I had explored the jungle to the south of my hideout and on day 45 I decided to go north. A river coiled through the wilderness and acted as my guide. I was swinging around from branch to branch with my tails like a monkey when I messed up and fell down. It looked like there was jungle floor below me but it was just a lot of plants growing over a hole and I fell into a jungle cave. This was completely avoidable but it’s not like I will take a lot of fall damage so I let gravity do its thing, although a bit slow. Did I get lighter again? This cave was quite dark and humid. I spotted some cool mushrooms and something that wasn't so cool.

Oh, good morning Mr. Dragon, I will just leave and let you rest. The dragon growled. It was a two-winged dragon. I don’t know much about them, I’m only accustomed to no winged dragons. It didn't seem like he could understand me. I tried Hourai and Draconian. It roared and swiped at me.

What the fuck! What dragon can’t understand draconian? Are you messing with me?! It slammed its tail at me but missed because I was so light and the wind pressure it created, blew me away.

Hey, asshole! I’m just here for sightseeing! I will leave if you let me be! I dodged a [Nature Dragonbreath]. I tried to convince it to stop in draconian and ancient draconian. Nothing. What language do 2 winged dragons speak? It flapped its wings and blew me away.

Screw you too! I pedalled on the air and moved the wind leylines and it looked like I was pedalling through the air. I tried to create a wind tunnel but this wasn't something I practiced so I was fighting against the [Wind blast] until I could figure out what movement to make to cancel this wind blast out in a small area. I touched down on the ground and ran at the dragon. It made thick vines grow out of the ground to impale me. I dodged by making acrobatic flips and sending [Wind scythes] out of my feet whenever I did to cut these down. Wind gathered at my feet and I sped up. I had to keep flipping and rotating to keep the wind swirling around me and soon every movement I did sent a sharp [Wind blade] out from either my legs or arms. I aimed these at the vines to cut them down. My tails also helped out. I covered 3 tails with swirling winds because they were slowly starting to overheat from all the processing they needed to do. I needed to name this technique. I performed a tornado kick and it sent a tornado out that shot wind blades out as it spun. I decided to go for [Tempest step], I kept backflipping to send [wind blades] at another [Dragonbreath] the dragon spat at me. It then roared and green spheres grew next to it and they shot at me. I did another tornado kick and sent the tornado out to catch the green spheres.

They exploded and multiple briar vines shot out from them in every direction. I shot a [Windblast] downward to launch myself. My tails grabbed some roots sticking out from the ceiling and as I hung upside down. These spheres were reacting to the tornado and covering the whole floor with nasty briars. It seems those briars were poisonous. Some fire would be nice now but I didn't figure out how to do that yet. But do I need fire to set this place ablaze? The dragon spotted me and flew up and tried to claw me. I dropped down and kept making movements to compress the air. It turned into a concentrated sphere of air that slowly heated up due to the pressure. It ignited and I shot it at the floor turning the whole cave into an inferno. Luckily, I have heat resistance so this is fine. I did another tornado kick to create another tornado because the vines seemed to release toxic fumes. The dragon caught fire too and it wasn't happy at all. It tried to swoop down from above me and I did an upward split kick and sent a large wind blade to it. It hit his face but that didn't make him stop. I ducked and dodged him but the wind pressure sent me flying again. I pedalled in the air to slow down and stabilize in the air.

I was wondering if I could defeat him by just using Dragonvein. Wait, didn't Tero say that I could ride dragons with this? But this dragon is a nature dragon, I don’t know how to control nature energy, does dragon vein even work on nature energy? I tried but he might have meant that it worked on no-winged dragons, while those fly somewhat graceful this one doesn't at all. It roared and used another [Dragonbreath]. This is exhausting. This dragon has quite a limited move set though. It then burrowed its tail and the whole place started to shake. He got covered in thick bark and put out the fire that was still dealing damage to him. Various strange plants started to grow in the cave. I don't like this at all. I gathered more wind and sent myself upward to escape this cave. I got back to the jungle floor but the dragon didn't seem to want to let me go. He burst out of its cave and roared and shot green beams at me. Not quite lasers but still annoying. I stopped using Dragonvein and got all my tails out and went monkey mode to try and get away from this asshole.

Hey dragon I concede, you win! Are you happy now?! You can let me go now! It created numerous green orbs around it and divebombed at me while sending the orbs all over the place that exploded and shot briars in every direction. I had to launch myself into the air and pedal in the air and start [Tempest Step] again. I sent numerous kicks at it that turned into wind blades but they did nothing to the thick bark it surrounded itself with. It roared and flew up in the sky and started to fly in circles.

