Gravity Enhancement

"Get up."

"Whoa, what's this?"

Zheng Yichen, still asleep, suddenly felt his weight multiply several times over. Even after he opened his eyes, he was pinned down and couldn't get up. Looking around in shock, he discovered several rings had somehow appeared around his limbs.

"Go run." Lolise pointed to the end of the street. "Ten laps around the town, then go hunting."

"I... how am I supposed to run like this?" Zheng Yichen struggled to prop himself up. He barely lifted a foot before the added weight nearly flattened him again.

"With your feet. Of course, you can choose to fly instead."

"...What's this even for?"

"Training."

"Isn't magic enough? I picked it up fast!" Lolise had given him three days to learn, and Zheng Yichen had mastered his first spell on the second day.

It was exactly as she had said. Once he mastered the spell and etched it into his mind, the magic circle would appear clearly whenever he thought of it, and he could sense it.

Each time he cast the spell, its activated patterns connected with the power outside him. Because the magic circle was closely bound to him, some of that power flowed into his body.

Part of that power was then digested like food and became his own. The amount was tiny, but he could clearly feel it. Before, his body had felt empty; now he could sense the power called mana within it.

Of course, only practice had shown him that this absorption and digestion had limits. Casting spells consumed mental energy, making it impossible to cast constantly. And accumulating mana also depended on how much he could digest.

Eat too much in a day, and you'd end up stuffed. Accumulating mana worked the same way.

But he was a dragon now, so his ability to digest it was far stronger. Zheng Yichen had yet to experience the "stuffed" feeling Lolise described. The spell he knew was too low-level, and the mana he could accumulate each day was limited.

"Magic is only one option. You have the gifts and the means to learn other kinds of power." Lolise removed one of her long gloves and waved her hand through the air beside her. A long whip took shape, formed from energy, so its length could extend...

Zheng Yichen stared, stunned, at the crack she had casually lashed into the ground beside his feet. It stretched more than thirty meters. Without a word, he started running. If that whip struck him, he'd be rolling on the ground in pain.

"Too slow. Speed up." Hearing the whip crack behind him, Zheng Yichen quickened his pace. What he really wanted was to turn around and see what Lolise looked like right now.

As he ran, something puzzled him. His weight had increased severalfold, so why was the ground unharmed? Shouldn't he have cracked it underfoot by now?

The town wasn't large, but it wasn't small either. By the time Zheng Yichen finished his laps, he could barely do anything but gasp for breath. Lolise gave him no chance to recover. She walked straight up to him, lightly flicking the whip in her hand, now shortened to about a meter.

"I'm hungry."

"..." Zheng Yichen rolled his eyes where he lay sprawled on the ground. Hungry? He hadn't seen Lolise eat anything these past few days. At most, she drank a little water, and she had never seemed hungry. He'd begun to suspect she didn't need to eat at all.

He braced his exhausted body and slowly rose. Before he could steady himself, a sudden weight settled on his back!

Lolise was light, but with the multiplied gravity weighing him down, her weight bore down on Zheng Yichen several times over too. She was almost the last straw that broke the camel's back.

"Is this training just to strengthen my body?"

"A dragon's body is different from a human's, so you can't use the combat techniques of humans or humanoid races. But Battle Qi is worth trying."

"Doesn't learning that shorten your life!? And Magic Beasts can't learn it either, can they?"

"You're a dragon. Your nature may be close to that of a Magic Beast, and ordinary dragons can't learn it, but your constitution is different from theirs." Sitting steadily on Zheng Yichen's back, Lolise gently swung her little feet. "Even if you fail, it will strengthen your body. There's a good chance you won't have a dormant transformation period, so you must make up for it through training."

"And if you succeed, your powerful dragon physique will let you shrug off Battle Qi's side effects."

"Really?" Zheng Yichen was still doubtful. He couldn't shake the feeling that Lolise was trying to confirm something.

"That's only part of the reason. Once you've managed to cultivate Battle Qi, I'll tell you the rest. Now move."

"...What the hell is something like that doing in the forest!?" Zheng Yichen stared in disbelief at the giant python coiled across a dozen or so trees ahead. It was nearly thirty meters long and as thick as an adult's waist. Zheng Yichen had thought he was pretty big himself.

The only creature he'd seen that could compare to him was that enormous lion, and even it hadn't been a match for him. But beside this python, he looked small. How many times could it wrap itself around him!?

What was more, an irregular horn grew from its head, with little arcs of electricity spilling from it now and then. One look told him it was trouble.

"You can't beat it yet. Go around." Lolise glanced at the python and spoke flatly.

Zheng Yichen nodded slightly and prepared to slip away, but the python seemed unwilling to let them go. Its eyes fixed on him.

"Oh, dragons are quite nourishing for some Magic Beasts too. What a shame. It would have made a fine opponent for you later." Seeing the python rush toward them, Lolise shook her head slightly and gave the whip in her hand a light flick.

The whip suddenly extended dozens of times its length. Before the charging python could do anything else, the lengthened whip sliced it in two. The shortened whip then coiled around the horn on its head and brought it back. Lolise casually tossed it into a rift she opened beside her.

Zheng Yichen stared at the python, killed in an instant. The blood spraying from its severed body began to rot before it hit the ground. By the time it landed, it had turned black and foul-smelling. The python's body rapidly decayed and crumbled away, until not even its skeleton remained!!

"Did it have to disappear that completely!?" Zheng Yichen said, dismayed. Since coming to this world, he had discovered that the stronger a beast or Magic Beast was, the better its meat tasted.

"There's still blood!" Lolise said, her little face stern.

"..." That's filthy water!