Disease immunity advanced to level 31

I woke up at the catacombs' shrine, shuddering at the memories. Okay, I needed to take back my previous comment about my zombie twin being better, but interfacing directly with my nerves and brain was downright cheating. But despite the mind blank, there was no way that had been half an hour. I wasn't at all lucid by the end, but I was pretty sure I'd had a heart attack. The tree had literally pleasured me to death, just to show me what my reward would be if I cooperated.

So, naturally, I fast travelled straight back to the top floor. If I needed any more evidence that it couldn't read my mind, that was it. If it thought some sort of magical rape was going to get me to willingly submit, it was badly mistaken, however good it felt. I hadn't been this angry since the giant centipede had mind-fucked me. That tree was going to burn.

I stormed my way down the dragon's passage and into his cavern.

"Hi," I called. "Please..."

Heat tolerance advanced to level 7

I sighed back at the upstairs shrine, where I'd moved my respawn point, and once again made my way down the corridor.

"Please can..."

Heat tolerance advanced to level 8

"Would..."

Heat tolerance advanced to level 9

"..."

Heat tolerance advanced to level 10

Evolution conditions met: Heat tolerance ranks up to heat resistance

Fire is one of the more common elements of magic, and is used by mages and monsters alike, but magic isn't required to create excessive heat. Maybe an adventure will take you to a desert, or a lava filled dungeon. You have, somehow, survived the fiery breath of an adult draco rubrum. Repeatedly. Yes, you've earned this upgrade from tolerance to resistance, but you could have done something slightly saner. There's no bonus for outrageousness, you know? In any case, this skill greatly increases the upper end of the temperature range in which you can comfortably operate, and reduces the damage when you go beyond your limit.

Well, that was mean. He didn't even wait for me to step into his cavern that time! Still, if he thought that was enough to put me off, he was sorely mistaken.

I hadn't wanted to piss off the big, scary dragon before. To be fair, I still didn't, but that was outweighed by wanting to burn every last vine on the fourth floor. I marched down the passage for the fifth time, and this time shouted from around the corner.

"I only want to talk! Could you please stop flaming me?"

What was the saying? Hope for the best but prepare for the worst? However it was supposed to be worded, the principle of it was obvious enough, and that principle was why I shouted out while hiding behind a massive chunk of centipede shell, despite being around a corner without direct line of sight to the dragon. Sure enough, moments later, the corridor lit up in red. Between the indirect hit, my freshly evolved heat resistance and my damage-reducing shield proficiency, I actually survived without too much damage.

"Look," I shouted. "I'm immortal, and will keep coming back however many times you incinerate me. You'd be better off..." I stopped and hid behind my shield again and another, longer flood of flame covered the corridor. "...dealing with me now so that I go away."

A long, sleepy sigh came from the cavern. "Fine, you pest." The dragon rumbled. "What is it you want?"

"To burn an evil tree to ashes," I answered, walking down the corridor, which by this point was layered with smooth glass. "But I imagine you don't want to do that in person."

The dragon opened one eye, an orb easily three metres in diameter, and glared at me. "I don't have the patience to talk in riddles. Just tell me what it will take to make you go away."

"I just need to make some sort of mutually beneficial deal. It makes no difference what it's for, as long as it's in both of our interests. I'd like a mana crystal, if you have any. What sort of thing would you want? I have a few magical items, or if you like eating meat, I have an unlimited supply of that."

"Here," growled the dragon, flicking a claw and launching a sphere at me that glowed to sense mana with an order of magnitude greater intensity than the one I'd got from the carnes multiformis. "You and your nonsensical blessing. All I require from you in return is an oath to never, ever return to this cavern, under any circumstance, or send anyone else here on your behalf, or otherwise do anything to disturb me or take anything from my hoard."

Wow. He really wanted to be left alone. And knew about my blessing, somehow... I'd never had the chance to inspect his hoard, having been flamed within seconds of arrival every previous time I'd been here, but there was certainly a lot of shiny in the cave, and hundreds of things responding to sense mana, some of them very brightly. One corner was shining so brilliantly I couldn't even pick out individual items.

"Fine, if that's all you want, I'll promise. I'll have to try not to get infected by parasitic vines again, but I'm sure I'll manage. Doesn't seem like you get much out of it, though. I can't be that annoying, surely?"

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Believe me, I get plenty out of it," he growled. "And now it's time for you to leave," he added, opening his muzzle wide.

"Wa..."

Heat resistance advanced to level 11

Seriously?!

For swearing an oath to a draco rubrum, you gain draconic wings.

My shoulders cracked and burnt, my skin heaving, bulging and bursting. I felt blood cascading down my back as new sensations came flooding in from parts of my body that shouldn't exist. Loud, uncomfortable crunching came from behind me, and I could feel things shifting. Leathery slithering followed, and I watched my shadow as new shapes extended out of it.

With trepidation, I reached behind me, shuddering as I touched my sensitive new wings, still damp with my blood. Each wing extended out by a metre, and reached from my shoulders to my waist. At least I could fold them in, so I wouldn't be getting stuck in any doorways.

And there went any last hope I had of pretending to be normal-ish back on Earth, if I kept my abilities... No. Actually, fuck it. If it meant I got to fly, I didn't care. Being able to fly would be well worth having to fight off the media and an occasional mad scientist. Still, wings weren't fire breath, so weren't quite what I wanted. What new skill options did I get?