Oh, fuck is this the two-winged version of [Dragon dance]? Dragon dance is as the name suggests a sequence of movements dragons do that strengthen them and then a series of high-damage attacks that hit a wide area. The flora in the immediate area started to grow faster and create an enormous thicket. The thicket seemed to become sentient and all the plants started to attack me.

You got to be kidding me! I kept creating wind blasts to push me away from all this bullshit. I tried to also move the air directly in front of me so that I would experience less air resistance.

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I plunged into the water basin 15 minutes later, utterly exhausted. I would probably get some nasty muscle aches tomorrow. I looked back and it seems the dragon lost sight of me. It was still rampaging but it was far from my hideout. One day I will go back and take revenge on that asshole. It was time to rest.

Day 48. I created 2 more wind techniques [Howling Updraft] and [Pressure]. The first technique let me create a continuous updraft that can keep me in the air. It's an easier and cheaper way of flight. [Pressure] allows me to more easily control pressure and also possibly keep me on the ground when some asshole tries to blow me away. I was practicing to create some water moves on day 49 when I heard a familiar roar. I hid in my hideout and saw the asshole fly over. I hope he’s not looking for me I don’t want him to turn this nice place into one big blob of plants. I had to halt my practice for 2 days because he kept flying over from time to time.

At day 52 I was starting to become tired of his bullshit. But I had no idea what I could do against him. Magic defeats the purpose of my training. The shadow disappeared and I got out of my hideout. If he’s flying around here that means he must not be in his own cave. I went into stealth and went monkey mode and arrived at his cave. It looked different because he blew the ceiling off when he flew up to attack me earlier this week. I wonder if I could place traps here. I tried to force some wind into the ground when I noticed something. There seems to be a difference between leylines that go through the air and those that go through the ground. I inspected it more closely. Leylines in the air have a higher tendency toward water wind and lightning, and those in the earth have a higher tendency toward earth and fire. I looked up and saw that very high up there was something that I would call a celestial current and they had a tendency toward dark and light. That’s cool and all but what does that mean? I connected with the underground leyline currents and started [Tempest step] technique and while my arms were still creating wind, my feet started with wind but it slowly became hotter and ignited.

I tested some stuff out and the fire was more explosive in nature. The more underground leyline currents I used the more it forced me into certain movements. I applied what I’ve learned to my hands and arms. After a lot of blood, sweat and tears, I figured out how to use fire. It needs that I fold at least 2 fingers inward per hand to create fire. But they still need to be relaxed if I squeeze the 2 fingers inward it doesn't work so well. Also, the movements can follow those similar to water I have to adapt how much leyline energy I take in and let out. With zero elements, water, and wind the flow is constant, what goes in, goes out. With fire this is more in bursts, take a lot in, hold it, and then get it all out, or even keep some in and don't expel it. So back to the illustration of forming an S, With zero element and water it's just a neat S, with wind, it overshoots a bit at every bend, but with fire, it's an S made of dotted lines, the more closely the dots are packed together the more the temperature increases. And the size of the dots increases its raw power such as explosive force. I tried to apply this method of taking in leyline energy to water and wind and this seemed to somewhat work, I could change water easier to extremely strong ice or extremely hot vapor and the wind seemed to become denser in reaction to it. It did limit flexibility though.

I tried to make a firetrap but I couldn't figure out how to do this. I connected to the air leyline currents and got out of this place and went monkey mode and continued the exploration. A lot of interesting fruits grew in this jungle and I decided to head home because it was getting late when I noticed something. I was quite far from my hideout and from the asshole's hideout so I decided to check it out quick and get back home. It was some sort of rock but I couldn't look through it. It was ancient technology! It seemed to have a similar shape as the one I found close to Boshi town but 70% was buried and the rest was covered with plants to the point that it was almost impossible to see what it was. I took a mental note of its location and headed back. I had to hide because it seemed the asshole was going home. I arrived home too at close to midnight. It was a very tiring day.

I rested on days 53 and 54. The asshole didn't seem to be checking this area out anymore. I practiced with fire until day 60 but I couldn't go too hard on it because it would burn the place down. The last time it rained was at day 37 so I needed to be careful.

Day 61 was the day I would try to investigate the dungeon. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned because a giant tiger decided that I would make a good snack. I first tried to get away but he was persistent so I had to tornado-kick him and rip him to shreds. Well, there were ways that involved less gore but it had some friends lurking and I needed to send a message. I ducked into a bush as asshole flew over. I hope I didn't cause too much of a ruckus to attract his attention. The coast was clear and I arrived at the buried dungeon. This is all cool and all but how do I dig this thing out? Don’t tell me I need to learn earth Dragonvein. I’m notoriously bad at using earth magic so this is certainly going to suck.

