Rise of the Devourer

Noah followed his mini map, soon arriving in front of an establishment with a wooden banner on top that had a draconian man holding out a plate with the most oversized peace of steak he had ever seen in his life.

Through his ability, Noah could already see inside the tavern, noting that Erwest, Valeria and Aurelia were already inside. Walking in, the door ringed with a chime. A bulky draconian man called out.

“Welcome to Drakan’s Steaks!” He shouted, standing behind an obsidian looking platform on top of which he grilled a giant piece of steak. The smell of food filled the air inside. A smaller, younger draconian girl that wore a typical tavern maid’s dress and carried three mugs of ale and a plate of food in her hand looked to greet him.

“Do you have a seat booked? If not—”

“He’s with us!” Aurelia called out, raising her hand and the girl looked behind before giving Noah a nod.

Noah walked to the table where Aurelia sat nursing a glass of some kind of drink while Valeria had a mug of ale in her hand. Erwest did not have anything in front of him. He knew the churches did not restrict the consumption of alcohol by any means, in a world with magic filled with Awakened, all except Hellion’s church which wasn’t a fan, but did not outright ban it. The paladin was merely a stickler for rules.

“Looks like I’m early,” Noah said, taking a seat next to the group.

“You’re on time. The others are late instead,” Aurelia replied, taking a sip from her drink that had what looked like swirling glitter inside of it, which constantly changed colors. Noah could sense mana coming off of it. It looked fancy.

“How did your visit go?” Aurelia asked.

“Good. I think. Shorter than I’d thought,” Noah replied.

“I assume the ruckus at the temple was because of you?” Valeria asked, swirling her cup of ale in her hand.

“Ruckus?” Noah asked.

“Normally the gods do not commune so easily with people who are merely visiting. But Septah visited upon your arrival. People took note,” Valeria replied with a grin.

Erwest grunted, but did not add anything further.

“Not that this guy would know. He talks to the gods as if they were his friends,” Aurelia said, shaking her head.

“Well, if there’s any god who wouldn’t take offense to that, it would be Septah,” Valeria said, taking a sip. “She’s kind. Perhaps too kind, even. Rutha often grumbles about how easy she is on her followers.”

“You seem to have a friendly relationship with your god,” Noah asked.

“Of course. I have sworn my life to him, it is only natural. And unlike this guy, we don’t revere Rutha as a distant object to be worshipped, he’s a guiding source, a light to be followed, he guides us, and we make sure he does not stray too far from his path.”

“Your god is the youngest in the Pantheon too. Mother Hellion has seen the wars,” Erwest said, glancing at Valeria.

“Don’t say that to Rutha. He’s sensitive about it,” Valeria said.

“You know, I actually don’t know much about Rutha. I know that he’s the god of war and he took the position after Raelinah left… but how? Can anyone just become a god?”

“Hmm, well, there’s a lot of history on that topic. Too much to cover right now, so I’ll give you the short answer. No, Rutha did not become a god after Raelinah left. He was already one. He merely filled her role. The great wars— When the crimson heart fell, when all gods except Hellion died, and when Raelinah left her throne— that was when Rutha had first arrived. He was a lesser god, in the western lands to where the Rot had made its home. He was the god of valor. And when Raelinah left, he stepped up to fill her role, becoming one of the three primary deities of the pantheon,” Valeria said.

The door chimed once more, and this time Seraphina and Snow walked inside, with Snow carrying some heavy looking magical tomes in her hand. “Oh, talking of the Great War are we?” Seraphina said, interest piqued as she came and took a seat. Snow, similarly, sat next to her, setting the books down onto the table.

“Just giving a quick rundown, don’t get started Seph,” Valeria said, rolling her eyes. “This girl is a history nerd. It’s why I don’t talk about any of this often.”

“What’re those books?” Aurelia asked.

“Some grimoires we got. These ones are for Snow, to help her learn some summoning spells outside of base abilities. She can’t just rely on ability like a dumb brute when she’s got such a prime base to be a well rounded summoner. I almost wanna steal her from you guys,” Seraphina said, patting Snow’s head as the girl blushed.

