Chapter 9 - Wounded Pride

So there I am flying backwards and laughing at yet again surprising the literal golden boy, I crash hard into the nearby rock wall causing it to crumble and knocking the wind out of me. Within a few minutes I was able to get my breath back but the next second I looked up to see all eyes were on me with a hurt Aurum in the front.

"Look at what this little runt did to me he attacked out of nowhere and even hurt me he deserves to be punished mother, father punish him for hurting me." When I heard that I could not Laugh any harder I started to cry and gained even more confused looks from my family and an even crazier and enraged glare from Aurum. "Listen here golden boy I will not apologize nor will I accept punishment for giving you a taste of shut the hell up it makes me so happy that the so called runt can surprise you and send you flying, looks like your not as powerful as you thought."

With a roar Aurum Flapped his wings while not being able to fly he was able to use his wings to give him a significant speed boost and arrived in my face before I could even blink and with a swipe I was again sent flying this time towards a tree it was dented and I could hear a loud pop and crack. I couldn't figure out if that crack came from my body or if the tree was that damaged but after trying to stand and failing to feel anything past my waist and an unending pain wrap my whole body I figured out that this bastard broke my spine. Not being able to withstand the pain my vision started to darken and eventually go black as my consciousness left my body yet again.

"Descendant we really must stop meeting like this I am starting to get the feeling that you are not able to live up to my expectations, I will give you one last chance to get stronger I hold you to a high standard as my descendant you should not be such a pushover, Oh and if you need to ask a question I will allow you to call upon me one time before the first wave all you have to do is focus on my presence and recite the words, Ancestor Sin I beg thee to guide my way."

Again I wake up to find myself in front of a green gaseous cloud and feeling nothing but disappointment laced in that voice the pride that I was just starting to feel after finally learning some skills and even giving a little payback to my little brother was all doused by figurative cold water. "Sir I'm sorry please give me a little bit more time I swear I will get stronger as you can see I was given a great disadvantage by a mutant Shadow Eater who took my leg But I swear this will not stop me I will grow stronger and prevail over all just give me some more time please." It felt like the cloud was looking over my body and after a few minutes of increasing anxiety I finally hear the voice say. "Well I understand that it will be a bit tougher but the war of Sin is almost upon us and as my only inheritor you are tasked with growing as strong as possible, as fast as possible, now I do not understand why you have not utilized your ability as a carrier of Gluttony but you do not have the luxury of not using it now as I will have to push you. Within one week I will be sending creatures to attack you I will be gracious and make sure they are not to high powered but do not expect to breeze through this I need you to witness the power of the world, now leave and remember this is your last chance."

Waking up with sweat covering my body from the words of my Ancestor Sin I decide to put the pedal to the metal and do everything within my power to get as strong as possible. First no more wasting my time with my little sibling I will however bring Gaia with me from now on and me and him will both get stronger by ourselves and leave the others in the dust. Second I will look into using my Sin, after hearing what Ancestor said I could only guess at what that meant because the last time the Sin activated was automatically but because of how weak I was it caused me unimaginable pain.

"Look who decided to wake up, how's it going runt." I look up to find Salus watching over me with a look of annoyance in his eyes at having to look after his hurt older brother. "what are you doing here Salus why are you not with your other siblings scheming and being useless." "Watch your mouth runt I am the second strongest and I will do the same to you that Aurum did and this time before mother saves your life I will make sure your done breathing."

Feeling that in my state I have no way to defend myself from the threat, I sigh and just say fine and close my eyes and focus on my goals, figuring out what I need to do and what I can do with what I have at hand. Then while contemplating what to do I have an idea what if I used some concepts from the many novels and anime I watched back when I was human, maybe I will get lucky and learn some new skills that way. So with that in mind I try and clear my mind of any stray thoughts and after a few hours I was able to gain a few moments of mental peace, But afterwards I hear a loud blast from outside which shakes the whole cave even a wave of heat rushed over me. "Hah it looks like Aurum has taken your example and made himself stronger how does that make you feel runt, that Aurum has become even stronger using your new discoveries." With a laugh I look at Salus "I am happy he could get stronger, A King needs powerful servants." Hearing that Salus glared at me and slapped me with his claws out leaving long gashes down the side of my face that started oozing blood. "How dare you, A runt could never be a king let alone dare to think of Aurum as a mere servant I will be sure to let him know how you feel and enjoy what he does to you, mother and father will not be around to protect you forever."

With those last words he gets up and walks out towards the others, thankful he fell for it I go back to focusing on clearing my mind and a few minutes later I reach mental clarity again and from there I try and sense any sort of energy within myself, After a few minutes I finally get a faint sense that something flashed in my stomach, I then start to flex my stomach or expanding my stomach to see if something happens but after failing that I was stumped then thinking back to another novel I imagined that instead of trying to create something to appear I instead imagine that a sucking force was whirling inside of stomach and drawing in energy from outside of my body after entering a Zen like trance hours passed while doing my best to keep that image in my head. Then a sudden ding rings in my head before I feel a slight rush of something passing through the outside of my stomach and seamlessly pass through my skin and start to circulate in my stomach. excited about what happened I open my system to find a new skill aswell as a new stat.

