Combat Skills and Prayers

Lucia understood that the Dragon Bloodline Inheritance originally hidden behind the bronze door deep within his soul had already been engraved into his memories, and the two nebulae at the peak of the stars were the inheritance's manifested form.

He tried using the same method as when he had summoned the two stars representing himself and Samuel, focusing his thoughts on the nebulae. The knowledge they carried was instantly sorted by the Memory Battlefield, turning into radiant screens of text that appeared across the night sky.

His father, Placidusax, was the Dragon King who governed the war authority of the Ancient Dragon Dynasty. Within his illusory nebula were recorded not only all the combat arts of the ancient dragons, but also the most orthodox combat inheritances of the ancient Storm Dynasty.

The latter had first originated from the humans of the Storm Dynasty imitating Ancient Dragon Combat Art. After several centuries of development and evolution, it had gradually formed its own unique style and strengths, and had instead become something the dragons studied and used for comparison. Even today, the combat arts used by ancient dragons and Wyvern Warriors in human form and half-dragon form still blended in many traces of storm combat arts. It was just that, because they possessed physical qualities far beyond humans, their use of combat arts also appeared far more extreme and savage.

Whenever Lucia focused his attention on a tiny rune, the Memory Battlefield would immediately condense the corresponding dragon-shaped or human-shaped phantom, repeating every detail of the combat art's execution with smooth, flowing movements. The breathing rhythm that went with it, the techniques of exerting force, and even the mental state that needed to be maintained all appeared at the same time in the form of screens of light.

As it happened, under this starry sky, Lucia possessed extremely powerful mental strength, allowing him to grasp the most crucial details within this knowledge with ease. He only needed to simply replicate them a few times to gain a rough mastery of a combat art.

Of course, through this method, he could only achieve a rough mastery. Combat arts were killing techniques warriors had tempered through countless battles. Without the honing of real combat, even if he grasped the knowledge perfectly, it would be difficult to advance any further and truly comprehend the essence of a combat art.

After briefly trying several combat arts, Lucia temporarily stopped and turned his gaze toward the core of the nebula.

Unlike the basic content recorded on those single runes, Placidusax's dragon heart, dragon wings, dragon scales, dragon claws, and dragon tail each contained an extremely powerful royal combat art. They were composed of complex arrays of obscure and profound runes. Just a casual glance was enough to make one feel the scalp-numbing difficulty of these five combat arts, and corresponding to that were the shocking effects recorded within—

Dragon King's Body: Divided into nine stages. With the heart as the core, it fuses the ancient dragons' innate bloodline power and physical power into one furnace, tempering qi and blood power in no way inferior to divine power and magic power, while also greatly and permanently strengthening the caster's physique.

Permanent strengthening? Lucia froze at the first glance.

Based on his understanding, from both his previous life and this one, of the major skill systems in The Lands Between, anything that could "greatly" enhance one of the caster's abilities generally had strict time limits, and some also came with additional negative effects.

Take the Erdtree incantations, famous throughout the world for all sorts of extraordinary buff effects, for example. In reality, Golden Vow did not last only a few dozen seconds like in his previous life, but even the most powerful caster was unable to keep a buff incantation of that level permanently active on their body.

And beneath those two lines of text woven from flowing light, there was also a short yet domineering note.

Current limit-breaker—Placidusax, ninth stage.

"Among all the ancient dragon royalty from ancient times to now, only Father reached the ninth stage. That really is difficult enough!" Lucia sighed, then followed the same logic and began reading the records of the other four royal combat arts.

Wings of the Void: Divided into nine stages. The supreme speed achieved by the ancient dragons after tempering their wings with storm and frost. At the limit, the caster can slip into the cracks of spacetime, causing the laws of time applied to them to stagnate in a certain sense.

Current limit-breaker—Placidusax, ninth stage.

Undying Scales: Divided into nine stages. The strongest defense achieved by the ancient dragons after tempering their dragon scales with lava and flame, accompanied by an extremely powerful self-recovery ability.

Current limit-breaker—Placidusax, eighth stage; Fortissax, eighth stage.

Claw of Ruin: Divided into nine stages. The strongest attack unleashed by the ancient dragons with ultimate thunder power. It is also amplified by qi and blood power and divine power, and its might is so great that it can shatter all obstacles in the world.

Current limit-breaker—Placidusax, eighth stage; Lansseax, eighth stage.

Reading this, Lucia suddenly thought with wicked amusement, what would happen if the all-shattering Claw of Ruin were used against the unbreakable Undying Scales?

He seriously pondered it for quite a while and finally came to a conclusion. Judging by Sister Lans and her younger brother Fortissax's ecological niches, the power of Claw of Ruin was absolutely above Undying Scales!

He could not help shaking his head with a laugh, tossing those messy thoughts aside as he looked at the final royal combat art—

Tail of Infinity: Divided into nine stages. A divine art created by Gransax, the first High Priest of the Sky Temple, by referencing the Dragon King's demigod body. It originated from Aspects of the Crucible, but its power surpasses it. After cultivation, the dragon body can extend and transform at will, greatly and permanently increasing the caster's speed, agility, and dexterity.

Current limit-breaker: Gransax, ninth stage.

"Referencing the Dragon King's demigod body?" Lucia murmured. "Father's five-headed dragon body is indeed completely different from other ancient dragons. Is it because he was the first ancient dragon born from the Crucible of Life?"

