A.N.: Just a quick reminder for whoever skipped on the Side Stories to check them out.
They aren't strictly necessary for the advancement of the story, but I think can give a deeper characterization to some characters and improve the enjoyment of the read.
Without further ado... binge-read away!
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''So, as a prince is forced to know how to act like a beast, he must learn from the fox and the lion; because the lion is defenseless against traps and a fox is defenseless against wolves. Therefore one must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. ''
''The Prince'', Niccolo Machiavelli
Eric always remembered those words from one of his favorite books.
He tried to create a life where he could essentially not worry about any external factor once he applied those two norms in his everyday life.
He didn't have enough guts to call himself a 'Prince' during his life as an Earthling.
This truth slowly changed when he arrived in Ouroboros.
Here the power of the individual was disproportionally grander with respect to his past experience.
On Earth, the average individual could accrue power up to a definite limit.
He could get firearms, train in martial arts, or practice weight training, but that was the dissatisfying limit.
It was the laughable power of a well-trained soldier with respect to the overarching destruction of the atomic bomb.
When he was just a kid, reading the Greek myths about Achilles or other heroes, he wanted to start training as a swordsman.
Then from mythology, he changed the topic to history books and eventually learned about the World Wars.
He didn't find the strength to go to school for a week.
11 at that time, he had already guessed the infinitesimal weight, that his life had with respect to the interest and power of a country.
He stopped training the sword, and from that moment on, he found himself sadly laughing while walking past a gym or any building that had as an objective, the purely physical power of the individual.
His mind became weak, and from that moment on, he started losing the drive to excel at anything. The only physical activity he found logical for minimal health was walking.
It was useless to start a search for power, but he didn't want to die because of a lack of minimal movement.
To go from one extreme to the other and dying because of it from maybe a heart problem 300 pounds overweight would be ridiculous.
Maybe, that was the moment the sickness called average got the best of him.
He decided to live in his self-imposed cage and went with that mindset until the day of his tragic incident.
Those ideas changed almost instantly when he was teleported into the royal hall of Panpolis.
His body felt so much pain he slowly started not feeling anything. He was one step next to death.
Then a miracle happened. A strange sequence of words saved him.
In this world, a person could save another with his only words and destroy a mountain with his thoughts.
The dream he had hidden for more than 10 years came back to light...but his class was actually tamer, not a swordsman.
Ready not to give up on his heroic dream, he trained both his unique power and sword.
The monster of average caught up again with him when his improvement started slowing down, and that of the Blade Hero continued growing faster.
Then again, he had to rationalize his desires with reality, and from that moment on, he abandoned another time his desire and specialized in acquiring even stronger monsters and using them in the most effective strategies.
In a way, from a heroic soldier, he bargained to become a monster general.
At that time, he was sad about the change he had to do.
He decided to make his ego rest in order to be helpful to his party and achieve the objective of defeating the Demon King.
Funnily enough, the other Heroes' egos caused his death.
One day elapsed from Cain's death. Rubra kept his core as he told her and kept smiling, thinking back to the miraculous possibility of having her parents back in her arms.
Her feelings were still complicated, but she decided to give respects to the corpse of the dragon that, for whatever reason, still was her only caretaker for two hundred years.
Eric personally would have left him in the open for the monsters to eat, but seeing Rubra's face, he knew better than to say that.
He was still thinking about the bone-chilling roar heard after Cain's death.
It was surely related to the advice Nemesis gave him before returning from his apparent death, but, at this moment, he couldn't think of any Greek dragon god.
Curious about the effects of the fight on his status, he mentally called the usual word.
Alec(Erechtheus Blake)
Race = Human Chimera
Age = 18(28)
LV.305
STR = 100
STA = 100
AGI = 300
MAN= 400
Remaining stat points:18
Abilities: Dominion (lv.6), Survival magic(lv.8, partially limited), Phoenix lover(lv.5, partially limited), Wild combat(lv.3), Cinder-poison resistance(lv.2), *a** *le**i**(limited), A***o*i** *le**i**(limited), A**en* *le**i**(limited), H**e* *le**i**(limited), P**e**o* *le**i**(limited), D**da*** *u*s*, N**es** *le**i**(partially limited)
He was initially baffled not seeing any improvement in his level, but then logically thought about his contribution in the past battle.
*To be fair, I initially feigned my death after defending the surprise attack, then after defending against it another time, Rubra proceeded to behead him. Honestly, given that experience is given only to the last attacker, it isn't strange, but quite disappointing anyway. *
He was almost closing the panel when he remembered the ringing sound before the surprise attack he had just thought about.
As if new energy entered his body, he checked on the System's notifications, and his eyes opened suddenly.
After that, he checked his Dominion ability.
It wasn't partially limited anymore and even had gone one level over the limit reached in the past.
All of this seemed particularly strange to him because he thought his body had to go over his fourth transformation at level 400 before his limitations could be released.
Reading the description of the ability his mind was even more confused.
''Finally, you acquired your first subject!
As a royalty, your subject's power is your power.
You can partially influence the subject's actions that gifted their life to you.
Your status entries increase in an amount equivalent to 20% of your subject's stats. ''
At this point, he thought he had gone completely crazy.
*Rubra is my subject?! *