Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

We flew for several hours before having to stop to rest as the night had already fallen. There was only one moon in the sky as the other was currently behind the first one, causing a lunar eclipse, with the night still being lit by the remaining moon. Farahio used his magic to raise a dirt hut and placed two wooden beds with white mattresses that looked very expensive and also much smaller than myself. Farahio looked at the beds and then at me, and then at the beds again.

"Would you mind transforming into a therian again?" He asked me. "I don't have anything larger."

I triggered [Genetic Disphorya] and changed into the black humanoid cat form I had stored on the skill's list and moved to sit on the bed. It was a very, very comfortable bed. It still wasn't on the same level as Henry's bed, but it was more comfortable than the others I had slept in until then.

"Farahio," I started.

"Yes?"

"You said the spatial ring you had cost a few platinum coins. How rich are you? You have that chair, table, and now these beds that just lose to a duke's." I asked. Farahio didn't seem to be that rich, at least by his appearance, but again, he is an elf, and he already said he was two thousand years old. If you're two thousand years old and still broke, just give up,

"You see– Wait. Did you say a duke's bed?" Farahio looked at me with wide eyes, probably thinking about something very indecent.

"Well, not the duke themself, their child." I saw Farahio's face starting to contort, probably thinking even more indecent stuff. "I got stuck on a time loop and used the opportunity that he mistook me for someone from somewhere called myriad palace to basically kick him out of his own bed and sleep on it for a few months, from my point of view that is, for everyone else it was just a day."

Farahio tightened his eyes, trying to see if I was telling the truth or not before just shrugging. "Be careful about your words when you're mentioning nobles and stuff, they can get very antsy and several problems may start because of this, like the royal family having to interfere and stripping someone of their noble title and house because of a misunderstanding between two nobles about who was the responsible for the latest discovery about runes."

I looked at him for a few moments before commenting. "That felt very specific."

"It's just a possibility." He shrugged. "Anyway. About your question. Let's just say that I have my contacts and know how to get the best deals in the market." He then proceeded to throw me my clothes and lie down on his bed.

I put them on and also laid down on the bed he had provided me with. Before I fell asleep, I checked my status once more.

My HP was slowly but surely ticking up, as I didn't have a regeneration skill or spell that worked for more than a few moments. My MP was full as my new skill [Automatic MP Regeneration] filled it up during my flight and started to fill the… I don't know. Reservoir? Started to fill my new reservoir with magicules. I could feel the reservoir through the skill [Liquid Quantum Flux Matrix] that had a weird name that didn't match much of the other skills I had. I had gotten this skill because of my new title of [Magicule Channeler] after using the equivalent of a few billion units of MP inside that white void. There was more to the skill, I could feel it, but it felt disconnected, as if I couldn't access them as of yet, maybe in the near future.

Oh, that weird title I had went from 2/7 to 3/7. I still don't know exactly what it means, I just hope it's not something bad. It's not like I can do something about it, the System just gives me these titles and skills and I can only accept them. Not even accept, actually, as it just shoves them down my throat.

[Passive Growth] somehow went back to 100% somehow, it was 80% the last time I checked. If I were to guess, this was because I fused with my past clones when I released my control of temporal energy that kept them in the same temporal space as me… Hooray? I don't know. That skill still didn't make sense to me. I only saw it working whenever [Otherworldly Soul] demanded it, and I understood even less about that title. It reacted to the most random things possible and acted however it wanted.

[Spatial Manipulation] was easy to explain. I feel I would have gotten this skill sooner or later if I had kept absorbing spatial energy the natural way, but I forced my body to do it, and if it weren't for the healing potion the dungeon gave me, I probably wouldn't be here anymore. That thought sent a shiver down my spine. I was being very reckless with what I did and was only escaping the more devastating circumstances by sheer dumb luck and probably the fairy of coincidence making me have the right thing at the right moment.

