As it turned out. Ander was justified in being cocky. He had returned on day six with enough D.E. to enhance him quite a bit. His body now radiated power like a beacon and needed to be focused.

“Alright. I’ll explain the attributes you can enhance. “Endurance, Range, Potency, and Absorption. Endurance makes your soul tougher, meaning you can channel and hold more power within. Range increases where your soul can affect and draw power, increasing how much power you naturally draw in. Potency is your skills’ effectiveness, from making fire more destructive to making healers more efficient. Absorption helps you absorb power faster and turns some of the damage you take into your own.”

“It sounds like potency and absorption are my main attributes to be enhanced. If you can, push up my endurance or range one unit for every five.

As they didn’t have numbers, Kyrion made some up and compared them to him. “Potency, twenty-five, Endurance eight, absorption Twenty-five, Range Eight.”

“So Only had sixty eight units.”

“Something like that.” Kyrion lied. There had been sixty-nine by; Ander needed that last one for the next step.

“Got it.”

“Can you now sense that power flowing around you and into your body?”

“Huh. Yes, I hadn’t noticed it before.”

“Tell it to gather around your body and attempt to shape it into whatever you wish. Preferably armor.”

Ander began to focus, and as he did this, the air began to chill as his right arm gained tiger stripes, and his hands became sharp claws. Lightning danced across the tips of his claws before gathering and condensing into a powerful ball of screeching electricity.

“Right… You can stop Ander.” Kyrion said he could sense it wasn’t, but he still had to try.

“I’ll stop…after one quick experiment,” Ander said as he calmly pointed two claws right at Kyrion. Then he proceeded to calmly focus the lightning gathered into a single condensed and quiet mass of power. One that was so well maintained that Kyrion almost forgot what it was. Then he proceeded to calmly let loose a blast of energy that let out a blinding light that shot a hundred feet outward as the bolt itself moved faster than light. A millisecond later left, and a shockwave from the sound shot Ander a mile away while destroying the ground near their location.

By the time the dust and light faded, Kyrion could be seen holding his right hand out. A series of triangular shields hand formed a barrier around him that seemed to barely hold. Layers of the triangular objects littered the ground; chunks of those had been removed. Still, aside from some visible exhaustion, Kyrion seemed unharmed. Or he did at first; only a small hole had formed in his neck where a streaked bolt hand managed to snake its way through the thorns and pass through him with disturbing ease.

“It’s a good thing we don’t have organs here.” Kyrion gathered his D.E. in that area and quickly repaired the damage.

Two minutes later, Ander jogged back toward ground zero, admiring his destruction before eyeing a seemingly uninjured Kyrion. “I bloody knew it.”

“K-knew what.” Kyrion’s voice had cracked, which was more work to do on purpose than it was by accident here.

“You wouldn’t summon me here If your didn’t have a way to defend yourself against me.”

“Oh. Yeah, I wasn’t sure but yes, I can definitely defend against your strongest attack.”

“Kyrion. You’ve known me for years. When would I start with my strongest attack when showing you what I can do?” Ander asked with a predatory gaze.

If Kyrion could sweat here, then he would be soaked. Then the sweat would evaporate into a nice smelling mist, and he’d use the cover it provided to escape with a teleport. Instead, Kyrion decided to call that bluff. No way Ander had that much power after Kyrion…

“How much of your D.E did you give me access to, for allocation.”

“About a quarter. I wanted to make sure you didn’t put everything into something like, range. I don’t know what that is but it sounds quite useless.”

“The increased range is what caused the blinding light. You stole power from the area around you to enhance that attack. Would you like to put the rest in potency? With that level of power I don’t believe I need to worry about you dying too often here.” Kyrion stretched as he decided his friend would do better, seeing the difference between their styles in person.

“No. If I’m going to get more energy then I think I should keep that ratio going forward.I do need some balance after all.”

Kyrion clicked his tongue. “Fine. Give me what you want to allocate to enhancements.”

“Right.” Ander held his right hand out.

Kyrion looked at the hand and let his ancestor take the lead as D.E. condensed inside his form as it became more distinct. His green hair could be differentiated from his pale skin. Oddly enough, his ears tapered slightly and appeared longer than normal. Almost like an elf, only something was off.

Kyrion scratched his head, coming across his horns, and squinted. “Ander. Are you an elf, by any chance?”

“No. Probably not, unless elves come from a similar ancestor. My heritige is that of a Spriggian. One of my ancestors comes from somewhere far, far away, and while we share the pointed ears. That’s where the similarities end.”

“Wait. Are they from Cecil’s world?” Kyrion asked.

“Cecil’s…Right, he’s a summoned hero or something. No, the opposite direction I believe.”

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“Your ancestor was brought here to destroy the world?” Kyrion held a hand over his mouth.

“I don’t know. What I do know is that my clan is relatively small, consisting of my two older brothers and that’s it. We all have an innate wind and darkness affinity, while our spirits add a new flavor to our powers. I don’t renenber either of my parents and I’m certain that my older bothers don’t want to talk about it.”

“Wait what!” Kyrion took a step back.

“Oh. You haven’t noticed.” Ander smirked as he created a ball of darkness in his palm before filling it with a small amount of lightning. The bolt was swallowed by the darkness, and the ball changed. From there, Ander pointed it to the right and let it fly.

Nothing happened. Well, not at first. A loud boom trailed off as the sound barrier was shattered, but nothing happened. Not until an invisible bolt struck a tree, and it exploded into splinters of wood.

