{A/N : Hello there, today I will talk about the cave and the mountain in this Author's Note. This world is at least 15 to 20 times bigger than Earth, and more mystical and magical. Mountains in this world can range anywhere from 5,000 meters up to over 20,000 meters. The mountain within the Caligo Forest (Which means Dark Forest.), is roughly 9,000 meters. The cave within the mountain is 2,500 meters in radius. Its height is about 3,000 meters. This cave is truly Ginormous. I hope you all have a blessed day and a great week.}
[Vlad POV]
I am now on the border of the Caligo Forest, the western border. One of the two villages with over 500 residents. You could say it is even a town, just lacking in some necessities. Compared to the other villages that are in the north and east, it is a bit more prosperous, as there are no bandits on the western side of the continent. I have come with Hendriksen, Esmeralda, Volrais, and forty guards. Esmeralda insisted on bringing that much, give an impression of authority and power.
The elders of the village are now in front of me, and the adults and kids behind them. The elders' faces are... priceless, in the literal sense. The two who are in front of everyone else, they are about a meter from me, mostly likely those who are the head of the village. They look like they're about to drop dead, probably in their 80s or 90s. They drop their cane and slowly go down on their knees.
"Lord Dracula... You are alive." the old man speaks and the old woman nods.
"You know me? I am surprised. You may get up." I say, thinking how the hell they know how I look.
Standing up, the old woman answers my question by saying "You look exactly like you did when we saw you last time."
"Just how old are you?" I ask him, surprised.
"I am 114 and my wife is 110." the old man answers, surprising me even more. Well... it is a different world, following this logic, the rest of the elderly are most likely in their 90s and 100s.
"You have lived a long life. You've seen a lot." I say, randomly.
They nod and the husband and wife suddenly feel, scared... and the woman says "Where is our manners, come, come Lord Dracula. Come to our hall." I nod and motion for them to lead the way.
The adults and the children all look at me admiringly, 'This feels nice, eh?' I think to myself.
Reaching the hall, they asked me to sit at the end of the table, in the middle chair. Hendriksen, Esmeralda, and Volrais sit to my right and six elders to my left, including the couple. Four guards accompany me, two by the inside entrance of the hall and two behind me, the rest are outside.
The elder man who I was talking to before asks "What do we owe the pleasure of your visit Lord Dracula."
Three young maids come towards us, two on each side of the table and one by my side, they poor a drink and stand at the back. As I am about to drink, the guard to my right says "Lord, let me try it first." I look at him, like I am about to kill him. He sweats profusely and quickly does a full bow and says hurriedly "For your safety, Lord Dracula." he kept staying in a bowed position, I motion with my hand for him to relax and look around, the elders and maids are sweating, really sweating with nervous expressions adorning their faces.
"Now, would they really poison me? Look at them, look how welcoming they have been." I say as I grab the drink and taste it, then drinking it all and putting the cup back down. I know I am immune to childish games like poison or venom.
"Quite the delicious and refreshing drink." I say looking at the elder man on my left. He calms down and smiles, saying "It is our own mixture of mead. The honey comes right from the small batch of trees, west of the village. The bees are Apis Bees, they come from a western continent, originally. We also use the finest spices that we grow ourselves. We take good care of bees and the procedure and preparation in making the mead."
"That is impressive, I would like to buy what you have left of the mead." I say and he says, "No Lord, we will give it to you, a gift." I shake my head and say "That is not how I operate, you were patient with us, you didn't play us or betray us. You are our allies... are people even." all the elders smile happily and bow their heads. I mention with my hand for them to stop and say, "How about we talk about this later and get to the point?" I say and they nod.
"Back to your question of why I am here... I need volunteers. Teenagers, female or male. Maybe some adults, but they will have to be young." I say and they look confused. I continue "This is an opportunity for them, for their families. They will become stronger, better even. They will be enhanced and trained by the best. They will study combat and strategy under Hendriksen" pointing with my hand to Hendriksen and continuing "and my General, Dragan. They will study as well, general studies, like medicine, concoctions, languages, and so on from Esmeralda and Volrais." I say the last part, mentioning with my hand towards Esmeralda and Volrais.
