Alpha Realm (OP.MC.|Harem|NSFW)

Name: Aizel Kadashi | Age: 19 | Level: 15

Title: Bronze-rank Hunter (D+)

SE: 0 | HP: 262

Race: Crimson Were-Dragon

Bonded Souls: Lisa Kadashi

"Are you two ready to move on?" Aizel asked

"Yes. Sir!" Vanessa did a playful salute.

"Are we not going to talk about what you did?" Lisa asked.

"What part?"

"You used System Talk as if it were a spell. Somehow, it worked. I can see it gave you a new skill—a new complex! Skill! And a point in Soul Energy that didn't even last a blink before going to your HP." Lisa said with narrowed eyes.

"I will explain the SE moving thing when we make camp," Aizel replied. "I don't know what to tell you about the rest."

"Hey! You said you would not use your skill to read other people's system! And that you needed to chant." Vanessa reproached the Angel.

"No, I implied, that I would not read - your - system. And no, I can't use the skill without chanting, but the weird version (Bind) that we have lets us see our systems at all times. If what happened is not enough to convince you that this guy here is an anomaly, I do not know what will." Lisa said.

"So. Can we go now? Vanessa does not have night vision."

"Sight." Said Lisa.

"What?" Asked Aizel.

"It's called Night Sight, and we don't have it either. Yours are Dragon Eyes, and mine are Aura Eyes. They are more efficient than the mortal race's Night Sight." Lisa explained.

"Why do you know so much about dragons?" Aizel asked.

Both girls reddened and turned away.

"You said you read—"

Vanessa interrupted him. "We are losing light by the moment! Let's move!" She ordered and began walking towards their future campsite.

"Hold on! We are not leaving this to rot. Wildlife on this side of the Shield is not used to eating it."

"Heh." Aizel grinned.

"You have been leaving a trail of corpses around, haven't you? Silly Dragon." Lisa said as she crossed her arms and glared at Aizel.

"More like a few fields. But don't worry, it was past the White Shield…" He defended while scratching his stubble.

'I need a shave… with a sharp blade and a mirror; I fucking cut myself last time.'

"Yes, where there is little wildlife to consume them… Igni!" Lisa made her point by taking a wand that hidden inside her pants. A burst of flames shot from it and clashed against the goblin corpses; she kept it raised for a moment until they were well lit. Walking towards Vanessa when she was done.

"You need to teach me that one."

"As you said, we need to make camp." She replied without looking back.

'She mad… Ha!—Fuck, even that was hot…'

— — —

The walk through the forest was making the girls tense. Vanessa had never ventured north with a party so small, and she would usually have already made camp before nightfall, so it was understandable. Even knowing that it would take a stealthy monster or assassin to get close to them was not enough to give her peace. She was twitching at every little sound.

The surprising thing was that Lisa was the same. He did not understand why she was scared. Seeing how her mana pool was large, and how she could use a spell as powerful as the one she used to cremate the goblins. Plus, her senses were similar to his. It was probably her lack of experience hunting; she had gone hunting before, as a healer. But with large parties and not at night. She even was trained in some weapons-arts, as she called them.

She had a nice (Spark) clasped by an iridescent (Mana Hand) to help Vanessa walk. He wanted to investigate her little trick, but Lisa was getting payback and moving the light around when she caught his aura taking a peek at it, so he didn't push.

They took more time than planned to reach the hill he had scouted, but they finally made it with a few hours before midnight.

"So. Normally you would order either recruits, trainees, or the lowest rank to set up the tents and other stuff for the higher ones. You give them the things and make sure they don't mess up. So you can begin whatever it is you said you wanted to train, and I will prepare the camp." Vanessa explained and began to take out the stuff from all of their bags.

Aizel motioned with his head to Lisa, and they moved further away. From the small hill, they could see into the surrounding forest; it wasn’t thick like some patches north of the shield. They could see with their thermal vision everything that got too close.

'Yes, it's thermal. It's more efficient than saying: I could see through my dragon eyes, and she used her aura-whatever, when both share the trait, Lis…'

"First, a little refresher." Aizel began explaining, and Lisa stood straight with clasped hands in front of her. "Please 'manifest'… your wings." She did as instructed.

"Now use, use (Infuse)" Aizel said, and she complied. He could see her iridescent aura being drained into her wings.

"Good. That's the first issue. You don't need to (Infuse) your wings, but the air around you"

"Okay… I was told to fill my wings with mana before." Lisa defended.

