When using magic, a Mage didn't necessarily have to use their own Mana reserves. Although typically it was only the most skilled and powerful Mages that used this method, it was possible to use Mana from the world around them in order to form spellworks and use magic.
It was hard to do, and even harder to tell apart from casting regular magic.
That was why only skilled Mages did this, because they could simultaneously do this while injecting a piece of their own Mana inside the spellwork, making them invulnerable to the effects of the spellwork as if they cast the spell with their own Mana instead of mainly using the world's natural magical energy.
If a Mage such as Amelia performed such a trick, there was no way she'd be able to do the same thing; and being a flame Mage, creating spellworks with the world's Mana would be extremely dangerous to her because she'd be vulnerable to her own spell.
So, Fen was taking a chance.
Lesser Dragons were not supposed to be intelligent. Well, they weren't supposed to be able to use magic either, but there's no way a monster could be both intelligent and a Mage, right? Right?!
Betting his life on the line was happening more and more often lately, and to be honest, Fen was getting really tired of it. And there was no better way to reduce stress than kicking everybody's ass, or so he believed.
'Fuu.' Feeling anger was inefficient. Fen used to be able to control his emotions much more effectively before he joined the Program, but now he was all over the place. He could only let his rage act as fuel for his actions, because he was the most aware that he had nothing else to fuel his movements.
He had no more Vital energy, but it was slowly trickling in with the aid of his two Marks, which glowed gold and black underneath his uniform as they passively sucked in all the energy around him and delivered it for his body to absorb.
'If I have to feel something, then I might as well feel pain.' Fen thought.
His body was more or less uninjured from the fight. That state of being wouldn't last for much longer however.
With purely his own body strength, he threw his body towards the Lesser Dragon, the increased temperature of the air searing his skin. This much pain was bearable however. He had endured this much before, he could do it again, and he would do it again with ease.
Each step brought him closer and closer to the Dragon, who Fen could now see was just as pissed to see him as he was apathetic. Whereas the monster was filled with fire inside, he was filled with nothing but a gap void of all emotion, focused entirely on the Lesser Dragon.
The void inside his heart only strengthened him.
Slice.
The first Flaming Spear was thrown, and Fen wasn't ready to dodge it yet. It struck his lower back, passing with little resistance through above his hip, putting a hole in his body.
The pain was refreshing. It served as reminder of what was to come.
Fen was standing on the top of the Dragon. When he raised his eyes to his surroundings, he could see an almost infinite amount of Flaming Spears around him, with even more being constructed in the ever-increasing temperature. Sparks were emitted, which acted as fuel for even more Flaming Spears. The cycle continued.
'What a shitty Dragon. Doesn't even know explosion magic.' Somehow the bleak atmosphere wasn't enough to keep him from acting snarky.
This magic would suit his needs though, even if it wasn't explosion magic.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
With a grimaced face, Fen lowered himself on the top of the Dragon. Every single one of the flame magic spellworks was aimed directly at him, but where was he located? On the top of the Dragon's back. If this Lesser Dragon was intelligent, it would have never aimed at him in this location, but it was too stupid to realize what was about to happen.
For something like this Flaming Spear onslaught, not injecting your own Mana into the spellwork was the same as signing your own death certificate.
The second was painful enough to freeze his lungs in pain, Fen had to force the hot air into his lungs so that he could breath.
The twelfth just sucked in general, slicing through his inner thigh, making standing straight that much harder, as if it wasn't hard enough to do when his hard body was filled with cauterized cuts. At the very least, he wouldn't bleed, so Fen didn't have to worry about death from blood loss.
The fiftieth passed through a hole that another Flaming Spear had already made, reigniting the pain-receptors in that part of his body. Leg? Arm? Shoulder? Meaningless, insignificant words when it came time to feel pain. Through his suffering Fen gained a new understanding of the word, 'equality'.
The Dragon was faring slightly better because of it's innate resistance to high temperatures, but the piercing power of each of the Flaming Spears was no joke. And, the Lesser Dragon had a much bigger body, so every Spear that missed Fen would end up piercing it's large body.
It's body was so large that the Flaming Spears couldn't pass through either, so the heat had nowhere else to go but inside; it was being roasted alive by it's own magic, which was exactly Fen's plan.