[ Conditions have been met the stat Mental Power will now increase.]

[Conditions have been met the stat Intelligence has been granted.]

I looked at my stat page to see what has been changed and was very pleased.

(Vexsus)

Dragon hatchling (Variant)

Hp 120

"New" MP 20

Stamina 140

Int 0 -> 1

"New" Mana Manipulation 0/10 - using the energy of the universe able to create natural and unnatural phenomena.

"New" Mana Absorption 0% - While concentrating able to absorb the ambient mana around the user to restore MP.

Very satisfied with accomplishing that and even being surprised at learning such a skill as absorption right off the bat I opened my eyes as I get wide smile and a overwhelming feeling of giddiness spreads over my body, I try and jump up excited over my accomplishment only to scream in pain as half my body would not respond and I instead start to gasp for air as Pain rockets across my body origination from the middle of my back. My mom comes rushing over and after a look over my body and using a small amount of healing magic with thankfully reduces the pain down to a manageable level.

"Vexsus you have to be carefully my magic can only increase the bodies ability to heal when it comes to injuries like what you have I'm sorry my magic isn't stronger." She said all this with tears rolling down her face and I could see the look of defeat in her eyes but what she doesn't know is that with my new skills I have a few plans so I lift up my hand and rest them over hers I look straight into her eyes with a look of confidence and a wide smile I tell her. "Mother believe me this level of pain is something I do not want to endure any longer than necessary not to mention ever again, but Believe me when I say that this will not keep me down just wait in a few days with your powerful healing magic I will be up again and on my way to becoming stronger yet again, I am very thankful that you are my mother and I am very blessed at how far you have gone to help me, so please don't fret to much and just believe in your runt of a son."

She chuckled at that last part and after wiping the tears away from her eyes she said. "I will always worry about you and will do whatever is needed to make sure you are healthy and alive even if my life is required that is my job as your mother, so you young man relax and rest I will be back with some food and we will discuss how you acquired the ability to sense mana." She got up and walked off all while chuckling and leaving me with a stunned look on my face. 'how did she know that I got the ability to use mana? Is my mother more powerful than I first thought? What is she and father hiding from me.' But without any further thought I just let it slide as my stomach started to violently grumble in hunger and I start to drool as the smell of cooked meat start to invade my nose. Mom came back with a huge serving of meat for her and a adequate sized serving for me, after eating all of my food I even got what was left over from her portion surprising her a little before finally she says. "So Vexsus care to explain how you are able to sense mana now, before I thought that only Gaia showed signs of this ability but now you wake up and Show signs aswell this is very curious, I wonder if maybe the pain of what happened awakened something within you?" After thinking of what I should say I decide to just be as honest as possible without revealing to much about my system. "Mom I will admit that it was because of what he did to me, after waking up I decided to not mess with him or his siblings anymore after all the things that he put me through and even the others besides Gaia will ignore me or look down on me, You probably didn't know but before me and dad went out for the first time Marico gave me a message from Aurum and the others saying that they do not see me as their eldest brother and only see Aurum as such while also saying that they wanted me to just run away while we were out that day but I resolved myself to cast them from my family and only see them as obstacles, again besides Gaia who I plan on bringing with me from now on and after leaving the cave to set out on my own path I plan on taking him with me as as my companion." She stayed silent as many different emotions whirl around in her eyes I felt no shame in letting her know that some of her children were being so horrible to another of her hatchlings. "Son, I am so sorry for the things you have been through since you hatched I could not imagine how you felt until now, the pain both physical and mental must have been so horrible. Please forgive my had I known that you were suffering like this I would have..."

"Mom this isn't something you could prevent I knew as soon as I realized my body was frail compared to the others I knew that my life was going to be tough, I knew that I was going to be forced to do things the hard way and that is what led me to try and gain the ability to use mana I just had to focus and after enough time I was able to gain a slight sense of it but please unless they ask about it keep this from the others you could tell father and Gaia but the others do not need to know this, think of this as a trump card for when Aurum thinks to try and kill me again. Now I'm sorry mom but I am tired so I'm going to go back to bed and rest." "Fine honey I understand, and If you need help please do not hesitate to ask your powerful mother for help I am among the strongest magic users in our tribes of dragons." Then she gets up and starts to walk away before I speak up again "Mom, I love you, thank you." and then I turn over with a blush as I finally admit to myself that this is my new family and she is a great mother to me.. "I love you to son, now just rest and I will watch over you."