Way of the Devil

After being left in the magical liquid for less than five minutes, the four younglings were carried out and dumped into a clear water pool to wash away the excess magical liquid on their bodies.

One of the four younglings’ dragon skin had peeled away from the magical liquid bath. Its armpits, belly, and neck showed purplish marks where they were corroded.

There was one of them whose eyes were also dyed slightly purplish.

The benefit this corrosion brought to the two younglings was that their arcane talents were now far greater than what they had been. They were almost at the peak which dragons of their age could reach.

After washing away the excess magical liquid, they rolled about in crystalline sand to toughen up their hide and quicken its hardening.

The crystalline sand was specially made. The toughness and frictional force it would supply were calculated by the seven-colored dragons. There was no room for error.

Lu Sheng followed the required steps. He rolled about just like the other younglings and started to take his meal.

There was a cavern set aside for meals. Some live game was placed there.

There were stags, wild boars, wild wolves, and other animals, and all were tainted by concentrated magic power.

The four younglings were given the freedom to hunt their prey.

Lu Sheng familiarized himself with the youngling’s body. He quickly caught his first victim, a strong wild boar. He slashed the wild boar’s throat. The wild boar continued to struggle for a dozen minutes before all blood drained from its body, and it lay there, motionless.

The other three younglings were slightly slower, but all of them managed to catch their prey.

Then, the dragon queen herself taught them how to process their prey and finally partake in the meal.

The seven-colored dragons would only eat cooked meals. Most of their food items were similar to humans’. However, the amount they consumed was too much for them to actually have a refined process of food preparation.

The preferred cooking method was roasting the entire animal over elemental flames. Then, they would sprinkle herbs and salt over the food while it was roasting.

This sounded delicious, but the seven-colored dragons did not remove the internal organs. They ate the entire animal as was.

The days passed by.

Under the guidance of the dragon queen, the four younglings were gradually able to hunt, eat, defecate, and take care of themselves.

They could live independently if they had to.

“Alright, gather around, everyone.” Keboye summoned the three younglings who were playing. Then, he called Lu Sheng who was studying the gemstones and antiques at the side.

The four young dragons gathered around him and sat in a row as they looked at Keboye.

“As the teacher of the arcane arts for the dragons, from this day on, I, Keboye, shall instruct all of you in the basics of arcane arts. Also, I’ll be your teacher for the study of the world.”

“Study of the world?”

“Yes, study of the world.” Although Keboye was the meanest male dragon of the Seven-colored Dragon Tribe, there was no doubt that he was the most knowledgeable among them. He gained all this in exchange for the countless scars on his body and a crippled foot.

They were his most precious wealth.

“I’ll tell you more about the detailed structure of this world. Although this might result in more puzzlement about the unknown on your part, I won’t be responsible for answering every single one of your questions,” said Keboye sternly.

“Will you be teaching based on your own experiences?” asked one of the young dragons in a high-pitched voice.

“Of course. From the moment I speak, nothing I say will be a lie!” Keboye glared at that young dragon fiercely.

“Well then, we shall begin. First off, I’ll talk about the structure of the entire world,” Keboye began loudly.

“The world we live in is called the main material plane. Surrounding this main material plane are countless planar worlds. These worlds come in various sizes. The largest of them all are the representative Heavenly Realm, Abyss, Hell, and the Elemental Sea.

“The Heavenly Realm is where the beings and gods of the heavens dwell. The Abyss is where the devils and devil lords dwell. Hell is where the demons dwell.”

“What about the Elemental Sea?” Lu Sheng asked as he raised his hand. Beside their pair of colorful cicada wings, the seven-colored dragons had arms and legs as well. Hence, they could also handle menial tasks with their hands, just like the humans.

“The Elemental Sea is where countless elemental planes gather. It’s also the favorite place of the art users. It’s a place filled with countless elemental energy and mysterious, unknown beings. The more popular realm is the Four Great Elements Realm.” Keboye gave a simple introduction.

“Understood.” Lu Sheng nodded.

“If there are no more questions, I’ll go into the formal explanation of the basic construct of the Heavenly Realm…”

***

Five years passed by in the blink of an eye.

In the central regions of the continent, deep within White Jersey Mountains, where the seven-colored dragons lived in seclusion.

The four young dragons had already grown to a height of about two meters. They had sat through various classes, and had gained ample understanding of the fundamental knowledge to survive.

At the same time, throughout the past five years, Keboye had taught them the basics of elemental refining.

Mastering elemental magic was a basic skill that every seven-colored dragon had to have.

The seven-colored dragons were not particularly gifted in physical combat. What they relied on to fight was their extremely high affinities with the elements and their arcane talents.

After five years of various basic classes, the four young dragons’ bodies finally reached the stage where they started to experiment with elemental energy.

“Elemental Art is the generic term for the control over all kinds of elemental energy. The Wargod Church previously came up with a set of professional ranking standards. Although the standards were not passed on, ranked evaluations which mimicked this system have been developed.” Keboye looked on as the four young dragons started their attempts to manipulate the clay, which was mixed with various elements, before them.