“You feinted. The big blast you shot out was a feint as you shot an invisible arcing bolt first while distracting me with that blast. The light prevented me from noticing it. How long we’re you going to keep that one hidden?”

“I thought you knew. When you gave me the core for the dark lightning spirit Raijin.”

“You mean Fujin, right?”

“No. It was Raijin. Dark elemental spirits can be pathological liars, but in this case, its previous owner had both swords and got them mixed up for a few millennia which led to the spirit also forgetting its original name.”

“I’m starting to think I should have kept it.”

“Meh, it wouldn’t have suited you. But now you know of my major trump card. Now tell me, how the hell did Damian counter my invisible bolt and distraction. Even though it is a distraction, that doesn’t make it weak. But he cut through both like paper.”

Kyrion eyed his friend and shrugged. “If I tell you then you,do you intend to use that information to beat him in the one on one tournament matches?”

“No. I lost once, and don’t intend to fight him again until later if we’re lucky.”

“Sound. While your bolts do move as fast if not faster than light, Damian’s reflexes are able to act at that speed. On top of that, he also has a weird time ability, he calls it tempo, when ranged attacks enter a certain range they slow to the speed of sound and he can feel each attack as it comes. He probably heard both the shadow bolt and the lightning bolt.”

“And at their altered speed,he cut them both in half. Wait if you knew about it, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have had as much fun if I spoiled the surprise the first time it happened? Also, it’s a secret of his. If you reacted during your first bout I’m sure he’d have been mad.”

“But our first fight didn’t happen?”

“It did, and I know a trick to awaken those lost memories if you ever use that info to beat him.”

“Your powers are strange and convenient.”

“You’d think that. My main issue is I have a utility belt of powers and answers and to reach my full potential in a battle I need time to set up. Sadly most of my powers are locked until I decide to reveal who I truly am. The good news is that my fire magic is here to be trained.” Kyrion sighed.

“Kyrion, I know you’ve said you want to travel as a wandering healer. But have you put much thought into what you’ll do when you’re ready to settle down? I know there’s a girl near you, but if you want her to take you seriously then you’ll need to have a direction and image of an end goal.”

“What do you want to do, oh wise and slightly older Ander.”

“I have two years on you.”

“Not anymore, I mean, I just found out that I was actually seventeen. Although technically I was comatose for a year and or two. But I’m not the youngest anymore! My mind will finally match my body.”

“Nope. You’re still fifteen. Had you argued that you spent two years here aging, maybe, but you haven’t mentally matured much? Although you do seem a bit more balanced.”

“Yeah…” Kyrion shook his head.

“No wise comeback or counter? Maybe you did mature a little.”

“All right dragon slayer.” Kyrion rolled his eyes.

“I need to kill at least two dragons for that.”

“Dude, I can sense about twenty adolescent dragon souls in there.” Kyrion poked Ander in his stomach right above the naval.

“Kyrion. I’m a male and I’m sure Lin… Oww!”

“Ander, I believe you when you say that. I really do, but you seem to misunderstand. Your draconic energy has gathered where your large intestines should be.”

“Draconic Energy and Divine Essence. That’s a lot of D.E.”

“All the D.E. is that why you’ve been so arrogant lately? Nevermind, dragon energy is the potential absorbed after killing dragons, it is tied to your bloodline and allows you to gain power as you age.”

“So I can’t focus it.”

“Nope, everything should get better as you get older. I also think it allows you to grow taller?”

“I am ready to kill all the dragons.”

“Easy tiger. Some dragons are good. Also, age matters, if you want to kill a dragon, the older the better. There’s a big dragon we need to kill together sometime in the future. Probably.” Kyrion informed his friend.

“You’ll let me get the kill?” Ander asked hopefully.

“If you’re strong enough I’ll let you fight it alone. While I beat the demons out of my red haired uncle.”

“Do you have another uncle?”

“As far as I know, no. But my dad doesn’t talk about his family which probably means I’ll have to beat the demons out of them as well. Only I believe that they might be bald.”

“Why does it matter that he’s red haired, then?”

“Fine, while you’re fighting the dragon, I’ll be beating the demons out of the Demon Lord. Gamodren may also try to help you as he has beef.”

“Why would meat allow him to help me kill a dragon. You make it sound so easy.”

“Oh no, It won’t be. That man quickly stabbed a hole through my chest despite my durability. I was lucky that time was messed up. Although I do believe that once we reach Cecil’s tier of power, we will shoot through to the top quickly.

“We need to get the others here then as well.”

“First we need to get the others in either my domain or dungeon. I imagine that you will be able to gain D.E much more easily in the future.” Kyrion pulled out a ten-unit soul coin and tossed it to Ander.

“This is potent.”

“It’s ten units of concentrated D.E. If I die, I want you to absorb these and meditate until I can return. You haven’t caught up in terms of power as I’ve had years to gain power but you may have time.” Kyrion withdrew a sack of the potent coins and handed them over.

“So I’m strong, but even if I pierced your shield I may not have killed you.”

“Something like that.” Kyrion looked to the side. His friend needed these more than him as, in terms of D.E. allotment, Kyrion had hit a wall with 200 in every aspect. He knew he could break through to a new tier of power but suspected it would be dangerous during this trip. Ander, however, wasn’t under that scrutiny and could break past that limit, and Kyrion had an idea of how to.