Revan and Arthur made their way down the staircase. They figured their operations would most likely be in the basement of the tower. Revan yanked Arthur back until they entered the basement and whispered.
"What the hell are you doing? Charging into a room full of advanced level mages is a death wish!"
Arthur sighed and looked at him.
"Im not after the mages anyways. All we need to do is destroy that thing."
Revan grumbled and held her hand out. Imbuing it with her magic.
"Turn around."
Arthur reluctantly turned around and felt her hand on his back. Until he felt a searing pain being engraved. It was almost unbearable. Like his body was enduring the heat of a volcano. It felt like he was being seared in a pan of hot oil. She pulled her hand away eventually and Arthur let out a gasp for breath.
[You have been branded. You now have the ability to develop affinity as a mage.]
He glanced at the message and his eyes widened.
'This...is this the surprise?! A brand? Seriously? She could've done that any earlier!'
"Well. There you go. You're welcome."
"...why didn't you tell me you could do that? You said you only had like, 3 skills, right?"
"Um...yeah. I may have lied a little."
Arthur eyed her for a second.
'Just how much more has she kept from me?'
He cleared his head and drew his sword, the dim blue light illuminated the stairwell. As they walked into the main room, they took in what was inside. Four mages surrounded a large egg. That glowed blue. They conversed around it. One of the shady mages surrounding the egg looked at the other mages with a worried look on his face.
"Our experiment should be hatched in a few months…but where in the hells is that damn brat? He was supposed to bring us the stone of calamity ages ago."
Another one of the mages spoke up.
"You don't think he…"
Suddenly they heard a loud creaking noise coming from the stairwell. Two in fact. They quickly prepared to cast magic. While Arthur and Revan screamed silently at each other in the stairwell. Arthur sighed. He condensed the mana from the brand into his legs.
'Here goes…if this doesn't work my whole body may just destroy itself…'
Arthur overloaded his legs and arms with mana. He blitzed forward, the overloading mana condensed and he burst forward with blinding speed, his sword swinging down. The mages could barely comprehend the speed of the men who just burst right past them. As Arthur wasn't targeting the mages. Arthur distracted them long enough for Revan to cast several fireballs and ignite the entire room in flames. The mages were overwhelmed as Arthur's sword collided with the overwhelming egg. As the egg cracked a radiant glow of blue light sparked against him.
'Oh shit...'
Arthur couldn't stop himself and move out of the way, the use of the light speed slash had rendered his arms and legs unusable. And right now, the egg was about to detonate. And after being overloaded by 5 different mages consistently. It certainly was going to hurt.
"Revan! Get the hell out of here! Now!"
The egg burst as Revan quickly attempted to escape the tower, barely getting out before the entire thing imploded. A giant blast of blue fire exploding from the abandoned tower. Leaving a crater where it once was.
[You have defeated {Dormant Calamity Dragon}. You have received {Soul of Calamity} and {Heart of Calamity}]
Arthur laughed before looking at himself, his arms and legs were already destroyed from the light speed slash, and his body was overflowing with mana, due to taking the blunt of the blast. All of the other mages had been eliminated. But the brand on his back absorbed most of the overloaded mana from the blast. The brand transforming into the shape of the calamity dragon itself.
[You have received skill {Calamities Spawn}]
Arthur couldn't quite catch that last message as he passed out onto the rough ground.