"Could the person who said that fly like me?" He asked.

"No… I was just saying, sorry." She said.

"Did you fuck them?" He asked playfully.

"No! I didn't go around fucking every guy and girl that came my way, you know! I just had a few adventures. I'm not that tainted…" Her wings went down a little.

"Sorry. I will stop with that form of teasing. Let's move on." He scratched his head and apologized before continuing. "I need you to infuse a layer of air around you, around the size of a thumb, over a small section of your wings, over here…"

He reached out and touched the top of her wings; they were similar to his, but more delicate. Instead of being larger than the original, they resembled an owl's. And they felt soft to his touch.

She tensed up at his touch, and surprisingly, the feathers did too, individually, as if she had control over the individual feathers and not just the wing. But the reaction did not look voluntary; it reminded him how his scales moved around on their own in wavy patterns when he was excited, or stretched outwards while tense.

"Like this?" She said, and Aizel could see the air getting trapped on top of her wings.

"Nice, yes. Now, use that section as if it were… A lung. Or your chest. You do not want to control the surrounding air. Just that little part you are using right now, and pull the other air with your mana, as if you were inhaling it, but instead of filling up your chest, you keep going, and going, in a continuous manner." Aizel explained.

It took her some trial and error for a few minutes, but with a few pointers from Aizel on when she was doing it badly and when she was succeeding, she managed to pull air in a continuous way.

"My mana is draining fast, Aizel." She said.

"Yes, you will get better at it with practice. I barely use any HP to do what you are doing right now. It’s like walking. Little by little, your own mind finds a subconscious way to do it more efficiently." He explained. "Want me to use all your SE on mana?"

"Yes! Please do!" She happily yelled.

He waved his hand and assigned all her SE to her MP. "There, check your stats."

SE: 0 | HP: 115 | MP: 2170

"Yes!" She screamed and stopped doing the exercise, then she jumped at him and hugged him tightly. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"It's alright." He hugged her tightly by the waist, burying his face in her hair.

After a moment, he pulled back and placed his forehead on hers. She was crying tears of joy. He tapped her nose with his. Their smells were mixing and begging him to take the next step, her diamond eyes looking back into his and threatening not to let go if he took that step.

But they needed to finish working, or they might not be able to stop. She might be crazy for dragons. But even without knowing her for more than a day, he was probably crazier for the freaky angel. He tried to extort a semi-god, for her.

"Let's finish the training." He said while pushing away, but without letting go.

"Yes, please. Let's continue."

"Okay, now…" He finally let go of her and went back to instruct her. "I need you to make it so the air on this part moves faster than the one in this, then pull even more air with them; try to use the air to pull your wings up!" He continued his explanation as the surrounding air started to push down with force. Drowning out their voices.

"Can you feel your wings trying to pull you!?" He yelled.

"Yes! Yes, I can!" She happily yelled back.

"Do a hop! Not too high. Try to stay in the air longer than you would with a normal hop, then you have to stop! I need to tell you something!" He instructed her.

She did as he said. It was short-lived, but she did manage to stay in the air for a moment before coming down.

"Nice! Now, this part is more confusing. Did you feel how you floated to the side?"

"Yes… I'm tired…" She said while panting.

"Okay, we will rest after this. I need you to burn this feeling in your mind. You will do that again. But fight the instinct of trying to move around your body to control your sideways movement. You will only use your wings to float where you want; your body needs to be relaxed, as if you were standing still. Control your sideways movement only with your 'airflow.' Then move your wings around. Finally, use your body to do the most minimal of adjustments. Is that clear?"

"Relax my body, only move with the air, then wings, lastly body"

"Yes, now try to 'hover.' To float in place."

The air rushed down again. After she jumped. She was floating. It took her some trial and error, but she managed to stay in the air with more ease than Aizel did his first time.

As if her wings were better at manipulating the air delicately, seeing how she almost locked herself in place, and her feathers could move the air as they pleased. While his were better at gliding and speed.

Lisa touched down softly after hovering. Almost passing out from exhaustion.

"I~ I did it…" She said, struggling to keep standing; she removed her wings and inhaled strongly.

Aizel offered her his waterskin, and she began almost drowning as she drank it all.

"Okay, good job." He said as he retrieved his waterskin. "Let's go get dinner, and when you are rested, we will do your trial by fire."

"My what?" She asked

"Your maiden flight, not glide, flight." He said and guided her to the camp.

