A cool breeze flies through the room forcing me up. Shaken by the cold air I take a quick look around to find the source, Irina. She’s sitting on the floor meditating. Sometimes I forget that Irina is first and foremost a cultivator. It looks like she is covered in a light sweat… oh, I see, she probably finished her body-tempering techniques. Taking this chance, I go and pull out a book from a nearby bookshelf and throw it directly towards Irina’s head.

*Thunk* “Ouch, what was that for!?” Irina yells.

“Your aura was leaking out and it made the room horribly cold. Anyways it’s been a while since I last checked, so what is your current cultivation level?” I ask.

“I’m currently at the second stage middle dantian. But I’m currently struggling since I’m at a bottleneck, although once I breakthrough I should be able to reach the upper dantian.” Irina says.

“Even the ever talented Irina Icrwl can’t breakthrough to the upper dantian, so much for being a genius cultivator.” I say provocatively.

“Shut up, you couldn’t even make it to the first stage fifth valve let alone the second stage lower dantian. Miss forever stuck in the first stage.” Irina says, returning my provocation.

“Alright, that's enough joking around for now. Annette wanted me to come down to the medical bay after waking up for something called an x-ray. Not sure what that is but I’m fairly confident that it’s some kind of medical examination. You coming?” I ask.

“I guess, I’m not doing anything else now since you interrupted me earlier.” Irina says while cleaning herself up.

******

As we arrive in the medical bay we find Annette fiddling around with some kind of machine.

“ I’d say good morning but it’s nearly noon, anyways come on over your just in time. I finished setting things up and we are all ready to go on my end.” Annette says as she turns over to face us.

“So what exactly is this x-ray you want to do?” I ask.

Before answering, Annette hands me a light gown and tells me to change into it. Having been pushed to a corner of the room behind a curtain, I reluctantly begin to strip and change my clothes as Annette begins her explanation.

“To put it in simple terms I am going to use this machine here to take a look at your insides, more specifically your bone structure as well as your muscle tissue.”

Once I come out after changing, Annette directs me over to a long bench of some sorts and has me lay down on it in various positions as the machine from earlier slides around above me. After about half an hour of this Annette steps out of the room for a few minutes and comes back with a handful of photos. She explains that in her left hand are photos of my bones and her right hand are photos of several of my organs and muscles. Annette goes on to explain that currently, only my right arm, throat, and lungs have fully dragonised. I have various scratches from my gambling escapade the other day that caused the surface of my skin in those areas to dragonise. Apparently, my left eye is visibly in the process of dragonising but I have yet to notice anything in particular in regards to my sight.

“And that about does it for my report in regards to the changes to your body so far.” Annette says while I change back into my regular clothes. “So next I want to conduct a few physical tests. This should be particularly beneficial to you since we can learn just how much strength you can exert with that arm of yours. Is this okay with you?”

“That's fine. I’m also interested in finding out what I can do with this arm as well.” I say while coming out from behind the curtain.

We follow Annette over to another room, and as we enter the floor is littered with various weights.

“Let’s begin. I want you to lift each of these weights with your right arm. What I have prepared here are weights ranging from 50kg to 500kg scaling up by 50kg each.” Annette says.

“You were really prepared.” Irina mumbles after seeing the weights.

Full of regret now that I’ve agreed to this I slowly stagger off to the first weight and begin to lift each one.

After I reach 250kg I begin to take short breaks in between each lift and I begin to struggle at the 400kg weight.

“Seems like you won’t be able to lift past 400kg so we can stop here for weight lifting. Next, I have something I want you to punch with full strength.” Annette says as she has a cart carrying two large slabs of metal. “This is a new experimental alloy consisting of titanium, tungsten, and mythril. In addition to testing the force of your punch, we can test the strength of this new alloy.”

Annette has me set it against the wall since it is too heavy for her to move around without the cart. I take a short moment to focus my energy and release a punch with all my strength as a loud bang reverberates across the room. As I remove my fist from the alloy we all take a look to find it has little more than a few scratches and a minute dent. Annoyed that a punch with everything I’ve got hardly did anything I throw a few more punches at the alloy but with little success leaving only a few larger dents in the alloy.

