"Now listen well, I will give you two choices, both will put great stress on your body but one is completely safe, and the other has a great possibility of failure. And failure means death," Zatiel's face was serious as he explained, and after giving some time for the kobold to process the information he continues.
Zatiel opened his mouth and from it, all the golden flames that were gathered in his stomach came out and started covering him.
"Choice one, I use this flames to improve your vitality, we overload the technique Burning Blood to enhance your power up to rank 1 and give you a good enough foundation to get to rank 2 in a hundred years more or less, but once there your advancement through the ranks will become extremely difficult even with my help," Zatiel didn't give the second choice immediately and let the old kobold assimilate what he just said.
Rax was struck with an immense desire when he heard Zatiel's words, and he almost could not control himself to choose the first one without hearing anything else.
The reaction of Rax was normal, after all, having a rank 1 being in a race means that as long you don't go provoking powerful individuals, the security of your tribe was guarantied, and even more, when he heard that he could become rank 2 in the future, he could almost not believe it. You have to understand that in Wasteland there are almost no rank 2 beings, as those who reach that level had long gone to the lower levels of the Underground and have made their race recognized by some powerful organization granting them the rights that most Magi had.
But if the old kobold had such a will so weak, Zatiel would have never helped him in the first place, so after a moment and breathing deeply, Rax was back to normal.
"Mighty One, what is the second choice?"
"The second one is that we also overload Burning Blood, but we don't use the golden flames to help your vitality and replenish your lost blood, instead we use the technique until the most primal and ancestral part of your heritage is all that remains and then we use the flames to enhance this part and replicate it to occupy your entire body greatly increasing your potential and producing a complete transformation of yourself. I warn you, basically what we are going to do is burn all your blood until only a fraction remains, so in case you can not hold on, you will die. And due to your age, the chances of death are around 75%, but if you survive your path to power will be unrestricted," Zatiel didn't rush the old kobold to answer and didn't try to influence his decision, but if he chose the second path, he was willing to help him, increasing his possibilities through healing potions.
Rax knows that this is the most important decision of his entire life but he was conflicted, on one side was a safe path that will lead him to a power where he could maintain his race safe for a hundred of years and the other was an option with only a 25% chance of survival but that will let him reach a power where he could achieve his deepest dreams.
The more he thought it, the harder making a decision was, it was at this point that Rax started to see the rest of the kobolds and the small child that was in his hands and remembers the time when he was that young.
Kobolds usually are a conflicting race and most of the time when they reach a population like the one in this place disputes arise easily, but this tribe was different. Maybe it was their will to see their race survive, or that they were isolated from other kobolds, but most of the members of this tribe always put their race above themselves, of course, cases like the traitor had happened before, but they were in the minority.
Rax still could remember when he was young and the older members of the tribe chose to be hungry so the weaker could survive, and how painful it felt when the ones who were too old to be of significant help, chose to leave the tribe and lie to the small ones, saying that they were going to explore and spent the last years of their life seeing the rest of the world, and as they left, they always had a smile in their faces because they know that they were doing the right thing for their race, and by choosing to die the rest of the tribe could have a better chance to survive. That smile was the same his father had when he said those words to the Rax when he was young.
As the old kobold remembers that all the indecisiveness vanished and all that was left was a shocking determination as he looked at Zatiel.
"Mighty One, if I chose option number two and fail, can you do me the favor of looking after my race?" As long his tribe was safe, Rax was willing to take any opportunity for a future where all the members of his tribe can live and die with pride and be ruled by the choices they made.
Zatiel saw the eyes of the old kobold and when he heard the favor he asked, he started smiling.
"Excellent choice! Don't worry, no matter what, your race is under my protection from now on. If you manage to survive, then I will make you one of us," Zatiel was extremely happy with the attitude of Rax, even now when his life and the possibility of great power were in front of him, his choice was made with the future of his race in mind. Having someone like this with him would only bring pleasant surprises.
"Thank you, Mighty One!" Rax didn't understand the last part, but as long his people were safe, he was more than happy.
"Call me Zatiel, being called 'Mighty One' is becoming embarrassing. Tell where I can find plants with healing properties and which race had brought you problems,"
Rax became confused about the change of topic, but he answered immediately.
"In direction to the west, there is a place where some dark herbs are grown, despite their appearance those who eat them are healed very fast. And the one that has made the most trouble for us is the Arachne race, they enjoy hunting and eating us, they are around 50 kilometers south of here," Rax's hate was obvious as he remembered all those friends he had lost to those disgusting bugs.
"Sophia, you go to where the herbs are and pick what you need to create a healing potion that can preserve life but don't regenerate his body. If his blood regenerates before the purest strain is all that remains, then we would have failed. Little EZ, go to where the Arachne tribe is and bring the one that is at rank 1, in case there is not one, bring all those at the peak of rank 0, incapacitate them but bring them alive, I need their souls."
After hearing the order, they both left immediately to accomplish their respective task.
"Old man, you should rest, before we begin, it is better if you are relaxed and in top condition," After saying that, Zatiel swallowed back the flames and sat down to rest and meditate.
Rax did not ask questions and after giving Kylo to another kobold, he also started to meditate to concentrate on what was going to happen next.
It didn't take long for Sophia to come back with a great number of herbs of different colors. Not wasting time, she asked Zatiel for the equipment of alchemy he had in his ring and began to work.
When Sophia was finishing with her work, Ezequiel returned dragging a three-meter long Arachne, this creature looked like the fusion between the upper body of a man and the lower body of a spider, by the energy you could feel in his body it was apparent that he had reached rank 1 long ago but now he was barely breathing, his arms and spider legs were missing, and his mouth was destroyed, not allowing him to speak.
When the kobolds saw this Arachne in such a state, all the grown ones started to scream from happiness, as this was the leader of the Arachne tribe and the one who ate the most kobolds.
When Zatiel saw that all was ready, he took the potion that Sophia had made and came to Rax putting his hand on his head before sending the entire Burning Blood technique to his mind.
As the old kobold familiarised with the technique, he opened his mouth and made the golden flames cover Rax and open his third eye ready to act.
"Drink this, it would not help you recover, but will enhance the tenacity of your organs so they can withstand the stress they are about to encounter," Zatiel handed the potion to the Kobolds, and this one takes it immediately.
"We are going to start, you will activate the technique on your own and I will use my consciousness and energy to make it perform past its limits, the longer you withstand the higher the effect will be. Are you ready?"
The old kobold says nothing, but by his expression, it was obvious that he was more than ready to take whatever came next.
The rest of the kobolds look from the side, but no one made a sound. They knew that their leader was going to do something very dangerous, and no one wanted to disturb him.
Zatiel saw that the old man was ready and nodded as he started to activate the technique and accelerate his process, burning all the blood at an extremely fast rate. In reality, Zatiel could have skipped this and directly transform Rax into a Neo-Demon, but if he did that, then the old kobold would have to choose another bloodline to advance to rank 1 and forget his draconic heritage, so what Zatiel wanted was to enhance the bloodline to the point it could be assimilated by the chaotic core and create a bloodline heart, and unlike Zatiel and the rest, because he made it with his bloodline he could use techniques that worked with atavism to improve his bloodline without the need of external help.
'I was once a simple Mane, the lowest of demons, but became an Apex-predator feared by all. You are a kobold, the weakest of the dragon-spawn, show me that you can soar higher than any dragon could do!'