They walked back. Vanessa had already made the camp; she had a medium pot with some soup going, and had even brought some old logs to sit on. Aizel noticed how his tent was set up on the opposite side of Vanessa's, separated by the campfire by a modest distance. She had taken the south side that was close to the steeper part of the hill. His was on the side that was most likely to be taken by anyone or anything that tried to reach them, since it was way easier than hiking the south side.

'Smart.' He thought.

"Holy gremlin," Vanessa said once they sat down.

'Is that an albino variant?… I hope it's worth more…'

"If I hadn't heard the wind going insane from the place where you were training. I would have thought that you came back from hate-fucking her… How hard is it to fly like him!?" She asked while looking at the angel that was sweating. Getting redder than Aizel had seen her before.

"That depends…" Lisa began explaining amid deep breaths. "If you are referring to the strain… It is fucking draining… Like running from a goblin over a swamp! But. Is the first and only time that I have ever even left the ground without jumping from a high place!" She said happily.

"Breathe deeply and slowly through your nose…" Aizel instructed and inhaled as an example. "And slowly release it from your mouth… You will recover faster."

Lisa gave no argument and did as instructed.

"This is the first time I've heard that," Said Vanessa.

"I don't know why it works." Aizel Said.

"Lie…" Lisa teased.

"Fine! By breathing that way, you maintain a proper level of oxee~yen that balances your pee~heich levels, enhancing endurance and reducing fatigue, promoting recovery by using the diaphragm with a more efficient lung function that helps with oxee~yen absorption into your bloodstream."

"What, the fuck did you just say?" Vanessa asked.

"I have no idea, but he was being truthful."

"Did you put salt in that?" Aizel pointed towards the soup thing.

"No. You want to share with us?" Vanessa asked teasingly.

"Of course! That's why I bought the fucking thing! I'm never eating without salt again unless It's a life-or-death situation!"

"Yay!" Vanessa stood and went through his things, taking the salt block and scratching it over the pot.

They ate mostly in silence. Lisa was recovering, and Vanessa was not speaking much. Things became less awkward with time, but Vanessa was still recovering from the shock. She was already awkward around Lisa because she found her a little creepy. Now she was also acting weird around Aizel, but it was getting better.

He could see how her hand moved to where her scar used to be. At least even if they did not manage to cultivate a friendship with time, he would leave her with that little present.

The food was good; his earthling self would probably say it was boiled water with some meat and veggies instead of soup, but after eating in the wild for two weeks, he was having a great time. Even the hard bread tasted heavenly when damped on the soup.

"I'm not that great a cook. What are you smiling about?" Vanessa asked, also smiling at him.

"Maybe you are not, but I only ate charred deer for two weeks."

"What!? Why? You have the (Cook) skill!" Lisa said, almost yelling.

"Fuck. That. Skill." Aizel said with true hate from the depths of his heart.

"Care to explain? This is the first time I have even seen you furrow your brows." Vanessa asked with a raised brow and genuine curiosity.

"It consumes. An, absurd - unholy. Stupid! Amount of MP, aura, or HP, I'm going to use Aura for this." He threw a red (Spark) to make his point.

"Really?" Lisa asked. "The system classifies it on the basic tier, but there are entire books written on how it should be considered superior because it is so hard to get. People who have it are cared for as much as healers during expeditions and hunts."

"I can see that. It does indeed require a lot of knowledge to acquire. But that doesn't change the fact that it is fucking wasteful. Especially if you are alone in the woods and need the Mind Power or Aura to survive." Aizel explained his reasoning.

"Hm… When you look at it that way, it does make sense that he hates it." Said Vanessa, with a finger on her chin, becoming pensive.

They rested for a while, and then Aizel got up. He offered his hand to Lisa and helped her stand.

"Are you ready?" He asked.

"I'm nervous… I know I won't hit the floor, but what if I can't fly?"

"Then I'm returning you to the temple." He said playfully. And she understood that he was teasing. "Come, follow me."

They walked for a while to a place further away from the camp and their training site. Then Aizel picked up a stick and began to explain to her what was going to happen.

"Alright. It's simple. I'm going to carry you to the air, and then drop you. You will glide for a while, and when you want to gain altitude, you will use that technique I taught you."

He drew his plan in the dirt, which consisted of simple wiggly lines in the dirt that he made as he spoke. It was funny because someone without a skill or race trait to see in the dark would not see much, as it was close to midnight and the lines he made were probably lost with just the moonlight.

