In a virgin forest untouched by civilization, a crack in reality appeared. Slowly, the fabric of reality bent, and then a massive explosion occurred, followed by a silhouette being spat out of the crack itself.
Boooom!
In just a mere second, the trees around the forest were blown away by the explosion, the crack of reality that appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
It wasn't the trees either, even the ground itself formed a huge crater thanks to the prior explosion.
Then, in the very middle of that mess, a figure of a man, about 6 feet tall, was seen. He was a handsome man with messy, long black hair and two black, pointy horns on his head, red eyes that looked similar to those of a ruby.
But despite this, his attire was nothing short of a disaster. To put it simply, it's just a dirty rag.
But that didn't stop the man from being happy. "I succeeded! I performed dimensional travel for the first time!"
He was so happy that he couldn't care less about the consequences that it brought, so far after literally decades of trial and error, he finally got to see the result of his labor.
Then he looked around and said, "The mana is certainly different compared to that world, in terms of purity it's actually quite similar.. which means this probably isn't Earth."
He frowned at this particular revelation, but it was also expected. The chances of his getting back to earth were infinitely small.
Although he was a bit disappointed, it didn't stop him from being happy, after all being able to travel to another dimension was already considered a success.
"Now, where the heck am I?" A massive black wing appeared behind his back, the sheer force alone made the lingering dust from the air disappear.
Then he flew in the sky to have a good look at the surrounding area. From miles around him, there was nothing but trees, and there was barely anything on sight aside from a few birds and some animals.
He noticed a lot of the birds here are way bigger than their parallel counterparts, not to mention the difference in species.
All of these bird species were unfamiliar to him, this further solidified his belief that this world isn't Earth.
Then without hesitation he flew straight in the direction he was looking at, he was just mindlessly flying around without any goal in mind.
After a few minutes of flying, he finally saw a sign of civilization, as he saw a ruin, probably ancient considering its appearance.
Within a single second, he appeared at the entrance of this ancient ruin, a temple of some sort.
But before he entered, he noticed something with his mana detection, this was a habit he formed after living as a black dragon for almost a century now.
He wasn't as naive as he was before, his life after becoming a dragon is rather harsh, every month or so there's a group of strong adventurers or the so-called hero party that would come to slay him for no reason aside from merely existing in the same world.
He really tried to find peace with those people, but they just wouldn't listen.
The first few hunters were the hardest to deal with for him, not because they were exceptionally strong but because he still retained a human morality.
But after crossing the line, instead of thinking of these people as 'humans', they became nothing more than an animal that somehow learned how to speak in his eyes.
It became easier with time, however, his human mentality didn't completely disappear.
As he has a rule that he abides by, that is if they don't provoke him first he won't attack and if they're reasonable he'd let them go.
Simple as that, if they treat him with respect in turn. He would also respect them.
But those kinds of chances rarely happen, that's a topic for later, there's a powerful being living inside this ancient temple.
Given his new standard of what is strong, the person inside is extremely powerful in human eyes, even the hero whom he fought before was nothing compared to the sheer vastness of mana that belongs to the person inside this ancient temple.
It reminds him of those top-tier chaos faction dragons back in the previous world, this individual doesn't lose in terms of mana.
Now this got him curious, it wasn't even a day. He already encountered someone, who could match a dragon like him in terms of mana alone.
This was the first time he met someone who wasn't from the same species that had this kind of mana.
Despite the unknown danger this individual represents, he wasn't truly afraid. If there's one thing he was confident with, it was his near-immortality.
Without hesitation, he went inside the temple and this time, the individual finally made their move.
It was releasing their unrestrained mana, even a normal person who couldn't feel any mana would have suffocated by now.
And it's worse for those who could sense it, they would have been crushed by the mana.
But he wasn't a normal person, to him this was nothing more than a slight breeze, it was noticeable but nothing worth mentioning.
Inside the temple, there were plenty of murals describing some sort of divinity, although the murals were obviously ancient.
It was still visible, at least the story it was trying to describe.
From the murals, this 'goddess' has long elf-like ears, and massive angel wings behind her.
He frowned at this sight, after becoming a dragon his impression of the divinity in general became sour.
Thanks to these beings, those heroes would always hunt him down without an end.
With the only exception of a single goddess he personally knows, every deity is 'terrible' in his eyes.
He knew that this goddess didn't have anything to do with him, but still. First impressions stuck with him.
As for knowing whether this goddess exists or not, it doesn't matter but from the looks of it, she indeed exists.
After all, he could smell the familiar scent of divinity.
Then shaking his head, trying to stop thinking about divinity.
As he got closer and closer to the center of the temple, the mana was becoming denser to the point that it almost became a tangible existence.
Finally, he saw the culprit of this phenomenon.
In front was a throne made out of some sort of rock, but that itself didn't matter as the hundreds of books and scrolls scattered around the place were more eye-catching than the throne itself.
But what truly caught his attention was the person who was sitting at the throne, an elf who looked like a teenager but her eyes told him a different story.
It was ancient, no one could fake that kind of look.
"A demon..? No, you're different." The elf stood barefoot and walked slowly toward his direction.
As she got closer, her movement stopped right before she could bump into him, but still extremely close for strangers that just met.
Her height was barely above his chest, she's really small for someone so old.
Now that he had gotten a closer look at her face, he couldn't help but think. 'She looks familiar…'
After becoming a dragon, his memories became clearer. It didn't take long to remember who exactly this elf was.
"How fascinating, you're clearly not a demon, yet you have horns similar to them." The elf was showing not a small amount of interest in his being.
Not the romantic kind, but rather a scholar who wanted to study this creature in front of her.
After a minute of analysis, she concludes. "Rather than a demon, you're similar to a dragon."
That hits the spot, but then again recalling who she is, it wasn't surprising that she got it right.
'The living grimoire, Serie.' He concluded his thoughts.
Serie's interest in him never disappeared, it intensified to another level, which isn't strange considering he's the first of his kind in this world.
Dragons in this world are basically another type of animal, with intelligence lower than that of a human.
Completely different from his previous world dragons which in terms of intelligence was no different from humans, if not smarter.
Not to mention all of the dragons in the previous world are natural at using mana, creating magic is basically like breathing to them.
Unlike in this world, the dragons are not so different from a massive lizard that only knows how to breathe fire.
It's basically an insult to compare him to these animals. They might be called dragons but they are two completely separate species altogether.
The dragons in this world only look similar in build but have no connection to him whatsoever.
Serie who already made up her mind, looked him in the eyes and said, "I'll teach everything I know in magic in exchange for letting me study you."
Despite how steady her voice was, he could tell that if he refused she definitely would use force to make him comply, not that she would succeed.
However, it wasn't just her who made a decision.
"Alright, let's make a contract."
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