Chapter 3 – Mysterious Crystals

The wind was swirling through the trees, almost sounding like whispers. Suddenly a loud shout could be heard and a giant boom. A dust cloud was rising up from the ground.

As the dust faded a muscular figure could be seen, dreadlocks, only wearing black trousers and with a giant dragon tattoo out of white scars carved on his back. This person was obviously Drake, who was currently fighting a huge black scorpion.

The scorpion was almost triple the size of the first scorpion he fought and it had white tattoos instead of the washed out black ones. The scorpion was already in a miserable state, contrary to that the figure of Drake was almost overflowing with vigor. One could almost see an aura around him, so strong was the feeling he was releasing. He had small wounds all over his upper body but they weren’t deep. He didn’t lose much of his strangely silver-red blood. If the weak poison from the body of the scorpion wouldn’t keep the wounds open, they would’ve healed a long time ago. Luckily he always managed to avoid getting stung by the scorpion tail, because in the ten days he was fighting and observing the scorpions he had seen that every time they would sting something that creature would die instantly. Honestly he was fighting for his life. It didn’t seem like a fight for survival, because the only danger was the stinger of the scorpion and Drake could easily avoid that as long as it was only one enemy. This was, because with his new body and after the bloodline transfer he wasn’t entirely human anymore. He had much faster reflexes, a very strong instinct for danger and the strength of more then five fully trained humans. It seemed weak in comparison to the mighty Taran’Kha which gifted him with these powers, but he couldn’t fight with his full power because of the mask. And so he had to stake his all every time he would fight a creature, because this was the only way to become stronger. And he became stronger.

In the ten days he almost fought without a pause and had accumulated a lot of soul energy inside his soulsea. He also got very experienced in fighting the black scorpions and the grousers. He named the birds grousers because he would often find them fighting for the prey of other beasts, mostly scorpions. With a low roar Drake kicked the ground and catapulted himself three meters into the air. He seemed like he was flying as he flew eight meters through the air, landing on the back of the scorpion.

It looked like it was easy but in reality, Drake had to try countless times with other scorpions before, to find their weakness. The scorpions couldn’t sting in a straight line. It had something to do with their bone structure. When they stung, they always would turn a little sideways or even turn around. The back of the scorpion was the only safe place. But you had to beat the scorpion until it would become dizzy before you could jump on its back, because it could still sting up.  Drake rammed his fist in the neck of the scorpion with all of his strength and pulled it out right after he grabbed a small hard object. Then he jumped down of the back of the scorpion. A loud noise could be heard as the scorpion fell to the ground lifelessly. Drake turned around and saw the tattoos on the body the scorpion slowly fading away until they were no where to be seen. He had watched this phenomenon countless times already as he had killed almost a hundred scorpions in the past days. It was bugging him that he couldn’t find the connection between the tattoos and the crystal. He only knew that the crystal was not the soul of these creatures, but a whole different thing. It seemed like the crystal was the essence of the scorpion, the being itself. Drake implied that the creatures had no real soul only a weak shadow, which he would absorb when he killed one. “Wait…what if the crystals are similar to the blood of Cal’anar? Wouldn’t that mean that I can get power from these things?” he said and opened his hand to study the crystal in it. To his surprise the crystal was different from the almost a hundred other crystals he had stored in the Dragon God Chain. I was entirely white with a black scorpion light in it. It also was a little longer as the normal crystals.

“Strange…it seems like the stronger creatures have also stronger essence, if my guess is correct!” he thought and played a little bit with the crystal. “I wonder what would happen if I swallow one of these…?” he muttered and let a black scorpion crystal appear in his other hand. “Hmm…no too risky…what if it has poison? That  would be a fast and very unpleasant end for me…!” he thought while putting the two crystals back into the chain space.

He then started walking in a certain direction. In the ten days, he was roaming in this world he found out that he was only in a small valley right now. The beasts were fairly weak and there weren’t many different species. There seemed to be a lot more of valleys like this, some bigger some smaller. The Taran’Kha had planned everything to the smallest detail. But it never came as planned and Drake had found some individual beasts that were way stronger than the scorpions or the Grousers.  He wasn’t strong enough at the moment to fight them so he had to target the scorpions and Grousers. Unfortunately the Grousers didn’t have a crystal inside of their bodies, which seemed strange. It could be that the Grousers he met this far, were only babies and hadn’t developed any bloodcrystals. But that was just his speculation. Drake was walking very fast, as he knew the way in this small valley.  Soon he arrived at a hole in a hill. It was a small cave, which he found on the third day. It was more or less save inside it, but it seemed like there once lived a species unknown to him. There were bones on the ground and some patches of fur.

Drake went inside the cave and sat down in the middle of it. He started to think.

“What if these tattoos can be copied to myself? Could it be that I can get the power of the scorpions through this method?” Drake took one of the crystals out of the chainspace and observed it carefully. The scorpion light inside the crystal seemed alive and sometimes it moved a little. It didn’t seem like it could endanger him, but Drake wanted to be sure. Unfortunately he didn’t have an animal to test his thesis, so the only one remaining was him.

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“I believe with my strong body, I can endure it if the crystal really is poisonous as long as I don’t swallow it” he said thoughtfully and suddenly with a determined look he inserted the sharp end of the crystal inside his right forearm. A feeling rouse in his body, similar to the feeling when he drank the dragon’s blood accompanied by the flames. It was a lot less painful, but painful enough to let Drake groan a little. After some time he removed the crystal tip from his arm. He observed his forearm carefully, but strangely there was no wound. Only a black dot could be seen on the place where the crystal stuck. The black dot looked a little bit like ink.