"Finally, you will try to hover in the Air, and I will go get you. Do not try to land. Believe it or not, that is the most dangerous part. You don’t have enough skill to break yet, and can fall from high or hit the dirt if you come in too close."

"Speaking from experience?" She asked.

"Yes! I almost fucked my spine the first time, and another time I almost lost a foot! This is not even funny. I'm actually scared to teach you that part. So we will only do that after you can gain height and save yourself."

"Okay, thanks!" She gave him a peck on the cheek and smiled at him. He was at his limit.

He picked her up in a princess carry and materialized all of his Draconian features this time; he felt like showing off. And it worked, as she yelped once when he carried her, and again as she saw his scales and horns.

"Please hurry up!" She told him.

"Focus, woman… Don't die on me."

He used his telekinesis on her with his newfound understanding of how to use (Infuse) and jumped in the air. He neglected to warn her about the wind in the air, but Lisa said that she had glided before, so he hoped she remembered that it could hurt, even with immortal race-trait eyes.

'I mean, angels are also supposed to be able to fly; she just proved that. So, I guess she must. Right?'

They reached above the clouds and could even see Vanessa cleaning the camp and getting ready to go to sleep.

"She placed her tent quite far, at the limit of what would be considered safe," Lisa asked.

"Yeah, but I doubt it will help her," Aizel replied.

Lisa looked into his eyes; she was about to give him a kiss when he dropped her like a sack of cement.

"Fuck-you!" She yelled as she fell.

Aizel kept hovering. Using (Barrier) to break the wind and (Telekinesis) to reduce his weight. The lessons he gave Lisa even allowed him to understand better how he flew himself. Seeing her practice gave him an outside perspective on how the mana moved the wind. So he was barely using HP to stay there.

'Mana, mind power, mana points, same shit.'

Lisa spread her wings and began gliding down, then slowly gained altitude. Like him, her body assumed a natural horizontal stance when flying, and she got the hang of it fast.

She flew around for a bit, even doing little amateurish tricks in between; she also materialized her wings on and off a few times. Aizel could see how her total MP rose and fell from that.

'Fuck, I did not warn her about that!' He was about to tell her when she spoke out loud, and he managed to hear her and understand her at a distance.

"I'm tired…"

"Glide in a straight line; I will catch you. Don’t remove your wings! The MP could go lower than you need to manifest them."

"Understood!"

He descended and caught up with her with ease.

Aizel got below her, flying under her and placing her tall boots on top of his used shit. Then he straightened up in the air, grabbing her by the waist. Removing her need to use MP.

"I flew! I fucking flew, ~Aizel." She happily whispered.

Her eyes were even more beautiful under the midnight moon. Like staring into a black hole that would never let him go if he fell in. However, he did not care anymore. He had waited more than a century for this moment, crossed realms, and fought an army of monsters to find her. And he would do it a thousand times over to savor her lips.

Their lips closed in on each other, and they savored the moment for a while. He was not an expert on kissing, but neither was she. She had told him that she was a promiscuous woman a few times already, but from the way she was moving, that rarely involved kissing. He doubted that she was faking it; there was no need. He did not care much about her past, and had made that clear to her, even if it stung.

He got ambitious and used his tongue, remnants of dinner still in both their mouths, nothing a burst of (Purify) would not fix.

"He-he, that tickles… I- Thanks, Aizel." She said, and resumed kissing him. "For freeing me… And everything." She said while smothering him with her lips.

After some time had passed, she must have realized that they were still high in the air and spoke.

"Not to ruin our fun… But… Wait what? How's your HP dropping so slowly!?" She said. After peeking into his stats.

"You will get better at it. I have a lot of tricks that I have not shown you. Look at my aura." He said.

"You have… Two, no, three skills active!?"

"(Barrier) breaks down the air surrounding us so it doesn't smash onto us from the sides. (Telekinesis) reduces our weight. Both help (Infuse) to move less air than needed. I even have some Ideas to use (Condensate) to order the air around even more by temperature alone… And my wings are fucking huge."

"W~What else is huge?" She said in a sultry tone.

"I thought you would never ask." He replied with a growl.

"I've been implying that I wanted to know for a while now." She furrowed her brows.

He did not answer her and carried them to the training site. She undid her wings, and he returned to his most human side.

They walked for a bit and reached the camp.

"How did it go?" Vanessa asked them.

"I can fly!" She threw her arms in the air and hugged Aizel.

"Well, it's midnight; do we… go to sleep now?"

