Speed Is King

Much to the consternation of Jessica Sands and all of his ever-growing number of fans, Elliot remained underground for a full two days!

He was absolutely thrilled and mesmerized by the strange Life Energy that the moles kept bringing him.

At first he ate them as soon as they arrived. The slowly but steadily rising progress number was his main focus and a source of joy that grew directly proportional to it.

However, after a day of doing nothing but meditating and eating old bones, Elliot was suddenly struck by a thought.

“If Life Energy can level up the system, then could it have an impact on my body as well?” Elliot wondered aloud. “Hawk, what do you think?”

[Unknown Life Energy – Unable to estimate impact to human body.]

“That’s a really helpful answer, Hawk. Well done.” Elliot grumbled sarcastically.

[Acknowledged.]

Elliot sighed. If that’s the case, then he could only experiment. And if the Unknown Life Energy was so potent, then it should be pretty useful for his physical body as well.

The next time a mole brought back an old bone, Elliot told Hawk the AI that the bone isn’t for upgrading the system and gobbled it.

After a few short moments, the sensation of being alive and refreshed washed over him once more, and continued to intensify without stopping. His Fire Dragon Energy stirred strongly and began to mix with the Unknown Life Energy.

Whoosh.

The Fire Dragon Energy burst into life around his right arm and began to glow an intense orange. However, as more and more Unknown Life Energy mixed with the Fire Dragon Energy, the orange glow began to turn pink!

Elliot could instinctively feel that the temperature of the pink energy was multiple times higher than the standard Fire Dragon Energy.

“My Fire Dragon Energy is evolving! And it feels really, really good!” Elliot thought to himself.

“Ahh.” Elliot couldn’t help but moan lightly! His body was literally aflame in pleasure!

“Master! Hot! Hot! Here take this!” A mole arrived and threw a particularly large bone into the nest before escaping as fast as he could.

The other moles followed the first mole’s lead, and they began throwing the bones into the nest from a distance before escaping.

It was becoming extremely hot!

Elliot continued to pop all the ancient bones into his mouth, and he was completely enjoying the sensations of pleasure that accompanied his power up.

An hour.

Two hours passed by.

Finally, the moles stopped coming.

But Elliot didn’t really notice. He had closed his eyes, and was deeply meditating and exploring the changes that took place in his body.

For starters, all of his Fire Dragon Energy had completely changed. It was countless times denser than before, and now burned a deep shade of pink that was bordering on purple. The temperature was so hot that all of the sand found around him turned to glass!

And secondly, his Dragon Transformation had progressed.

After meditating and digesting the Red Dragon Blood Essence for so long without much progress to show for it, the infusion of the Unknown Life Energy was like a cheat code shoved into the digestion process.

The Unknown Life Energy combined with the Red Dragon Blood Essence and tripled its size. Additionally, it also made it much easier to digest. Before, Elliot was able to turn his entire right arm up to his shoulders into a powerful and fearsome looking dragon arm.

However at that moment, the transformation had spread to his back and his neck, and he could feel the powerful muscles beneath his transformed body just coiling and responding to his will with absolute grace, power and precision.

It was like he had gained control of his body for the first time!

[Fire Dragon Energy has evolved completely.]

[Please grant it a new name.]

“Wow. My power had qualitatively increased once more.” Elliot thought in satisfaction. “And this time, I acquired a power that not even the aliens understand. It’s perfect.”

“Previously, although I was a special existence on this planet, I was just an Earthling playing with special toys belonging to the aliens. I was special only in comparison to my fellow Earthlings. But now… I can even take the aliens by surprise!”

“Hawk, call it Purgatory Fire Energy.” Elliot commanded.

[Acknowledged.]

“Damn aliens. I will help you raze this planet down and complete the job you’ve started. But in return, I want YOUR planets! Your star systems!” Elliot thought to himself with great determination.

“Moles! Where are you all? I want more bones!” Elliot said in his public mindspace.

“Master! We’re around a kilometer away from you. It got too hot for us, so we couldn’t approach!” One of the moles immediately replied.

“Come back here with all the bones you’ve collected. The fire is out.” Elliot said.

Within a few minutes, twenty moles appeared before him and dumped a relatively sizeable pile of old bones in front of him.

“Very good.” Elliot nodded approvingly. “You didn’t eat any of them, I suppose?”

“NO Master, of course not! These bones make us a bit more powerful, but they don’t make us full. I prefer eating real food, thank you very much.” A mole answered him.

“Hmm. Very good. Now go and find some more.”

“There are none left within a ten kilometer radius, Master. If you want more, we have to move.”

His Purgatory Fire Energy continued to grow until it reached saturation and couldn’t grow anymore. Thereafter, he allowed the system to continue absorbing the Unknown Life Energy.

At the end of the second day, Elliot finally burst out of the ground in his human form.

His system upgrade had reached 40.2% and he needed to move to a new location to continue his search for more old bones.

However, at that moment a cold feminine voice rang out from the skies.

“Well, well, well.. I was right. The little mole is actually a human being! How exciting!”