Reincarnated as the Strongest Dragon

Chapter 38: Trial By Fire I

When I woke up, the light streaming in from the window indicated that it was already around midday. Liz was still peacefully sleeping next to me.

This might throw a wrench in my plans for the day. I know I spent half the night ‘apologizing’ for yesterday’s training method, but I didn’t expect that we would both be sleeping this long. While I do agree I might have gone overboard just a little bit with the training, the results don’t lie. Even with the added rest and reduced time training caused by [Mana Exhaustion], she is still a week ahead of how long I guessed it would take for her to get the hang of everything.

“Good morning, beautiful. It’s time to get up,” I whispered as I kissed Liz on the cheek.

“Nnhg, I don’t want to. You will be mean to me again today, won't you?” she murmured, recalling yesterday’s experience.

“Don’t worry. You won't be naked today unless you take off your clothes yourself. I can’t be held accountable for your own actions,” I said, teasingly.

“Really?” She looked at me with doubtful eyes.

“Yes, really,” I smiled. “Now let’s get going; it’s already quite late.”

After our breakfast slash lunch, we left the capital. However, this time I flew in another direction.

“Are we going somewhere different today?” Liz asked, peering down at the unfamiliar landscape.

“Yeah, I thought we should spice things up a bit so it doesn’t get stale. Don’t want you to get bored,” I said with an innocent smile.

“I don’t like it when you smile like that. It’s always something bad,” Liz replied with a frown.

“That is just plain rude,” I pouted.

After forty minutes of flying, we arrived at our destination.

“Isn’t this a dungeon?” Liz asked while she looked toward the cave entrance.

“That’s correct. I thought we could do some actual combat training today.”

Liz’s eyes went wide as she turned to look at me, horror written all over her face. “You told me I didn’t have to be naked today!”

“Yes? Why would you be naked?”

“You told me yesterday that that was an option for training.”

“I said it was an option, not that we would do it,” I giggled. “You can keep your clothes on.”

“Okay,” Liz sighed in relief.

“Also, put this on,” I said and tossed the gold bracelet to Liz.

“This again?”

“Not much point if you go without it.”

“What are we going to do here?” 

“Exploring a dungeon, or rather, you are. Good luck and don't die.”

That sounded harsh. I hope she knows I would never let that happen.

“I'm going into a dungeon alone?” Liz wondered, her face filled with anxiety.

“Oh no, I will accompany you and watch, but you will fight alone.”

“But why the bracelet then?” She asked, looking at the bracelet in her hand.

“Otherwise I will take 98% of the experience just by being close to you. There is no point in me taking the credit for all your hard work,” I said with a shrug.

“Huh? Why would you get that much if I'm doing all the fighting?”

“Don’t you know how experience is distributed?”

Liz raised an eyebrow. “It’s split between nearby people depending on how much you contribute to the fight, right?”

“So that is the version humans go with in this time period? Interesting.”

“Is it wrong?”

“It’s split, but not by contribution. It depends on everyone’s level. You don’t need to do anything other than be close to the one that deals the finishing blow.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, the simplest way to explain it is if you are level ten and your friend is level five, you will get two-thirds of the experience because you have two-thirds of the combined level of everyone nearby.”

“I have always been told that it was distributed depending on your contribution,” she frowned. “But wait! That doesn’t make sense. Why are support classes generally lower level then? Everyone said it was because they use fewer spells than attackers so they got less contribution.”

“Support classes can usually join a party of people higher ranked than themselves since they can support with buffs and healing magic even when they are lower level. Isn’t it like that now?”

“It is. The people Mira usually party up with are C rank while Mira is still D rank.”

“Shouldn’t she rank up faster from doing that?”

“You get reduced points from completing quests and subjugations when you party with higher ranks than yourself.”

“And there is your answer,” I smiled.

Liz thought about it for a moment before sighing. “It would be faster if you just told me.”

“Think about it. They join a party of people that are higher level, which means they get less experience and level slower than the rest of the party. They also get reduced points and rank up slower than them. The longer this pattern repeats, the further they will be left behind. If they find a new party, it will be the same story all over again.”

“So you are saying Mira would be better off in a D rank party?”

“It depends on the party and what monsters they kill compared to the other party, but she would probably level just as fast with less risk.”

“And less money from rewards and monster materials,” Liz added.

“That’s a fair point,” I mused. “It’s interesting how humans find a new version to spread now and then. I was told that this is how it works probably 6000 years ago.”

“How do you know that it’s true?”

“Because at that time, people didn’t hide their levels and could figure it out. Something happened afterward which made people decide to keep their levels a secret.”

“Something?” 

“I don’t know, I was asleep. My guess is higher levels exploiting or discriminating against lower levels or something like that. Humans are cruel by nature.”

“Can I tell Mira about this?”

“If you want.”

“What about people at the guild?”

“I’m not going to stop you, but they might not believe you. When I woke after my sleep, I noticed that people believed you got experience evenly just for being close. I told them that it was wrong, but they didn’t believe some random stranger. In the end, I just left it alone since I didn’t care enough to try and prove it,” I shrugged.

“I guess I will just tell Mira. So just levels and close to the one that kills it?”

