Jack had decided to fly instead of walking north, as he wasn't covering as much distance as he hoped he would, especially when he had to traverse mountain range infested with all sorts of flying critters, as he noticed recently. Most of the time they ignored the large wyvern completely, but at some point, Jack managed to acquire his first opponent in a form of bleached white pegasus, or what looked like one.
The creature Jack dubbed 'pegasus' was a classic winged horse from Greek mythology, being a pristine white horse with wings, and if he was to add any more details to it, the pegasus had a head of a very ugly horse, with bulging eyes, which were also quite big for it's size. It was quite maneuverable in the air, and very fast, maybe even faster than the Wyvern.
What Jack didn't account for, was the fact the winged pony could use air magic, as he felt something sharp tearing into his wing membrane. It was lightly protected, if at all, but at the same time, the wings, which doubled as arms, didn't have any vital organs in them, which was supposed to be a norm, but he doubted it was for demons.
The winged pony seemed to smirk at the damage it caused to the wyvern, as Jack got slightly destabilized after a sudden attack, a small time frame the pegasus used to attack the wyvern with even more spells, only this time, they harmlessly bounced off the thick scales of a pseudo dragon, at the same time, said wyvern launched a counterattack, consisting of one fireball, at the pegasus, but due to it's agility, winged horse evaded the attack with ease. What it didn't count however, was the wyvern to lunge at it, and attmpt to bite it's wing off, but that's where the difference in speed showed itself, with the pegasus evading it almost effortlessly.
Pegasus, being a smart monster it was, decided that it wouldn't be able to take on the wyvern alone, and decided to retreat. Much to Jack's annoyance, the pony was faster than him, so he did what any self respecting flying reptile would do, that is to use fire attacks at the grave offender. Casting silent [Combustion] on the pegasus, Jack noticed the lack of power it contained comparatively to the times when he used it on wildlife in the forest. What's more, the pegasus seemed to be resistant to psychokinesis abilities of Jack, or at least telekinesis, as it seemed to slip through the Jack's powers.
Growling in annoyance that his attacker was getting away, Jack decided to try and activate his
Pegasus neighed in pain and fear, as it felt the blood gushing out it's stump of a wing, with the wyvern gobbling the wing down, which led to pegasus descend, into the mountains below, but before it could do so, wyvern already pinned it down with his legs, tearing into the ponie's flesh with it's massive talons. And in the next ten seconds, the pegasus was reduced to a shriveled husk, which then disappearing into the motes of light, that were absorbed by the wyvern.
“Too much troubles for something that provides just a tiny bit amount of credits and points , just as a single belly-mouth.” Jack sighed as he looked at his increases. “Though at the same time, dungeon core is the size of a fist, and gives plenty of credits, points and even a token.” Jack sighed as he looked through his inventory, before shrugging. “Magic cores give just a handful of credits, just like demonic crystals, though crystals give a hundred or more credits, depending on the demon, and magic core of a rabbit gave me like five credits.” Jack sighed once more, as he slowly took flight once more. “I wonder how it looks when I talk as a wyvern. I don't have lips. And where the hell is my dong? Well, I am glad it doesn't dangle in the wind as I fly around, but how do these wyverns reproduce? Or relieve themselves?” Jack wondered as he flew through the mountain range. “Odd. Something is definitely wrong here.”
Before Jack could change his altitude and speed, he felt a searing pain coursing through his left wing, and a loud blast coming from the same side. Though if he was honest, it wasn't that painful, more like a surprise from getting being picked by a needle, though he had no way of assessing the damage, as it was hard to turn his head around while flying, and not that he would be able to see the exact spot that got afflicted. Though he did felt light numbness to his left arm-wing, but it quickly passed.
Most annoyingly however, the injury he suffered was an attack, that was repeated two more times before Jack could spot the culprit. It turned out to be a rather large eagle, as big as Jack in his wyvern form, he reckoned, with yellow and black feathers, as well as glowing beak, that quickly lost it's glow, in exchange for the light coming out of it, and striking Jack into his left arm-wing.
“Laser? Like magical laser?” Jack asked the eagle, as it continued flying and charging up the attack. “Explosion!” Jack shouted casting [Combustion], much to his annoyance, it didn't exactly worked like the most overpowered magic in anime, but it did give the eagle quite a fright, as it was enveloped in flames, but without the signature sound. “I hope this knockoff spell will later have bigger effect.” Jack said, as he flew towards the eagle.
