"Tell me, what do you think is the most important for a dragon?"
In the morning, though it was still dark outside, something that really disoriented Sol, Kiyohime was beginning her lecture.
They were currently in what looked like a vast training field and were the only ones present on the scene.
"It's endurance."
Kiyohime did not wait for Sol to answer as she answered the question herself.
"For a pure dragon, or in fact for any divine beast, the most important thing is endurance. Thanks to our bodies, we possess incredible strength, speed, and defense. Some of us are immune to a particular element while others can become outright intangible.
But the most important thing is, we all have a core. We have nearly unlimited mana at our disposal since we can simply use it from the surroundings."
Kiyohime waved her hand, forming a ball of water on it.
Sol was immediately intrigued.
When Sol used mana, he would draw the mana from within his body then project it out of his body.
The same happened when using his core. He would first absorb mana in his body before using it as his own.
However, Kiyohime had directly affected the mana around her.
The results of their actions were the same, but Sol had to take three additional steps to reach the same results.
He shared this observation with Kiyohime who nodded in appreciation.
"Good. The way you use your core is basic and requires additional steps but it isn't bad. In fact, you should continue to do so until you become a King."
Kiyohime explained that the constant absorption and emanation of a large quantity of Mana was the ideal way to increase the area of mana veins and toughen them.
"You may wonder what is the use of toughening your veins when you won't even need to use them in the future, but what do you think would happen if you fought against another divine beast?"
Sol was immediately enlightened.
"I can see that you understood. Fights between divine beasts are extremely harmful to nature. It isn't weird that for a very short period, an entire zone will be devoid of Mana. When that happens, all you can do is rely on your body and your natural reserve."
She shook her head. This was a lesson she always tried to teach many young dragons, but most of them never listened.
In the first place, creating a dead zone wasn't so easy.
Kiyohime was basically talking about large-scale battlefields where hundreds of divine beasts and titans would fight at the same time.
In those moments where all energy was sucked dry in just a moment, you would feel alone and helpless as all you could do was carefully use your mana and mainly rely on the strength of your body.
Kiyohime stayed silent for a short while as she reminisced about the horror of the war she went through.
Pressing back those thoughts in the deepest part of her mind, she continued.
"You should know that while utilizing mana as I do is less taxing on the body, it affects the mind more. So either way, endurance is the way to go."
Kiyohime was someone who believed in the basics more than anything.
Fancy techniques, super transformations, powerful spells, domains, or whatever, all of this relied on the ability to effectively use and maintain them.
What was the use of pulling a powerful transformation if you could only use it for a limited amount of time? Why learn a technique that you could only use one time?
Of course, Kiyohime knew she was a little biased. There was nothing wrong in having that one super killer move.
"Sol, I won't lie. My training will not be what you expect. You will learn nothing new with me and in fact, will only train in the basics. It will be boring.
It will be tiring and it will be excruciating. You will curse me and will most likely hate me. But I will not stop. If you want to give up, do so now because once we begin, I will allow no such thing."
"I do not plan to give up. But I just have one condition."
"Hum… tell me. I will see what I will do."
"Then... Could you at least face me when doing your lecture ?"
Sol chuckled bitterly while the ears of Kiyohime became completely red.
Since the start of the training, she had been showing her back to him.
All of this was because of what happened a few hours earlier
When Kiyohime had come to wake him up, she had witnessed the scene of him and Nent having a quick romp.
She had been on the first row to witness the sight of Nent being taken from behind and begging for more.
Despite her lack of direct experience, Kiyohime was still an old dragon. It wasn't the first time she witnessed sexual scenes so it wasn't the problem.
The problem was that Nent was somewhat her equal and had once been her friend. Even before she changed, Nent had always been a woman with a strong personality and self-respect.
Witnessing her acting like this had been more than a little shocking for Kiyohime.
During all the lectures, she couldn't stop herself from thinking about that scene whenever she looked at Sol's face. She also couldn't help but wonder just how good it must have felt for someone like Nent to lose all control.
Since she couldn't look properly at his face, she had decided to just not look at him.
...Though it seemed that Sol didn't want to leave the situation as it was.
"Does it bother you that Nent is my partner?"
