"Gah!!"
Waking up with a start, Carter immediately tried to catch his breath and found that it was much more difficult than normal.
After calming down, he relaxed slightly and slowly lowered his body back down onto his extremely comfortable bed.
He only got to rest for around ten seconds before he remembered that his shitty mattress back home was anything but comfortable.
His eyes snapped wide open as he took a look at his current surroundings and realized that this was indeed not his shitty apartment that reeked of mold.
For Christ's sake he was sleeping on silk sheets!
"Where the hell am I.. Wait is that me??" He couldn't even recognize the sound of his own voice.
It sounded so smooth and velvety that he thought for sure that he'd finally be able to achieve his long held dream of becoming a famous singer.
< Host has awakened.
< Uploading memory files.
< You may experience slight discomfort.
"Huh?- ARGHHH"
After the robotic voice finished speaking, he was assailed with memories that were entirely brand new and yet eerily familiar.
The body Carter had been dumped into was that of the young dragon, Exedra Draven.
Exedra's mother was apparently a dragon princess. He'd never met his father and didn't even bother to ask about him.
Exedra was expected to be highly gifted from the moment he was born due to his extremely unique and powerful mana.
Despite all expectations, he'd actually ended up as a cripple when he was only four years old.
While it's true that his magic power is truly dense and powerful, that's also part of the problem. It's too much for even his draconic body to handle and it slowly corroded him from the inside out.
He couldn't shift, couldn't use any magic, he couldn't even breathe flames.
To other dragons he was considered a disgrace and a failure. For one of royal lineage to be unable to access their dragon body was the height of inconceivability.
His incompetence earned him endless harsh treatment.
If it weren't for the horns on his head, and a dragon's natural ability to sense their own kind, no one would even believe he was one.
Exedra only had three woman who did not treat him poorly.
His mother Yara loved him deeply and even if she never said it, he knew she always blamed herself for her son's circumstances.
Exedra also had two wives who were forced to marry him as punishment from their clans because they, like him were deemed defective. Their families also hoped to establish ties with the prestigious and wealthy dragons.
While they did not treat him poorly, they were not intimate and their relationship was closer to that of acquaintances, and more often than not, he avoided them due to the guilt he felt for them having to marry someone useless like him.
"… Fucking hell..." Exedra slowly wiped two crystalline tears from his face.
When the memories were uploaded, he didn't just see them, he lived them.
Every. Single. Second.
When it ended, he wasn't sure if he was Carter or Exedra but really it didn't matter.
All that mattered now was that he finally had the chance and ability to change both of their circumstances.
Slowly rising from his luxurious silk sheets in an overbearingly large bed, Exedra walked towards a mirror hanging on the other side of the room.
When he looked into the mirror, he was a bit taken aback even though he somewhat knew what he'd see.
Staring back at him was a sickly-looking boy with black hair that reached his shoulders styled in a messy and unkempt fashion.
Sitting atop his hair were two proud black horns, paired with tanned skin the color of the finest bronze with a few patches of black scales on his shoulders and hands.
Peeking from behind the curtains of his black hair were two yellow reptilian eyes.
Standing at only five foot eight, he looked more like a member of a forgotten lizard man race than a proud and noble dragon.
"Haaaa... I'm really all skin and bones now." he muttered as he poked at his visible ribs.
Despite that his body's condition, he was over the moon.
He was a dragon now!
A noble one!
Albeit a weak one but still!
When he told the entity that he didn't want to be human, he was halfway expecting to be changed into some kind of goblin.
'Though I suppose with my body being as weak as this, even a newborn goblin could tear me a new asshole.'
"It seems like I'll forever have body issues in my lives. Either I'll have man boobs or be so skinny you could argue I'd never eaten a full meal in all of my life."
As he continued to poke and prod at his new body, a new message from his system began to play in his mind.
< Urgent Reminder: Host has not installed "Body of Peerless Devastation". >
"Oh, is that one of my wishes?"
< Affirmative. >
Let's do that now then."
< Host is advised to bite down on something as there will be extreme discomfort. >
Exedra practically sprinted to his bed to stuff his mouth with the silk bedsheets.
As someone who didn't like pain, he knew full well that if his system was saying that this would hurt, he had no choice but to believe it.
'I'll have to get more familiar with all this later but for now I should do something about this sickly body.'
Exedra's body constitution was so terrible that he could literally feel his organs being corroded.
< Commence body upgrade? >
"Mmf! (Yes!) "
< Beginning installation of "Body of Peerless Devastation." >
As soon as it began, Exedra felt the most terrible, soul breaking pain imaginable.