[You have completed the advancement quest: Path of Red Scales]
[You have advanced to the Fighter's Cinder Nest faction subclass: Redscale Conqueror! When a dragon's roar echoes from afar, Redscale Conquerors descend from the sky astride colossal, savage dragon-blooded beasts, bringing endless flames and utter annihilation to their foes.]
[You have gained the features: Born to the Saddle, Dragon Roar Charge]
Mantou slowly opened his eyes, feeling noticeably stronger throughout his body. His vision, hearing, and other senses had grown far sharper as well.
"Damn, I'm strong as hell—"
Mantou looked down at his scale-clad hands tipped with razor-sharp claws, marveling silently.
Glancing beside him, he saw a rather familiar-looking "dragonman." Though the man's head had completely shifted into the shape of a dragon's, one could still catch hints of his former appearance around the eyes and brows.
"Sing-dog, you look kind of hideous, not gonna lie."
Singo shook out his limbs, adjusting to the changes in his new body, and retorted disdainfully, "Look who's talking. You look just as ghastly."
He paused, the ridged brow over his eyes arching slightly.
"Besides, I suggest you check your stat panel. You might get a surprise."
Mantou protested indignantly, "Even in dragon form, nothing can hide the handsomeness radiating from my very soul."
Even so, he obediently brought up his interface.
Woqu Chimantou
Strength — 14
Dexterity — 12
Constitution — 13
Intelligence — 12
Wisdom — 10
Charisma — 11
He was initially preening over the massive boost to his numbers—until his gaze fell upon the Charisma line.
"I turned into this freakish monstrosity, so why did my Charisma go *up*?!"
Mantou let out a wail straight from the bottom of his heart.
He truly hadn't expected this hideous, scale-encrusted dragon face to be rated higher by the system than his original handsome, charming visage. He refused to accept this!
Singo gave him a look full of schadenfreude before explaining, "Charisma doesn't just measure facial looks. Otherwise, did you think sorcerers literally cast spells with their pretty faces?"
"According to the findings compiled in our guide group, the stat is closer to presence, force of personality, and influence. At the absolute peak of Charisma, one can bend reality through sheer force of will."
Mantou immediately sighed with relief. "And here I thought I..."
Before he could finish, Singo drove in the dagger without mercy. "Though, during the system's baseline scan when we were ordinary mortals, facial looks probably accounted for a huge chunk of it."
Mantou: "..."
Yet what Singo said next dealt him a devastating blow to the head: "Just a little heads-up. My starting Charisma was 12, Qiuyu's was 14, and even Brother Zhankuang had an 11. You couldn't possibly have been below 10, right?"
"No way. There's just no way, right?"
Mantou just wanted to cool off; he had no desire to continue this conversation.
"Noodles, you might not be able to talk, but at least you don't talk trash."
He stroked Noodles's neck with a sorrowful expression, hoping to find some shred of comfort.
Ever since the ritual concluded and Mantou unlocked the Born to the Saddle feature, he could feel a profound bond forming between himself and the wyvern. Noodles, in turn, sensed a close kinship in the bloodline of this human he had once despised. The relationship between rider and beast had grown considerably warmer.
The wyvern's length had now reached nearly five meters. Although its neck was still as long and slender as a noodle, its muscles had bulked up substantially. Hard crimson scales plated its entire body, and it could even breathe fire from its maw, looking every bit like a miniature red dragon.
"Tsk, tsk, way too badass. How does a Ferrari or Lamborghini even compare to this?"
Feeling the texture of the scales, Mantou clicked his tongue in wonder.
Noodles was equally thrilled by his newfound might, unable to resist wagging his thick, massive tail and even letting loose a burst of fire from his mouth.
*Boom!*
It seemed he still couldn't control this power very well.
Mantou's draconic face was left completely blackened by soot. While the traits of his red dragon bloodline ensured he suffered no actual damage from a puff of flame like that, the incident left him utterly speechless.
Noodles pulled his neck back slightly, lowering his body and blinking at Mantou with an innocent gaze.
Mantou: "..."
Singo couldn't help chiming in, "Stop wasting time here. Qiuyu and Brother Zhankuang are waiting for us to regroup."
Before his voice even faded, Singo swung onto his wyvern with practiced ease and took off. The fluid coordination between rider and beast looked as though they had trained together as close comrades for years.
"Alright, alright, I hear you."
Mantou mounted his wyvern as well and followed closely behind.
Excited shrieks echoed across the sky as the two wyvern knights flew one behind the other toward the City of Baator.
...
City of Baator, Central Plaza.
Two wyverns circled in the sky, slowly descending.
"Holy crap, look up there!"
"Aren't they just two wyverns? They patrol around here all the time. What's the big fuss?"
"You must be a newbie. I've even seen giant wyverns ten meters long."
"No, look on their backs!"
"Are those... people?"
The two wyverns circled several times, uttering shrill cries. Dropping to seven or eight meters above the ground, they touched down heavily in an open area of the plaza, kicking up clouds of dust.
Mantou and Singo even struck deliberate, cool poses—one wyvern rearing its head toward the heavens in a long screech, the other flaring its wings forward with a roar—before the two riders swung down from their mounts with swagger.
"They have player handles!"
"Holy shit! It's Mantou and Sing-dog! They succeeded in their advancement! Redscale Conquerors!"
"Why did they turn into little dragonmen?"
"So damn cool!"
"Damn it, seeing them succeed hurts worse than failing myself!"
Xiaye Qiuyu and Tiansheng Zhankuang had been waiting for a long time and hurried forward to offer their congratulations.
Tiansheng Zhankuang chuckled. "You guys look pretty flashy."
He had spent contribution points to purchase the half-dragon transformation boon and had similarly assumed a half-dragon form. Though scales now covered the top of his head, his scalp remained just as bald and smooth as before; the only difference was that scratching his head with those sharp claws risked leaving scratches.
Xiaye Qiuyu said with lingering dread, "Thank goodness I didn't pick the half-dragon transformation, or I'd have ended up looking as ugly as you guys."
Xiaye Qiuyu was quite pleased with her own changes. Advancing into the draconic bloodline sorcerer subclass had granted her the magical power of red dragons. Consequently, she merely gained faint traces of scales along her cheeks, a pair of dainty little horns on her brow, and golden, slitted pupils. Her delicate facial features remained largely unchanged, and the subtle shifts only added an air of noble dignity to her presence.
Singo said seriously, "Let's all take stock of our gains. I'll head back to write up the guide, and Mantou can work on the video."
The remaining three nodded. "Sounds good."
That evening, a guide thread titled *How to Become a Qualified Dragon Knight?* stirred up heated discussion across the player forum.
It specifically noted that purchasing Singo's custom-supplied "wyvern lasso" and "calming hormone" was the key to success—even if the price was just a tiny bit steep.
Meanwhile, the second episode of the *Elezerg Log* was smoothly published.
Fans eagerly clicked into the video, only to be greeted by a ferocious draconic face filling the screen.
"First!"
"The missing person has returned!"
"What the heck is this thing? A monster?"
As soon as that dragon face opened its mouth, fans were greeted by that familiar, cheeky voice: "Welcome everyone to Episode Two of the Elezerg Log. I'm Mantou."
"Holy shit, it's Mantou!"
"How did he turn into a dragonman? It has a kind of power-tier aesthetic!"
"Mantou got handsome!"
...
Chapter 91