Chapter 14: Confused Little Dragons, I

Having learned holy magic all by himself, Louis lacked any practical experience. There was no better sparring partner for him than the twins. As he grew content with this arrangement, their bouts became increasingly intense.

“Die, demon king!”

“Why am I the demon king?! You’re the demon queen!”

Krak-koom!

Their weapons crackled with lightning as they exchanged blows.

“They’ll get hurt at this rate… Tsk.” Seeing them fully utilizing Attribute Power, Louis shook his head in concern.

The twins possessed the Lightning attribute, which ranked among the most destructive forces of nature. Realizing it might be safer to intervene before things escalated further, Louis approached them and crossed his arms.

“Alright, enough now?”

Clang.

“I challenge you to wield the Brave’s Sword!”

“I said stop it!”

Clang.

“Don’t pretend to be a Brave, demon king!”

“For crying out loud…”

The twins ignored Louis completely. A vein popped on his forehead as he sighed at their stubbornness. Unable to reach them through words alone, Louis activated the Dragon Heart.

Vwoom…

As the vibrations of the heart containing four attributes spread throughout his body, Louis felt oddly refreshed. He smiled gently, sensing nature welcoming him with its Attribute Powers.

“Heh-heh.”

In holy magic, the approach used to analyze and interact with Attribute Powers yielded vastly different results. Similarly, Louis had defined each of his innate four powers uniquely based on his own methods.

Space Attribute: Deals with invisible points, lines, planes, and inexplicable phenomena.

Strength Attribute: Interferes with physical forces present in the world.

Time Attribute: Intervenes in the flow of all living things.

lightning attribute: Handles the inner self of living beings.

Louis also interpreted the manifestation structure of holy magic according to his own method.

I never thought my knowledge of computers would be useful this way…

Typically, attribute power is accumulated in the heart and manifested externally through neural processing. It’s akin to having separate components for data storage and computation within different bodies. This often leads to inefficiencies such as errors or delays.

But dragons operate differently!

A dragon’s heart was like having top-of-the-line hardware that could simultaneously store and process data. This blessed organ made dragons the most powerful creatures on earth.

In comparison, it’s the difference between a regular computer and a supercomputer.

Dragons didn’t need to go through complex computations when using holy magic.

I guess you can say they’ve simplified complicated calculations with macros? Truly remarkable beings.

The benefits of the Dragon Heart didn’t end there, either. Louis demonstrated its second utility firsthand.

Woooom…

As he extended his hand toward the twins, both the Attribute Power stored within his Dragon Heart and the natural Attribute Power around him began reacting accordingly. In a brief moment, his Dragon Heart swiftly processed intricate calculations.

Louis then uttered the command word associated with time manipulation.

“Slow down.”

The world instantly reacted to Louis’s command.

“Huh?!”

“Ack!”

The weapons wielded by the twins froze as if caught mid-swing. It appeared as though time had stopped, but Louis wasn’t yet capable of achieving that level of control.

I can only slightly delay the flow of time.

As a result, time slowed for the twins’ weapons. Soon after, Louis issued his second command:

“Push away.”

Instantly, the twins were repelled from each other due to the force attribute generated by Louis. As they separated, he delivered the third command, this time utilizing space attribute power.

“Solidify.”

The empty space around the twins hardened, trapping them like concrete.

The twins felt as if they were trapped within transparent cement.

And finally, Louis issued his last command.

“Transfer.”

Using psychic power, Louis telepathically transmitted his thoughts to them.

Hey, you dumbasses! Can’t you control yourselves?!

Kani and Khan clutched their heads as Louis’s voice boomed inside their minds.

“We-we’re sorry…”

“W-whimper… It won’t happen again.”

Louis’s scolding caused Kani and Khan’s shoulders to slump dejectedly. Finally satisfied, Louis smiled contentedly.

This is precisely why dragons can master both holy and black magic simultaneously.

Typically, mages use mana sticks made from materials with high conductivity to synchronize with external attribute powers. However, such conductive substances tend to be fragile, making them unsuitable for weapons. Even if one could use them as weapons, would there be enough mental bandwidth to perform complex calculations while engaging in intense close combat?

This is where the second benefit of having a dragon heart came into play.

I can simply command to cast holy spells, leaving my hands free to wield weapons for black magic.

Louis felt as if both types of magic were tailor-made for dragons. A contented smile graced his face.

“Louis, you’re doing it again!”

“Let me down!”

The twins’ whining snapped Louis out of his thoughts, prompting another roar from him.

“I’ve told you not to overdo it! You two, behave yourselves!”

“Yes…”

“We won’t do it again.”

Seeing their remorse, Louis released them and picked up Khan’s bastard sword that had been rolling on the floor due to the release of Time Stop.

Just then…

“Huh?”

Something caught Louis’s eye as he held the weapon.

“What’s this?” His gaze focused on a black gem embedded in the pommel at the end of the hilt.

“An attribute stone?”

It wasn’t just any attribute stone; it was rare to find one with spatial elemental power imbued within it.

“…This is incredible!” Louis, who had reached tier-one mastery of space magic, marveled at the immense energy emanating from the tiny gemstone no bigger than a walnut kernel. The amount of elemental power contained within surpassed his own by several times. Realizing the extraordinary nature of the bastard sword, he turned to Khan.

