December 1^st, year 787 of the Imperial calendar

I activated [F - Emotionless] and assessed our situation.

'Dangerous' would be an understatement on what our predicament was.

We, 2 F ranks, had to fight an E+ ranked monster, and a Wyvern at that.

I considered escaping using [Alternate dimension], but I quickly rejected that option since I couldn't take Raun with me if I did that.

Thus, the only option was to stay and fight. I didn't know the full extent of Raun's capabilities, but I knew that he was a tanker, so I will treat him as such.

I then deactivated the skill. One thing I've learned was to use the skill in short bursts to clear away my emotions when they get out of hand. Otherwise it would just burn through my mana without actually doing anything helpful at all.

The Wyvern charged straight at us, opening its mouth wide to try and devour us in one go. Seeing this, Raun casted several [Earth wall] - a basic yet effective defense spell - to try and stop the Wyvern's charge.

However, there was no way they could block a charge from an E+ ranked Greater Wyvern. As such, I ran to the side while pulling Raun by his collar with me.

It was a good decision, as the [Earth wall] instantly crumbled upon contact with the Wyvern, sending fragments of rocks flying in every directions and filling the air with dust.

Bzzzzzt—! BANG—!

Not waiting for the dust to settle, I fired multiple [Railgun]. Thanks to the Wyvern's size, I landed nearly all of my shots.

However, the Wyvern seemed uninjured. Even with the boost to my power in stormy weather, I couldn't pierce through its hard scales.

As I was about to grimace, the Wyvern shrieked in pain. It flapped its majestic black wings and shot towards the sky.

It would have been better if the Wyvern had underestimated us and fought on the ground. However, now that it had taken us seriously and flew into the air, we were at a severe disadvantage.

'But I didn't even injure it' I thought, before noticing blood dripping from the Wyvern's left wing.

Then, something clicked inside my head. It was true that I couldn't pierce its scales, however, its wings weren't covered in scales.

Before I could put the new information to use, however, it bombarded us with Lightning, Wind, and Water magic. 

Luckily for me, Raun was a competent tank. He quickly reacted by using multiple [Earth wall] to block most of its attack.

I then tried to intercept its flight with Wind magic, but it sensed my mana and cancelled my spell, all while raining spells down at us.

Clicking my tongue, I returned fire with [Railgun], targeting its wings. The massive Wyvern with its large wingspan was like a sitting target to me.

Its left wing was soon torn apart. The Wyvern tumbled to the ground, howling in pain. I was sure that it was gravely injured from the fall.

Normally, a beast's first instinct was to run away when severely wounded to save its own life. However, Wyverns, just like the Dragon race, were prideful. As such, the Greater Wyvern would rather fight to the bitter end than run away from 2 lowly humans.

Despite knowing that, I still prayed that it would choose to run.

And then, Wyvern started to move away from us. I was overjoyed, but that did not last long as it suddenly stopped at a certain distance from us and began casting more magic spells.

'So it chose to fight after all' I clicked my tongue and continued attacking.

I fired more [Railgun], but the bullets couldn't reach the Wyvern.

'So that's why'

This Wyvern were much more intelligent than what I gave it credits for.

Bombarded with Wind and Water spells, I hid behind Raun's back.

"Get close to it!" I said, before slowly advancing with Raun tanking all of the attacks for me.

His [Earth wall] was very versatile. Not only was it blocking the magic attacks, it also obscured the Wyvern's view of us, allowing Raun and I to dodge spells that couldn't have been blocked. To be frank, Raun had the makings of a very good tanker.

I couldn't linger on that though for long though, as our progress became excruciatingly slow when we were about 60m away from the Wyvern. Not just that, Raun's face was getting paler by the second, indicating that he was slowly running out of mana. 

Doubting that Raun would win a battle of attrition against a Wyvern, I decided to make a gamble.

Swish—!

I unsheathed my sword, and used [F - Emotionless]. 

"Raun, can you use a spell to launch me other there?"

"I- I can, but why! Are you planning to kill yourself?"