"Lord Dracula... that... that is a great opportunity for the young... and our village's future..." the elderly woman says hesitantly.
I look at her and ask, "Is there something wrong?". The elders look at each other and the elder man says "We dare not to question you, Lord. But why do you need them?".
I nod and say "It is understandable of you to be curious in such a situation. There is a war, a war against a kingdom of the Holy Church, Abalon and its allies. Thus, I need men... I need soldiers. No matter how powerful a man may be, he can't win a war on his own without soldiers.", thinking to myself 'That would be pure arrogance.'
They look surprised and one of the elder men says "We don't like them, Lord. We never did." they all nod and the first elder man who I spoke to says "We... we also fear for the young ones."
"That is understandable too. But worry not, everything is fated. Do you want them to die like this." I say, mentioning to them, they shake their head, and I continue "This is an opportunity, I am not making them into Vampires, I am going to enhance them through careful use of Alchemy and Magic. They will be physically stronger and faster. They will be rewarded, as well as their families. Especially in case of any unfortunate deaths."
They look at each other and start whispering and nodding, like I can't hear what they are saying. The moment we came into the hall, I started using my powers to slowly influence them to be more... accepting towards me, more open to me and it is working wonderfully.
They agree and the patriarch of the village says "We accept. We want what is good for their future, they will be good, they will be a part of your army and we believe," he pauses and looks at the rest of the elder, then back to me, smiles and continues "we have always believed that you will come back, stronger and you will rise, rise greater than before." all the elders smile at the last part, surprising me again. That wasn't my influence... interesting. Then for a while we kept talking. I decided to only take the teens, a total of 334. Ranging from the ages of 14 to 19.
We went to the rest of the villages and did the same thing, for the second one, I did not crazily influence them with my powers. Because like the first village, which was north of the first village, they also built an altar, and acted like the first village. For the rest I simply heavily influenced them. In the end we had 1,684 teens. The other villages had about the same number of teens as the first. I brought all of them to the north border, the longest distance from the mountain which is in the south of the Caligo Forest. I told them they have two days to arrive, this is their test for qualifications. They were surprised and scared, I used magic to block all the borders, they couldn't escape, as we were inside the forest.
Obviously, I need them all alive. I made sure they will live... Though not without any scratches... or wounds. It will be difficult but, there are a lot of vampires in the forest and other supernatural creatures which are all loyal to me. They would scare them, scratch them, and wound them here and there. Nothing to fatal.
After leaving them I went back and went to Zul'Dryzûr. Arriving on top of the hill through shadow teleportation, I see Archibald is there, he bows, and I nod towards him. Looking at Zul'Dryzûr I say, "Are you ready?" he nods and says 'Master... I will always be ready to be of help to you.' I nod and say "We will go to the top of the mountain, there is a clearing. It will be safer to do it there." I manipulate the shadows to teleport both me, Zul'Dryzûr, and Archibald. We arrive at the top of the mountain of the Caligo Forest on a rigged flat area. That is more than big enough for Zul'Dryzûr.
I shackle his whole body with magic, transparent dark chains with a metallic glint come from the ground and surround Zul'Dryzûr's body, shackling him. I motion for him to bring his head down. Zul'Dryzûr is currently 60 meters in length, with a height of 20 meters and the wingspan is 90 meters.
I put my right hand on top of his snout and channel all the power of Dark Alchemy and Mutation Inducement, all that I can muster. Zul'Dryzûr starts to growl and screech in pain, I can feel his pain. His skin is glowing, cracks forming. My arm... 'What the hell...' I think to myself, my right arm starts to form cracks...