Kiyohime, sighing, finally turned to face him and forced her mind not to enter the gutter.
Once it was done, she began to ponder his question and shook her head.
"I have no say about who you are in relationships with. In fact, now that I think about it, I am not surprised that Nent chose you as her mate. You are the very crystallization of her new ideal.
Once you reach the King level or even better, the Demigod level, then should a child born between the two of you...it would be a true monster."
Sol frowned a little. Not because of how coldly she assessed Nent's objective.
This was something Nent had never tried to hide. The relationship between the two of them wasn't one of love, but rather one of lust and mutual assistance.
Rather, what intrigued him was the mention of becoming a demigod.
"Why would becoming a demigod affect my child?"
He, of course, had some good guesses, but wouldn't it be better to get accurate information?
"Well, it's not a secret so, it wouldn't hurt to tell you. You should know about the different steps necessary to reach a higher level. A zone for Dukes, an avatar for Kings, and a territory for Demigod."
Seeing Sol nod, she continued,
"Each level isn't just about an increase in power. It's also a sublimation of life. From the moment you become a Duke, you step into a new domain. By the time you become a demigod, you essentially become a new race.
A demigod is a being that sheds its mortal shell. A demigod is essentially a new race on its own or more precisely, an optimized version of an individual's original race.
By becoming a demigod, you are essentially changing yourself to become a better, and stronger version of yourself."
All divine beasts were precursors of their own races in the same way that all Titans were descendants of Ymir.
Thinking about this, Sol suddenly thought about something.
Why did the goddesses create humans?
In the past, during the war, Goddesses created divine beasts to help them fight the war. They also created other races at the same time from what Genesis said.
But then, what would be the use of a human?
Humans could only grow up after more than 15 years of careful grooming.
Furthermore, 90% of humans didn't have the talent necessary to awaken a capacity high enough for a contract.
If it was just for Canon fodder, beast-men have a higher reproduction rate and become stronger way faster. They could be battle-ready in just a few years.
For high-end power, divine beasts were more than enough.
In fact, aside from Ambrosia, there were no humans at the level of a demigod and Ambrosia couldn't even be said to be really human.
Even worse, there was only one true human at the king level currently and that was Camelia. Lilith didn't count since she was not really human either.
In short, humans were trash—Why then were they created?
'I should stop trying to uncover all those secrets.'
His main goal was to become stronger. He would naturally have access to more answers once he officially became King.
Rather than focusing on things he couldn't affect like Fate or the truth of the world, it would be much more intelligent of him to focus on what he could do.
"Anyways, like I said, who you mate with is your problem. You don't have to worry about Fafnir either. He might whine and complain, but his pride would never allow him to attack a young dragon just because of petty jealousy."
Fafnir was a dragon full of pride، but one who could accept defeat gracefully. Though, in her opinion, it wouldn't be wrong to call Fafnir a pushover.
Siegfried had taken a powerful sword from him.
Sun Wukong had obtained a huge amount of divine gold and faith coins from him.
Blaze had bullied him all his life and now even her son had more or less stolen a woman from him.
'I wonder if I should comfort him?'
It was her duty to take care of the mental state of her brothers. She knew how much Fafnir loved wine.
She still had some wine from Hathor that she could use to appease him but...
'...Ugh. I need to talk with Nent to have a new shipment.'
She groaned a little before deciding.
'Well, I am sure he can deal with it without my help.'
She resolutely and ruthlessly discarded her brother.
"I just have one piece of advice. Never fully put your trust in her. You might be stabbed in the back in the worst way possible."
Kiyohime spoke somberly, clearly reminiscing some unpleasant memories.
"Well, enough chit chat. It's time for practice. Follow me."
The two of them began to walk until they reached a hangar.
Anchored in the sky was a large ship with a white flag and a golden dragon.
"What are we going to do here?"
Sol admired the ship as he spoke. Comparing this ship to the pirate ship that attacked them when they reached the territory would have been an insult to this ship.
"This is White Pearl. It's my beloved ship."
"I see. So, where are we going?"
"Heh. I guess you can say that we are going to the most important part of this world—Tartarus.”
She was sure that at the end of this training, Sol would be completely different.