This was one of his most important classes. After this, the number of classes would decrease drastically, and these young dragons would have to fend for themselves.

The seven-colored dragons had a huge store of books and enchanted items which should be enough for them to explore and experiment on their own.

One of the young dragons raised a hand, and asked, “So, what’s the use of this ranking to us?”

“Well, the other Tribes[1. You can probably safely think of them as ‘races’ instead.] categorized the Dragon Tribe into several job ranks. For example, you guys are young dragons among the Seven-colored Dragon Tribe, so your ranks wouldn’t exceed 5, but it won’t be lower than 2, either. Simply put, you can compare yourselves to a Warrior. Your current hunting and combat abilities are on par with a rank-5 Warrior’s at most, but is equivalent to a rank-2 Warrior’s at least,” Keboye explained. “In other words, you’re between a rank-5 and a rank-2. You shouldn’t underestimate a Warrior. After becoming a rank-2 Warrior, humans would possess powerful constitution which surpasses that of normal human beings. They can’t be regarded as mere mortals anymore.”

Keboye spoke frankly with assurance. He began with the basics, and slowly explained the more complex aspects of the different job ranks to the four young dragons.

After finishing about that, he went on to talk about the arcane arts.

Arcane arts were also categorized into several ranks, just like the Warrior-class. The art users were evaluated based on the rank of the art.

According to Keboye, the art users were also divided into various schools. The Elemental School was only one of them. They mastered the destructive power of the elemental energy. They were known as the evocation school.

There were also the necromancy, enchantment, summoning, and divinations schools.

The most important aspect was that using an art required them to consume their surface mental energy. The surface mental energy of a being was always constant.

Although the spent surface mind power would be automatically replenished every day, the spell stored within the mind power would be completely forgotten after the art was unleashed.

Hence, the user would have to memorize the art again.

The other young dragons might not have noticed anything, but Lu Sheng found this aspect extremely familiar.

These rules reminded Lu Sheng of a certain rule in a school of Western magic back on Earth.

What surprised him more was that the more Keboye explained, the more it resembled the art-related rules in his memory.

This was especially true regarding the fixed number of arts a user could unleash every day. The arts were activated by connecting the magic webs and subsequently unleashed.

That made an impression on him.

After Keboye’s class ended, he swiftly organized the information he obtained and pestered Keboye. He wanted Keboye to tell him everything he knew about the arts.

Soon enough, Lu Sheng gained more understanding from Keboye.

The ranks of an art user depended on the ranks of their arts and their quotas.

Young dragons such as himself who had gone through five years of elemental refining basically met the most fundamental requirements for unleashing the arts.

They could now accomplish basic elemental manipulation.

The seven-colored dragons’ outstanding elemental talents enabled them to weave the four elements into various special forms and play around with them in their palms.

Unfortunately, Keboye did not teach them about any Elemental Art. Instead, he gave them the freedom to look it up in the Library Cave and learn on their own.

After obtaining permission, the four young dragons charged into the Library Cave and picked the books of their liking to read.

There were not many options for entertainment in this world. They had been longing to get their hands on the books in the Library Cave for a long time now. The only thing that had been stopping them was their fear of the elders. Now that they had been granted permission, they were like fish put in water. They were reluctant to leave the cave as they buried themselves deep among the books.

Lu Sheng was the same. At the first opportunity he got, he located the learning materials on the arts from rank-1 to rank-9.

Although they’d been originally compiled by the humans, the seven-colored dragons had edited the contents, and they were now used as one of their basic teaching materials.

After obtaining the learning materials, Lu Sheng buried himself beneath the world of various arts and could not stop himself.

The other young dragons could still maintain their drive to learn when they just started off with fresh minds.

However, as the days went by and they were granted permission to go out, the three young dragons rejoiced as they charged out of the dragon cave. They frolicked in the periphery with wild abandon.

They were starting to forget the things they had learnt, let alone achieving progress in them.

The dragon queen did not stop them, even though she saw how they were doing.

The enjoyment of youth was also a crucial part for the young dragons to develop healthy bodies and minds.

Instead, she and the other dragon teachers were worried about Lu Sheng, who spent his waking hours devouring the books. They were worried that Lu Sheng’s self-isolation would result in unwanted influences or regrets in his future.

Hence, they frequently implored Lu Sheng to go out and play with the other young dragons.

However, Lu Sheng turned them down sternly.

Under normal circumstances, a seven-colored dragon would naturally form an organ in their body which controlled the evocation class art, fireball, at the age of 10.

When they were 50 years old, they would be able to control the fire element lower than rank-5 naturally. At the same time, they would be able to easily master the other Elemental Arts below rank-3.

This was the seven-colored dragons’ talent. They were born Elemental Grandmasters. They were born with the ability to unleash arts of rank-3 and above. They did not have to learn this. All they had to do was to grow up normally.

However, Lu Sheng was not content with that.