“In our preliminary testing with the alloy we had one of our tanks shoot its main cannon at the alloy and it had a similar effect to your several punches, albeit to a much larger degree. Anyways from this, we can conclude that a full strength punch from you can be compared to a tanks main cannon, it is still significantly weaker. And that our new alloy is absurdly strong. Now I have one last thing I want you to try. I want you to see if you can shoot out a breath attack like a dragon since your throat is fully dragonised.” Annette says.

“…” I just stare at her whilst remaining silent.

“Don’t stare at me like I’m crazy. Just give it a few tries. If you can then, cool you got a new power. If you can’t, then whatever.” Annette says

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“Haa… fine, I’ll give it a shot at least.” I say with a sigh.

Having resigned myself to just get this over with, Annette has me move the second slab of the alloy over the previous one in front of the wall. Moving back to the opposite end of the room to the slabs of mythril alloy I prepare my attack… actually, how do I even do this. Whatever, I’ll just wing it and try and focus magic power into my throat.

*Roar* I open my mouth in an attempt to release a breath attack but the only result is a deafening roar that causes the air to shake as Annette falls to her knees while covering her ears. Irina isn’t as badly affected but gives me a sharp look of disdain. Annette picks herself up and similarly looks at me with a large frown.

“Just so you know, that wasn’t on purpose. Also, don’t point that spear at me, Irina, I’m not a dragon.” I say, slowly backing away from Irina’s spear.

“I know, I was just warning you that if you ever do that again without warning I will stab you.” Irina says while dematerialising her spear.

“Okay, so Eillim can you describe what you did there?” Annette asks.

“I gathered magic energy into my throat and lungs, then I tried to release it. But the result is, as you saw or rather heard, that load roar.” I say.

“I see… guess you can’t do it after all. That's a bit disappointing. Then with that, we are finished with the testing.” Annette says.

“Wait. I have an idea. Instead of using magic energy what about focusing your qi into your throat and lungs. A dragons breath attack is an innate ability after all, so normally it should be powered by qi, not magic energy.” Irina says.

“… You actually have a point there, Irina. I suppose it’s worth a shot.” I say.

“Qi? What’s that?” Annette asks.

“It’s like the inner power of all things. With proper use, it can enhance the body and help increase a persons magic power. I thought you would have known this already, Annette. That Stop Sign Man guy is clearly a cultivator of at least the fourth stage since he goes around on a flying sword— I mean flying stop sign.” Irina says.

“Cultivator? Fourth stage? What's this? I’m a bit lost, can you explain?” Annette asks.

“A cultivator is the common name for a person who specialises in the usage of innate abilities. This includes racial abilities as well as qi cultivation. The fourth stage refers to the fourth of nine stages or ranks of a cultivator. Each of the nine stages is further subdivided into a varying number of sub-stages. For a persons qi to interact with the outside world they need to at least be of the second stage. Normally it takes several decades to reach the second stage and Eillim hasn’t reached the second stage. Of course, if you are a genius cultivator like me it’s no problem. Anyways, Eillim normally shouldn’t be able to use her qi as an external weapon, but the dragonised lungs should be able to bypass this restriction. After all, dragons can release their breath attack before they even begin to cultivate. It’s also a part of the reason beings like dragons live for so long since they are natural cultivators. As one increases in rank, a non-immortal can increase their lifespan and some even find ways to reach a state of immortality.” Irina explains.

“I’m surprised, I had Irina pegged as an idiot. I didn’t think she could explain all that.” Annette says.

“Don’t worry, you weren’t wrong. Irina is a moron, it’s just that she really is a genius when it comes to cultivation. Now let’s give this one last shot, but using my qi this time.” I say while moving back into position for a breath attack.

I begin to focus my qi into my throat and lungs. As I focus my qi, I feel an explosive amount of power building up before it overflows and is forcefully expelled from my mouth. A beam of light is shot out from my mouth causing the air to tremble before colliding with the alloy across the room, burning a clear hole right through it before the light dissipates.