The chase was over, and their battle had become one of endurance rather than strength. Fen's regeneration abilities were pitted against the hardness of the Lesser Dragon's scales and resistance of it's organs to high temperatures.
Were there perhaps other alternatives besides practically incinerating his entire body? Maybe. But those all required Fen to possess skills that he didn't have. Wasn't it much easier to endure rather than fight? All Fen had to do was remain on top of the Lesser Dragon, and he'd survive. He couldn't die in this Scenario. He refused.
When Fen put some energy into his eyes, he realized that he was flat against the Dragon's back, but he didn't know for how long he had been there. He couldn't remember the sensation of falling.
'Oh. I can see again?' That thought flittered through his mind. Sometime during the onslaught of Flaming Spears his eyes were burnt away, leaving a skull with barely any skin covering it. By some miracle his skill wasn't pierced through, so he could still use his brain to think.
Should he be grateful that his brain was left intact, if it meant that he felt every small sensation against his body? When his nervous system was cut away by the Spears, Fen wanted to die. The reason why he hadn't was because he could no longer control his body, and was forced to lay there.
But now he could see. His body had regenerated, if only by a small margin. Feeling the wind against his bare skin made him feel regret that he would need to get another uniform to wear.
This was the second time his uniform had been burnt into ashes. He really should stop throwing himself into fire...
Using what was left of his tendons, Fen managed to pull himself up so he could see around him.
The air was back to it's original temperature, and there were no more Flaming Spears or other flame magic spellworks in the area around him; the battle had ended. Fen had survived.
Snap!
"Shit!" The tendon in his arm had snapped, but Fen couldn't blame it. He could only be thankful that it had lasted such a long time in the onslaught. Fen lay on his back against the magical Lesser Dragon, which was filled with many more holes than him.
When his entire body was feeling pain, he was able to endure because his nervous system, along with parts of his body, were melted away. Now that his nerves were regenerated with the meager amount of Vital energy his body had managed to produce, he was extremely sensitive to the world around him.
'Why do I feel like I'm rising?' Fen was on top of a dead Dragon's back, so then...
At that moment, his left ear finished renegerating and was connected to his brain. The sound of breathing filled his head.
"Fuu."
"Ahh."
"Fuu."
...Son of a bitch, this Dragon's still alive and breathing! Why can't life be easy, just for a second?!
Fen really wanted to finish off this sunovabitch, but unfortuntely, his body wasn't in a good enough state to move, let alone killing a fucking Lesser Dragon, even if it was almost burned to a crisp.
'It's a good thing Dragon's can't regenerat-' Fen violently cut himself off before he could finished that thought.
This was a Lesser Dragon that could fly and use magic, which was really pushing his bad luck. If Fen believed that it couldn't heal, he would only have himself to blame if suddenly all his wounds vanished and a healthy, black Lesser Dragon capable of using magic appeared right before him.
He waited. And waited. His sword was gone from his body, he had made sure to throw it away in case it got burnt away in the flame magic onslaught, so he couldn't use it to kill this significantly weakened Lesser Dragon.
He'd to use his bare hands to kill it, which didn't seem that appealing.
When he was able to move his limbs, Fen stopped his body from sending Vital energy to heal himself, letting the energy stockpile within his body, leaving his own regenerative ability to do the healing work. He would need the Vital energy to kill the Dragon, so he couldn't waste it on his body.
He'd heal later when he was safe. Whether or not Fen would regenerate wasn't the issue, it was impossible for him to carry permanent wounds, at least from this fight. Even now, his body's energy sputtered as his organ sputtered blood and regenerated from being incinerated.
Crunch.
Using his own blood, Fen slid down the Lesser Dragon's body, his body making a horrifying crunching noise as he landed awkwardly on the rocks. There was no soil to cushion his landing; it was all burnt away in the Flaming Spear onslaught, leaving nothing but rocks and gravel around them.
Fen hurriedly pulled himself up using one of the Dragon's scales, burning his hand on the still scorching scales.
Anything would be able to kill him right now, if they saw him. He was literally standing on broken legs, with very little muscle fibers left to support his movements. Thankfully, the magic the Lesser Dragon had deployed had scared away whatever wildlife and monsters left in the forest, and there was no other Lesser Dragon-level type beast around to introduce itself to him.
