"23 minutes!" Pure chimed as Nik huffed out an exhausted sigh. Even though his head ached slightly, this amount of sting is nothing compared to what he felt during his first failure. With his gaze falling on Ray, who sat opposite to him against another sturdy tree to avoid the continuous rainfall, he inquired with a knowing smile, "How long did you last?" 

"18 minutes," Ray replied with a soft sigh. Evidently, his spirits didn't go easy on him, too. Knowing that he had won somehow, Nik looked around in the darkness, clearly able to see all the trees and their branches. "According to Luyue, the entire realm is said to be covered by a million-year-old spirit beast and its rain... well, you understand what could it be," the moment a drop of water fell over Nik's shoulder, he instantly purified himself. There was no way he is going to let the bodily fluids of some behemoth fall over him now that he knows it. Hearing him, Ray's expression turned sour. After all, the limit of his energy capacity made sure of the fact that Ray doesn't get the benefits of body purification.

"I saw we capture it!" Nik whispered somberly, making Ray roll his eyes. The Succubus knew it for a fact that Nik would say something like that. However, the fact that Nik had actually prepared arguments to support his cause was out of Ray's expectations. "Of course, I have a few reasons for it. First, the fact that the denizens of this world can see an actual behemoth and we can't supports my theory of the actual monster being good at illusions. So good that it managed to place the entire dimension in an illusion and let it run on automated control. Of course, without the focus on illusion explicitly placed on us... we two kinda bypassed the whole arrangement."

Ray thought silently and couldn't help but feel the argument turned out to be quite reasonable. Nodding, he looked towards Nik and waited for him to continue. Nik didn't say anything. Ray waited a little while longer. Nik still didn't say anything. "And?" Impatient, Ray inquired as Nik tilted his head with a frown. "And? What? That's it. Ah, I also have a good feeling that aside from this sham of rain, the monster would be able to surprise us."

"A feeling? Are you some sort of hybrid woman with woman's intuition?" Ray hissed in frustration as Nik smiled, "Don't be so sexist. Men have intuition, too. And only in certain circumstances... it hits on point." Hearing him, even Yar scoffed within Ray. Meanwhile, the four spirits within Nik added internally. "When it's about the ass." "When it's about boobs~!" "When it's about sex." "When it's about stupid things." Ignoring Sky's remark in the end, Nik continued with a smile, "Come on! Let's try it. We can explore this realm all we want, but in the end, we should definitely try to at least mess with that monster. If it turned out to be as weak as that worm of a spirit, then we'll be lucky!"

While the Skydream spirit started spouting nonsense in anger, making Hissy call for Yar since the snake's sleep got disturbed... well... the worm enjoyed getting plowed in the end. However, in real life, Ray nodded with excitement clearly written on his face. "Nik... where we are going to go... those are real dragonmen. Not like Ryu'er... actual, physical dragonmen!" His words made the lascivious apostle smile. Who didn't want to try a dragonkin? Nik had only scratched the surface of the fantasy genre in the homeworld and knew for a fact that dragon-women are treats to be enjoyed. Especially, in fantasy hentai. Thick tail, thick butt, and thick hole. A meaty treat, to be precise.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Nik stood up with an eventually tired Moon on his head. Continuously manipulating the rainwater that is now hypothesized to be the bodily fluids of some illusionist spirit beast, Nik, Ray, Moon, and Sunny ventured towards the direction of the village situated within the lower end of the mountain. A descent of 13 minutes is all it took for the four to reach the location of what became the greatest disappointment of their entire journey. The village surrounded by a perimeter of the thick spiky fence and manned by... thin scaly figures. Well, a single scale on their forehead. That's it.

Out of the reach from the scout of the black dragon family member, Nik couldn't help but look a little hopeless. "I-is this what the world calls dragonmen? Where are the horns? Where are the muscles? The scales and the tail? What's with this insanely human figure? Where is your exoticness?!" Nik knelt on the wet ground, his purification kicking in once again and depleting his reserves. He had tasted the 'exotic' experience of his girls turning into their respective beast forms if they could. But that didn't mean the same with an actual fox girl, bear girl, or a dragon girl. Nik felt that there remained an undeniable difference between each species but as he gazed at the bald man with a thin black scale on top of his forehead, Nik felt like smacking the horrendous face with the greatest physical output he could muster. 

"Let's leave... these fake dragonmen and their culture... I don't want to enjoy it."

Nik stood with a sigh, intent on going to some other place as Ray, slightly amused and distressed, chuckled, "You may have said something extremely racist and offensive against these dragonmen." Scoffing, Nik turned around. Sure, beauties enticed him regardless, but he would rather not step foot after having his high expectations unintentionally broken into pieces. He just wanted to actually gaze upon real life, fleshy dragon-kin. However, Ray's next words made Nik pause momentarily. "After this... I guess, we should just check out the Asura Land. I mean, the remaining family, according to the knowledge I have gained, have simple and crude traditions, the type even I don't find amusing," Ray followed after Nik, "But I did hear an amazing rumor about the Asura land... it states that a pair of couple drenched the entire piece within the dimension with the blood of their enemies and set up a name for themselves... it could be worth checking out? Right?"