In the epics passed down through the generations in Farum Azula, the Ancient Dragon King Placidusax was the pioneer and conqueror of supreme height and supreme might, the first and strongest ancient Elden Lord. Sculptures and murals depicting the Dragon King's glorious deeds could be seen everywhere in Sky City, and Wyvern Warriors and Storm Knights were also fond of wearing Old Lord's Talisman made in reference to the Dragon King's image. It was worth mentioning that, out of consideration for avoiding direct depiction of the honored one, the Old Lord's Talisman did not fully replicate the Dragon King's august appearance, but was instead made in the image of a four-headed dragon body.

"In that case, the High Priest's size, far beyond other royalty, should also be the effect of Tail of Infinity," he thought.

Not long ago, he had personally witnessed the rock-solid defensive system of Leyndell's outer city. If Gransax had not already reached the pinnacle in his cultivation of Tail of Infinity, to the point that he could transform his dragon body to such an unreasonable degree, he could not possibly have become the only being in history to breach the walls of the Golden Capital.

On the other side, his mother Hlaris's illusory nebula recorded all incantations of the ancient dragons.

Among the many incantations, they centered on the thunder power the ancient dragons were most proud of, while also encompassing the four great elemental powers of earth, water, wind, and fire. The rune arrays carrying the five branches of incantations were shaped like a multicolored feather robe, surrounding the holy dragon body, releasing a soul-stirring mighty power as starlight flowed.

Legend had it that the Dragon God Hlaris was born from the devout faith of countless ancient dragons. She was the guide and protector of supreme goodness and supreme virtue, the ancient god who held the Elden Ring and the primordial law. Unlike Father's five great royal combat arts, among the thousands of incantations of the five elemental branches, the entry for "current limit-breaker" was uniformly Mother's name, without a single exception.

When Lucia first looked, he only felt his head swell. Forget comparing the number of incantations to his previous life; even compared to the combat arts on the left, the contrast was intense, to say nothing of the fact that most of them involved all sorts of exquisite techniques for circulating divine power. At first glance, their complexity was far above those simple and brutal combat arts.

After patiently studying them for a period of time, however, he discovered that the many incantations of the same elemental power essentially reached the same destination by different paths. As long as he mastered the basic laws of divine power circulation, he could mostly learn by analogy. In this respect, they were actually much simpler than combat arts, which required years and years of polishing each move and form.

As for Sister Lans's famous "lightning blade," Fortissax's "lightning spear," and those other renowned moves, at their root, they were merely the most convenient ways for them to use thunder power after mastering it thoroughly.

By this point, Lucia had already understood most of the contents of the Dragon Bloodline Inheritance. Next, he only needed to first choose a few items and begin formally cultivating them.

However, there was still one final part of Mother's illusory nebula that he could not interpret. It was located where her eyes were. Within the icy-blue starlight was carved an even more profound kind of rune. Looking across the two nebulae, only this rune had not been recorded within his innate bloodline memories.

"The runes in the other parts of the nebula already include all of our race's combat arts and incantations, so what else could the contents recorded by that passage of runes be?"

For a moment, he came up with many guesses, but because he lacked more information to support them, he could only set them aside for now. He planned to replicate a copy later and take it to Sister Lans to have a look.

Still, he did not hold much hope for it. Sister Lans was over six hundred years old this year, yet still could not compare to some older ancient dragon elders. For content that even he, with his bloodline, could not understand, presumably only the ancient dragon leaders active before the Forbidden War would have the ability to interpret it.

But there were now only two ancient dragons with that kind of seniority left. One was his father, who was in the crevice of spacetime, and the other was Greyoll, the "Mother of Wyverns," who had fallen in Caelid. Both of them were in slumber, so he definitely could not count on them in the short term.

He let out a soft breath and decided not to worry about so much for now. First, he would raise his own combat strength by a large margin.

After careful consideration, he ultimately decided to begin cultivating Dragon King's Body and Claw of Ruin first. As for incantations, he naturally chose thunder power, the most lethal of the five great elements.

As an ancient dragon demigod, supreme blood from the Dragon King and the Dragon God flowed within his body. Although he was still far from being mature, in his half-dragon and even complete dragon forms, his speed and agility were already no weaker than most hero-level powerhouses.

As for Undying Scales' super-strong defense, it was certainly tempting, but he currently had the defense of ancient dragon scales as his foundation, along with a life attribute as high as 40 points, so it was not an urgent need for the time being. On the contrary, absolute strength and attack power were his greatest weak points at present.

Based on his dozens of one-on-one battles with Samuel, as long as he did not get careless and take a black flame incantation straight to the face, the other party would also find it hard to cut his half-dragon self to death in just a few blows. But the reverse was different. With his third-rate Ancient Dragon Combat Art and Storm Swordsmanship, he could not even break through the defense of that Godskin Robe. If he ran into the noble aura, getting close would be as hard as ascending to heaven.

Once he raised these two areas, even if he was still far from being Samuel's match, he would at least be able to gain more analysis progress in each clash. He still wanted to see exactly what benefits there would be after reaching the 20% analysis node.

After all that fuss, Lucia was already exhausted in both body and mind, but he still forced himself to stay alert and seriously studied the cultivation methods for these skills for a long time. Only after he could repeat them accurately and without error did he leave the Memory Battlefield, lie on his back on the floor of the quiet room, relax his mind, and sink into a deep sleep.