Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert-Chapter 519

Chapter 519

Tesserina looked down at her arm.

At a glance, nothing had changed.

Her skin was smooth like a child’s, without a single scratch.

Though it looked like a thin arm that couldn’t exert any strength, within it lay unimaginable power.

From the intact portions not contaminated by the Authority of Corrosion, she extracted bone, scales, and muscle.

She absorbed those extracted parts and reinforced her body.

It was something that would have been absolutely impossible for the Tesserina of before.

Back then, she had been nothing more than a chimera clone. But now things were different.

The consciousness of the main body had completely settled into the clone.

Now, rather than a clone, the chimera was effectively the true self.

Instead of using the clone like a relay to cast magic, the clone itself could now directly wield magic.

It wasn’t a full hundred percent, but she could exert about fifty percent of the power.

Based on that ability, she absorbed every usable part of the main body and transplanted it into the clone.

The transplantation was a complete success, and her abilities now approached seventy percent of the main body’s.

With this small body, she had gained strength and magical power comparable to a dragon’s true form.

It was nothing short of a tremendous transformation.

Tesserina’s emotions were extremely complex.

A sense of loss and a sense of fullness coexisted, making it impossible to express.

At that moment, Zeon asked her,

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah! I’m okay! Thank you.”

Tesserina nodded.

An ordinary person would have struggled to overcome such emotional turmoil, but she was a dragon.

A dragon’s powerful mental strength prevented her identity from wavering and allowed her to establish herself quickly.

She was no longer a dragon.

She was a human with a dragon’s consciousness and power.

Tesserina accepted that identity with ease.

“You’ve been through a lot.”

“It’s all thanks to you protecting me. How about you?”

“I’m fine too!”

Zeon shrugged.

It wasn’t only Tesserina who had changed.

By absorbing a portion of the mana contained in her Dragon Heart, Zeon had also achieved significant growth.

Although the Inferno Gauntlet had disappeared, the Authority contained within it had become entirely his.

While Tesserina was absorbing the usable tissues of the main body and the remaining Dragon Heart, Zeon contemplated his own body.

That was how he realized how much power he had gained.

“Hyung!”

“Zeon!”

At that moment, Levin and Brielle approached them.

Only then did Zeon notice the two of them, and he asked with a smile,

“You’re all safe. What about the Specter King?”

“Levin took care of it. He was really amazing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! He grew a lot.”

Brielle answered with a proud expression, as if she herself had grown.

Zeon immediately noticed Levin’s physical condition as he stood there looking embarrassed.

“Your growth is fast. At this rate, you might cross the S-rank wall before long. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, hyung!”

Levin’s face flushed.

It hadn’t been long since he became A-rank, and just thinking that he might reach S-rank soon made his chest swell.

It would’ve been easy to become arrogant, but when he looked at Zeon, humility came naturally.

“You seem stronger too, hyung.”

Before, he couldn’t tell exactly what level of awakened Zeon was. Still, he thought Zeon was stronger than the S-rank awakened of Neo Seoul.

The performance and authority Zeon had shown carried a presence that other S-rank awakened couldn’t dare approach.

So he’d vaguely thought Zeon must be far stronger than S-rank.

But now that he himself had reached A-rank, he could tell just how absurd a being Zeon was.

A being whose authority couldn’t even be gauged with an A-rank awakened’s perception.

He would never have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.

He didn’t know what had happened, but Zeon seemed even stronger.

“Hyung, you’re just a monster.”

The words slipped out before he realized it.

“What?”

“Ah, no. I’m just tired, so nonsense came out.”

“How silly…”

At that moment, Tesserina spoke to the two of them.

“You both need to put something on.”

Both Zeon and Levin had fought so fiercely that their clothes were almost completely torn, barely covering their private parts.

Because of that, most of their bodies were plainly exposed.

Zeon said with a wry smile,

“If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve kept spare clothes in my subspace.”

“Me too. I never thought all my clothes would get torn.”

“If that’s the case, I can take care of it. Follow me.”

Tesserina walked toward the shattered lair.

Zeon, Levin, and Brielle followed behind her.

After the consecutive battles between Tesserina’s main body and Dantal, her lair had been utterly destroyed.

“Wouldn’t all the items in the lair be broken too?”

“No way?”

“They’re intact?”

“Did you forget? How greedy dragons are. Maybe not other places, but the treasure vault—I layered it with defensive magic several times over.”

Tesserina replied with a smile.

When she arrived at the lair and softly recited a spell, a change occurred.

Grrrgn!

From empty space, mechanical sounds rang out as a massive structure rose up from the ground.

It was Tesserina’s treasure vault.

It had been made to respond only to Tesserina’s authority, so no other being could ever open it.

“Open.”

At her careless command, the vault doors swung wide. As she stepped inside, she said,

“There aren’t that many things stored here. Still, if you look around, there should be quite a few useful items.”

Contrary to her words, countless items were displayed inside the vault.

Enough to fully stock the subspace warehouse of Zeon’s building in the slums.

It was little by a dragon’s standards, but by human standards, it was an enormous amount.

“Wow!”

“What the—?”

Levin and Brielle’s eyes went wide.

Tesserina spoke as if it were nothing, but everything in the vault was a rare item seldom seen on Earth.

That was only natural, since the items filling the vault were things Tesserina had brought over from Kurayan.

Many items had spread across Earth, but most had passed through dungeons first.