I burnt away the plants covering the part I could see. I only saw 1 symbol. Is it draconian or ancient draconian? I can't tell, I need more. I shifted stance and used one of the water techniques I created called [Drowning Pulse]. I covered the area and water and shifted to [Churning waves] and tried to erode the earth away. I rested after 2 hours of wasting energy and time. It didn't go as I would have hoped. I put my tails to work, I had 2 more elements I needed to figure out and earth will most likely be a pain in the ass. I heard a roar. I turned around and saw asshole preparing a [Dragonbreath].

Ugh, itching for a round 2? I shifted stance and used [Howling Updraft] Now that I could ‘Fly’ I wouldn't have problems with the jungle attacking me. I continued [Howling Updraft] with my feet and started [Flame Wave] with my upper body and sent a heatwave out and some fireballs to the asshole. He caught fire and roared. He used [Dragon Dance] again. I had to stop using [Flame Wave] and use [Pressure] because he was flapping his wings again. I launched myself and landed on his back. I planted my feet on his back and started the second fire technique I made. I couldn't fully test it before but since I had enough of this guy, I could crank up the temperature. I started [Phoenix dance].

The asshole took a lot of damage as I kept driving up the heat. Its bark armor turned into charcoal. I kept up the technique and its flesh started to burn. It thrashed and threw me off. I had to transition to [Howling Updraft] else I would torch the jungle. I went back to [Tempest Step] and used a tornado kick. The tornado fed the flames and the asshole was now getting burnt by blue flames. I wonder if I could change the color of the flames. It seemed that doing this wasn't magic. Is it some racial skill? I had no clue but I could freely change the color of the fire and thus its properties. I created a mass of fire that looked similar to my [Foxfire: Summer heat] and dropped it on the asshole. I dropped all my leyline techniques because I ran out of stamina. The dragon was still burning but he didn't seem defeated yet. This was disappointing but I would have to retreat for the day. I tried to drag myself home but it was too far and I was too exhausted so I found a good spot and made it my temporary hideout.

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I had to rest till day 65. I don't think I rest enough so I had to rest extra-long. I had to find a way around this stamina problem, can I make this more efficient? Or do I just have to gain more muscles and gain stamina over time? I’m not even 2 months in so it might be that. I can do way more than when I started out. I had to lay low because the asshole was quite angry and seemed determined to find me and kill me. I had to move twice because he brought the plants to life close to me and I had to flee. Maybe I should give up on that dungeon for now, I can’t unearth it anyways. And I doubt there is a convenient mechanism anywhere that just digs it out. There was the option of going home directly but I took the long scenic route. I have been running around a lot lately but missed the beauty of this jungle by doing so.

I arrived home after 3 days and decided to take a break till day 80. I wondered how long it would take before I could turn that asshole into fertilizer. I refined every technique I knew and added some optional moves to them. It might be impossible to use all the movements of a technique because things could interrupt me so I need to come up with moves that don't interrupt the technique because using the wrong movements could drop the technique which sucks. So, I figured out what would work and added them as backup moves in case something forces me to move differently. It was still exhausting so I took breaks regularly.

I started to get bored on day 100. I feel like I mastered the techniques that I made. I still didn't find out how to use earth or lightning.

What obscure movements do I need to use them? I wanted to explore that dungeon! A fish jumped out of the lake and I tried to fry it and get some style points. I snapped my finger and pointed at it. Fire shot at it after hitting the fish it crackled and turned into lightning and zapped the fish. I got excited. I repeated it and it was consistent. It seems pointing with my index finger was key. Lightning behaved like how to create fire but pointing with the index finger was mandatory, adding the middle finger worked but anything else shifted it back to fire. Although spreading my fingers out like claws also allowed me to use lightning. I played... I mean practiced lightning for 5 days. The more I played the less it resembled fire. This was the only element whose effectiveness depended on how fast I could move.