Suddenly information streamed inside his brain. He didn’t know from where he got them but countless tattoos and tattoo arts were spinning inside of his mind. Drake got excited.

“If I can succeed in tattooing myself with the crystals of the scorpions, I would get powers wouldn’t I? I have a feeling that I have to risk it!” he said excitedly. “Before I start I have to barricade the entrance to the cave, so that nothing can disturb me!” Drake thought and quickly got up. He walked out of the cave and searched for a boulder or a stem, to block the cave.

Soon he found a big black boulder out of an unknown material. Drake just assumed it was stone and lifted it up. Unexpectedly the stone was a lot heavier as he had anticipated. He couldn’t even lift it a meter in the air. “What the…alright…well why would there be a normal stone here…what did I expect?” he muttered angrily. “I’m still going to use you, stone, and you can’t do anything against it…!” He said loudly. Everything was so different compared to his old world and he hadn’t really gotten used to it after short ten days. Slowly and accompanied by loud curses the stone was carried to the entrance of the cave. Drake crawled into the cave and, again with a lot of cursing, dragged the stone in front of the entrance.

“Pff….finally I can start…!” he said while breathing heavily. With a plump sound he sat down on the ground and started to concentrate on his breathing. After some time, his breathing became normal again and he took out all of the scorpion crystals from the chain space.

With a concentrated look he put the sharp end of the crystal on the same place he stuck it last time and slowly started to draw. At first it was like he was a feeling like he was sitting too close to a fire, but after he moved the crystal for the first time the feeling got washed away as he entered a trance like state. It was almost as if he was a fish in a giant ocean just swimming everyday not knowing how much time passed. As he was in trance the crystal moved on his arm and a mysterious feeling was suddenly present in his body. The crystal seemed to glow and move on its own. Slowly a tail formed, winding around his forearm. More and more crystals were used in the process and turned into dust, while the tail got more visible. Drake couldn’t feel anything and his gaze was locked to the tip of the crystal on his arm. Even if he wanted to look at something different he wouldn’t be able to. It was as if an ancient technique was used for the first time since ten thousand years and a sacred aura spread inside of the cave.

Finally, after an unknown time, the tail was almost completed and the only crystal left was the white one he got from the scorpion with white tattoos. Slowly his hand reached out and the white crystal floated into his hand. He moved it onto his hand and started to work on the last part of the tail: the stinger. This took a lot longer than the rest of the tattoo, as the crystal was a lot more powerful. But even if it would take countless days, Drake wouldn’t notice it in his special state. After an unknown amount of time the stinger slowly was becoming more and more complete. With a trembling hand the last stroke was drawn and the white crystal turned into dust. A ghostly green-white glow could be seen on his forearm as he finished the tattooing. Slowly Drake awakened from the trancelike state, still observing his arm, which was glowing. He carefully stroke over his arm and the glowing suddenly vanished. An unbelievably lifelike tattoo of a scorpion tail was left after the glow subsided. It looked like it could really sting, and it seemed to move a little. Suddenly a wave of exhaustion came over drake and he almost lost consciousness. He listened inside his body and to his astonishment he could see that the soulsea under his soul was almost empty. He could also see that it was refilling extremely slowly.

“It seems like I can use this power, now that I finally have a completed tattoo!” he thought. He had tried to channel the soulenergy into the dragon tattoo before but had failed. It was like there was a barrier, hindering him. Drake channelled a little bit of the remaining soul energy into the winding scorpion tail on his forearm. Unexpectedly something happened! The tattoo flashed in the ghostly green-white light again and Drake had to blink because of the bright light. When he opened his eyes again, instead of the tattoo there was a long greenish-white scorpion tail floating above his forearm. Drake moved his arm and the tail moved together with it. Drake suddenly got an idea and thought of the tail stinging into the unbelievably heavy stone, which was blocking the entrance. As soon as he thought this the sting struck fast like lightning, straight into the black stone. With a huge crashing sound the stone  turned into rubble and soon after the parts melted down into nothingness. “Holy….it seems like I struck gold!!” Drake said with an astounded laugh “And it even is poisonous…I wonder if I could resist the sting of a normal black tattooed scorpion now…?” He stopped pouring energy into the tattoo and right after the tail turned back into the black tattoo winding around his forearm.  

Drake decided to rest inside of the cave until he had full soulenergy. Basically he just went to sleep. After some time he woke up again and realized that his soulsea was only half filled.

“Well….I really want to test this new power….I think half will be enough!” he thought and stood up. He passed the destroyed rock, which was still making sizzling noises, because of the poison and stepped out of the cave.

Suddenly a loud growl could be heard and as Drake looked up the hill, a giant creature jumped down. It landed directly in front of him and roared loudly, as if it was challenging him. It was a bear, but like the other beasts, something was abnormal. It had long canines, like a saber tooth and the fur was dark red coloured, almost looking like blood. A complex tattoo was visible on its forehead and its eyes were blood red. It watched Drake with a cruel, bloodthirsty gaze and got ready to pounce onto him.

Drake was shocked at first, but after a moment he chuckled lightly and with a excited look he poured energy in his scorpion tail tattoo. With a flash, which blinded the bear for a short time, the tail appeared again, floating around Drakes arm, seeming like it had a mind of its own.

“Perfect timing!” Drake said and shot an equally cruel look to the beast, while slowly getting ready to fight.