Reign

[Dragon peaks]

Sitting still even as a storm of mana kept rushing through her body, Allaire braced herself as the last sample she had prepared for the augmentation process disintegrated at her touch. What remained in its place was a concentrated mass of untamed mana that streamed up along her arm.

Following its path with utmost focus, Allaire clenched her fists as she braced for the pain she knew was coming.

Waiting for multiple nerve-wracking seconds, she was almost caught off guard when a sudden pain struck her heart. Throwing her head back as her chest felt like it would rupture open at any moment, she clenched her teeth to keep herself from screaming out loud.

Watching this, Darganth, who was standing some distance away from the others in their group, had to force himself to not immediately rush to her side. Taking deep breaths to calm himself as he could do nothing but watch while she went through a pain he knew to be unbearable from when he had first gone through the process of augmentation, he saw a similar sentiment on Neandra's face.

This didn't surprise him at all as the pain Allaire was experiencing at the moment was one that every aura user in the mythic rank was familiar with. It didn't matter how much they prepared for it, the process of having parts of their body being ripped apart on a cellular level and then being reformed anew would always be a painful one.

And for Allaire, it also felt like an agonizingly long one, with the pain in her chest only slowly subsiding after what felt like an eternity to her.

Leaning forward in relief, she closed her eyes and used the little bit of time before she had to resume with the next augmentation to take a few deep breaths.

After letting about half of the time Darganth had advised her to take in between augmentations like this, she straightened her back again and brought her mind back on track. Though before she started with the next step, she first took a few seconds to focus on her now augmented heart.

Nodding satisfied after first making sure that it was beating in a steady rhythm, she only took another two or three seconds to get a rough feel on how much stronger it was. Instead putting her focus on what the incorporation of external samples brought her, she grinned once she saw the result in her mana sense.

Thanks to the drops of blood Alicia had generously given to her on her request, her heart was now not only pumping blood through her veins but also trace amounts of mana.

Originally she had planned to use Darganth's after he suggested the idea to her, but using samples of the opposite gender had a small but still noticeable negative impact on the end result. And with augmentation only being able to replicate the powers of other species up to a certain limit depending on how compatible the user's genetics are with them, using Alicia's blood as a template was the better choice as both she and Darganth surpassed this limit.

Still, even with this increased compatibility, she was limited by the general downgrade an augmented body part experienced compared to the template, resulting in a portion of this already limited potential being lost. In Allaire's case, and for anyone else who uses a true dragon as a template, this includes the mana production and amplification effects of the dragon heart.

Slightly disappointed by this discovery as Darganth had considered that the small amount of his draconic mana might change that, Allaire didn't have the luxury to dwell on it for long.

Feeling the mana that she had absorbed at the beginning of the augmentation process start growing chaotic again, she knew that she had to continue soon. While it might be slightly less after using a portion of it to enhance her heart, the remaining amount was still enough to kill her should it get out of control, not to mention the fact that she needed it for the rest of her mythic rank promotion.

Focusing back on the steps still ahead of her, she again braced for the pain before directing the raging storm of mana inside her toward her bones. As she did her arms snap to the side and bent in all the wrong ways and places.

Over the next hour and a half, this cycle repeated again and again, with Allaire channeling the mana she had absorbed into the different parts of her body one after another.

Upon reaching the body part undergoing augmentation at that moment, this stream of mana would fill in the tears and other small wounds that opened up during the process. In doing so, the faint imprint of some of the original objects' characteristics that were left in the mana signature would influence the healing process and make the affected organ take on some of these characteristics.

Her task in this process was to ensure that the mana of technique that makes this transfer possible flows steadily to not disrupt the process, as well as to ensure that only the mana from the samples she wants to bind to that body part reaches it. While mistakes during this aren't dangerous, some characteristics might not transfer onto certain body parts and thus waste some potential for improvement.

However as parts of her body that are already augmented increased, the amount of mana Allaire had to control shrank. After about half an hour, this started visibly easing the pressure on her, simultaneously reducing the worry Darganth and the others were experiencing.

From then on the pain she experienced also decreased gradually, being practically nonexistent for the twenty or so minutes. Together with the low amount of mana she had to control by then, this made this part of her advancement more of a formality than a hurdle.