Items that had come directly from Kurayan like this were rare.

If these items were released in Neo Seoul, there would be an uproar over who got them.

Levin stared blankly at the items with his mouth agape, and Brielle couldn’t help but admire them inwardly.

‘As expected of a dragon’s greed.’

Whether they lived long or short lives, a dragon’s greed never disappeared.

There was a reason dwarves went into convulsions at the mere mention of the word “dragon.”

In Kurayan’s history, the race that had suffered the most exploitation at dragons’ hands was the dwarves.

Though not to the same extent as the dwarves, elves too had suffered greatly from dragon greed.

Tesserina was a dragon as well.

Though not an ancient dragon, she was greedy enough, and the results of that greed were piled high throughout the vault.

Picking up a robe displayed on a stand, Tesserina said to Zeon,

“The robe you were wearing, it was made from Leviathan’s hide, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I’ll give you this. It’ll suit you well.”

What Tesserina handed Zeon was a robe as red as if it were burning.

As Zeon received it, he said,

“The material doesn’t look ordinary.”

“It’s a robe made from Balrog hide.”

“Balrog? I’ve fought one before, but this feels a bit different.”

“That’s because it wasn’t an ordinary Balrog. It was a mutant with power equal to—or greater than—Leviathan. They say it had strength and authority comparable to a dragon.”

“Really? Did you hunt it yourself?”

“No way! The previous Lord stepped in after being unable to tolerate its atrocities and hunted it. They say even the previous Lord barely managed to subdue it.”

“Is that so?”

“Balrogs are calamity-class magical beasts born of flame. It should pair well with the Red Dragon’s authority you absorbed. Go on, try it on.”

At Tesserina’s urging, Zeon nodded and put on the robe.

The moment he wore it, he felt intense heat like the flames of hell. Because he had obtained the Red Dragon’s authority, it felt pleasant; had it been the old Zeon, the heat would have been quite unbearable.

The robe automatically adjusted itself to fit Zeon’s physique perfectly.

In terms of the aura it gave off, its design, and its durability, it was clearly a higher-tier version of the Leviathan-hide robe he’d worn before.

Zeon smiled in satisfaction.

“It’s good.”

“It suits you.”

“Thanks. I’ll wear it well.”

“Mm.”

Zeon genuinely liked Tesserina’s gift.

This one item alone made all the hardship of coming here worthwhile.

Tesserina didn’t forget to give gifts to Levin and Brielle as well.

“Levin, take this.”

Along with an outer garment, she handed Levin a bracelet engraved with antique patterns.

“Is this a gift too?”

“It’s nothing special. All it does is store mana.”

“Store mana?”

“Yeah. If you steadily pour mana into it, you can draw it out immediately in an emergency when your mana runs dry.”

“This is exactly what I need. Thank you, noona!”

Levin thanked her sincerely.

His skills were all mana-guzzlers—the stronger their power, the more mana they consumed. If he spammed them recklessly, there was a risk he wouldn’t be able to use them when it really mattered.

Because of that, Levin had recently begun to feel the need for better mana management.

In that sense, the bracelet Tesserina gave him was the best possible gift.

It couldn’t compare to Elura’s Tear that Zeon had, but in terms of efficiency, it was top-tier. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Tesserina handed Levin a few more items as well, all of them things he desperately needed right now.

Among them was a bracelet enchanted with subspace. For someone who’d been using a small subspace backpack until now, it was the perfect gift.

Tesserina then held out a book to Brielle.

“For you, I’ll give this.”

“A book?”

“It’s a book written by Rashaks, the most famous alchemist in Kurayan. I thought it would be what you need most right now.”

“Thank you.”

Brielle nodded.

To be honest, she didn’t know who Rashaks was. But for someone learning alchemy, a legacy left behind by a predecessor was more valuable than anything else.

After distributing the items the three of them needed, Tesserina stored all the remaining items in her subspace.

She took a brief look around the now-empty vault, then said to Zeon and the others,

“This place will collapse now. Let’s go outside.”

They followed her out. As if waiting for that moment, the vault collapsed helplessly.

Watching the vault crumble into sand and disappear, Tesserina murmured,

“So this place is over too.”

“Do you regret it, noona?”

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. It’s a place I’ve stayed in ever since coming to Earth.”

It was the first lair she’d established after crossing over to Earth while injured.

Though she’d been asleep for a long time and hadn’t been able to make proper use of it, she couldn’t help but feel attached.

Zeon asked her,

“What will you do now? Will you make a new lair?”

“There’s no need for that anymore.”

“Hm?”

“There’s no reason to cling to a space big enough to house the main body anymore.”

“That’s true.”

Zeon nodded.

Regardless of her essence, Tesserina now had a body no different from a human’s. There was no longer a need for a vast space like a dragon’s lair.

Tesserina spoke carefully,

“So… I’m thinking of getting a house in Neo Seoul.”

“Living together with humans?”

“Yeah.”

“That could be nice.”

“So I’m thinking of getting the biggest and most luxurious house in Neo Seoul. That should be possible, right?”

Even after becoming human, it seemed a dragon’s greed didn’t disappear so easily.

Zeon answered with a chuckle,

“With that much money, why wouldn’t it be?”

Selling just a few items from her subspace would be enough to easily buy a luxury apartment in Neo Seoul.

Tesserina beamed.

“Hehe! I’ll shower money like rain.”