"Sir! You must use the right amount! You are using it too much! It will destroy your arm and might kill Zul'Dryzûr!" Archibald shouts and tries to stay put as a great amount of magic and wind surges from me and Zul'Dryzûr.
I reduce the amount of power I am using, fluctuating my power to find the right amount, and after four seconds I feel it and stick to it. My right arm starts to regenerate, but Zul'Dryzûr is still going, he is changing inwards and outwards... and he is still screeching, growling, and trying to destroy the shackles.
I am changing him internally first, so he can be able to handle the rest. His organs, bones, nerves, and muscles. All of it, upgrading it, making him get to a high class, or higher. As well as mutating him, introducing elements such as Darkness.
He calms down after a couple of seconds and his scales, horns, legs, head, and wings... his whole body is changing. While my hand is still on him, he is growing larger.
I remove my hand and stand back, I look at him... and I have to say, he looks majestic… majestically ferocious. He grow almost double in size, 120 meters long, a height of 40 meters, and a wingspan of 180 meters. His scales have a somewhat rock like texture that is dark, with cracks between each scale, and each crack looks like it contains lava, his scales and horns also have a faint golden glint. His face truly became ferocious. I sit down, crossing my legs feeling completely exhausted, my right arm hurts like hell and my internal organs are screaming... speak to myself "Am I not supposed... not to feel exhausted?"
Overhearing me, Archibald says, "The nature of magic isn't as simple as it may seem, it is something extremely dangerous, especially Dark Magic. Using Dark Alchemy, Dark Magic, and the power you told me about, the one you named Mutation Inducement. You have strained yourself immensely and even more so because you have gone all out in the beginning."
"Yeah... I will be careful next time... Should have thought that through, pretty stupid of me. I was just too excited to see the result" I reply to Archibald.
"Master..." speaks in a gruffier voice, a more demonic than draconic in nature.
"Damn Zul'Dryzûr... You've have become like... wait you talk?" I ask.
"Powerful, I feel immensely powerful. I can feel that I am a High Class Dragon, but more... I feel like I can break through sometime soon... and yes, I can talk." says Zul'Dryzûr.
He talks... like talks, talks. Not in the mind, but I hear his voice, coming from his mouth, yet it isn't moving.
"That is good Zul'Dryzûr. Very good. Zul'Dryzûr the MIGHTY!" I say, laughing the last part out.
"Thank you, Master, for bestowing upon me such a title." he says.
I look at him and say "Well congratulations. For now, I want you to rest. Maybe check what you can do... just don't blow us all to hell." I say the last part and vanish through shadows into my studies and into my chair, grabbing the bottle and drinking all of the blood straight from the bottle, I sigh and ask Archibald who also teleported "What has he become? He is definitely stronger... but different."
"He is indeed stronger, way more powerful than before. Gold-Class 11-Stars to be precise. Pushing all that energy and powers of yours into him really did mutate him. Even without Mutation Inducement, he would have still been what he is now, but with it, he is far stronger and has much more potential. He became a variant. Sometimes fire dragons turn into lava dragons, same goes for the rest of the dragons. Some may mutate into a stronger or weaker form, usually the former. Zul'Dryzûr however, became a Demonic Dragon. Something very rare." says Archibald.
I look surprised and say "Seriously... what kind of crap is this, Demonic Dragon? I mean sounds cool and powerful, but... whatever." saying the last part, I sigh heavily.
"Because of the amount of power and energies from Dark Alchemy, Dark Magic, and Mutation Inducement that you pushed and forced through him, to change him. It did what you wanted. Merged with him and his fire, strengthening him physically and magically. Turning him into a Demonic Dragon, a typically well-known combination of Dark and Fire. Just like demons are made of darkness and fire." says Archibald.
All that is left is General Dragan and the Teenagers. As for Archibald's body, I have decided after the battle is done, I will work on it. The shapeshifter is currently preserved in the laboratory by Esmeralda's magic.
Well, time to rest. Even though I don't need it, I have earned it. Sleeping is the best.