The Oracle Paths

The interior of the temple was just as Jake and Lucia imagined it. Plain and spacious. There were no carpets, no tapestries, no murals, no paintings, no sculptures. Just the same stone floor, walls and ceiling, which seemed to have been carved from the same block.

As Jinlong saw them gawking, he felt quite smug inside, believing them to be in awe of the sheer magnificence of their architectural engineering and exquisite aesthetics. Among the dragons, the bigger and plainer the better. For color and shine they had their own scales to admire.

Of course, this did not apply to their treasure trove. A dragon was only respected by its peers if it was at least sleeping on its own weight in gold. Tough luck, Jinlong didn't take them to visit the 'bedroom' or Jake might have been tempted to rob the whole place.

Now that he had been set straight, the elder had become much more affable and began to tell them all sorts of trivia about the history of his race and how they had ended up in this godforsaken valley. Unprompted, he eventually turned the topic to Will.

"... By the way, I was the one who first realized Will's potential. I was on a mission to the capital to cough, enjoy the services of pleasant young ladies, when I spotted a young green dragon strolling alongside his master. At the time, I thought this dragon had been captured and enslaved. I was a little drunk and in the moment I didn't pay much attention to their relationship. So, I kidnapped the dragon and his master... It wasn't until I returned to the village and the dragon insisted that I realized I might have been mistaken.

"Of course, that wasn't enough to convince me and I let the young man rot in his cell, but I did free the dragon. A day later, Will managed to break out by messing with the guards' minds with his voice. Our Dragon King realized his talent and seeing the collusion between Will and his dragon he decided to take him under his wing and make him a Soulspeaker."

"I still don't understand how that justifies banning us from seeing him. We haven't been able to contact him for months." Lucia huffed accusingly. Since they had stepped into the temple she still hadn't sheathed her sword.

"... I'm coming to that." Jinlong smiled helplessly. "Soulspeaker is a Soul Class restricted to Dragons and a few other privileged races born of magic and blessed with an extraordinary affinity with nature. To make Will a Soulspeaker, the Dragon King decided to Dragonify him. This is a ritual that allows a human to obtain the powers of a dragon, but extremely dangerous. Although deaths are rare, the result is often neither dragon nor human."

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Jake suddenly grabbed Jinlong by the throat, lifting him into the air with one hand.

The old man's face turned red, then puffy purple, until Lucia patted his arm and whispered,

"Will probably knows what he's doing." Throwing a warning glance at the older man, she asked sweetly, "You wouldn't have forced him, would you?"

Alas, her attempt to calm things down did not have the desired effect. Instead of nodding vigorously, Jinlong looked away and a loud swallowing sound echoed in the hall.

"So you forced it... Hehe." Jake laughed ominously before suddenly shouting, "DIE!"

"STOP!"

A voice as deep and booming as a thunderclap suddenly echoed in their minds, compelling Jake to halt the execution.

"YOUR FRIEND IS FINE. JINLONG ESCORT THEM TO HIM."

"Tsk." Jake's lips twitched, but he released the old man's throat, allowing him to touch the ground again.

Massaging his sore throat, Jinlong replied loyally,

"By your will, your Excellency."

The room Will was in was not as hidden as they had imagined. After passing through a hallway and a staircase wide enough to fit two boeings side by side, they found themselves in a room as large as a concert hall.

The edges of the room were made of stone, but a gigantic pool filled with a scarlet, acidic liquid formed a basin nearing the size of a small lake. In the center of the pool, a small emerald green dragon floated on its surface, its closed eyelids twitching and quivering as if the creature was experiencing a dreadful nightmare.

Floating in the lake like a corpse, a familiar-looking young man lay a few meters away on his back, the grimacing and twitching of his face mirroring that of his dragon. Their two bodies were connected by a mysterious emerald energy flow and with his Myrtharian Eyes, Jake was able to glimpse a formation involving billions of Runes, like a spider's web woven with Will and Charizard trapped at its center.

These Runes were neither Mana Runes nor Aether Runes, and the Oracle Scan informed him that they were simply Dragon Runes. For a Rune Aetherist, the urge to immediately set about deciphering this new language was almost unbearable, but for his friend's sake he gritted his teeth and ignored his burning curiosity.

"J-Jake look up." Lucia whispered in a shaky voice.

"Hmm, what?" He muttered as he looked up from the lake.

When he gazed in the direction Lucia had pointed, his face froze. Two yellow eyes as wide as a house embedded in a head bigger than an ocean liner were silently peering at them. Despite the vastness of the room and its lake, only half of the dragon's head was visible, the rest disappearing into a long underground tunnel. If he wasn't mistaken, a cavern as large as a small town existed beneath the village.

"J-Jake and Lucia pay our respects to the Dragon King." The two Players saluted nervously.

Their power had increased greatly over the past few months, but this titanic dragon was an aberration. Next to it, the oriental dragon Sigmar had tamed was a worm. Jake refused to believe that such a creature was an ordinary native of Quanoth. And indeed, he was not disappointed.

[Dragon King Shenron (Spirit Dragon), Divine Soulspeaker lvl 128.]

Before coming here, Jake had theorized that level 100 was the maximum. At least on Quanoth. This was not an arbitrary assumption, but because each level up exponentially increased the Spirit Body's energy quantity and quality relative to previous levels. Level 90 was practically the limit for these natives under 1000 years old, while at least ten times as long would be needed to reach level 100 without any particular lucky encounter.

Hence his assessment of the dragon as an aberration. This mythical creature should not be here.

"I know you must have all sorts of questions, but since you've already met Aurae just remember that I am one of the examiners of this Ordeal. I give quests and opportunities to Players and natives that pique my interest and by watching you I kill my boredom. Incidentally, I've also had a few offspring, hehe."

When the dragon's voice echoed in the vast hall, the elder Jinlong went blank. It was as if his brain had been turned off, and he would most likely not remember a word of this conversation.

"Will?" Jake finally asked. Now that he had confirmed that the dragon did not appear to be hostile, he had regained his normal composure.

"He's fine, but his ordeal is far from over. To increase his odds of success, I first had him accept the Dragon Rider Soul Class. It allows the dragon rider and his mount to synchronize their souls and share their abilities through a blood pact. In the long run, Will will gradually become a Dragon Man, while his dragon Charizard will also become more human.

"Unfortunately, this gentle Dragonification takes several millennia so to speed up the process I have suggested another method. This lake is currently filled with the blood of my descendants and their energy feeds the Dragon Runes of a formation amplifying and speeding up the synchronization of their two souls.

"Of course, nothing is free. This forced synchronization temporarily merges their souls, blending their consciousnesses. If they lose their sense of self or resist, then they will both die, their two fused souls giving birth to a third flawed hybrid soul or exploding during their psychic clashes."

Jake and Lucia became livid as they learned what Will and Charizard were going through. Neither of them was confident that they could pull off this Dragonification.

If Will failed, it would be the end for him and they prayed that the Oracle would be able to salvage and restore their original consciousnesses.

However, if Will succeeded he would become both a Dragon Man and a Soulpeaker, finally escaping his status as cannon fodder. The former nerd would be able to use both his words and his fists to vanquish his enemies.

"How much longer before he wakes up?"

"Three to four months." The Dragon King answered honestly. "Don't worry, if he succeeds I will personally teleport him to your side. By that time, you should surely be in front of the Celestial City."