Achievements made in the short span of a year.
They were certainly tremendous.
If I caught a strong villain, the growth would be even greater.
Based on that growth, I could catch an even stronger villain and achieve even greater growth.
The ‘snowball’ was still small, but it was rolling steadily.
However, the Academy was a place with such fierce competition that there were people who would retake the exam two, three, or even four times just to get in.
While D-Class was roughly the cut-off, that only applied to D-Class individuals who possessed proper combat skills.
["Do not waste time at a place like the Academy and learn from me instead. Be it weaponry or magic, there is nothing I cannot do better than a human."]
Laura’s nonchalant voice.
I wasn’t going there to learn.
She didn’t even know that, yet she said such things.
Slightly annoyed, I retorted in a sharp voice.
“You may not know this, but soon, this world will revolve around the Academy.”
["A voice full of conviction? What could someone like you possibly know?"]
I was furious at Laura for treating me like a fool.
In my excitement, I ended up saying something I shouldn’t have.
“I know the future.”
["Have you finally lost your mind? You claim to know the future, yet you struggle against trashy C-Class and D-Class villains?"]
“I’m not talking about trivial matters like that. I mean I know the grand flow. The fact that I found you right away, too... *gasp.*”
For a moment, I felt an inexplicable thumping in my heart.
“*Gasp.*”
A raging storm of mana.
The furniture and objects in the house were swept up by waves of mana possessing physical force, flying everywhere.
The Dragon Heart was throbbing.
The storm of mana gradually assumed a human form.
A giant human that seemed to touch the ceiling of the studio apartment.
No eyes, no nose, no mouth.
A figure composed purely of a mass of mana.
It was the enraged Laurakis.
["How dare you. You mean to say you toyed with the fate of the Dragonkin!"]
I couldn’t even raise my head against that overwhelming presence.
“W-wait. If I hadn’t intercepted, you would have died anyway, Laura-nim.”
["How can I believe that? There might have been a successor better than you. They might have completed my flesh and realized the resurrection of the Dragonkin by now! Do you know what resolve I came to this world with!"]
I was bewildered.
I hadn’t known she would get this angry.
She must have been quite dissatisfied with me all along.
“The one who was originally supposed to become your successor is a woman named ‘Long Tianhua.’ She is definitely stronger than me. But she falls to corruption and is abandoned by every force on Earth, eliminated as a public enemy. For your information, even though you controlled her body and fought until the moment of her death, she still died.”
The waves of mana calmed slightly.
Had her anger softened?
I needed to persuade her more.
“I am different. I know what will happen in the future, and I know how to use that knowledge to grow stronger. For you and the resurrection of the Dragonkin, I am the better choice. Since it’s come to this, please help me properly.”
[*Grrrr.*]
The storm of mana subsided.
The giant human form gradually collapsed and vanished without a trace.
All that remained was the interior of the house, utterly wrecked.
Laura asked in a flat, toneless voice.
["What do you want? What more must I do for you?"]
What I wanted.
That was obvious.
At this rate, passing the Academy entrance exam was uncertain.
I had to turn uncertainty into certainty.
“Please lend me your strength at the entrance exam tomorrow.”
I had gotten the idea from Long Tianhua, whom I had seen in the game.
The way Laura had used her body.
I would apply that.
I explained the method to her.
***
“Please make it an A-Class monster.”
“What did you just say...?”
The proctor asked again, thinking he had misheard.
Shin Noda’s overall grade was D.
Hadn’t he written that down himself?
‘But an A-Class monster?’
“I said I want to be tested against an A-Class monster.”
“This is not a place for jokes. Please take this seriously. A D-Class examinee is matched with a D-Class monster.”
The proctor inwardly scoffed that the kid had no skill yet a frivolous attitude.
But the next words from Shin Noda changed his mind.
“If I cannot defeat an A-Class monster, feel free to fail me unconditionally.”
Only then did the proctor realize he was serious.
“V-very well. If that is what you wish, I will do so. But if you cannot defeat it, I will fail you by my own authority.”
The goblin archer disintegrated.
The square particles took on a larger, sturdier form.
A height reaching 2.5 meters.
A muscular yet agile-looking body.
It was a troll.
A monster with tremendous regenerative abilities.
Even if its arms or neck were severed, it regenerated immediately.
Without its weakness, fire magic, it was extremely difficult to deal with.
The troll stood in a hunched posture, glaring at Shin Noda.
It held a shortsword in its hand, but by troll standards it was a ‘short’ sword, so to Shin Noda it looked like a longsword.
The other examinees predicted Shin Noda’s overwhelming defeat.
“A troll? It’s a monster that even A-Class heroes can’t catch if their affinity is bad.”
“Come to think of it, wasn’t that guy’s ability psychokinesis? That’s wrong. If it’s not the fire element...”