Irina just stands there nodding her head with a smug expression of satisfaction, as if she knew this was the right way to approach the situation. Meanwhile, Annette stands beside her with a dumbfounded expression. But before anyone can say anything I scream, “uuk ahts ot (fuck that’s hot!)” The heat from the beam has singed the inside of my mouth and burnt away my tongue while also cauterising it.

“HAHAHA! It’s back! That absurd way of talking, I never thought I’d hear it again.” Irina says as she nearly falls to the floor in laughter.

“Oot ap! Ou ry abin ur ouh urnd! (Shut up! You try having your mouth burned!)”

“Phft! I’m sorry I can’t understand what you saying. Haha. Have you tried speaking an actual language like a normal person?” Irina says tauntingly.

“An t, sh ard! (Can it, washboard!)”

“Hey! Don’t call me that!” Irina says.

“I nw t! Ou an undsnd at I um ayn! Et vr er nd et e eet ur ss! (I knew it! You can understand what I’m saying! Get over here and let me beat your ass!)” I shout.

“Put the argument on hold for now girls. Eillim come over here and sit down so I can examine your mouth. And Irina how in the world are you able to understand what she’s saying?” Annette asks.

“This isn’t the first time she spoke like that. A several years ago I tricked her into eating one of Rere’s super spicy lunches and the result was her talking like that for the rest of the day. She couldn’t answer anything the teacher asked her that day. I spent the whole day laughing at her, yeah that was great.” Irina says as I take a seat by Annette.

“I think I’m starting to get why she seems to get on your nerves so much, Eillim, that's got to be annoying. Anyways let’s take a look inside your mouth, bear the pain and open wide.” Annette says.

Following her instructions, I open up as she looks and pokes around inside my mouth over the next few minutes.

“Aside from the pain you’ve got, you're fine. The pain should subside in about four hours just before the meeting for our next course of action at 4:44. We want you two to attend too since the two of you together did much in regards to the Hiquahazull problem. Oh, and I’m not sure when but I’m fairly certain your tongue will grow back at some point soon, so you should try not to talk before then… it’s rather distracting.”

“Ut ts ot ey ult. Ou er da an wo ntd e oo oot a eam. (But It’s not my fault. You were the one who wanted me to shoot a beam.)”

“I know your mouth hurts, just deal with it. If it’s really that bad I can give you some pain killers later. Actually no I’m not sure I can with you missing your tongue.” Annette says.

Irina just snickers as my complaint falls on deaf ears… and I can’t even get pain killers. As we are getting ready to leave a messenger appears at the door while panting and covered in sweat.

“Why hasn’t anyone answered the intercom here? We have been trying to contact you lot for the past 10 minutes.” The messenger says.

“… oops.” Annette says. “I think the intercom system in this room got blasted away by Eillim. It should have been right behind the alloy over there.”

“Ot ey ult. (Not my fault.)” I say.

“Giving me a strange look the messenger continues, “one of our scouting units has spotted a large military force heading in our direction from East Lucia. At the request of the King and the council, we want you all to rendezvous with the Grey Knights, then head out to meet with our main force and act as reinforcements.” After finishing his message he runs off in a hurry, most likely to bring more reports around.

“You heard the man, there's a fight brewing and I want in, so lets go… what’s that look for Annette?” Irina asks.

The moment she heard the messenger call out the Grey Knights, Annette’s face has been stuck with an expression of reluctance.

“Can we just go without them?” Annette asks.

“Why? What's with the Grey Knights? Something wrong with them? They weak?” Irina asks.

With an exasperated look, Annette just sighs, “the Grey Knights are a small division consisting of only six core members and their subordinates. Individually each member is rather talented in one area or another but… well, you’ll see when you meet them. They have problems.”

With great reluctance, Annette takes Irina and I to the Grey Knight HQ before we head out. I get the feeling we should have left them behind but who listens to the mute.