With weak steps, Fen stumbled his way to the Dragon's head, nearly falling several times as he walked.
He had a general idea for what he would need to do to kill the Dragon, but he wasn't going to enjoy it. Destroying it's heart was out of the question; Fen had no way to penetrate through the tough scales, and the odds that there was a hole large enough to crawl into made by the Flaming Spears was extremely low.
Thankfully, most monsters had a few natural holes in their heads, which Fen hoped to take advantage of.
If destroying the heart was out of the question, well, the heart wasn't the only vital organ in a Lesser Dragon's body. The brain would work just as well!
"Ugh!"
Fen almost emptied the contents of his punctured stomach when he saw the Dragon's face. His eyes worked just well enough to accurately show the disgusting mess left of it's head. A strange grey substance was dripping down it's nose, mixing with whatever blood hadn't been evaporated from the intense heat.
It's eyes were completely gone, leaving two black husks of some type of material; that was probably what Fen's eyes would look like if he didn't have his power of regeneration.
In some parts of it's head it's skull was visible. Gray and cracked bone, not the pristine white type of bone. If you looked close enough, you could still see pieces of flesh desperately connected to these pieces of bone, unwilling to accept what was about to happen.
Fuu.
Ahh.
Two white clouds of steam flowed out of the Dragon's nostrils, the only indication that it was still alive. It was when Fen saw this that it hit him. He didn't have to finish it off. He could simply leave it; the end of the Scenario couldn't be that far away, he could walk away.
But something had snapped inside of Fen while he was enduring the onslaught of Fire Spears.
Even if it wasn't efficient, or productive. Fen wanted this Dragon dead, as some sort of compensation for what it had put him through. The pain of enduring was still burned into his mind and body.
This time, Fen had an outlet to release his rage into. In the Program he could only channel his anger into his training with no way to release that energy, but now that he had a perfectly usable monster right in front of him, who would blame him for destressing? No one would be able to witness it anyways.
Or so he thought, but the flickering existence in the reality was watching his every move. Dey had wanted to watch Fen and how he performed in the Scenario, but even the old God had to agree that Fen killing the Dragon was okay. Even if he didn't kill it, the odds of another predator finding it before it could heal itself were higher than the Lesser Dragon surviving the encounter.
The strong eat the weak. That was the only sacred rule that the monsters had; Fen finishing the Dragon off the Dragon was simply an extension of this rule. Although, Dey was a little confused about what to feel about the Dragon's weakness.
Was it okay for Fen to kill a practically defenseless being? Such an act was no longer considered a death in battle, which was honorable, but an act of murder. While Dey was pondering that question the candidate placed his hand on the Dragon's maw, announcing his presence.
What was left of the Lesser Dragon shuddered as it felt the hand on it's body, instinctively knowing that Fen had survived despite the horrendous amount of magical energy used to create the Flaming Spear onslaught.
He ran his hand along the Dragon's maw, stopping when he was close enough to touch it's eye. The shuddering increased in strength as the Lesser Dragon understood Fen's intent. Dey's worry only increased as he observed. He didn't want Fen to experience murder, even if the candidate had already killed a person that was through forced battle, he had no other choice.
Now that Fen had a choice, if he chose to kill, what would stop him from choosing to kill every time he was given a choice?
Boom!
It seemed that Deion's worry wasn't transferred to the candidate he was watching as Fen struck with an empowered fist through the Dragon's eye, destroying what was left of it's brain. He had put all of his stored Vital energy into strengthening his punch at that moment, resulting in a shockwave of kinetic force; that was what destroyed the Dragon's brain.
"..."
Fen focused his senses to see if the Dragon was truly dead. The corpse didn't move, or even twitch,, and it didn't take any more breaths. As Fen smiled, Dey grew sad as he saw the path the candidate chose.
For a brief moment, an unknown emotion flickered within the youth's heart.
The Scenario ended after the Dragon died as the timer hit thirty minutes. Just like when he entered, a flash of light took his place before disappearing completely, leaving the dead Lesser Dragon's corpse and a crater of hot rock around it. Thankfully, Fen's short sword was recovered by the interface and emitted a bright flash of light before it too disappeared.