"Just do it" I said in a cold voice.

"If you say so..."

I concentrated space mana on my sword, and gave the ready signal to Raun.

[Earth spear], he chanted. A spike made out of earth with a blunt tip shot out from beneath me with immense speed, launching me towards the E+ ranked monster like a human catapult.

The Wyvern, however, didn't seem all that phased by this and continued to shoot magic at me. Since I couldn't change my direction mid-air to dodge its attacks, I tried to perfectly time my sword art [V - World splitter] to erase the spells from existence.

However, my timing was a bit too early.

As a result, the Wyvern's [Gale blade] left cuts all over my body, while its [Water cannon] made me lose momentum.

I was no longer soaring through the air and thus plummeted to the ground. However, I still managed to get close enough to the Wyvern to initiate my plan.

I removed my sunglasses and stared at the monster, the pathetic and bloodied figure of me was reflected in its eyes. However, I was sure that the Wyvern saw me as anything but pathetic, as I had just activated one of my skills.

[B - Authority of Fear]

Authority, was the name given to the group of abilities that were unique to true dragons. Those abilities that made them one of, if not the strongest race in this world.

From simply starting a fire, to reversing time by a few days, true dragons could do almost anything provided that they have sufficient power.

Fear, was one such Authority.

It instigates immense dread and terror in its targets, typically in the form of their greatest trauma.

Normally, the skill wouldn't work on targets much stronger than me. However, any creatures with even a drop of degraded Draconic blood flowing through their veins must submit to the Authority of true dragons. There was no room for rational thinking or logic, only pure instinct.

And I intended to capitalize on that fact.

Locking eyes with me for a good second, the Wyvern shrieked in fear and tumbled down to the ground.

|I can tame it now!| Lyra suddenly spoke up.

But I didn't care. It would be for the best if I just killed it and ended the exams here. After all, I doubt I could heal my injuries in time to hunt more Wyverns, and I could always come back here and look for more.

I couldn't just tame the Wyvern and kill it once we get back to town either. To tame and to make it completely obedient were 2 completely different things. Furthermore, I doubt any high ranked monsters could resist not feasting on a severely injured Greater Wyvern.

Tok—! Tok—! Tok—!...

Footsteps rang out throughout the disturbingly quiet canyon as I slowly walked up to the terrified Wyvern.

Despite still being affected by [B - Authority of Fear], the Wyvern still looked at me with hatred and disgust.

But I wasn't phased by it.

A fight could start for any reasons. In the Wyvern's case, it was pride and rage. But in our case, it was for survival. If you wanted to fight over something, especially in this kind of place, you must be prepared to die, and I was sure that the Wyvern fully knew that. Thus, its look of resentment and disgust just seemed like the whining of a child to me.

I focused Spatial attribute mana into my sword, and slashed at its neck. Wyverns took pride in their tough scales, so there wasn't even a shred of mana covering its body for defense.

As such, it was utterly helpless against my space-distorting slash.

Splash—!

The Wyvern was decapitated in one fast and concise movement. Blood and gore splashed onto my face due to my close proximity with it.

'It's finally over' I heaved a sigh of relief as I wiped the blood off my face and deactivated [F - Emotionless].

|You wasted a good opportunity!| Lyra pouted.

Normally, I would have retorted. But I didn't care about that right now, as I felt immense pain coursed through my entire body immediately after I deactivated the skill.

"WOW! HOW DID YOU DO THAT?" Raun ran up to me and shook my shoulders relentlessly, not caring that my entire body was literally covered in blood and gore.

"God of the Storm Vihar helped me or whatever. Now let me go, it hurts" I was in pain but, I did not forget my promise with Lyra.

After that, I ordered him to collect the Wyvern's horns. We then went into a nearby cave to rest. After all, it was not the brightest of ideas to stay next to a Wyvern's corpse in a canyon full of starving monsters.

Raun then helped me dress my wounds. His work was shoddy, but at least I wouldn't die of blood loss until I get to town.