“Khan.”

“Yes?”

“Where did you get this?”

Excitedly, both twins answered simultaneously.

“My dad’s storage!”

“I got mine from there too!”

Kani proudly displayed her rapier and short sword as well.

Louis then asked them, “Did your father give you permission to take these?”

“…”

“…”

The twins avoided Louis’s gaze.

No wonder they looked so pleased with themselves—they stole these from their father’s treasure trove.

These swords were legendary weapons capable of causing chaos if unleashed upon the world by those who treated them like mere toys.

Louis clicked his tongue at their recklessness and then inspected the spatial attribute stone again.

“It doesn’t seem to contain just Attribute Power…?”

Upon closer examination, he discovered peculiar circuits within it.

“Is it broken? Fin, what do you think?”

“It appears that way to me as well. It seems like this stone originally had some function… But due to the damaged circuitry, it has lost its purpose. However, I’m unsure what exactly that purpose was. Not only is it broken, but the complexity of the holy magic involved exceeds my understanding…”

“Hmm… What kind of spatial holy magic would typically be applied to a sword?”

“Perhaps it’s for travelers, creating a subspace.”

“Is a subspace circuit this complex?”

“As far as I know, the complexity increases with the size of the subspace and any additional features added.”

“Oh? That makes sense.” Louis pondered briefly before breaking into a smile. “Great! Let’s fix it! Who knows what treasures might emerge from the subspace within a sword found in a dragon’s hoard?” His face lit up with excitement.

Feeling bored and believing there was something to gain by repairing high-dimensional circuits, he soon channeled his Attribute Power into the spatial attribute stone.

‘Hmm… It’s not as damaged as I thought?’

The attribute stone’s condition was better than he expected.

This shouldn’t be too difficult.

He wasn’t creating new circuits but rather untangling existing ones, which Louis could easily handle at his current level.

Fin and the twins gathered around him as he focused on the task at hand.

How much time had passed?

“I did it!” exclaimed Louis after successfully unraveling all the tangled circuits.

“Ha-ha! Shall we see what’s inside?”

“Yes, quickly!”

“Hurry up, Louis!”

Urged by the impatient twins, Louis swiftly channeled energy into the attribute stone. His Attribute Power seemed to pour endlessly into it, raising Louis’s eyebrows.

What could possibly require this much power?

As Louis poured more and more of his Attribute Power into the stone, his anticipation grew. However, it quickly turned to panic.

Fwip.

Zzzt…

“What?”

A black sphere emerged from the attribute stone. The mass, about the size of a fist, terrified Louis.

“I-it’s not an empty space…!”

He hastily cut off the flow of energy, but it was too late.

Zzap!

The black aura, having absorbed Louis’s Attribute Power, expanded rapidly within the blink of an eye.

Zzzt…

The massive dark blob swallowed everything around it, including Louis, Fin, and the twins.

Zzzt…

Before long, the black aura vanished completely, leaving nothing behind where it had appeared.

In the dimly lit cave, a massive black sphere suddenly appeared out of thin air.

Pop.

The sphere vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving behind four figures—a trio of large ones and one smaller—in midair.

Thud, thud, thud!

They plummeted to the ground with heavy thuds. It was none other than Louis, the twins, and Fin, who had been swallowed by the black mass earlier.

“Ugh!”

“Ow… My butt.”

“Wooow.”

Had they been ordinary humans, falling from such a height would have broken their tailbones, but these three sturdy baby dragons merely stood up, rubbing their backsides.

“This is…?” Louis scanned their surroundings.

They were inside a vast cavern carved within a cave. As he took it all in, his eyes fell on the bastard sword in his hand, specifically the attribute stone set in its hilt.

To be precise, it was the attribute stone embedded in the hilt of Khan’s sword that had done this to them.

“Oh man…” Louis looked at the cracked attribute stone with dismay.

As more cracks appeared, the gem finally shattered and scattered on the ground.

Khan burst into tears. “Waaaaah! My sword!”

He’d chosen his weapon because he liked the pretty jewel set in its hilt, so seeing it destroyed understandably upset him.

“Roy broke my sword!”

“…It wasn’t your sword but the gemstone.”

“Roy broke my gemstone!”

Although Khan continued to whine at Louis, there were more pressing matters at hand than appeasing the little dragon.

“What happened here? Where did you get this sword, Khan?”

“I told you, from Dad’s inventory!”

“No, I mean…where did it come from? Like who used it before, for example?”

“I don’t know…” Khan shook his head.

The answer to Louis’s question came unexpectedly.

“I know!”

“Kani?”

“Our great-grandmother used to wield that sword!”

“Great-grandmother?”

“Yes, yes! She was once an elder of our clan.”

“By any chance, did she have the space attribute?”

“I’m not sure about that…”

Louis sighed internally at Kani’s naïveté.

This is troublesome.

Something caught Louis’s eye amidst his frustration.

Huh? What’s that?

He slowly approached it, dragging along his long bastard sword with a loud screech.

Drrrrr…

A moment later, he looked down and gasped audibly.

“Heh… Look at this!”