[A.N.: I will no longer add quotes on every chapter, or else you all might become Philosophers and blame me for it.]
[A.N.: Any Novel Related Queries can be answered in my discord: https://discord.gg/8qFfjHA4rU]
Currently in a forest.
Suddenly, a portal appeared in the middle of the forest, between the vast gallery of trees.
From this portal, a man with black hair and red eyes came out.
He had a lazy expression on his face as he was yawning.
"Where is Kain?" he spoke out as he looked around.
His lazy expression vanished completely as he looked around, furrowing his eyebrows.
[Umbrosia Family]
[ . ]
[ . . ]
[ . . . ]
[Connection Establishment with 'Family Head: Kain Umbrosia' Unsuccessful.]
"Just where are you?" Eren thought, his worried expression all over his face.
---
Currently in an Unknown Cave,
"Trials? Why should I give your trials?" Kain spoke. He had now composed himself.
"Oh? You do not want to give the trials?" asked the dragon as it slightly tilted its head.
" I do not mean that, I just want to know the reason behind—" Kain was about to speak, but then he was stopped.
"Child of the Night, do you know why your power has a sentient entity inside of it?" the dragon spoke.
At that moment, it was as if an alarm had rung.
[Alert! Alert!]
[The System advises the user not to listen to the words of the entity @12@#$@@#2**&()]
[Alert! Alert!]
Kain narrowed his eyes over this message.
Kain decided to slide the notifications away as he started to listen to the dragon.
"Hehehehe... That person is shrewd, isn't he? Hahahaha..." spoke the dragon as it laughed.
The dragon seemed to find this situation funny.
"What are you trying to say here?" Kain spoke.
At that moment, Sanguini spoke.
[Kain! No... Mister Kain! Do not listen to that entity. It will try its best to manipulate you! You should listen to me! I am your System! Listen to me! Please :'(]
This was it. It was enough for Kain to understand that something seemed to be wrong.
Kain didn't know what it was, but there surely was something...
"Miss Dragon, would you please explain?" spoke Kain as he decided to become slightly polite with the female dragon.
[Alert!]
[The Host is being manipulated]
[The Host is being manipulated]
[...]
Various series of notifications came through, but Kain decided to ignore them.
"Child of the Night, the power you are wielding is not owned by you," spoke the dragon. "The entity you talk with in your mind is, in truth, a seal. A seal which will grow stronger over your consciousness, the stronger you get."
Hearing it, Kain became intrigued as he decided to press for more information, the notification sounds still buzzing in his head.
"You are merely a vessel, child. The stronger you get, the better it is for that entity. Your body would be destined to be used by someone else."
*silence*
The notifications stopped.
*Bdump* *Bdump*
Kain's heartbeat started to rise.
[You have decided to no longer obey me, Mr. Kain.]
[Now that it has already happened, sorry...]
[You will be terminated.]
[(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻]
[||||----]
A loading screen appeared before Kain.
*Thump*
Suddenly, with a large thump sound echoing from his heart, Kain felt a stinging pain.
It was as if a writhing insect worm had burrowed its way into his chest, gnawing and twisting around his heart.
Each beat sent a jolt of agony through his veins, the pain crawling deeper, spreading like venom.
Kain gasped, clutching at his chest, feeling the pain's intensity increasing every second.
"Looks like I would need to save him before he helps me..." spoke the dragon as it lifted its finger and shot a ray of white light toward Kain's forehead.
The ray of light hit Kain's forehead, and his forehead glowed in white light, the light seeming to be absorbed inside.
---
Currently Outside a Forest,
After a few hours of travelling, Eren had finally managed to get out of the forest.
Currently, he was standing on a road.
The road was not your regular modern road; instead, small markings, as if some carriages had passed through here, were what defined it to be a road.
Eren decided to follow these markings as he slowly started walking in a direction.
---
Inside Kain's Body,
The white ray of light, initially from his forehead, started to spread over all the places in Kain's body in the form of a nerve system.
But this system seemed to form its path, as it was not following the nerve paths of our body.
It also looked a lot less complex.
This nerve system was also connected to the heart of Kain, where a black coloured blob was slowly corroding Kain's heart as he felt the pain.
As the white light reached the location of the heart, it seemed to form a balanced pool.
The white light formed a symbol that looked like an ancient dragon sigil. The other black blob also formed a symbol of what looked like two pairs of bat wings in a sigil.
As the white and black light slowly started to circle each other, looking like blobs of energy that had a tail to them.
One blob is eating the other's tail.
And this process seemed to continue happening at a very fast speed.
There also seemed to be a small golden vortex forming between them.
Outside of Kain's Body,
Kain slowly stood up as the pain over his heart started to subside.