Incidentally, the cave we had just entered was that same Wyvern's nest. It would explain the horrible stench, as Wyverns tend to piss and shit in their own nest. But we had to bear with it since it was the safest place at the moment.

|It's Wyvern eggs! You can take it back with you and tame it once it hatches| Lyra said as she spotted several eggs lying in the corner of the cave.

I thought for a bit and then put one in [Alternate storage]. Their mother was already dead anyways so it wouldn't do any harm to steal one of them.

After 5 seconds, however, the egg was ejected from [Alternate storage].

"..."

I then tried to put another one in. Luckily, this one wasn't ejected. It must have been unfertilized.

"Will an unfertilized egg even work?"

|It will, but you will need to inject Lightning and Wind mana into it everyday. Though you'll have to ask someone else to inject Water mana if you don't want your Wyvern to be crippled|

---

***

After a few hours of resting, we cautiously made our way back to town. Luckily, no monsters came to attack us. I then made my way to a priest and paid him to heal me.

It was more of a temporary first aid. I'd still have to go to a clinic in the Capital if I wanted my wounds to fully heal.

My clothes were still a bit torn and dirty but I couldn't really do anything about it. There weren't any clothing stores in this kind of place after all.

We then went back to Avaron academy through a transfer gate to conclude the exam.

As soon as we arrived at the other side of the gate, a man walked up to us.

"You kids here to give up?" The man, who I presumed to be an examiner, spoke after seeing our dirty and tattered clothes.

"No, we're here to complete the exam" I spoke somewhat annoyedly.

The examiner gave us with a look of surprise when we supposedly completed the test on the very same day it started. Well, he was even more surprised when we brought out more than 20 Wind Wolves' tails and 5 pairs of Wyvern horns, 2 of which were Greater Wyvern's horns.

He recovered from his stupor pretty quickly and put on his professional face.

After confirming our identities and the authenticity of the loots, he led us to a long desk. On top of it were orbs that looked almost identical to the Holy Orbs.

"Place your hands one of them and I will record your talent" He said.

One's talent determines what rank they could attain in their lifetime. Of course, the assessment wasn't always correct. There were cases of people reaching ranks that far surpasses their so-called talent cap. However, the probability of that happening was estimated to be less than 0.1%.

It was Raun's turn. His talent was graded S, just as mentioned in the novel.

Since we were among the firsts to complete the exam, there were no one in the venue but the examiner to get surprised at his talent. Raun looked very happy though, good for him.

It was my turn, I placed my hands and the orb. I was nervous since my talent would decide whether or not I would be able to survive in this world.

The orb glowed a pale green light, indicating my talent to be... C grade. That means I would only be able to reach C rank in my entire life.

"T- this..."

I was depressed. Although having a talent cap of C rank was considered well above average in this world, it was like a death sentence to me, considering the catastrophes that would happen in the future.

Before I fell into despair, however, Lyra spoke up.

|Don't worry about it. You have the same talent as mine when I was a mortal since some of my powers was assimilated into yours|

"S- so I have SSS grade talents?" I asked with a shaky voice.

|Of course not!|

I hung my mouth in disbelief.

'Did I just get played by her?'

Just as I was about to lash out at Lyra, however, she continued speaking.

|Who do you think this great lady is? Of course you get Celestial grade talent instead of the lowly SSS!| I could practically hear her puffing her chest up as she said that.

I heaved a sigh of relief.

'Good, I still have a chance after all' I wanted to hug Lyra right now and thank her but she was in her bird form.

Still, I grabbed Lyra in her bird form and rubbed her against my cheeks. I didn't care whether she deliberately delayed the second part of her speech to tease me or not. After all, if she wasn't here, I would probably die many times over in the future.

Celestial grade talent was the highest talent grade one could get. Well, no one knew such a talent grade existed, at least not until Arthur received a bullshit blessing from his Goddess that raised his talent grade from SSS to Celestial. 

Although, I couldn't complain about Arthur's luck too much on this one since I too basically got this level of talent through sheer luck.

