Chapter 261 - The Dragonair System
"Me, and anyone who will inherit my will and position in the upcoming long years before invasion," Alex said before pausing as if he recalled something unpleasant.
"Since the day I have seen the vision of that dark future, I wracked my mind and finally found a glimpse of hope," he added with a calm smile over his face.
"The castle of the sky?" Arthur asked.
"In you," Alex calmly corrected him, "you will lead a grand move against those dark forces. Not only here, but everywhere your feet touched a place; making you the nemesis of the dark forces, a rogue dragonair who abandoned the long and dark history of his ancestors for the total good in the world."
Arthur was feeling uncomfortable, being seen naked like this without a single secret he could hide. However he knew this wasn\'t real, or at least this wasn\'t in the present time; this was in the past, distant past where all the people knowing his secrets will be long dead.
"Since the day I found and saw your deeds, I decided to attach the hope of our people on your path. So, I started looking for youths, exceptional ones, with many abilities and powers that they excel at; and I used a technique to make them sleep without aging inside the castle of the sky, waiting for you, waiting for their savior."
These words finally lit the light over the scheme of this old man, rendering Arthur speechless. He didn\'t know the magnitude of this man\'s words, and so he couldn\'t feel happy or excited about it. "I can\'t promise you anything," he said, trying to clear his stand here.
"I know, you are still in the process of evolving, however I can present a gift for you, something you will be very grateful to, and let\'s consider this as a down payment for our agreement."
"A gift?" Arthur asked with shining eyes. "What gift?" he demanded.
"Inside the heart of the castle lies a very unique thing, an ancient creature that once visited our world in its early steps. It lived there for tens of thousands of years, taught humans, taught us, everything we currently know. Without it we couldn\'t reach to the stage we have right now."
Arthur stayed silent for a moment, not knowing what is the relation of this creature with the gift Alex was speaking about. "Why don\'t you ask it to protect you from the invaders?" Arthur asked, as from the words of this old man he could be certain this creature was like a god to them.
"Unfortunately this creature got aged, and now it\'s in a deep slumber, a slumber that will last for a hundred thousand years," Alex sighed a long a deep sigh that gave Arthur the feeling how tired and hopeless this man was.
"In fact I can say that the slumber of our mighty creature caused the demise of our people; all lost compass, all started to act selfish, and that made us decline instead of growing up."
Arthur kept his tongue, as he knew the evil inside many people. Without a strong power to lead and unify, many would seek power and authority out of their greed.
"What\'s the relation of this creature to me? to my gift?"
"The creature is really too old, and before it went to slumber he informed us that when it wakes up, it won\'t be the same! It won\'t be able to survive on its own, so it asked us to prepare a mighty youth, someone we can entrust it to."
Alex paused here and said no more, and Arthur didn\'t know what to say. This old man was telling him that he would gift him their mightiest creature, the one mind that made all this possible. "Do you want it to be my bet?" he asked, as this was the only thing he could think of right now.
"No, it\'s not a pet. You can\'t pet it even if the two of you wanted to. This creature is so strong that your body can\'t handle it," Alex replied while shaking his head slowly.
"Then what?"
"Don\'t be this impatient, it\'s a new thing for you after all," Alex smiled as he took an orb and gave it to Arthur. "Here, I have stored what I once saw of your future," he said, and when he noticed the questioning look over Arthur he added, "just hold it and close your eyes."
Arthur took the orb, examined it. It was a slightly cool globular small orb, possibly made out of dim white glass. He held it perfectly in his fist before listening to Alex\'s instructions and closed his eyes.
The next moment a scene presented itself inside his mind. He was standing there, in the ground, surrounded by corpses of hideous monsters; monsters like the one Sara vented all her anger upon recently. Arthur then knelt on the ground, touched a corpse with his hand, and the next moment the dead corpse shook violently and a grand change occurred!
The deformed flesh full of blisters, bruises, and wounds started to change! The deformed wings repaired itself, got longer, thicker. The body covered in patches of ugly scales with many areas vacant changed, to be covered with a thick layer of skin, then thick magnificent scales started to add on.
The head of this monster changed, the tail changed, everything changed in mere minutes, like this simple touch of Arthur wasn\'t a human touch; but a god\'s touch!
"System, it\'s ready. Inject the soul in it!"
Arthur heard his own voice, not much different than the voice he had right now, while speaking to the air, like someone was already present there next to him.
And weirder than that, the body of the monster that he touched, the dead monster\'s corpse, jerked and vibrated, shook violently for brief moments before the monster opened its closed eyes, stood up with his large body, stood beside Arthur and bowed its head to him.
A dragon was standing in front of his image, kneeling his head to him, lively like it wasn\'t just a dead hideous deformed monster minutes ago!
And the image ended as Arthur opened his eyes, feeling extremely shocked inside! He transformed a dead enemy of his into a perfect loyal dragon!
"How could I do that?!!!" he asked the most stressing question in his mind right now.
"It\'s not you, it\'s the creature," Alex smiled as he replied calmly as usual. "This creature had the power to change everything, and from this vision and others I had passed by before, I could tell you this will be your future self."
Arthur glanced at the orb resting quietly in his palm before muttering:
"This creature\'s name is system?" he asked.
"No, this creature new being with you will be called a system," Alex corrected, "and don\'t ask about the system, as I don\'t know much either myself. It\'s a new brand concept, something never happened before in our world," he added, as he didn\'t want to lie to Arthur or provide him with wrong intel.
"But you know a thing or two, right?" Arthur asked, as he was sure someone with such a blessing, or a curse, would know many secrets.
"Well, I can tell you two facts that I know about," Alex said without any delay. "The creature will be linked to your soul forever; if you die he will die, if you survive, he will. Also it will provide you with a certain path, an evolution path, like you used to call in your old world; a cultivation path. This path will be unique only to you, with no one able to mimic or learn from you, and you won\'t be able to teach anyone the path."
"A cultivation path?" Arthur muttered, as he was well aware of such terms used frequently in his past world. masters would teach their disciples cultivation based on their strengths and traits, calling this unique tailored cultivation a cultivation path.
"Sure, it\'s slightly like this, but much different in the details. You will be able to experience everything on your own, and I hope one day you will be able to turn our enemies into dragons."
Arthur glanced again at the orb, recalling the shocking images of him rising the dead monster and shifting it into a lively dragon! "Will I be a cursed man who trespassed the dead and call them into this life?" he muttered softly to himself, however Alex sitting next to him perfectly heard his dejected words.
"It\'s not a cursed thing, it will be a blessing; a weapon that will make all your enemies shudder in fear out of fear," Alex paused for a moment before adding, "I saw you many times doing the same thing already, so I can be confident in my assumption and say clearly that this will be your special strength as a dragonair; a dragonair system, that was what you once called in one of my visions."
"A dragonair system?" Arthur muttered before returning the orb back to Alex as he added, "I like this name."
"Me too," Alex chuckled as he was happy his present had been well accepted by Arthur.. "Now can we speak about your own demands?" Arthur asked, as he knew Alex had gifted him this mysterious gift in exchange for something.