Back to the comparisons because I like this one, it is now clear how zero element, wind, water and fire work. Lightning works like fire with dotted lines and the size of the dots also has an impact but with lightning, it's possible to go back and forth between 2 points multiple times and in this fashion finish the movement. Whereas in fire element every point well gets used only once. The lightning ones could get used tens if not hundreds of times. This of course has to be completed in a similar time frame that’s why it depends on how fast I can move. My lightning movements look blurry because I’m moving my hands and arms extremely fast. It causes lightning to be stupidly strong though. I could reach orange lightning relatively easily. But since I wasn't used to moving like this and I was basically vibrating my arms and parts of my body very fast it ate a considerable amount of stamina. It seemed to regain some after I successfully finished a technique though. I probably have to work on its efficiency to make sure I don’t look blurry and it looks like I’m moving normally. True strength lies in doing something extremely difficult but making it seem like I’m not doing anything at all. Getting this under control was uhm rough. I spent the next 50 days extremely exhausted getting to make this look clean and efficient. I did my best to avoid asshole all this time because I was tired at all times.

I took the stance for [High Voltage] and vaporized a rock. According to my Elgards eyes this looked very clean. It was still tiring but not as much as when I discovered it. Lightning was by far my favorite. At this point, it was less tiring than controlling water because water is heavy as fuck. It still had room for improvement but this was good enough. I decided this was cause for celebration and I slacked and feasted for 10 days. I was here for 4 months now. I had achieved a lot I just need to get to learn earth and kill the asshole. This went faster than expected but I had a lot of things I could improve. I looked to the sky. I might be able to find out how to use dark and light by getting up to the celestial currents. It gave me an idea. I should visit places where the leyline elements are strongest, some places underground where earth and fire are the strongest, and hone those elements there, not looking forward to earth, might skip that one. Somewhere where water lightning and wind leyline are stronger and hone those elements there. Then somehow get high enough to get to learn those 2 because I have no idea how to use those elements. I planned a day and I decided that day 165 would be the day the asshole dies. I had 5 days to prepare for this. I would have to rest up and gather fruits that boost my stamina. I can't cheat and use nature energy. Although… it would be fine if I used it right? I will try to not use it but if I need it I will.

The day arrived. I already made a tombstone for the Asshole. I would place it in his hideout after he would be turned into fertilizer. This is probably one of my worst metrics so far, 120 days needed to kill a dragon… Then again there are more than enough people that never killed a dragon before or encounter one. This is my first dragon that I kill but I’m sure this one would've been long dead if I used magic on him and certainly if I went full 9t on him. He isn't that strong I’m just handicapping myself. But today I will surpass the version of me that uses magic and turn this asshole into a pile of ash! I was quite excited. If I got better at this I could move away from magic and just use it when it was truly needed so I wouldn't have to deal with the nausea and the feeling of bugs crawling through my veins whenever I use too much of it.

I was thinking of how to finish him off when I realized something crucial. I don’t have any ultimate skills! Do I delay Asshole’s funeral? Ultimate skills are important though. I don’t have any good ideas though besides just a stronger bigger version of what I already know. I guess I’ll go with that for now and pretend they're ultimate skills and try and think of some after Asshole’s funeral. He doesn't deserve a proper ultimate skill. I used [High Voltage] and created my trusted [Lightning Umbrella] and hung from it as it ascended. I waited for 5 minutes before Asshole noticed me. He still had burn marks. And he looked pissed. I created 5 more [Lightning Umbrellas] with 12 ice cubes attached to them and spread them out in a formation. Asshole flew right into it. Now with control over leyline energy, I can do something I could never do before, create magic circles using energy that's not magic. Magic circles created with non-magic will have its full power. I connected the umbrellas with wires and the umbrellas in the formation formed a magic circle and blasted it with blue lightning. I need to figure out how to make this stronger but it’s enough for now. Asshole flapped its wings and tried to blow the umbrellas away but I countered it with [Pressure]. An umbrella discharged and took out one of the dragon's wings. He fell down and I used [Turning leaf] to swap an umbrella under him but the umbrella got crushed. Doesn’t work on heavy opponents, noted.

The dragon roared and trashed as it hit the floor. The wind blew me toward him and I floated above him and changed all the [Lightning umbrellas] by starting [Phoenix dance]. All the umbrellas started to fold and fell down like spears. They rained down on the Asshole and set the jungle on fire. I shifted to [Drowning Pulse] to put out the fire but I continued to let the asshole burn. The water moved close to the Asshole and I went back to [Phoenix Dance] and created a controlled fire, slowly turning the dragon into a pyre. I sneaked in some movements of [Tempest Step] and made the flames intensify with the aid of some wind. One final roar and the thrashing and noise stopped. I kept [Phoenix dance] up till I got tired. I had to make sure this Asshole is dead. I inspected the area, and only ash and bones were left. Dragon parts are quite valuable for crafting various things and I just turned most of it to ash…

I chucked some dragon bones in my dimensional pocket and found some bark scales. Revenge complete! But this [Phoenix dance] surely is powerful almost strong enough to be an ultimate technique. Then again, my fire skills were always extremely strong. I decided to store some Asshole ash, I mean dragon ash too, who knows maybe it will be useful someday. I sat down and rested. What now? The dungeon is still inaccessible. This revenge didn't feel as good as I thought it would, I just eliminated one of my goals and I still had about 8 months planned out to hang around here. Is this truly all Dragonvein has to offer? Or am I missing something crucial here? It certainly is strong and it doesn't mix well with magic and thus is quite strong against it but is this all to it? There is no way a teenage random guy can figure out all this has to offer in 4 months.

