NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: Visiting Parents
Watching the two ladies seemingly completely focused on mastering the techniques he taught them, the upbeat young man decides to check the system to take a look at his current strength, his eyes beaming with excitement and satisfaction as he reads through the information being shown to him in the floating gray screen.
[Diluc Leonhart]
[Race: Human]
[Age: 16]
[Realm Gold: 9,000]
[Cultivations]
[Magic: Bright Red Core (Combat power between Bright Orange Core and Vague Yellow Core)]
[Body Tempering: Peak Skin Refining (Combat power Between Peak Muscle Conditioning and Early Blood Vessel Widening)]
[Elemental Affinity: Wind, Wood, Metal]
[Skills: Draconic Scale, Absolute Regeneration, Life Breathing, Heavy Metal Reinforcement, Rain of Swords, Dragon Roar, Dragon Claw, Specific Mana Manipulation (Wind)]
[Overall Combat Power: 4.5-stars]
[Draconic Realm]
[Missions]
[Shop]
After looking through the information displayed on the screen, the upbeat young man starts wondering whether he can buy some other dragons for him to nurture now, feeling pretty confident in growing another one as he already starts getting the hang of it after having his experience nurturing Yggdrasil and Argenta, not to mention the fact that these two ladies can also help in raising this new dragon should he decide to buy an egg from the shop.
Opening the [Egg] portion of the shop though, Diluc couldn't help but feel quite a bit tragic as he saw the prices of the dragon eggs displayed on the screen, with the most easily purchasable one being the one he is looking at right now, and the price of the succeeding eggs just goes higher and higher from that.
[Fire Dragon Egg (5,000 Realm Gold)]
[Contains an infant pure bred, Fire elemental True Dragon inside, needs to be incubated on the True Dragon Nourishing Tree in order to show its true potential. The talent of the dragons bought from the shop has an absolute random chance, meaning the chance of the dragon being the highest of talent and the chance of it also being the lowest of talent and anywhere in between is the same.]
Seeing how expensive the most accessible dragon is and then looking at his current money, the upbeat young man couldn't help but complain as he starts to wonder how in the world is he supposed to progress when the mission he receives needs him to have draconic blessings for him to acquire the other elemental affinities he needs.
Seemingly sent as if to answer his grumbling, the floating gray screen of the system appears in front of him with a message in it saying how he can sell all sorts of stuffs in the shop, of course, said stuff must be things that are acquired from the outside and not ones that comes from the Draconic Realm, like the fruits and crops he can harvest from it.
"Great, now I really need to explore outside huh…" Diluc said as he returns his attention towards the two practicing beauties, standing up and informing them that he needs to continue moving for him to improve the Draconic Realm even more, the two beauties merely nodding in agreement to him before they each stole a peck on both his cheeks, waving goodbye to him as they watches him step into the portal leading to the outside.
"Let's train even harder, Sister Argenta" Yggdrasil said with a rare, determined look on her beautiful face as she clenches her fist, the scales appearing from deep inside her humanoid body as she continues to practice, not really comparable to the young man's technique but she is already getting there.
"Mn" the taciturn platinum haired beauty replied as she swings her fist, the metallic luster from her manifested scales making her appear shining, the ray of the sun striking anywhere her scales reflects not even bothering her the slightest, even though some of them are also shining through her wide-open eyes.
Meanwhile on the outside, the upbeat young man already starts heading back towards the city he was born in, quite looking forward to arriving in a familiar place as his pace hastened, his eyes already seeing spots and landmarks that are all too familiar to him, places that marks the way towards the most familiar place to him, a place he used to call home.
Willing the wind on his feet to allow him to move even faster, the rusting of the winds in the rough path sounds through as he treads it, the people he passes through wondering how he can move at such speed, his current appearance making him appear completely different from how those people of the city remembers him.
"That is…"
"Diluc right?"
"Yeah, I heard that he got caught up in a nasty incident previously, who would've guessed that he looks even better now"
"Did you guys notice? He looks like he has grown some muscles"
"What's the point in that though? He's a mage, not a martial artist, he should've just focused on learning spells instead of training his body"
Seeing the new appearance of a pretty well-known guy among the young ones of the city, the people that the upbeat young man passed through starts talking about him, some having positive opinions while the other seemingly completely hostile of him, something already all too common for the young man as he knows clearly who these people who seems to hate him are.
Said conversations are only heard by the upbeat young man as he notices that his current senses are far sharper than ever before, only now realizing just how much his hearing, his vision, his touch, smell and taste improves, attributing it to the fact that this is also part of the blessings he received from Yggdrasil and Argenta, as this is the only plausible way that he can acquire such amazing senses.
Ignoring this conversations that he hears though, he continues walking towards the path to the city, but not going directly there as he takes a small detour into a simple woods, his movements showing clear familiarity to the place as he masterfully weaves around the vines and bushes blocking the path, eventually reaching two massive stones etched with some already vague markings on it, these stone clearly appearing to be the largest among the other markers in here, stones, wooden crosses and some other sorts of things indicating what this location is.
Taking out a bottle of wine from his spatial pouch, the upbeat young man starts pouring it into the stone marker standing half of his tall height, the wry smile on his face making him look quite melancholic as he watches the wine leaves the bottle, like the time of someone's life completely draining out of their body.
"I… I returned from my adventures outside, pops, mum…" the upbeat young man said with an unusually sad voice coming out of him, his entire being seemingly shaking as he stares at the words, names written on the stone marker, before taking out a knife from his spatial pouch and starting to carve the names deeper into the stone so that the things written on it never fade.
'Here lies the body of Baron Layla Astrea and Viscount Lucius Leonhart, heroes who sacrifices themselves for the greater good of the masses. A good husband and wife, and an even greater parent to a child'
After carving the stones once again, the young man's face starts turning red as he tries his best to stop himself from crying, his reddened eyes staring at the sky as his straight figure starts collapsing into the ground, with his back leaning on the tombstone made by the people that his parents fight for, people who are situated on the graves behind his parents.
Once he manages to control his emotion, he starts talking about all the things he had gone through in this life changing adventure of his, how he nearly joined them because of his arrogance thinking that he can deal with an injured Soaring Steel Eagle, how he manages to escape from such creature through his wits alone, and how he manages to get a fate changing encounter that allow him to return to this place once again, that allows him to have better chances for himself in the future.
"Old folks, I'll get better chances of reaching a place so much higher than what you dreamt for me…" Diluc muttered finally as he stands up from the tombstone and composes himself, taking out another bottle of wine before sipping on it, finishing a quarter of the bottle before pouring it on his parent's tombstone once again.
"Pops, sorry for breaking my promise with you, once I get strong enough… I'll destroy those people who did this to all of you" the upbeat young man said as boundless bloodlust explodes from deep within his very being, scaring the hell out of the animals in the surrounding and making them flee away from the source of such malicious feelings, nothing in their mind but going as far as they can from whoever is letting this feeling out.