Mages and Martial Artists, the two kinds of people who wields superhuman power in the world that the upbeat young man lives in, people who trains themselves to death, either by beating their bodies up repeatedly through daily physical training or beating their minds up repeatedly through daily research and memorization of magic circle formulas.
While it is true that they differ in the path they take, the two schools of acquiring strength for oneself both possesses a similar way of classifying the difference in strength between each practitioners, a system that divides their level of strength to nine levels, each level having four sub-level to further define them, a classification of strength and power that circulates the entire world for countless years already, its origin, whether the place it come from or the people who created it already fading and disappearing in the annals of time.
For the Mages, the major division of their power level are the color of their cores, nine different color representing nine levels of power, the colors from weakest to strongest being; red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, indigo, violet and white, each of these levels then divided to the intensity of the specific color that a mage's core is currently in, said division for each level from weakest to strongest as well, being; vague, solid, light and then bright, reaching the bright sub-level signifying a mage's imminent ascension to the next core level.
For the Martial Artist on the other hand, the division of their strength is measured on their progress of body refining, the act of repeated intentional hurting of the entire body in order to temper it, a crazy and painful act that often makes Martial Artist turn into two extremes, being either too volatile and easy to enrage or too calm that they are so hard to trigger, the division of said body refining being: Skin Refining, Muscle Conditioning, Blood Vessel Widening, Organ Strengthening, Bone Tempering, Marrow Activation, Meridian Awakening, Eight Gates Establishment and then finally the Nine Stars Opening, each of this sublevels then divided into the early, intermediate, late and peak sub-levels.
One tempering the body and one tempering the mind, making everyone, even the greatest geniuses that this world gave birth to wonder why they can not just cultivate the using the two system at the same time, something that only a select few can achieve due to the intricate design of the human body.
Being creatures of such small stature compared to the great beasts and monsters that can often be seen outside city walls, humans do have a problem and that is their limited capacity for the pathways of mana in their body, some of the humans being born with meridians that can affect and channel the mana around them better, while some humans are only capable of utilizing mana to enhance their own physical body.
That is why it is just that much of a surprise for the upbeat young man, Diluc, to see his new status on the Dragon Herding System's screen, the words displayed making him even try and slap himself to check if he's dreaming, only being stopped as a gray floating screen once again reminded him that everything is real.
[Diluc Leonhart]
[Race: Human]
[Age: 16]
[Realm Gold: 4,000]
[Cultivations]
[Magic: Vague Red Core (Combat power at Light Red Core)]
[Body Tempering: Early Skin Refining (Combat power at Late Skin Refining)]
[Elemental Affinity: Wind, Wood]
[Overall Combat Power: 2-stars]
[Draconic Realm]
[Missions]
[Shop]
Reading the information displayed on his status screen, the upbeat young man couldn't help but start laughing in joy, celebrating as just one Magic fruit is already bearing a great effect enough for him to increase his combat power, not even concerning himself by the degradation of his magic level and only celebrating the fact that he can still fight with opponents he can fight with previously despite being one sub-level lower now.
"I should be able to aim higher now, maybe I can get admitted in that academy" thinking of a certain place, the upbeat young man starts shaking his head, reminding himself that the current power he has might not even be equivalent to those extremely gifted and well nurtured nobles who have all the resources they want and need being handed to them, this way of thinking making him a bit more careful as he now has a secret that he needs to keep, something that might endanger his life once revealed without him having enough power yet.
"Forget it, let's take one step at a time" thinking that there's no way he can hide it forever though, the upbeat young man just decided to take a go with the flow approach, trying his best not to reveal his secrets but not really actively try not utilizing it especially when the situation deems it necessary.
"You still need to grow for those plans to work, little guy" once again patting the head of the wooden dragon hatchling, the little guy growling in satisfaction as it looks at him like some sort of leader, or even a king.
"Don't look at me like that, we're equals from now on" smiling at the hatchling as it continues to gaze at him curiously, the upbeat young man said before starting to get lost on his own thought, wondering just what kind of things did he do in his past lives for him to acquire such life changing blessing such as this, a blessing that starts with just a single dragon for now but will definitely grow in number in the future.
Before he got more and more dazed at all the blessings he is currently receiving the upbeat young man got snapped out of his thoughts as he starts feeling the emotion of the little guy coiling around him, the feeling as if there's a mental connection appearing in his mind.
Having this peculiar feeling, the young man couldn't help himself from closing his eyes, his attention being pulled into something that just makes him feel stupefied. Looking down, he sees a corporeal version of his hands, responding properly to his thoughts whether he wants it to clench or move around, as if it's just his physical body.
Different from his physical body though, there is something that feels connected to him in this corporeal body, like an invisible thread that bridges him to another individual, an individual that he will see at the other end of this invisible thread.
Walking across this empty realm with seemingly just him and that individual, the upbeat young man starts getting quite bored as the walk takes so long, feeling like an entire eternity passed in his mind before finally meeting whoever it is that is holding the other end of the thread.
A small, yet majestic body also formed from the same corporeal material, the hatchling just stands there with its eyes seemingly smiling at the upbeat young man, one of its claws pointing towards the location where the seemingly invisible thread connecting them is, near its forehead, the same location where the young man feels the thread is.
"This is… amazing" knowing that this is some sort of beast contract yet also being completely different from the normal one, the upbeat young man couldn't help but get dazed as he never heard of two beings being connected like this due to the contract being established between them, meaning that whatever it is that happened, it is something that is possibly unique to the dragon species.
"Could it be the blessing that the system is talking about?" now playing around with the young wood dragon, the upbeat young man couldn't help but wonder, his question being answered as the hatchling sounded with a positive growl, nodding its head in repeated motion as if it's agreeing with its words, making the young man surprised again as he wonders whether he's really talking to a creature that is just an egg a few minutes ago.
"Thanks little guy, you don't know how much it means to me" expressing his gratitude as he continues to play around with the young dragon, the upbeat young man said causing the young dragon to shake its head, before once again growling at him.
For some reason unknown, probably due to them being connected to each other, the upbeat young man clearly knows what the wood dragon is talking about, making him smile as he really feels like a father when he's with this hatchling.
"You want a name for yourself huh?" asking towards the corporeal form of the dragon, the upbeat young man starts smiling once again as the hatchling eagerly nods to his words, causing him to start focusing and thinking hard as he deems names especially towards companions that will be with him in the future to be particularly important, causing the two of them, dragon and man, to just sit within whatever void they are currently in for a while, the silence lasting for quite a long time before the upbeat young man finally speaks again.