“That’s right.”

“But for you to take 98%...” Liz said while looking at her fingers.

“You said your level was 164 and mine is 8749 which gives me just over 98% of the combined level.”

“How did you manage to get to that level?” Liz asked, her eyes widening in amazement.

“Living for thousands of years and killing countless monsters. I also massacred an entire continent,” I replied nonchalantly, closing my eyes.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that,” Liz said, giving me a hug.

“It’s fine, now quit stalling and get in there,” I said and started pushing her toward the cave entrance.

“I’m going, I’m going. No need to push me.”

“Also, let me give you a tip since you haven’t used the spell in combat yet. Casting [Glacial Spike] on monsters that haven’t noticed you yet is a good way to ambush and possibly one-shot them. This can obviously only be done since you don’t give away your position with chants. And you won’t have any buffs this time so be careful so you don’t burn all your mana.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Liz said, stepping forward into the dungeon.

She is happily walking without a care in the world. Why am I more nervous than she is? Does she think I will save her if things go south? I absolutely will, but still. This is a B rank and above dungeon, and she is going in there solo. Should I have chosen another dungeon? Should I tell her what the difficulty ranking is? She might be overconfident otherwise? Hmm, it should be fine; I’m confident she is at least as strong as an A rank. If nothing else, she still has the necklace to keep her safe. Should I tell her about the necklace? No, it’s not something she needs to know about. People who don’t fear death make stupid decisions.

When did I make that necklace again? And why? In fact, I have more than one of them. I guess I made several since I bothered gathering the materials? Finding a void lich for the eldritch crystal required for [Death Ward Lv.10] is a chore in itself. Since it has both that and [Create Telenode], I obviously made it to protect someone, but who? Did I make it for future use? I don’t remember giving one to anyone. This is getting annoying.

We entered the dungeon, and while I was busy racking my brain trying to remember the past, Liz was already defeating monsters one after another with minimal effort using [Glacial Spike] and [Icicle]. Sometimes she had to use [Ice Barrier] when she couldn’t dodge an attack, but she never got hit. What surprised me was when a [Ice Wall] appeared, a spell I didn’t even know she could use.

Isn’t she a bit too good at maneuvering? Maybe her agility is high?

“You’re rather agile,” I commented. “Is that common for mages?”

“I don’t know how it is for other mages, but since I have mostly been solo, I had to avoid attacks from anything that got close.”

“I see.”

That sounds really useful. A high-level mage that can’t avoid attacks might face problems if their party formation crumbles. I guess being solo has its perks.

I followed Liz and picked up all the monster corpses in her path until we were halfway through the third floor. 

“I would like to take a break here. About half of my mana is gone, and I would rather play it safe while I’m alone,” She said and took out something to drink from her magic bag before sitting down on a large stone.

“That is a good idea,” I said and sat down next to her. “But half mana? I thought you would be running out about now.”

“I’m just as surprised as you are that I managed to do this much and still be roughly at half. But I’m a lot higher level since I last fought something, so I guess that makes sense. I also feel like I’m more efficient in using my spells.”

“I’m happy that the training paid off.”

Since we are sitting down here for a while I might as well update my [Note].

[Note] To-Do List:

• Register as an adventurer
  • Push my rank to SSS
• Gather funds
• Buy maps over the continent
• Get information about any possible wars or political tensions between countries
  • Kaydossa sucks
• Information about the Beast Nation
• Information about status inspect spells
• Telenode locations
• Help Liz get A rank
• Ask Chloe about the Byzan Empire

In all honesty, I think Liz is already A rank material, maybe even S. She just needs to get the points to advance, so that point is almost a done deal. Should I use the magic stone from the behemoth to create a telenode at the capital? Might be a good idea. I feel like I’m forgetting something? I really shouldn’t postpone putting things on the list.

After resting for a bit, I decided to take out some food to snack on.

I looked at Liz, happily devouring her sandwich. “Let me know if you want another one.”

“It’s fine. I wasn’t really that hungry. It was more of an old habit of eating fast. I didn’t really have a reason to take my time eating when I was alone.”

“I see, you aren’t alone now, though? You can take your time.”

“I guess I have some habits I need to get rid of.”

“You can take some time with that as well,” I smirked. “So, do you like today's lesson?”

“It’s way better than yesterday, that’s for sure,” she laughed. “I can’t remember the last time I fought something. It’s refreshing to do my ‘job’ or whatever I should call it.”

“You fought a dragon in bed last night,” I said and nudged my shoulder against hers.

“That was more like a friendly sparring match with benefits,“ Liz replied and leaned against me.

I smirked. “You know, most people don’t go into a dungeon and flirt with a dragon in the middle of a floor.”

“Most people don’t have a dragon with them to flirt with.”

“Fair enough, want to fool around while we are here?” I said, looking Liz in the eyes with an alluring gaze.

Liz gave me a look like she was seriously considering it. 

“If you have time to take that seriously, you have time to defeat monsters. Break is over,” I laughed and stood up, then took Liz’s hand and pulled her to her feet.

A sulking Liz muttered something incoherent as we continued through the dungeon.