"Sure, get some sleep. We will begin walking late in the morning; we’ll be doing most of our work at night, so let's try and move our sleeping schedule little by little. It will be harder because we will have to adapt to the incoming party's sleep schedule again after we find them, but we will make more money this way…" Aizel explained.

"I can deal with that. You are good at leading the party even if you said you needed me for experience." Vanessa said as she began to pack her things.

"Thanks, but we won't know what I don't know. Until we travel some more." He replied.

"Fair… good night." She said and went towards her tent.

"So~ what now. Master?" Lisa asked in that seductress tone she could assume at will.

"Get comfortable in the tent; I still need to increase my SE."

"If it wasn't because you said something outlandish. I would hit you right now! Can I see?"

"Sure, I mean there's nothing much to see anyway."

Aizel began to use his skill re-acquisition routine. This time, he re-acquired (Telekinesis) and (Condensate) four times each; his souls began to strain. He would have to do that four more times, and again for three days straight to reach his record, but he already used a lot of HP and was planning on using the rest later.

"What. The actual. Fuck?" Lisa stared at him as she probably saw his stat increase one point at a time, to eight, in less than a minute. Just to be back to zero and his HP to increase by the same amount.

"That was my reaction when I first found out."

"W- How? Can I do that? I know I just learned something that not even my father can do, but… And I probably sound like a fucking greedy bitch… B-But. I still want to know…"

"And I will try to teach you." He placed a hand on her cheek to make his point. "I want my partner to be strong. So I can fight the entire world if needed, and not have to worry about her safety. But I do not know if it will work. There are two steps that might be impossible for you to do. But we will not know until we try. And we will only try once your MP is fully recovered, and we do not need it."

"What steps?"

"You know how you get an SE point each time you remove a skill?"

"Remove? No… I have never done that. Why would you remove a skill? Isn't SE needed to acquire one to begin with?"

"It isn't; I think it makes it easier to do so. But I haven't tried that, because I did not need to."

"So, I need to sacrifice a skill?"

"Maybe… The trick is to gain it back. It costs a lot more MP to get it back, and you need a deep understanding of the skill to do so. If you acquire the skill again with your SE at zero, then you can delete it again to get another SE. Repeat as much as possible within reason, and there, almost free strength."

"It sounds so… Simple."

"It is simple, but first, we need to know if you can remove a skill. I could also try to see if I can do it for you, because of (Bind). But I do not know if I will be able to. If we can remove it, then we need to see if you can re-acquire it. You need to choose a skill that can be lost forever in case we fail. There is a non-zero chance that we can't. But as I said, we won't be doing that today… Only when we are sure and safe. This is something I won't tell anyone else. And please do the same."

She bit her nail as she thought for a while.

Aizel removed his Pauldrons and the rest of the pieces of armor with the assistance of (Spectral Hand), placing them outside of the tent. He undid his boot straps and removed them, placing them at the base of the bedroll as he lay on top of one.

'I need to buy socks. I hope the tailor's open after we return; I also need more clothes. Order something for Lis, but in black; design some boots for shoemaker-man, maybe something like a mix between a biker's and a steel heel and toe. I need to go hunting goblins tomorrow; at least I will get more… we will get more. With Vanessa's fancy harvesting.'

The bedroll was extremely comfortable, truly a masterpiece… compared to fucking bed of sticks. This might be a world in its early medieval era, with some ooparts and artifacts 'here and there.' But since Hunting was such a big part of safety, what they could craft for hunters in the field was amazing, within reason.

Right now his equipment was all he could afford. It was not much, but judging by how it was what he paid for with only a couple of days of hunting—since he only started to hoard crystals later on, and exploded half—it was already nice.

The tent was a simple canvas stretched by folded sticks connected by a simple nail and washer, all made handmade by a smith. But the gatherers had even better tents, and the Joint Store had some crazy shit that he did not have the chance to check out.

Now that Lisa had thrown herself at him, he would use every piece of silver he came across to make their life as Hunters into a heavenly experience, as the sun and the moon demanded.

'It feels weird to use the sun and moon as deities because of my background, but it makes a lot of sense. The sun is the father, the one who provides and gives life. The moon is the keeper, the one who demands rest.

It would be perfect if what I've seen wasn't pointing towards the fact that it probably came from a heathen who changed the Y pose to a T pose of a certain game. I haven't found preachers or zealots, but I bet my salt cube that when I see them, they will say "Praise the sun" or some other meme bullshit similar to it.'

'Where is Lis? Is she getting cold feet?'