Surprisingly, eagle wasn't as smart as Jack thought it might be, and instead of retreating, it flew right at the wyvern. Much to Jack's surprise however, it's melee capabilities were much higher than it's ranged ones, causing Jack a mild discomfort of having it's wing membrane pierced by the large talons. However, it only slightly damaged the wings, while causing the talons to stick, which was easily dealt with by pulling wings together and biting a massive chunk of eagle's body.
Eagle shrieked as the light pulsated from it's body, attempting to deal magical damage to Jack, which he thought looked oddly similar to a yellowish laser, but only visible and if he were to be honest, it did make the affected areas a bit numb. It didn't look like electricity however, but Jack thought that in anime, the lightning often was depicted as yellowish energy bolts, albeit with lower stopping power.
Even with a large chunk of it's body missing, the eagle was still fighting the wyvern, if now it only used it's magic to electrocute him, albeit in vain. Jack's physiology, at least in current form, rendered him highly resistant towards most forms of magic damage, and the only spot vulnerable to magic was his wing membrane, but due to the regeneration, the damage could never pile up. Not to mention Jack wasn't going to toy with his prey, but he did want to snack on it's life force. As such, the eagle was slowly losing it's vitality, and eventually it became a husk of it's former self.
“I can feel magic coming from it, for some reason?” Jack asked as he looked at the corpse of the eagle, or carcass, as people didn't like when animals were elevated to their own position, and spotted an odd mana signature, not that he knew what exactly he picked up. “Like from the rabbit, only...” Jack thought for a second, before turning into half wyvern and cutting the eagle's breast to see what was inside. “It's bigger than the one rabbit had, but why is it so, I guess it has the same principles as the loss of muscle tissue when I use siphon, though it also comes in a loss of blood, I suppose. Maybe health is not a life force? Or it's something more than life force? Need to run some tests, or get books.” Jack started mumbling under his nose as he looked at the eagle's corpse. “Whatever, shriveled meat has no actual taste as well, which might be understandable. Anyway, I need to stop talking to myself and fly further north. But first, it's better to rest a bit. Aerial combat, even if it isn't that intense, is actually taxing.”
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*
After a quick, even if it was about two hours, rest, Jack had sorted some of his inventory, and much to his surprise, most of the items were known, as shiny metal ingot, shiny blue metal ingot, alien looking herb amongst other unimpressive labels, though if he was honest, the shiny blue metal ingot looked a lot like mithril in some games. Though he was wondering if this mithril was actually aluminum, both exceptionally light metals, though one of them was real and another a myth.
The one thing that was actually different was the dungeon core. It was immediately advertised as such, just like magic core, or demon crystal, even if he didn't know if they were supposed to be them. His appraisal wasn't exceedingly useful or powerful tool, but it was a tool that he could use, even if not to it's full potential. Same went with his evil eyes, that were barely used, aside from the boost to his night, mana and whatever was considered 'life' vision. He decided it might be a good time to finally start using them at least a bit more often than previously, for one, the fight with the eagle would be much faster and easier if he were to weaken his opponent with his hex eye powers.
Another thing he did during the rest, was to see if it was possible to improve himself in the affinity area. Acquiring points was slow and tedious process, especially now that he was no longer in demond infested desert. Not that it was infested in the first place, now that he looked back. U/T-0 had much higher demon count than what he encountered during the month of travels, he even remembered that he and his men fought not one, but two masterminds during the... he couldn't remember why they fought masterminds however. Or why would some of his men start shooting eachother for no apparent reason. His head still hurt whenever he tried to recall any information about the U/T-0, and it was not like he enjoyed pain anymore.
“Huh. Now it's wuxia idiocy. Pills. Really now? Can't you assholes decide whether it's going to be a fantasy anime, a wuxia journey? Though with my guns, it's closer to science fiction. Bullshit.” Jack groaned as he looked at the purchase in the Shop.
Tier 2 Life Affinity Pill
150 SC
Provides a boost to one's affinity for life magic up until 20% of the person's potential.
Please note that SYSTEM approved boosters have no side effects, as long as the user consumes the recommended dosage or less.
“Why don't you say I need to meditate and combat whatever the pill contains, to strengthen my body and my chi, or was it qi? For fuck's sake, I... sigh. Recommended dosage?” Jack wondered why would text look differently than usual.
