Becoming a Monster

Chapter 444: Chapter 444: A Devil That Learns Too Fast

"Help you grow stronger?" The drake muttered aloud. There was a sense of disbelief in its voice, as if it may have misheard Noah’s request.

The drake could already sense that Noah was stronger than it since the moment he had tricked it to gain its genes. Even now, it could feel Noah’s aura hidden beneath that small frame.

It felt the need to protest! Why should it help to make him stronger when he still hasn’t delivered on his end?

However, despite the wrong it felt. The fact that the devil, the creature whose existence constantly made it feel inferior, was asking it for guidance made the drake hesitate.

Pride swelled. The thought of trying to gain an advantage wasn’t considered. The drake only thought about the satisfaction it would feel after showing the devil that there were things that it was better at.

"Devil," The drakes chest pushed forward as its neck straightened.

"Strength doesn’t just come so easily, not the kind that actually takes effort and talent to achieve. Its different from the strength you so easily achieve, stealing it away from others and making it yours."

The words vibrated along its throat, not intending to hide its frustration with what Noah did.

"I told you about the universal way in which creatures of this world grow. Consuming and absorbing the energy, stimulating it within the body using training and life-threatening fights to force growth beyond its natural limits."

The drake paused, pointed its head to the sky, and breathed out flames that reached nearly 2 meters.

The flames didn’t go any farther, while their spread also remained the same. Suddenly, the flames morphed, spreading even wider, still maintaining the same length.

Noah watched as the drake manipulated the flames at will without faltering in maintaining them. Shooting the flames nearly seven meters high, to holding and maintaining it within a few inches from his maw.

He wasn’t just watching; his Nexus Eye was analyzing it all. The mana rushing through the drake’s flames would spike, but the aura surrounding it maintained the same steady coating.

The example alone was enough for Noah to understand what the drake was trying to imply.

"It’s control, right? That’s what I’m lacking?"

For a brief moment, it simply stared at Noah. Where was the devil’s pride? Where was the arrogance to deny that his mana control was horrendous?

"Yes..." The word dragged as the drake held in the desire to ask why Noah is taking it so well.

"A creature with sufficient mana could still lose to one whose control is more efficient. Unless the former’s strength is overwhelmingly superior to the latter’s, the one who is better at controlling their body will have the advantage."

Noah felt that the logic was there. But from his experience, it was always whoever had the most mana or the strongest aura was usually the victor.

However, as he thought about his numerous circumstances, he couldn’t be sure if his opponent’s mana control was superior to his own.

The doubt didn’t escape the drake’s eyes.

"Just watch," It huffed before it once again shot out a torrent of flames. This time, the flames didn’t maintain a steady pattern like before. It was wild, raging flames.

What Noah noticed first was that he could feel the heat much more intensely than before. But what changed?

His eye dissected it as he mentally compared it to the earlier flames. The moment he began analyzing it, he immediately could tell the reason for the abnormal differences. But it wasn’t the flames that led to his ephainany.

It was the drake’s body. The aura around it was much more chaotic than before. It burned intensely, almost at the same rate as the flames.

If before, the drake’s aure was a steady candlelight, now, it was a bonfire caught in a storm.

It reminded Noah of his first encounter with the drake. Just circulating his mana outside his body was taxing.

During the time of Noah’s understanding, he also realized the mistake in his earlier assumptions. Every time he fought powerful beings, he believed he never encountered a situation in which better control would have improved his odds of winning.

It was because he never had to worry about control. The system had done everything for him.

However, that was where the misconception lay. When he pushed his skills past their limits, it was also the only time he truly felt he was exerting himself. Yet it was also due to that exertion that led to his victory.

His thoughts on mana control now were at a higher pinnacle than before, even more so than absorbing cores.

Soon, the flames sputtered out as abruptly as they had appeared. The drake looked down onto Noah with a smug expression as it addressed him.

"Without proper control, your abilities can still exert great strength, but in the end, the drain will be immense. At the same time, you will fail to achieve consistent results in your attacks.

A fight shouldn’t be decided on luck. The better you know yourself, the more you trust in your abilities, the better the likelihood of your success."

Its gaze sharpened as it looked at Noah. Noah could sense that the drake’s next words weren’t filled with good intentions.

"During the time that we fought, I could sense the crude way that you and every one of your subordinates used your energies. But now that you’ve acquired my power, let me see how much control you have with a power that didn’t take any effort to get."

Noah felt the need to roll his eyes. How could he not see what the drake was trying to do? It didn’t even try to explain how to properly control mana. It just wanted to see him make a fool of himself.

He exhaled through his nose, more amused than offended.

If he were working blindly, then maybe he would’ve felt a rise from the drake’s blatant provocation. But what the drake didn’t know was that its display gave Noah more information than it realized.

Noah glanced down at his own hand. Slowly, he drew mana outward, creating the mana sphere he was familiar with.

The sphere wasn’t as difficult to make as before. Other than his new transformation, he knew that the biggest reason was the dungeon core.

The mana in the air didn’t fight against him as much as before. However, that didn’t distract him from seeing what was important.

It wasn’t just the mana around the sphere he was focused on; he paid close attention to the aura around himself and his mana circulating within his body.

And for the first time, he saw it for what it really was.

Waste.

The aura around him flared, compensating for the mana stabilizing against the mana in the air. Too much of it was forced outward to support the construct rather than reinforcing it from within.

His aura thickened in order to patch the flaws in his circulation. Power was being burned just to keep the shape intact.

"...Yeah," he admitted quietly. "That’s bad."

The sphere trembled slightly as his attention wavered. He tightened his grip instinctively, feeding more mana into it. The result was immediate; the sphere steadied, but the drain spiked.

The drake let out a low, rumbling laugh.

"There," it said, satisfied. Seeing Noah fail when he was already a living cheat had eased the drake’s inner jealousy considerably.

Now it had no qualms about teaching Noah how to progress. Because now, when Noah grew even stronger, his achievements will all be because of its teachings.

"Now that you see it, we can move on t-" The drake blinked. Bitterly, it shook its head as it watched Noah attempt to enlarge the sphere while maintaining control.

It thought that Noah had taken the failure well, but now it believed that Noah’s pride was greater than its own.

A hideous smirk arose on its face as it prepared to bear witness to the Devils’ frustration.

However, instead of the disgrace of control, it was prepared for. Its pupils shrank as it watched Noah enlarge the sphere in his hand with barely a flicker in its form.

The sphere grew bigger than Noah’s head. But that wasn’t enough, twice, now five times the size.

Noah fed enough mana into the sphere until he felt he couldn’t control it anymore, deciding to hold it in place until he could stabilize it.

It took nearly three minutes before he felt he finally gained control, but during that time, the drain on his mana was more severe than before.

All that time, Noah couldn’t understand what he was doing wrong. He could feel the flaws within his body like little patches that needed filling or correcting. Yet when he corrected one area, another one arose.

He spent more time focusing on the correction that he would lose focus on maintaining the mana’s shape.

"I’ve been doing this backwards," he murmured. There was a common trope he remembered back in his world, in the stories that involved magic. Magic was visualization and intention. The same spell could turn out differently between two users, all because of these two concepts.

The sphere began to flicker again as he closed his eyes. But the moment he released a deep breath, the core instantly stabilized, becoming steadier than before.

The drake no longer stared at the sphere but at Noah directly.

It hated him so much.