AN: The 3-part chapter system clearly won out, so we shall continue with that. :) I'll update again on Monday as this ends the current chapter.

Chapter 28.3: The Price of Failure

Four solid hours had passed and Blackthorne had decided that it truly was pointless to continue training at the moment. He had drawn vitality from the grassland to create mana repeatedly in a bid to use his Shadow flare spell, a spell that should have routinely increased his Mahorela Abaivonin magic skill level a few times in that amount of time.

The so-called experience acquisition penalty was worse than he had thought that it would be. Training solely for the sake of training was useless currently.

“Two days on Earth... That’s a whole damned week here. What the hell do we do for a week if leveling is going to be so slow?” Blackthorne was angry about the situation. This penalty was far worse than losing a single level and a few stats. If he can’t even increase his magic skill levels over the course of four hours then it would be completely useless. He developed those skills much faster than even most normal primary skills.

“Well...” said Blackthorne. He thought about the situation for a moment. He would not be able to level quickly, if at all, but that was not the only thing to do in this world. There was item gathering and building financial power.

Blackthorne raised up his scaly paw and then scratched his chin lightly. “Ten tokens, a good location, three members...” He rattled off a list of the things he needed to start a faction. He was short on tokens, but he had almost everything else. The only thing he currently lacked was Shara’s actual permission to use the land she had acquired as the faction headquarters, and the money to make it a level one location.

“Can’t build my strength, so let’s fill my wallet!” said the dragon. The first place he decided to go was back to visit the zombies in the cemetery. It had been the better part of two weeks in this world since he had visited them last. They should have built up their numbers a little.

The mid-morning sun shined down brightly as he waddled swiftly toward the cemetery. The leveling set back was a pain in the ass, but he had other things to do and he wanted to get started. He also needed to kill time until he could call Sonja. It would be about noon tomorrow, dream world time, before he would feel right about dragging her away from her well-deserved rest.

Factions and leveling aside, once he did call her, they had something serious to discuss. She was not a native of Earth and she had a chance to go home. Sonja could walk away. Technically, if Shara was right, they could all just say screw Earth and move here indefinitely. But that did not feel right to him. At least, it did not feel right on a permanent basis. It felt too much like running away.

“There’s a lot of bullshit going on right now.” said Blackthorne as he journeyed through the grassland. Riding some of that out in the Dream World might be the best way to do things, though it did raise a lot of existential questions.

Time passed, as it often did, and he came up on the outskirts of the cemetery. He could already see six of them milling about in the area. There were probably more. Blackthorne sat back on his haunches and tapped his chin with his foreclaw.

“No point in trying to train my skills.” The dragon nodded then raced forward. He intended to take them out as quickly as he could. Loot and souls would be all he could earn here today.

Blackthorne ran into the cemetery as fast as his cute little dragon legs could waddle. As soon as he was in range he shouted out loudly. “Hey, fresh meat!”

Every zombie in the cemetery turned toward him and began to shamble toward him with great intent. Blackthorne found their slow movements laughable, but he did not allow himself to become distracted. Instead he quickly jogged around the area a little in order to draw as many zombies together as he could.

All-in-all there were nine of them that popped up, he had been right about the ones that had gone unseen earlier. However, he could only get five of them together before his patience ran out.

He took a deep breath and drew in power from the world around him in the process. Then, as though he were trying to shout, he attempted to release his flaming ball of draconic breath fury. However, something strange occurred.

Instead of his normal breath attack, the sphere of energy began to oscillate wildly. It continued to grow in size and intensity until the ball of energy before him was larger than a basketball. Some strange draconic instinct within him kept him from panicking at this occurrence, and soon that basketball sized sphere of darkness and fire collapsed in upon itself and created a great pressure.

The zombie was only about four yards from his location by the time the pressure build-up ended and the front of the much smaller sphere erupted outward. An arcing cone of darkness and flame roared outward.

Blackthorne had intended to use his breath weapon a few times, as he could only use it a few times anyway without resting, and then transform into his human form to finish the zombies off. However, that plan had turned into the discovery that his breath weapon had greatly increased in potency since the last time it was used. Admittedly, he could not remember the last that he had used it as he focused more of his spells and physical abilities in human form.

The first zombie was hit with a cone of darkness and fire wide enough to completely engulf it. That monstrosity caught fire quickly and seemingly burned to ash before the attack even ended only a few seconds later. The two immediately behind it on either side felt the darkness and the fire just as well, though their return to death would take longer.

Screams of uncompromising pain erupted from their undead throats as they caught fire. The fourth zombie further back was not hit strongly enough to catch fire, but surprisingly it cried out as well then stumbled around and tried to very slowly flee from the area.