Affinity Pills recommended ingestion interval (System Standard Days)
Tier 1:
1 SSD
Tier 2:
1 SSD
Tier 3:
2 SSD
Tier 4:
3 SSD
Tier 5:
5 SSD
Tier 6:
8 SSD
Tier 7:
13 SSD
Tier 8:
21 SSD
Tier 9:
34 SSD
Tier 10:
55 SSD
Please note that consuming more pills than recommended might result in various side effects, ranging from mild to severe.
“So even if I have money to buy all of them, I still have to consume them... fuck, how long is one day then?” Jack asked as he started looking through system, and eventually stumbled upon a shop entry regarding clock. “... really... I need to buy a map function to get access to a clock? Well, I have it already, so, yeah, it's free.” Jack confirmed and immediately got a clock in his field of vision. “Options... one system standard day, or SSD is 30 SSH, or well, hours, which are 60 minutes, and 60 seconds respectfully. Huh. 30 days in each month, with 12 months in a year. Pretty much the same as Earth, except for day hours. I bet the devs were lazy.” Jack said to no one in particular, as he snacked on a pill and checked the time. “27:33:48." Jack said as he gulped down the pill "Well, I guess it's going to be my time to... huh. No effect, my pill didn't work at all. What a scam.” Jack said as he shook his head. “I lost one pack of rounds to it.” Jack sighed at the situation he was in, but shrugged. “Well, I can give it one day anyway.”
Unfortunately, once again, he was interrupted from his musings by a random encounter, once more it was a winged pony going by the name of pegasus, that just like it's predecessor, could use some sort of wind magic, just like the one during previous encounter. Quickly turning into a fully fledged wyvern, Jack emitted a roar at the flying hussy that dared to attack him during his resting period. It clearly didn't care about such a grievous transgression, and as such, eradication was the only option, so it would give way for the true lord of the sky, dragon. Or at the very least, dragon's distant cousin.
Quickly gaining speed and altitude, Jack was closing on to the winged pony, that now sported a horn for some unknown reason, but that was not the only difference. It's pristine white mane had spots of green and black streaks, with it's horn glowing green whenever it casted magic at Jack, and it actually hurt this time. The wind blades of the horned pony had enough force to tear through wyvern's wing membrane, letting out warm, red liquid to wash over his scales. It also neighed arrogantly at Jack, though he had qualms about how could pony neigh arrogantly.
“Oh, I will show you you fucking-” Jack couldn't finish the sentence as he felt a gust of wind aiming at his mouth, temporarily leaving him breathless. He decided not to taunt a stupid pony and instead use a bit of magic of his own, to even out the odds. With a sudden popping sound, the pony had it's right wing bloodied by the [Pressure Bomb] spell, which it didn't even register, until Jack lunged at it. With the mouth closed, the gust didn't provide much problems for breathing, as he took a deep breath before comitting to the attack, and much to the surprise of horse, it barely evaded the bite from a wyvern.
However, Jack didn't think that his bite would work, and much to the horny flier's surprise, wyvern's right wing managed to hit the injured right wing of said abomination, tearing out the feathers and hide. The pony neighed in pain as it's wing was damaged, and started to lose altitude, but Jack was not yet done. With the barely functioning right wing, the horse was an easy prey for Jack's next attacks, and as such, he lunged at it, with the fire surrounding his wings.
Horse felt the heat coming from behind it, and decided to evade the attack, simultaneously committing to a counterattack. With the powerful blast of wind, it managed to dislodge the left wing of the wyvern, and put out the flames for a few seconds, but much to it's surprise, the wyvern made a sharp turn, and smacked it with it's tail, delivering serious damage to the horse's chest. It fainted for two seconds, before managing to stabilize itself in the air, to a degree, and falling down to the mountainous terrain, in hopes of escaping the overgrown lizard. But the moment it touched the ground, it was immediately crushed under the massive weight of the said lizard.
“Do I actually gain mass during transformation?” Jack asked looking at the pony pancake under his belly, before shrugging and storing the corpse in his inventory. He hadn't eaten horse meat since his deployment in Georgia. Unfortunately, only Nico could cook it in the way that caused half of the troops salivating. Then again, after being fed nutriment bars for a week, one would gladly eat some long pork. Scratch that, he could eat a battalion of long pork now that his wyvern appetite had shown itself, even if he hated the taste.