Aurelia pouted.

“Why not put them in your storage bracelet?” Noah asked.

“The magic might interfere with the content of the books,” Snow replied.

“You need a perfectly stable spacial dimension to store these without any damage and even I can’t cast one. I have one ring made especially for storage for that purpose,” Seraphina said.

Noah hummed to himself. Calling on his Astral vault, he let a slit in reality open up above his hand to show inside. “Will this work?” He asked.

“That—” Seraphina paused, looking at the cut in reality floating above his hand for a few moments. Her eyes flashed once, before she nodded. “Yeah… is that an ability?” She asked, looking up at Noah.

“Yup. Storage perk, ability and Arcane Body,” Noah replied, as he glanced at Snow. “You want me to store these?”

The girl gave him a nod, and Noah touched the books, storing them inside his dimensional vault. He took a moment to check the notifications he got.

You’ve obtained 1x [Grimoire of Conjuration Spellcasting]

You’ve obtained 1x [General Arcanum Compendium - I]

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

You’ve obtained 1x [Grimoire of Summoning Spectral Elementals]

When he looked up from his notifications, Seraphina had moved next to him, her eyes shining.

“Hey, Noah. Do you have any plans to go back to your world?”

Naoh looked at Seraphina, raising an eyebrow at the sudden question. “Not at the moment, no.”

“Good, so… you want to settle here? In our world?” She asked.

“Uhh, I mean… I guess?”

Seraphina nodded, leaning back away as she cupped her chin in thought. Noah felt weirded out by the girl, and could see her sneaking glances at him every few seconds. After a few seconds of silence, she turned towards him and asked. “Why don’t we get married?”

“What?” Noah nearly spat the ale he had been drinking, coughing in sheer surprise.

“What?!” Aurelia shouted, louder than even him.

“Not again, Seph!” Valeria replied, rising from her chair.

“I mean it this time!” Seraphina protested, before turning towards the still coughing Noah and grabbing his hand. “My father is a well respected mage, and he’s been wanting me to get married anyway. With your strength, he shouldn’t have any complaints given how fast you’re growing. We could be an amazing duo! I could teach you spell casting, and how to use your magic way more effectively. And our children, with your Arcane Body and clearly distinct bloodline combined with my expertise would be the strongest mages this world has ever seen. They could break new grounds in magic, advance the entire world by leagues. Think of all the things we could achieve together!” Seraphina said, her eyes quite literally glowing from an overflow of mana.

A chime rung from the door once more as Kaelan stepped through the gates, watching the commotion unfolding inside.

“What’s going on?” He asked, as half the table sat around, watching Seraphina’s proposal with shock, while Valeria cupped her head in embarrassment.

“She proposed again. This time to Noah,” Valeria said.

“Oh, hah! No,” Kaelan said, walking closer as he grabbed Seraphina by the scruff, dragging her. “Don’t be a nuisance, Seph.”

“He hasn’t yet refused!” Seraphina shouted, protesting.

Kaelan paused. “Oh, I guess he hasn’t,” he replied, turning back to look at Noah.

All eyes were set onto him, and Noah found himself almost wanting to teleport out of the room immediately.

“Uh, I think I’ll pass,” he replied, before looking at Seraphina. “No offense to you though, you’re lovely and all that. But I don’t plan to do something like that.”

“There, you heard the man,” Kaelan said, dumping Seraphina onto her chair. Shaking his head, Kaelan sat down next to her.

Seraphina looked dejected. “My magical arcane babies…” she whispered under her breath.

“Don’t pay attention to her, she gets like this whenever she hears of an innate Perk or Bloodline ability that she enjoys. She’d proposed to Kaelan when she’d first met him because her dragonoid babies would serve as good research material for studying old draconian magic,” Valeria said.

“Right,” Noah replied, still taken aback by the whole encounter.

“Moving on— have you guys ordered already?” Kaelan asked, glancing at Valeria.

“While back, should be ready soon,” Valeria replied.

“Nice. I was worried the hunt may have gone poorly but it seems not,” Kaelan said.