On surface value, I would have completed my training the moment I figure earth dragon vein out and light and dark to a certain extent. But at this rate, I won't need 8 more months. My physical condition might need that long, maybe I should go for that? I decided to call it a day and return to my hideout. Some monkeys were raiding my food stash and I kicked their asses.

They reminded me a bit of Raishin. I wonder how Raishin and Greg are doing. Greg is probably working his ass off and Raishin is probably fooling around. Maybe he will find a chick and settle down. I’m not sure how I would feel about that but I would wish him happiness and continue on with Greg. Or what if both of them settle down? I have never considered settling down. I’m quite enjoying my life in the jungle here and could do it for a very long time but… what about Hourai? I miss everyone from Hourai but do they really need the help of 3 brats? Is it arrogant of us to think they need our help? And if they don’t need our help, what do we do? We still want to meet up with them but what if they're completely fine and we wasted our youth trying to find our homeplace that was completely fine? Two monkeys tried to sneak up on me and steal my food and I knocked them out. And what about the eight-tailed monkey? I looked at the passed-out monkeys. If he can truly ‘Evict’ individuals or Hourai out of dimensions, how to find them if that’s the case, do we need to kick his ass too? He held off against our mothers… there is no way we stand a chance against him anytime soon. How many years do we need to get to that level? Xelia should be 398 years by now but she wasn't close to mom’s strength. Do we really need 2 or 3 millennia to have a shot at dealing with him? If so, aren’t we rushing into something we can’t deal with? We will have to avoid fighting him then if we want to continue our plan. Is settling down the best thing we can do for now? We got a bit arrogant before, thinking we could deal with anything and it cost Ted his life. I’m not rushing to repeat a mistake like that.

Which reminds me… I need defensive skills. Most of my techniques can shift to some form of defense but I need something to protect allies. I’m not great at defensive skills, how about more control? I could knock enemies around with water, they can’t attack if they’re getting knocked around. But what if they can’t get knocked around? My [Drowning Pulse] keeps creating water to the point the whole area floods. If I just keep it up and actually add some things in to make opponents sink and drown. I jumped in the lake but I needed something to test this out on. I remembered that there were some Running Frogs not too far from here. These funny frogs could walk and run on the water. I need to lure some here. What do frogs eat? Bugs? But If I use bugs as bait, I will also attract lots of fish. I decided to just go over there and piss them off. I located the running frogs who were having some kind of running race on this part of the river. I felt a bit sorry for them but I care more about my buddies than some random frogs. I started [Drowning Pulse]. Creating more water was unneeded so I would work on the part where things would actually drown. The river got rowdy but the frogs had no issues continuing their race in this environment. I was quite impressed. This was some good practice. Imagine if these frogs were real enemies, my attempts of drowning them would have failed and they might have been able to injure me or my allies. I tried to create waves that would swallow the frogs but they could identify which parts of the water were the safest. I tried to create currents to pull them under but they just jumped over them…

Of course, they can jump they are frogs, what was I thinking? I need something they can’t jump over to. Do I need to create something similar to [Sink]? But it's hard to sink living creatures because water is denser… I need something else. I got some frogs to slip and faceplant on the water surface but they didn't sink. What if I mess with the surface? I harassed the frogs for half an hour before I saw the results. I managed to create a technique that puts anything on the water's surface below it. I called it [Surface flip], from there on I could pull them under with currents and increase the volume of water above them. I didn’t harm any frogs, I returned them to the surface with another [Surface flip] when they were close to drowning. They seemed wary and were scanning where this all came from. I threw some small fish at them as thanks and went back to my hiding spot to think. I can now flood the whole place and forcefully drown opponents. Pulling them underwater is already quite defensive. I don't think many people know how to fight underwater. Including myself… I guess I need to practice that too then. This lake doesn't seem like a good candidate. I will have to visit the ocean for this. I could however try to climb the waterfall. I looked at the enormous waterfall. It was quite intimidating. But I was happy that I found another sub goal.