Who Says I’m Not a Legitimate Adventurer?

After parting ways with Flora—

Lance returned home alone and prepared to begin tonight’s routine training.

He first performed some simple stretching exercises in the center of the courtyard as a warm-up.

As his limbs loosened, he casually glanced at the skill progress flickering across his retina.

【Dragon-Hunting Breathing Technique LV3 (916/1000)】

Maintaining a low-intensity sustained state throughout the day had only earned around seventy points of proficiency. The remaining progress had all been accumulated during high-intensity combat against monsters.

Real combat truly was humanity’s greatest teacher.

Lance quickly estimated things in his mind.

At tonight’s pace, he would probably only need a little over an hour of training to finish grinding out the final few dozen points of progress.

With practiced familiarity, he fastened those weighted restraints onto his wrists and ankles.

Then he put on the specially made vest filled with metal strips and completed several sets of simple warm-up movements to stretch his tense muscles.

After finishing these additional weighted preparations, Lance fully loosened his muscles.

Only then did he carefully take out the small glass bottle he bought from Flora.

Using his thumb to flick open the stopper, Lance tilted his head back and directly poured the dark-red gel into his mouth.

The instant the gel touched his tongue, it melted immediately.

Right afterward, he felt a scorching torrent slide down his throat straight into his abdomen before suddenly exploding inside his stomach without warning.

This horrifying burning sensation was no less intense than swallowing a mouthful of molten lava alive.

The pain caused Lance to abruptly grit his teeth, while large beads of sweat instantly appeared on his forehead.

The Aether Energy raging and burning within his body now seemed entirely dyed in glaring crimson.

Driven powerfully by the Dragon-Hunting Breathing Technique, bizarre red patterns suddenly emerged across the surface of his naked upper body.

These strange markings resembled living creatures, dimming and brightening rhythmically alongside the rise and fall of his chest.

Lance felt as though every pore in his body was spewing scorching streams of heat outward.

Recalling his monster knowledge—

Earthdrakes should merely be wingless sub-dragons. Their strength ranking should at most hover around the Excellent Rank, while the Dragon bloodline within them ought to already be extremely diluted.

He truly never expected that merely using marrow from such a low-grade sub-dragon together with several common support ingredients, combined with the formulation techniques of a high-level potion master—

could ultimately produce such an overbearing enhancement effect.

This kind of miraculous skill that turned decay into wonder caused him to heavily raise the priority ranking of Potion Master once more in his future secondary class choices.

Still, taking on a secondary class was far too distant a matter right now.

The most urgent matter at hand was first pushing his core skill into breakthrough territory.

Lance immediately widened his stance and began training.

Under the powerful support of the gel’s heat flow, he discovered that tonight’s entire training effect had undergone a qualitative leap.

The proficiency numbers on the panel were rising rapidly.

Just as he frantically sweated through the final few points of skill proficiency remaining—

a dull explosion suddenly echoed through the night sky.

He halted his movements and raised his head, hearing an extremely violent explosion coming from the northeastern corner of town.

A gigantic noise of this level was exceedingly rare within Graystone Town.

Because very few people dared directly use military alchemical explosives inside the town’s residential districts.

After all, the invisible rules of this city established extremely clear survival boundaries between residents and adventurers while allowing both sides to develop independently.

Most people living here willingly maintained those peaceful rules.

For such a disturbance to erupt now, someone had clearly been driven into a life-or-death corner and intended to drag everyone down with them.

He simply did not know who exactly caused the explosion.

However, none of those outside disturbances had anything to do with him.

Lance withdrew his distant gaze. Right now, he had to devote his complete focus to the high-level specialty he was about to obtain.

Lance resumed his fighting stance and continued swinging his heavy fists.

Very soon—

the long-awaited notification sound rang crisply within his mind.

He calmed himself once more and adjusted his breathing.

Soon, the familiar blue light screen exploded before his eyes.

【Dragon-Hunting Breathing Technique Proficiency +1, LV3 → 4】

【Strength +1, Constitution +1, Spirit +1, Perception +1】

An astonishing increase simultaneously occurred across all four basic attributes.

This elevation originating from the source of life itself violently boosted his overall strength by an entire tier.

Immediately afterward, he sharply sensed that the Aether Energy Pool within his Solar Wheel seemed to encounter immense pressure, suddenly compressing inward.

The residual medicinal power of the gel, which had continuously supplied heat flow during training, now seemed to discover an outlet. All the crimson heat streams crazily surged into that tiny Aether Energy Pool.

Then the long-awaited specialty notification appeared.

【Within the endless burning of Aether, not only were you not destroyed by the violent energy, but you successfully mastered this power.】

【You did not merely imitate the creator of this Breathing Technique, the “Hunter,” to wield power. Instead, you touched upon the ultimate hypothetical enemy of this Breathing Technique—Dragons.】

【You have obtained the Specialty: Red Dragon Metamorphosis】

——

Red Dragon Metamorphosis

Specialty Rank: Extraordinary/Legendary

Prerequisites: 【Dragon-Hunting Breathing Technique】 reaches LV4 (Mastery), Dragon-Vein Material

Specialty Effects:

1. Passive Effect: The underlying color of your soul has been forcibly mixed with the color of Dragons. In the future, upon class advancement and opening your 【Source Essence】, you will break the single-Source Essence limitation of conventional lifeforms and forcibly nurture a second exclusive Source Essence: 【Red Dragon】 (Current Status: Source Furnace unopened, locked/unviewable)

2. Active Effect: Dragon Form

You begin attempting to wield the power of ancient Dragons by explosively releasing Aether Energy in a specific manner to activate Dragon Form.

While maintaining Dragon Form, your health will continuously decrease at the horrifying rate of 2% per second. Dragon Form will automatically deactivate once health falls below 1%.

After entering Dragon Form, your flesh will temporarily undergo a 【Wyrmling】 mutation and forcibly gain the following four special enhancements: 【Minor Dragon’s Might】, 【Minor Dragon Scales】, 【Combat Stance】, 【Temporary Attributes】

——

Invincible!

Powerful!

Looking at the words on the light screen, only these two terms echoed wildly inside Lance’s mind.

The very first passive effect displayed on the panel alone already made him suck in a cold breath.

In this world, every professional who stepped through the gates of the Extraordinary would condense their exclusive 【Source Essence】 at the moment of class advancement.

Just how important was Source Essence?

It represented the entirety of a person’s existence!

All past experiences, soul characteristics, and bodily power would ultimately integrate into that single core.

It symbolized the most fundamental and distinct essence of a professional.

Yet now, this specialty had forcefully shattered the common laws of the material world and independently opened a second unknown Source Essence slot beyond the framework of his base template.

And its name was 【Red Dragon】.

Merely looking at those three words conveyed an overwhelming pressure rushing directly at him.

Lance even suspected that the ordinary Source Essence he would eventually condense through future class advancement might not compare to this special core granted by the specialty.

Based on this first effect alone, he finally understood why this specialty could touch the Legendary Rank.