"But why did C grade show up?" I asked.

|Hmmm, I'm not sure how the orb works but I guess that it couldn't calculate Celestial grade talents so it got confused and decided to show a random talent grade instead| Lyra said as she struggled to get out of my grasp.

Well, I was not troubled by the orb showing C grade talent. In fact, it kind of worked in my favor. Who knows how much trouble could come my way if everyone were to know that my talent cap was literally above SSS grade.

Speaking of talent, I guess I really should congratulate Raun. After all, if he could somehow ⌊mysteriously⌉ survive the incident that he was supposed to die in, he would have a good future ahead of him.

I regretted doing that almost immediately though.

"Hah! Don't worry Theodore, this handsome and benevolent Raun would still remember you when I become famous in the future, so no needs for flattery!"

Not giving me time to cave Raun's face in with my fists, the examiner then took us to yet another room.

The room was rather empty, save for a couples of sturdy-looking dummies and 3 people, who I assumed to be judges, standing behind a glass wall with papers in their hands.

"Give it your all" The examiner said as he pointed towards a dummy.

I knew what this was. We had already been admitted into Avaron academy as soon as we brought the Wolves' tails and Wyverns' horns back. This and the talent assessment orb were just here to determine our ranking within the academy.

It was Raun's turn first, and he decided to use [Earth spear].

Unlike earlier, the spear's tip was sharp this time. Thus, it easily impaled the dummy. I didn't know if this was supposed to be hard or something but looking at Raun's pale face, it seemed that he had spent quite a lot of mana on that one [Earth spear].

Although, the judges looked quite impressed as they fervently wrote something down on their papers. I guessed that Raun got a pretty high score.

It was my turn next.

After thinking for a while, I just decided to use my sword. No, not with my sword arts, it would just be stupid to show everyone that I had a V grade battle art.

Instead, I just swung the sword without any particular techniques or patterns.

I had to say, the dummy was a bit tougher than I had expected, as I managed to cut it in half after nearly 5 minutes of constant attacking.

Let's just say the judges were less than impressed about my performance. They probably gave me a bad score, not that I cared. What's important was that I was now an official student at Avaron academy.

"Why didn't you use that cool Lightning move you did earlier?" Raun asked me.

"Too troublesome" I replied in a lazy voice.

Raun just looked at me weirdly and shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, you do you. Want to grab a drink with me though?"

"I'll pass, I'm still injured, remember?"

"Don't worry though, I'll join you once Krista gets back from her exam" I continued.

Raun just nodded at my words and we parted ways.

---

***

After parting ways with Raun, I didn't go to a clinic straight away. No, there was something more important than that.

In the novel, after returning from one of his hunts, Arthur fell into a manhole. After that, he found a hidden passageway in the sewers system by chance and came across an artifact that allowed its users to see the enemies' future movements.

Yes, he came across a completely overpowered item by chance. And that wasn't even the worst part. 

He just had to sprout bullshit about how it would be unfair for his opponents if he could see their future actions or whatever and then destroyed the artifact. 

What sane person would throw away such powerful item? And unfair my ass! He received his Goddess's blessings every time he was about to get killed. How was that any less unfair than using the artifact?

If he wasn't going to use it, then it shouldn't cause any troubles if I got my hands on it.

I climbed down the exact manhole he fell down in. I still didn't understand why the location of the manhole was described in such great details but I was not complaining since it made life easier for me.

I walked along the sewers walls and found a torch. Yes, a torch inside of the sewers system that was illuminated by light bulbs powered by mana. I had no idea how no one found this suspicious at all.

Putting that asides, I pulled on the torch. Instantly, the walls behind it rumbled, before sliding over to reveal a hidden passageway. 

I went into the passageway and found a chest.

Inside was a pair of glasses. Now, it may look normal at first glance but it was one of the most powerful artifact in the world, as it was ranked SS.

'With this, I ca—'

<A large quantity of Time mana is detected>

"?"

<Absorbing...>

"WAIT! STO—"