Lastly, there was [Multi-Layered Barrier], a skill I got while doing the barrier I was starting to develop manually several times and refining it. Still, it felt very easy to get this skill. I thought about asking Farahio if getting the same number of skills I got since getting here was something normal, but decided against it. I could easily tell that it shouldn't be normal for a person to have two unique skills, let alone five like I had.

Activating the barrier skill, I felt as it took a portion of my magicules to create the barrier around me, and then the usage cost of having it active dropped to below the amount I regenerated every second. Deciding to keep it running to have more protection, I finally went to sleep. The cold air of the night was not able to make me shiver because of the fur I had while in this form.

It was morning when I woke up again, the barrier skill kept going for the night. It created a hexagonal pattern around me that made it obvious I had a shield on. I decided to keep it on to level it up, maybe I could make it invisible if I got a few more levels on it, who knows.

Farahio, or even his bed, for that matter, wasn't inside the hut. The smell of food being cooked told me enough about where he was.

Leaving the hut, I found Farahio with what I could only describe as a portable kitchen a couple of meters away from the entrance to the hut. I could see he had a metal plate with several inscriptions and a crystal embedded on it that seemed to hold a charge of magicules. On top of the metal plate was a frying pan with what looked like meat frying on it, and a pot filled with water that I couldn't see inside, but could see the steam coming out of it.

"Good morning, goddess of slumber," Farahio told me as he placed the wooden table and two chairs out of his spatial ring and near where he was preparing the food. Taking the hint, I sat down on the chair. "I see you developed a barrier?"

"Yes. It's a skill I got in that dungeon. It uses less magicules than I regenerate, so I decided to keep it running all the time to level it up faster." I explained.

Farahio finished cooking and placed a plate with two strips of a tasty looking meat and something that resembled baked potato with it in front of me and then sat down with a plate for himself.

"I'm glad the dungeon dive was useful. Would you mind telling me about it?" Farahio asked, but I wouldn't be able to answer him as I technically hadn't finished the dungeon.

"I– How to put it– I didn't finish it," I said.

"Was it that hard? You spent several hours inside it."

"It's a little complicated," I started explaining what had happened and Farahio looked a mix of concern and wonder about what I went through inside the dungeon.

"You know," Farahio spoke. "I don't know if you're blessed by the Gods or cursed by them. I have never met anyone who went through this many problems in a month. You said you got here about a month ago, right?"

"From your perspective, it's around that much. Yes." I said. "From mine, considering I spend most of my time here inside a time loop, it's been a little over three months."

"A month old and already out-leveling several hunters who spend weeks trying to get three levels." Farahio laughed as he ate. "Some people would kill to have your leveling speed."

I decided not to comment on that.

After we ate and waited a little for our stomachs to digest the food, I took of my clothes to avoid them ripping and then transformed back into my true form and we took flight again. We flew during the entire day yet again, crossing in a single day what would have taken at least a week in the wagon we were using when we left Flamecrest.

"Do you see it right there in the distance?" Farahio asked me, using the same spell to be able to talk with me by ignoring the strong winds we were being subjected to.

I looked over at where Farahio was pointing and saw on the horizon the sprawling walls of a city not unlike Flamecrest. The golden light of the sunset casting the walls in a mixture of golden and grey.

"It's a city," I answered him.

"That is the dungeon city of Brostin," Farahio told me. "We will rest for the night there and leave very early tomorrow. I don't know when Jack will try to track us in that village, but if we stay too long in Brostin, they will find us sooner rather than later."

I looked over at the city yet again, our high altitude allowing me to be able to see past its walls. The city was big, very big, at least twice the size of Flamecrest and even more full of people. I could see from where we were the movement of a bunch of people coming and going from several places, probably returning home as the night approached quickly. Seeing it from up here, the city felt alive somehow, with the people walking its streets serving as its blood.

"We will land several kilometers away from the city. We do not want to trigger their aerial defenses. It's made for monsters way higher level than you." Farahio explained and started to descent. I followed him and after a couple more minutes we landed just outside of a forest between us and the city.

I transformed into the black humanoid cat yet again, put on my clothes, and we walked towards the city gates as the two moons appeared in the sky.