Pain was the first thing Lemma Heartfilia learned after surviving.
Not the sharp, merciful kind that ended quickly—but the slow, grinding pain that taught patience through cruelty.
She woke on stone.
Cold, uneven, ancient stone that pressed into her back and seeped through her thin clothes.
Her breath caught as she tried to move, every muscle protesting like it had been torn apart and stitched back together by careless hands.
"…Still alive," she whispered.
The words echoed.
The cavern was vast—its ceiling lost in darkness, its walls carved by claws and time.
Veins of faintly glowing crystal ran through the rock like frozen lightning, illuminating piles of bones scattered carelessly across the ground.
Human bones.
Beast bones.
Things she could not name.
Panic surged. Lemma scrambled backward, her palms slipping on dust and fragments of old remains.
Her heart hammered so violently it hurt.
Then the air shifted.
Heat rolled through the cavern, heavy and suffocating.
The bones rattled.
The crystals pulsed brighter.
A presence unfolded itself.
"You awaken faster than expected," came the voice—low, resonant, impossibly vast.
Lemma froze.
From the darkness, the dragon emerged.
Its scales were not a single color but many—deep obsidian layered with molten gold, veins of ember-red light running beneath them like a living furnace.
Its wings brushed the cavern walls as it moved, scraping stone effortlessly.
Golden eyes locked onto her.
Lemma swallowed.
"…You didn't kill me," she said.
"No," the dragon replied.
"I saved you."
The memory returned in a rush—fire flooding her veins, the wound sealing itself, the promise whispered at the edge of death.
"You said I'm your apprentice," Lemma said quietly.
"Yes."
"And you'll teach me dragon magic."
The dragon lowered its massive head until its breath washed over her, hot and dry.
"I will try," it corrected.
That was the beginning.
The First Lesson: Breathing
"You are breathing wrong."
Lemma stared at the dragon, sweat dripping down her spine.
"I'm… breathing," she said between gasps.
"No. You are surviving," the dragon replied. "Breathing is different."
They stood on a stone platform suspended over a pit of magma far below.
The heat distorted the air, making her vision swim. Her legs trembled constantly—not just from fear, but from exhaustion.
"Again," the dragon commanded.
Lemma closed her eyes.
Inhale.
Exhale.
She tried to mimic the rhythm the dragon had shown her—slow, deliberate, as if drawing in the world itself.
But the moment she focused, her chest tightened. Her breaths became shallow, frantic.
Mana refused to move.
Nothing happened.
The dragon waited.
Seconds stretched into minutes.
Finally, Lemma collapsed to her knees, coughing, her throat burning.
"I can't," she rasped. "I don't feel anything."
The dragon's tail lashed against the stone, cracking it.
"You feel fear," it said. "You feel hatred. You feel loss. But you cannot hold them."
Lemma clenched her fists.
"My entire life was taken from me," she snapped.
"If that's not enough, then what is?"
The dragon's eyes narrowed.
"Dragon magic is not born from emotion alone," it said. "It is born from endurance.
From carrying what should have crushed you—and standing anyway.
It turned away.
"Rest. You will try again tomorrow."
Lemma lay on the stone long after the dragon left, staring into the magma below.
Tomorrow felt very far away.
Days of Failure
Tomorrow came.
And failed.
So did the next day.
And the next.
Lemma learned quickly that dragon training had no kindness in it.
She was thrown into freezing underground lakes and told to control her body heat.
She failed—again and again—until hypothermia nearly took her.
She was ordered to move mana through her limbs while standing beneath crushing gravity spells.
Her mana scattered every time, useless and weak.
She tried to summon flame.
Nothing.
Not even a spark.
"You are empty," the dragon said after watching her struggle for hours. "Most humans overflow with excess potential.
You have… almost none."
Lemma stared at her trembling hands.
"So I really am talentless."
"Yes."
The word hit harder than any spell.
That night, she screamed into the darkness until her voice broke.
The Dragon's Truth
"You should have died."
Lemma looked up sharply.
The dragon stood before her, wings folded, gaze unreadable.
"Your survival was not guaranteed," it continued.
"The ritual that wounded you should have erased your soul.
The only reason you lived is because fate itself bent."
"…Then why am I like this?" Lemma demanded. "Why save me if I can't do anything?"
The dragon was silent for a long moment.
"Because," it said slowly, "dragon magic does not choose the gifted. It chooses the stubborn."
Lemma laughed bitterly.
"I've failed every single day."
"And yet you wake up," the dragon replied. "You stand. You try.
You do not beg me to stop."
It leaned closer.
"Most talented beings quit the moment effort outweighs pride."
Lemma said nothing.
Her hatred burned quietly in her chest—not explosive, not loud
. A steady, patient fire.
Learning the Wrong Way
Weeks passed.
Lemma did not grow stronger.
She grew harder.
She learned to endure pain without crying. To stand while her body screamed.
To keep moving when her mind begged her to stop.
When she failed to shape mana, she used physical motion instead—swinging, striking, repeating movements until her muscles memorized what her magic could not.
"You adapt," the dragon observed.
"I don't have a choice," Lemma replied.
The dragon began teaching her history instead.
The Demon Kings.
The gods who abandoned the world.
The wars that repeated endlessly because no victor truly finished them.
"Your mother sought borrowed power," the dragon said one day. "She will never surpass her limits."
Lemma stared into the fire.
"I don't want borrowed power," she said. "I want enough."
The dragon's gaze sharpened.
"Enough is dangerous."
"Good."
The First Flame
It happened by accident.
Lemma had collapsed near the magma pit again, body bruised and shaking.
Her hands were raw, her mana exhausted.
"I hate this," she whispered.
Her reflection stared back at her from the molten surface—small, scarred, furious.
"I hate her," Lemma said. "I hate the world that let her win."
Something answered.
Not mana.
Not emotion.
A deep, grinding sensation—like stone being dragged across stone.
Heat gathered—not in her hands, but in her spine.
Lemma gasped.
A thin thread of flame flickered into existence.
Small.
Ugly.
Unstable.
But real.
The dragon froze.
The flame sputtered out immediately, leaving her shaking.
Lemma stared at her empty palm.
"…Did you see that?"
The dragon exhaled slowly.
"Yes."
"What was it?"
The dragon smiled—not kindly, not cruelly.
"That," it said, "was not magic."
Lemma's heart pounded.
"Then what was it?"
"Will."