Alex didn't know it but as his body changed a small spark of a certain type of energy was born in his body. It was so small that not even the system thought it important enough to mention at all leaving it unlisted in his status. This energy was typically held by all monsters that counted as dragons in this world even if they never use it openly , dragon elemental energy. A curious thing dragon energy , it didn't really have any weaknesses besides itself which was a unique feature that separated it from the other elements that counter each other.
The reason for this was actually due to the nature of how the energy came about as unlike the other types of energy that could be found naturally this one existed exclusively because of animals. Except for the few cases were a creature gets dragon energy by being in contact with something with it such as the case with the dracophages living in zenogres fur dragon energy is only ever created by a powerful creature. The amount of the energy varies due to a number of factors but no matter what the fact remains that ONLY powerful creatures have the stuff save a few understandable exceptions.
The reason dragon energy seems to harm itself is because it is mixed with the lifeforce of whatever it came from like a signature or finger print that made it incompatible with any dragon type energy with a different signature. This clash was what made the energy seem like it was only weak to itself when in fact if the signature on two different sources of the energy were to be removed they would simply fuse on contact instead. Now Alex himself held the tiniest spark of this mystical energy even if he won't know about it for quite awhile.
When Alex woke up the next day the entirety of astera knew it as a heavy pressure settled on the entirety of the town for the briefest of instances. Alex quickly regained control of his aura when he realized what was happening but the damage was already done as for the briefest moment every single person in the town felt suppressed and helpless in the face of his aura. Thanks to how smart each and every person in astera was most figured that this outburst was from the injuries he had suffered the day before. But there were a few who noticed that the feeling of Alex's aura was totally different then normal.
Zain , Roya , the admiral , the commander , the head chef and finally the head of the second fleet all noticed this difference and collectively frowned. normally Alex's aura was like a sharp blade waiting to be drawn from it's dull colored sheathe but now it was like a ruler looking at the world apathetically in full armor with a hand rested on his blade. One was because of personality but the other was clearly from an existentially higher beings very presence fused with it's personality.
Those with the experience of facing a living elder dragon in battle such as Zain , the admiral and the commander immediately felt that this aura had a VERY similar feel to it but far worse. Clearly the fight Alex had with that unknown elder had qualitatively changed something in him but none knew exactly what , not even Alex himself. As was expected Alex was grilled about this immediately but as everyone soon learned he honestly had no clue what caused this change as he explained the two new "adaptations" to them and everyone agreed that those really shouldn't be it.
Helplessly they could only drop the subject as taking guesses only worked with normal monsters who weren't constantly changing in some manner or other. Alex of course apologized to the entirety of astera for the commotion but no one really cared to begin with so he was forgiven easily. Most of the rest of the day was spent with Alex getting used to the effects of his new physique as his every movement was now filled with an innate sense of power that made controlling his aura much harder than normal as it kept trying to slip out at every movement.
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