“He’s just showing off and will end up disgracing himself.”
“Since when could a mere D-Class act so arrogant?”
Shin Noda closed his eyes.
He spoke quietly, just loud enough for himself to hear.
“Laura-nim. You can’t take over my body like this.”
Laura snorted inwardly.
‘How could I do such a thing when I saw a future where I was defeated and the Dragonkin perished?’
He decided to trust Shin Noda.
When crossing over to this world, he had laid the groundwork to entice someone strong but mentally weak.
Shin Noda was the complete opposite.
There was no way he had ‘coincidentally’ entered an uninhabited cave and obtained the red gem.
As he himself claimed, unless one had seen the future and sought it out, someone like Shin Noda could never have become the successor.
["Do not worry."]
The troll began to move.
In an instant, Shin Noda’s body glowed red.
Geometric tattoos that had suddenly appeared on his skin were emitting light.
The proctor was startled.
“Th-that’s a magic tattoo?!”
Magic tattoos.
A field of research that had only just begun recently, involving tattoos that explosively increased the power of magic.
In Korea, there was no one who handled them at all, and even in the United States, which led magitech engineering, they had only just taken their first steps.
The method Shin Noda had chosen to achieve outstanding results in the comprehensive combat ability assessment.
It was to temporarily entrust his body to Laurakis.
Laurakis was a powerful being capable of using ‘Dispel’ magic even while attached to Shin Noda.
If he handed over his body to him, it was only natural that he would become far stronger.
When Laurakis first heard this plan, he opposed it.
["I refuse. Your body cannot endure it. That monkey-level brain of yours will burst the moment it begins magical calculations."]
Dragon magic was different from human magic.
Their brains were so superior that they had never optimized their calculation methods at all.
It was only natural that a human brain attempting the same could not endure it.
Shin Noda knew the solution.
“What if I have magic tattoos engraved across my entire body? Can’t I assist the calculations through the tattoos?”
["Magic tattoos are not meant for such a purpose—no, wait. If modified, it might be possible.... Hoo, what a creative thought."]
“It’s a method you use in the future.”
["I am truly beginning to feel that you have seen the future."]
“So please don’t steal my body. If I don’t intervene, this world is doomed. The resurrection of the Dragonkin will be out of the question.”
Shin Noda, having awakened the magic tattoos covering his entire body, slowly opened his eyes.
Vertically slit pupils.
The body that had accepted the dragon’s soul was changing in real time.
Skeleton, muscles, organs, talent.
Everything was transforming to match Laurakis’s soul.
The troll was more of a hunter than a warrior.
It circled around Shin Noda, who looked unusual, looking for an opening.
Laurakis thought he needed to finish this quickly.
If he delayed any longer, the flesh might be completely rewritten and reject Shin Noda’s soul.
He raised his arm toward the troll and opened his hand.
The troll judged its opponent to be a mage and immediately charged.
Not giving a mage casting time was common sense.
The shortsword was swung so fast that the examinees watching the test couldn’t even perceive it.
Shin Noda evaded it with minimal movement.
The proctor couldn’t believe his own eyes.
“Impossible. That guy has D-rank Agility?!”
Even he himself was unsure whether he could evade the troll’s attacks.
Let alone an examinee.
“That troll’s fucking fast. Anyone catch its movements?”
“How is a D-Class dodging that?”
The spectating examinees couldn’t close their mouths at the unexpected situation.
Shin Noda’s body was growing hotter.
The mana generated from the Dragon Heart flowed through the magic tattoos and produced heat.
Blood burst from his eyes, nose, and mouth.
Even with the magic tattoos assisting the calculations, it was woefully insufficient.
Laurakis realized that Shin Noda’s body was even more garbage than expected.
He had been gauging human durability based on the human bodies he had used during his past amusements.
A human body made through polymorph magic was a powerful flesh vessel capable of containing a dragon’s soul.
It was on a completely different dimension from ordinary flesh.
‘I shall have to borrow the System’s power.’
He had originally intended to incinerate it without a trace using ‘Hell Fire’ magic, but it was not feasible.
His pride was wounded, but he resolved to use a skill.
Skills registered in the System were a kind of template.
They were pre-set calculations that allowed one to use magic without knowing what magic was.
To use a computer analogy, if a regular mage was a programmer who built programs by coding line by line whenever something was needed, then an Awakener who used a status window and skills was simply running an already-made program.
In the case of using a skill, Laurakis only needed to modify it slightly.
The required calculation power was drastically reduced.
‘So this is how a psychokinesis skill works. Then I’ll amplify its power.’
Laurakis fixed his gaze on the troll.
He clenched his outstretched hand into a fist and said.
“Enough. Disappear.”
In an instant, the troll that had been fiercely attacking vanished.
The only one left inside the glass box was Shin Noda.
And.
Thud.