“When did my breath weapon get a turn undead effect?” asked Blackthorne in surprise, though the cone of effect upgraded was definitely something he was curious about as well. He watched as the burning zombies fell over sideways then simultaneously lifted one arm each and cried out to an uncaring sky. Soon, they too were nothing but ash.

“Have I used this on zombies? Is that why?” he honestly could not remember if he had used it on the undead before or not, and it was bothering him a bit.

Blackthorne waddled past the charred remains of the recently destroyed zombies. He ignored the fleeing undead monstrosity and turned to the next wave. The five oncoming undead were not under any strange effects, so he opted to use his breath weapon once again.

The dragon took a deep breath and drew in life from the world around him, though there was little to take in the cemetery. Something about that thought almost sparked a memory, but given the things that had happened recently, he just could not recall.

The sphere of energy formed again, grew greatly in size, and then collapsed in upon itself before blasting outward in a powerful cone of flame and darkness that devastated the zombies that came for him. Only two of them were caught up in the fire and burned, but the rest immediately cried out in undead panic and turned to shamble away at all possible speed.

Blackthorne tilted his scaly head to the side then snorted. There was no way that he would let them escape. He chased after the slowly fleeing group of undead. When he was within striking distance he leapt upward and flew forward with his back legs tucked beneath him. Just as he came within proper distance he slammed his legs outward and his lower body forward. His feet heavily impacted the back of the fleeing zombie and sent it flying forward.

The dragon dropped straight to the ground and immediately whipped his body and then his tail around in a powerful sweeping arc. The still standing zombie closest to him was knocked to the ground, its legs obviously broken in the attack. Blackthorne’s tail had rarely been used as anything other than a whip, but his instinctual attack had worked well indeed.

He used the exact same tactic of leap and sweep to take down the last of that trip of fleeing monsters. The dragon backed off a bit then transformed slowly into his human form. For the first time in what felt like forever, the black armored dream form appeared. Blackthorne quickly checked himself then drew a common broadsword from his bag, as his best sword might not be as effective against these creatures.

Blackthorne eyed the blade and then smiled. “Fully charged, eh?” he said, before he moved forward and quickly began stabbing and slashing at his fallen foes. The actual sword strikes did little damage, but the enchanted jolt spells embedded within did enough damage to finish two of them off. He decided to simply beat the last one to death with common sword strikes.

After finishing his foes he dropped the blade and drew out another. This one had his other spell, one he rarely used outside of simple magical training due to the amount of mana that it required and the exhaustion that generally set in after only a few casts. It had Shadow Flare embedded into it.

He eyed the blade for a moment then nodded. “Casting spells.... not bad, but this is better.” The damage potential was lower, but magical power could be used at a moment’s notice and without casting a spell.

Blackthorne checked the area and spotted the last fleeing zombie. It had not gotten far, and if he had anything to do with it the beast would go no further. The dragon in human form ran off toward the beast, enchanted blade at the ready.

He jumped up and over one of the few standing tombstones and then took three more steps before lashing out with his enchanted iron broadsword. The weapon tore into the beast’s back with great force, but despite that fury and the fact that it was spun around by the power of the attack, the weapon itself did little damage. However, the loud and fiery explosion of darkness and flame that erupted out of the monster was quite telling. The thing did not even scream. It simply dropped its jaw open then fell to the side. It died once more while it silently burned.

“Strange that it does not burn me when I use that sort of thing...” said Blackthorne thoughtfully. The fire had engulfed him as well, but he did not feel injured in the slightest. He knew that he was not safe from his own enchantments, he had once dropped a jolt enchanted sword on his foot and the result had been both painful and then an insult to his nostrils. Thankfully, he had been in town at the time and could take a bath at the inn.

“Maybe, I’m immune to indirect effects of my own magic? I should test that more...” He should test a lot of things further. At the moment, he had plenty of time to kill. After he checked the rest of the cemetery and found only two other monsters, he gathered what little loot he could find, re-enchanted his weapons with Shadow Flare then checked the sky. It was about noon, he had at least twenty four hours to kill.

“Guess I’ll go visit the mines...” said Blackthorne. He was not certain what he would find there, but if he was lucky there would be loot.

--

Edit: I needed to add this since I'm sure some will be confused about 'Shadow Flare'. During his four hours of training he DID become exhausted with only a few casts, but he was training and even one cast trains more than jolt does after many casts. He can rest up quickly. Using Shadow Flare repeatedly in a FIGHT is more dangerous as he would be weakened while fighting as he won't have as much time to rest.