Free Web NovelChapter 8: Ember Breath
Consciousness returned slowly, dragging Ren up out of the dark like something pulling him through thick water.
The first thing he registered was that he felt different. Bigger. The weight of his own body settling differently against the cave floor, limbs that took up noticeably more space than they had before he’d closed his eyes.
[Evolution Complete]
[You have become: Devourer Infant Dragon]
[+10 to all stats]
[New Skills Unlocked: Devour, Inherit]
[EXP Requirement Reset]
[Current Level: 1]
Ren blinked his eyes open, the dome around him dissolving the instant the notifications finished, and looked down at himself.
"Oh," he said slowly. "Oh, hello."
He was bigger now, easily four feet from snout to tail, still small by any dragon standard that mattered but a genuine leap from the scrawny hatchling that had crashed through this cave’s ceiling. His scales had changed too, the dull matte black replaced with something that actually caught the dim light properly now, a deep glossy sheen running across his body, traced at the edges with thin lines of gold that shimmered faintly whenever he moved.
"Okay, that’s actually kind of awesome," he said, twisting to examine his own flank. "Look at me. Look at this. I’m shiny now."
He pulled up his status, eager to see the full picture.
[Status]
[Name: Ren]
[Race: Dragon — Devourer Infant Dragon]
[Level: 1]
[EXP: 0 / 200]
[Strength: 39]
[Speed: 41]
[Stamina: 41]
[Skills: Glide, Dragon Vision, Claw Strike, Ember Breath, Devour, Inherit]
"Thirty-nine, forty-one, forty-one," he read aloud, something like genuine disbelief creeping into his voice. "From one. I started this whole thing at one." He paused, eyes catching the level indicator. "Wait. Level one? Again? I just did all that climbing and you reset me back to level one?"
[Evolution requires a new foundation. Growth scaling has increased accordingly.]
"Oh, that’s just great," Ren muttered. "Love that. Love that for me."
He focused on the two new skills anyway, curiosity winning out over the irritation.
[Devour: Consume the flesh of a slain enemy to gain a guaranteed stat increase based on the strength of the consumed creature, rather than a randomized minor bonus. Stronger prey yields greater returns.]
[Inherit: Upon consuming a creature, gain a chance to permanently learn one trait, resistance, or ability native to that creature. Chance scales with the strength gap between host and prey.]
Ren stared at the two descriptions for a long moment, letting the implications properly sink in.
"So eating things isn’t just snack time anymore," he said slowly. "Eating things is, what, leveling up my entire kit permanently? Every single thing I kill is basically a loot box now?"
He let out a short laugh, equal parts disbelief and genuine excitement.
"Okay. Okay, I see why this was the smart pick. I see it now."
He flexed his claws, testing the new size and weight of his own limbs, getting a feel for a body that had shifted significantly since the last time he’d properly moved it.
Then he stilled.
The cave around him had gone quiet in a way that didn’t feel safe. Not the comfortable quiet of an empty space, but the heavy, charged quiet of something paying very close attention.
He turned slowly, Dragon Vision flaring on without him needing to consciously trigger it, and the dark tunnels leading away from his little hidden corner resolved into sharp, full detail.
His blood ran cold.
Eyes. Multiple sets of them, scattered through the tunnels at varying distances, all of them turned directly toward him, all of them very clearly drawn in by whatever the evolution had broadcast through the stone while he was unconscious.
"Oh no," Ren said, voice cracking slightly. "Oh no, no, that is a lot of eyes. That is way more eyes than I was prepared to deal with right now."
He pressed himself back against the rock behind him, mind racing, the earlier excitement over his new skills completely evaporating in the face of however many actual threats were currently closing in through the dark.
"Okay. Okay, think, think, I just woke up, I’m level one again, I don’t even know how strong these new skills actually are yet, this is bad, this is extremely bad—"
One of the shapes shifted closer, claws scraping faintly against stone somewhere down the tunnel, and Ren’s breath caught in his throat.
"This was not the plan," he whispered. "This was so far from the plan."
Movement surged out of the nearest tunnel mouth before he could spiral any further, a long dark shape uncoiling fast. Ren’s panic spiked properly as he recognized the silhouette.
Another salamander, lacking the faint orange glow the first one had carried along its spine, but no less fast, no less hungry, jaws already opening wide as it closed the distance across the chamber floor.
There was no time to think, no time to plan anything clever this time.
Pure instinct took over.
"EAT THIS!"
Ren reared back and unleashed Ember Breath without any real control over the technique, no idea what he was even doing, just raw panic translated directly into action.
Fire roared out of his mouth in a tight, crackling stream, far more controlled and far more devastating than anything he expected from a skill he’d never used before. The flame caught the salamander mid-lunge, engulfing it completely, and the creature didn’t even get the chance to scream before it simply stopped existing as anything resembling a threat.
The fire burned hot and fast, reducing the salamander to little more than smoking ash and bone in the span of a few seconds.
Ren stood there, breathing hard, smoke curling from his own nostrils, staring at the scorched patch on the cave floor where a very real threat had been standing a moment ago.
"Holy," he breathed. "Holy crap. I just, I just cooked that thing instantly."
[You have killed Cave Salamander]
[EXP Gained: 200] x10
[Level Up! You are now Level 2]
[+2 to all stats]
[Level Up! You are now Level 3]
[+2 to all stats]
[Level Up! You are now Level 4]
[+2 to all stats]
[Level Up! You are now Level 5]
[+2 to all stats]
The cascade hit fast, four level-ups stacking on top of each other in quick succession, and Ren watched the numbers climb with his mouth hanging open.
He stared at the screen, then at the smoking ash where the salamander used to be, then back at the screen again.
"Okay." A slow grin started spreading across his snout, the earlier panic fading fast, replaced by something far more dangerous. "Okay, so one breath. One single breath, and I went from level one to level five." He laughed, short and disbelieving. "This skill is busted. This skill is actually busted."
He looked back up at the remaining sets of eyes still watching him from the tunnel mouths, still advancing, clearly undeterred by what had just happened to their friend.
The fear from a few moments ago didn’t fully disappear, but it shifted, curdling into something closer to reckless excitement now that he understood exactly what he was capable of.
"Alright," Ren said, rolling his shoulders, smoke still drifting lazily from his nostrils. "Who’s next?"