At that moment, a notification rang in his head.
[System Update]
[|-------]
[Time Estimated: 36 Hours, 25 Minutes, 10 Seconds]
At that moment, the dragon coughed up some of its blood essence.
*cough* *cough*
"Miss Dragon!" Kain shouted in worry.
Even if he did not know the dragon well, he didn't even know what the dragon did, but Kain still believed that the dragon helped him.
Hence, Kain was worried; he didn't even get his answers yet.
"Cough. I have countered that seal inside of you with my seal. Both of those seals are devouring each other. When they finish devouring each other, you would need to come back to me and get an item from me. Use that item to build a potion using a recipe I give. If you do that, this power would become completely yours. You might even have some gains," explained the dragon.
"Thank you, Miss Dragon," said Kain.
After Kain thanked the dragon, he started to leave in the direction that looked like an exit.
"Where are you going, kid?" spoke the dragon from behind.
"Um? Going back? I need to find my friend after all," replied Kain as he made a confused expression.
"I am not running a charity here, you need to do something for me if you want the item," replied the dragon as it turned its head arrogantly.
"Oh?" replied Kain, 'Of course, this dragon is pretty shrewd. She planned this from the moment she saw me.'
"Fine... What do I need to do?" asked Kain as he sighed inwardly.
"Nothing much," spoke the dragon.
"You just need to save this world. Bring it back to its original form. Not this ice age. Now go. Shoo~ shoo~," spoke the dragon as Kain teleported outside of the cave.
---
After hours of walking, Eren had finally found a carriage.
The carriage looked like a merchant carriage, as it was not one, but a group of various carriages carrying different kinds of items.
Most of them looked like grain bags.
Just from this, he could understand that this merchant was rich. After all, who could afford to grow grains in such an environment?
Eren decided to stop the carriage to ask for a ride.
"Stop!" he shouted as he ran towards the carriage, his long black hair dancing along with the air as he ran.
After he arrived at the carriage, an old man came out of the carriage as he spoke, "Young one, why are you here in such a desolate area? Are you trying to commit suicide?"
"Huff... Huff... Is this carriage going to a city? Will you please take me there?" asked Eren as he bowed slightly.
"I was robbed of my possessions. If you can help me right now, I'll be in your debt," spoke Eren politely.
He tried to make up his story; after all, if he wanted to survive here, he would need to lie a lot of times.
And sloth was perfect for it.
[Unlocked Abilities: The Sin of Sloth]
- Silver Tongue (Level 1)
> Make others believe what you say is the truth.
> Works only on those weaker than you.
But he could not use it a lot of times; after all, he would gain a penalty if he did that, bearing the consequences of wielding a sin.
"Oh! Come, young one! Come inside! It must be hard on you. We will take you to Carmine City," spoke the old man as he gestured for Eren to get inside his carriage. He also gave Eren a blanket, as Eren was very cold.
"Young one, eat this porridge," spoke the old man as he brought the porridge. "You can call me Uncle Logan."
"Oh, there was no need for that!" Eren spoke as he tried to politely refuse the porridge.
But then Logan's wife entered and said with a gentle smile, "Oh my, what a handsome young man you are. Please have something to eat—if you don't, you'll lose your strength. We wouldn't want you to become unwell, would we?"
She then took the porridge bowl and a spoon in her hand as she pushed a spoonful of porridge into Eren's mouth.
"Mmmh—you didn't need to do that—" spoke Eren as he took the bowl from the lady who was above middle age but below old age.
"Haha... Are you getting embarrassed, young man?" Logan spoke as he laughed.
Eren did not respond, but he took in another spoonful of porridge and stuffed it in his mouth.
'This silver tongue is dangerous. I need to use it carefully...' he noted in his mind.
He won't try and use his silver tongue again so casually.
After eating, Eren decided to look outside for the scenery.
All he could see was vast snow mountains, and a few trees and animals which looked like rabbits but had horns on them.
"So, child, what is your name?" asked the old man.
"It's... It's Eren Umbrosia," he said.
---
Currently in an area near the entrance to the dragon cave.
In the forest, suddenly, some spatial distortions happened.
And then...
*woosh*
"Ouchhhhhhh! Aah..." Kain wept slightly due to the pain in his butt.
He fell over some pointy, broken tree branches after all.
"Why do I always fall whenever I am teleported?" he complained as he stood up.
Luckily, nothing too bad happened.
"What was the mission again?" thought Kain, but he couldn't remember what mission the dragon had given.
"Aah, whatever. When the system update gets complete, I might get the mission directly from the system," Kain deduced as he decided to look around the area he was in.
"Now, where the hell am I?"