Draconic might: You gain a large increase to physical strength

Draconic breath (red): You can exhale high temperature flames

There it was! It was fortunate I'd kept a skill spare. It meant I wouldn't find out what happened if I levelled while still having a skill slot open, but no matter. Fire breath!

Being melted five times in a row had given me a chance to calm down, and I was no longer quite so apoplectic. Just because I'd finally got my grubby mitts on a bit of fire didn't mean I immediately needed to go running back to the evil tree. I should start on a smaller target. Some slimes, for example. And I needed to modify my armour to account for the wings that now sprouted from my back. That task could potentially use a second pair of hands, given that I couldn't see behind myself, so I fast travelled back to the catacombs and made my way to the throne room.

"Hey," called my zombie twin as I entered. "Dunno if you've noticed, but you've got something on your back."

"Oh, have I?" I asked. "No, I didn't have a clue. Thanks for pointing it out."

"So, you've been talking to the dragon, I assume? What brought that on? Last I remember, we were terrified of causing him to take notice of us?"

"The next floor down has an endemic disease almost as bad as the blight, except it's not really a disease. Some giant tree in the middle of the floor releases microscopic seeds which parasitise the brain and take control of anything they infect, and it promises great pleasure in exchange for willingly submitting to it. Then it plants larger seeds into its slaves to turn them into more or less complete drones. It seems to want to assimilate all life in the dungeon. It's worked out my respawn trick, and that respawning clears my brain out, so my last life, it decided to give me an example of the reward I'd get if I behaved myself in the hopes I'd willingly go and get myself infested again."

"Ah, I see. And so you decided to drop all your previous plans and forget all about your mission to find the holy sword, in favour of burning this tree down?"

"Yup."

"And you decided that the best way of going about that was to bug a dragon into giving you some sort of deal, hoping that your second class gave you dragon breath?"

I shuffled a bit in embarrassment. In the confines of my own head, my plan hadn't sounded quite so rash. "Maybe?"

The zombie queen gave a big, theatrical sigh. "I'm not even mad. Just disappointed. And maybe a little jealous. Where's my wings?"

"I have fire breath too, but I had to spend a skill slot on it. What do my wings look like, anyway? I don't have a mirror."

"Big, red and scaly. Not particularly ladylike, I'm afraid. But I doubt you'd care, as long as you can fly."

I could see that much, but I suppose it's not as if she could paint me a picture. The tops of my wings were thick and curved, with a spine-like run of bones throughout and a sharp point of horn protruding from each bone. The membranes were thin and leathery, but the entire wing was covered in red scales, and was rigid despite the lack of any further bone reinforcements. I couldn't see exactly how they folded up, or how things shifted when I flapped them.

"I haven't actually tried yet. Or my breath. I was going to go breathe fire over the slimes downstairs, then try out my wings in the wide open cavern where I'll be less likely to crash into anything."

"Anything other than the floor, you mean."

I glared at my zombie twin. "Oh ye of little faith. Fine, let's see what I can do."

I stretched out my wings to their full span, which, while large for such purposes as walking through doorways, didn't seem at all appropriate for flight. No way should they be enough to lift me off the ground, but the strange starfish had already proven physics was an optional extra in this world. I gave them a single, forceful flap, and it propelled me three metres up into the air.

I hadn't been expecting that, and wasn't at all ready for it. Three metres wasn't that high, but was still a bit far to fall from unexpectedly. I desperately flapped again, but had twisted in the air, and propelled myself forward instead of upward, clipping a pillar and bouncing head first towards the floor. I stuck out an arm on reflex.

Crack.

Blunt damage tolerance advanced to level 3

"Wow. Not content with wings, you also managed to pick up an extra elbow."

"It was my first ever time!" I shouted back, trying to shove my arm into an approximately correct position and tie it there with silk. I was going to need a respawn to deal with the broken bones, but I might as well get some more flight training in first. It was bad enough losing one life while trying to fly, and I had no intention of risking more.

"Imagine what would happen if every bird broke a limb on their first time flying. I'm afraid that's not an excuse."

Ignoring the peanut gallery, I tried again with smaller flaps, and managed to bob around in the air for a bit without further mishap. Trying to fly around was harder, and I had more than one further unplanned encounter with pillars, the ceiling, the floor and on one occasion even my twin, earning two more levels of blunt damage tolerance.

"I really should have done this somewhere with more space and a soft floor," I muttered while my zombie twin helpfully splinted my broken leg, which I wasn't able to do myself on account of both my arms being broken.

"Yes, you should have, but that wouldn't have been anywhere near as funny."

DupliKatie helped me back to my one good foot, and I tried to make another attempt, only to find one wing would no longer flap properly. I must have caught it on a pillar during my last attempt. "I think one of my wings is broken. I'll have to stop there."

"Aww. Okay, in that case, on to your flame breath! Just aim it away from me, please."

I obligingly turned around to face a wall, took a deep breath in and activated the skill as I exhaled, filling my throat with flames.

Heat resistance advanced to level 12

"..." I said, as the charred remains of my throat collapsed, followed shortly after by the rest of me.