“The hunt?” Noah asked.

“Oh yeah, they go out to the northern cliffs where the Wyverns live and hunt them. There’s a whole bunch that call the mountain tops their home. It’s a pretty dangerous place and the hunt doesn’t go well a lot of times, which is partly why it’s hard to get a reservation for this place,” Kaelan said.

“Huh,” Noah said, remembering seeing some of the wyverns in the distance. “Could we go there Seems like a good place to train.”

“Hmm. That’s not a bad idea. But it’s… also a dangerous place. The younger wyverns are fine, but the older ones are all B rank. And the oldest, the elder wyverns are A rank… they would kill us pretty quickly. The only reason this place works is because the older wyverns think any weak ones who die to us just prunes their spawn. It encourages the wyverns to grow and it keeps them strong,” Kaelan said.

Noah pictured wrestling with a wyvern, before taking to the skies on the back of one. He grinned at the thought.

The door’s bell rang once more, and Noah sensed Zax and Valros walk into the establishment.

“Ah you’re here at last,” Kaelan said.

“Apologies for the delay. Some things had come up,” Zax replied, smiling politely.

Noah looked at the dragon, sending him a telepathic message. “How did it go with Valros?”

“He knows of our identity. And there is indeed a dragon here. We will discuss more of this later,” Zax replied.

The two of them took a seat, when Kaelan looked at Zax. “Actually, with Zax around we could definitely head to the Wyvern cliffs. Noah suggested we could go there to train,” Kaelan said.

“Nonsense. You shouldn’t trouble the man for such pointless tasks,” Valros spat back.

“No such thing. It is an interesting idea. We could head there after the royal court,” Zax said.

“Royal Court?” Noah asked.

“Yeah, we wanted to meet the king. Why don’t the rest of you come with us?” Zax said.

Noah spotted Valros expression shift and twist, as if he’d break out in a sweat, if he could. In contrast, an amused hint of a smile lingered on Zax’s expression.

“Sure,” Noah replied, not probing too deep.

Zax nodded, satisfied.

A few moments later as everyone sat, the man cooking the steak walked closer to their table, carrying a massive plate with a huge piece of steak directly on top which he set down at the centre of the table. The tavern maid girl walked around, placing smaller plates in front of each of them.

“Here you go folks, the prized Drakan Steak, hunted just today from a B rank level 321 Lightning Wyvern. I won’t say much more, the meat will speak for itself,” the man said, standing with his chest puffed out.

Noah looked at the giant still sizzling slab of meat, with silver flesh on the sides and a deep red core in the middle, and the smell began to make him drool. Cutting into the piece, he grabbed a slice and then took a bite.

An electric shock ran through his body, the steak melting in his mouth.

Letting out a gasp, Noah stared with wide eyes, noting similar reactions from the rest of them all around him.

“Holy shit,” he heard Valeria mutter to herself.

Noah agreed. Holy shit indeed.

Kaelan grinned at their expressions. “I told you this place was the best.”

Without a further word, he began to dig into the steak with abandon, feeling it pulsing with power. By the time he was done, he was stuffed to the point that he couldn’t eat a single bite more.

Noah noted some notifications that had popped in his vision.

as a notification appeared in front of Noah’s eyes.

You’ve consumed [Lightning Wyvern Steak].

Power increased by two permanently.

Agility increased by one permanently.

Minor buff to lightning damage provided.

He smiled at that, feeling energy filling his body.

“That was amazing,” he said.

“Of course, only the best at my place,” the burly draconian chef said. Noah glanced at him, before using Identify.

[Drakan Chef - ???]

A B-rank chef? Goddamn, I didn’t know that was a thing.

“Drakan is the best,” Kaelan said.

“Hey, if we bring you a hunt of our own, could you make it again?” Noah asked, glancing at the man.

The chef snorted. “Easily. This one was weaker than usual. Bring me a powerful one, and I’ll show you a meal you’ll never forget for your life,” Drakan said.

Noah nodded. That was it then. His plan was fixed.

He was going to go hunt himself some wyverns.

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