Making steady progress throughout these last few minutes, Allaire soon felt the stream of mana she had guided into her skin dry up. Focusing what remained of it toward specific areas that hadn't yet been infused with as much mana to make sure that the augmentation's effect wasn't weaker in some parts, she immediately felt the surrounding mana rush into her body everywhere else.

Rising into the air as it refilled her nearly completely depleted mana pool, she focused as she felt the last area of her skin finish the augmentation process.

Closing her eyes, she waited calmly until she started to feel her slowly refilling mana pool suddenly surge to be nearly entirely filled. A moment later, her mana pathways were flooded with the now overflowing mana.

With each revolution it made, the smaller pathways that branched off from the main circulation system to just beneath the skin were filled with more mana. Through it, they widened to adapt to Allaire's now denser muscles and flesh, allowing mana to once again flow through them with ease so that she could manifest it outside of her body without much loss in efficiency.

As these paths were all reestablished nearly simultaneously, the build-up mana in these branching paths exploded outward in one burst. With this explosion, a shock wave spread out from Allaire and washed across the entire room.

Shielding his eyes as it passed by him, Darganth lowered his arm again just in time to see Allaire gently land back on the ground.

Ignoring the tears the shock wave had left in her clothes, she looked down at her hand and flexed her muscles. Grinning at the power she was feeling, she threw a punch against the air before her. Even without aura, this movement still caused a sonic boom.

"Nice hit." Jennia commented as the burst of air that shot out from her punch hit a chair that stood a dozen meters away and knocked it over.

Turning toward her approaching voice with excitement written on her face, Allaire saw their entire group approach her.

"How do you feel?" Darganth asked as he came close.

"Powerful." Allaire answered and clenched her fist a couple of times.

"We can see that." Neandra said as she looked at the aftermath of Allaire's punch, "You might have even skipped the Glades Stage of power classification."

Following her gaze toward the accidental target of her punch, Allaire leaned her head to the side with a critical look on her face.

"I don't know." She said unsure.

Unlike the ranks and orders one goes through before the mythic rank, the stages that are used as power classification aren't an inherent progression of aura or magic. Instead, they are a nearly universally agreed upon ranking system created by living creatures long before Vunreon even came into existence through which an individual's power is given a classification with which it can be more easily compared to the power shown by other beings.

This means that even the user might not know for sure at which stage he is ranked, both because advancing through them alone doesn't impact their strength and because the borders of each stage aren't always clear.

To further complicate things, while nearly everyone agrees on the stages with only differences in their individual names, how to measure a person's power can vary wildly. Even what to measure isn't agreed upon by all, leading to some groups always classifying mages that specialize in support roles as far below their capabilities as they only look at the destructive power a person can display by himself.

"I would've advised you to get familiar with your strength anyways, we can just combine the two." Darganth said.

Placing a loving kiss on her cheek, he added, "And maybe we do it before celebrating, you're strong enough that a mistake could seriously hurt all of us besides Neandra and maybe Yldra."

Stopping mid-movement as she was just about to throw her arms around him, Allaire hesitated for a moment before cautiously lowering them again.

"Good idea." She said with a wry smile as she stepped back.

Snapping her fingers as soon as Allaire agreed, Neandra conjured up a portal leading to the sparing hall.

"Then let's not wait." She said and stepped through the portal.

Nodding and following after her, Allaire was surprised when she almost ran into a solid rock wall that appeared out of nowhere.

"Now then, show us what you've got." Neandra said from next to her.

"With pleasure." Allaire answered with an excited grin.

Waiting until the others had walked past behind her and gathered around Neandra, Allaire unleashed the full power of her augmentation.

Rising into the air as gravity's effect on her became reversed, she stopped herself a meter above the ground and hovered there as her body shifted to display all retractable changes of her augmentation.

During this, claws grew from the tips of her fingers, her light-blue eyes started to glow yellowish-gold, and her teeth became sharper, with her canine teeth also elongating noticeably.

Her hair also grew rapidly, going from ending at her shoulder blades to reaching down all the way to her hips. Furthermore, the area from which it grew expanded slightly, spreading to where the ears would be on a human which created two golden strands of hair that hung down before her chest and reached to just below her ribs.

Feeling the change end, Allaire focused her eyes on the stone target before launching herself toward it.