Turning his head to give the village one last look, Nik nodded with an exasperated sigh. His luck had been too high to meat Silver-Winged family right from the start since only they had enough physical alterations to attract his attention. "So? Where is this 'Asura Land'? Truly, this world gives even the simplest of places such an op name... I mean, Asura land could probably be a blood-colored hill with a hut situated on top and the slightest hint of bloodlust in the surroundings."

---

"Well... damn," Ray snickered as he gazed at the blood-red hill with a shaggy hut situated on top of it. Besides the lack of apparent bloodlust cultivated within the surroundings, Nik's 'prophecy' came true in the most glorious of fashion as the man's lips twitched continuously. "See?" Nik groaned, "People need to chill with their names. This place could be called a forbidden hill and it would have looked a little better. But no, Asura Land. It is due to such a naming sense that truly important items are disregarded casually since a stupid grass can he called Jad Emperor fricking heaven grass!"

With a raised eyebrow, Ray could only inquire with a smile, "Did the situation of the black dragon family really made you this upset?"

"Scams of any form are upsetting."

"Didn't you say that you scammed a bunch of books to naive customers?"

"Getting scammed is different from scamming others. I love scams when I am the one committing them," Nik shrugged and looked at another scam named Asura Land situated in front of him. A moderately sized hill with nothing but a layer of blood-red mud and a hut created from some form uncommon woods. At this time, Nik finally realized a peculiarity. Since he had long converted the [Life Vision] into a skill seed due to its high energy demand, Nik's passive skill that granted him a set of purple demon eyes gave Nik a window to another view. A fast... no, an invisible tornado of a single strand of hair covering the entirety of the hill. The strand of chameleon hair so fast and adaptive to the surroundings that even Nik's accelerated vision barely captured the strand for a single blink. Its speed high enough to create an invisible cyclone by a single strand.

"Ray, umm... let's not go there. See..." Nik extended his palms forward as a stream of fire instantly scorched through the surrounding rain and the moment it neared the hill, it got stopped and spread outwards, as if covering a formless dome but knowing that it was simply a single strand of tenacious hair, Nik could only chuckle and explain his discovery to the curious Ray. And his next words made Nik's cheeks burn a little.

"I guess... this place has qualifications of being called Asura Land, right? And, even if fire doesn't work, we can try different things. It is simply a piece of hair."

"Am automated, hurricane creating piece of hair that didn't burn at a temperature enough to melt rocks... yeah, I am open for suggestions!" Nik sneered with his arms crossed.

"We can try smiting it. You know, the one you used on that Demon Lord."

"I am not wasting that token."

"Then... how about you slow it down with gravity and then I'll use a capture token of my own."

"Capture token? Wow... never thought stuff like that could exist. Does it capture living beings?" Nik inquired curiously as Ray shook his head with a frustrated sigh.

"Actually, this is a failed copy of true capture token from the Monster Tamer Legacy... um, what was it called again... Pocket Master System? Well, all I can do is try."

At this point, Nik's spirit gave their fair share of biased opinion, too.

"You could have used Absolute Sharpness to cut it," Lilith suggested.

"Or use Pure Frost to freeze it," the diligent noob chimed.

"How about body manipulation to create a layer of true dragon scales on your body and use that to bypass it?" Asmodeus snickered, "I hear that true dragons have tasty treats packed with them~!"

"Or simply shift through space... I mean, be sure to try and shift a piece of rock. Who knows if that strand of hair might actually cut through space... not that I can feel any strange spatial force around."

"Sky... you give the best and the most disturbing news ever."

"I know. I like it that way."

Nik smiled as he formed a piece of rock within his hand using Earth Manipulation and [Shifting] it through the protective space, Nik smiled widely the moment he found the piece of rock appearing on the other side of the dome and falling on the ground. Though the connection between his own energy-formed element seemed a little off, the fact that space wasn't locked simply made all the previous ideas turn obsolete. After all, he surely wasn't going to spam train all his skills just because he could... that's like taking a flying arrow up his ass willingly. Sure, even then, all of his skills had long bypassed the realm of level 10 in the last few months... except explosion.

"Ray, how much do you weigh?"

Nik didn't have to ask this question after seeing Ray's physique, but he still asked to find useful information to act against Ray in the future. With twitching lips, Ray's gaze focused on Nik as he inquired, "Is that important?"

"Very much so." 

Nik nodded. His violet hues unflinching.

"58 kilos..."

"Pfft, shorty and weak, huh!" Nik grinned. After all, a 95-kilo hunk could only smirk at such physical weakness with the most shit-eating grin once could muster. Before Ray could reply, however, Nik placed his hands on top of Ray's head and instantly, both of them felt their vision shift. Of course, Ray felt an added bonus of headache and nausea. So weak.