Time passed, though the outside world had no way of knowing. Deep within the sealed cave, Veldora and Varvatos continued their training, isolated from the chaos above.
Now in his human form, Veldora slowly began adjusting to his new body. The first few days were awkward—his balance was off, his movements too heavy or too light. But with each passing session, he improved. His agility increased. His strikes grew sharper. He began learning how to merge his raw dragonic instincts with the flexibility and finesse of a humanoid fighter.
Varvatos observed him with curiosity.
"Not bad. You're beginning to understand the rhythm of humanoid combat."
"Heh. I'm a fast learner!" Veldora boasted, twirling midair and slamming his fist into the ground, sending shockwaves across the terrain.
They fought daily. Explosive, reality-warping duels that shattered the laws of physics within their sealed arena. Magic clashed against might. Strategy danced with chaos. And through it all, Varvatos adapted—his ancient mastery of magic allowed him to quickly grasp this world's unique power structure.
"So this is how skills evolve," he muttered one night, floating above the shattered remnants of their latest battle. "With enough experience and intent… even Ultimate Skills can be reshaped."
He'd already begun adapting his magic into new forms, merging it with the logic of this world, crafting spells that defied normal comprehension. His evolution wasn't forced—it was engineered, guided by centuries of magical knowledge and a will as sharp as obsidian.
But Veldora—he evolved through battle. Through raw instinct. And one day, in the middle of another brutal clash—something happened.
Veldora's punch came faster than lightning. Varvatos narrowly avoided it, countering with a burst of gravitational force that sent the Storm Dragon skidding back.
Suddenly, time seemed to stop.
A voice, deep and ethereal, echoed within Veldora's soul:
"Notice: Sufficient experience has been accumulated."
"Unique Skill: Investigator is evolving…"
"Ultimate Skill: Faust — Lord of Investigation — has been acquired."
Veldora's eyes widened. The very magicules in the air twisted around him like a cosmic storm being tamed. His aura darkened, sharpened—becoming focused. Knowledge flooded into him. Every movement, every fragment of magic, every law of the universe that had ever brushed past him—he understood them.
"So this… this is power…!" he whispered, eyes glowing gold like twin suns.
Then he laughed.
"MUHAHAHAHAHAHA! Behold, Varvatos! I have evolved!"
He charged with a new fury—his blows now calculating, precise, as if he could read Varvatos' every move a split second before it happened.
Faust gave him not just insight—but control over the battlefield. A perfect fusion of observation and prediction.
Varvatos grinned, his eyes gleaming with thrill.
"I see… so your skill evolved as well."
"Very well, Veldora. Let me show you what my evolved magic can do."
He released the seals on his right arm. His aura swelled. Ancient glyphs circled around him—an elegant script of his old world's magic, now layered with the logic of this one. A new spell crackled into existence—a synthesis of dimensional magic and spiritual warfare.
The cave trembled.
Their battle resumed—now at a level that warped the very rules of reality. Each clash shook the sealed world. Each strike resonated like the roar of creation. Veldora, with Faust, and Varvatos, with his refined mastery, danced between destruction and brilliance.
And neither of them were anywhere near their limits.
As their battle raged on, the golden aura around Veldora thickened, folding reality inward. The air crackled with something more than magic—it was awareness itself, tightening like a noose around Varvatos. Veldora's body moved with a precision unnatural for someone who had only recently gained a human form.
"This feeling…" Varvatos thought, parrying a strike that bent gravity, "He's reading the future. No—he's dissecting the present before it even happens."
Then, the voice returned in Veldora's mind:
"Notice: Unique evolution detected. Sub-skills unlocked under Faust — Lord of Investigation."
• Sub-skill: Omni-Perception — allows absolute awareness of all visible, invisible, tangible, and conceptual phenomena within a fixed radius.
• Sub-skill: Causal Trace — permits retroactive analysis of events, revealing not only what happened, but why it happened.
• Sub-skill: Principle Dissection — allows deconstruction of any skill, spell, or technique to understand and recreate it.
• Sub-skill: Data Bind — temporarily locks a target's skill usage by interfering with its structural code.
Veldora grinned with maddened glee as the knowledge flooded him.
"I understand it all now!" he roared. "Your spells, your stance—even the logic of your power structure! It's all… clear!"
Suddenly, Varvatos found one of his spells unraveling mid-cast, its magical threads snapping before they could weave.
"That's Data Bind," Veldora said, "You won't be using that one again for a few seconds."
"You've become a terrifying creature," Varvatos said with a grin. "But you've made a mistake, my friend."
"Oh?" Veldora tilted his head.
"You assume that all I wield can be understood."
Varvatos raised his hand—and the world went still.
The magic that coiled around him wasn't bound by this world's logic. It wasn't cataloged. It had no chant, no casting time, no skill structure. It was older than the stars, older than concepts like "mana" or "energy." It was born of a cosmos before this one, drawn from a time when language itself was still being born.
"This," he whispered, "is Meta-Mystic Invocation. A magic beyond categorization. Even the Voice of the World cannot name it."
Suddenly—
"Warning. Undefined phenomenon detected. Attempting to classify…"
"Error. Classification failed."
"Notice: Unregistered form of metaphysical structure encountered. High-level anomaly."
The runes around Varvatos were formless—shifting endlessly, as though reality itself refused to acknowledge their shape. The energy that gathered distorted time in the cave. Small rocks began aging into dust while droplets of water froze midair.
"What is this?!" Veldora shouted, instinctively falling back.
"You rely on systems, Veldora. On structure, order, balance. Faust shows you truths within the boundaries of this world."
"But my power… rewrites the very boundaries you study."
He raised his palm. A single word—spoken in a dead tongue that no creature in this world had ever heard—reverberated through the cave like a god's heartbeat.
"Evolas'Zain."
And in that instant, reality folded. The air warped. The fabric of space twisted—not torn, but recomposed. Veldora was hurled back as the cave became an abstract realm, a mirror of nothingness.
"What did you do?!" he shouted, panting.
"This is the Zero Continuum," Varvatos explained, hovering above him. "A spell that brings us to a metaphysical dimension where no laws exist. No voice. No logic. No structure. Only raw will."
Veldora shivered—not from fear, but excitement.
"HAHAHAH! Incredible! Even the world itself fears you!"
"Then show me," Varvatos said, his eyes glowing like collapsing stars, "how far Faust can reach… in a place with no rules."
Inside the Zero Continuum, reality was no longer a comfort—it was an abstract battlefield, a void of shifting concepts, colors, and sensations that did not belong in a sane world. Up was down. Light was sound. Thought became weaponized. It was the domain of the transcendent, and Varvatos stood at its center like a sovereign beyond comprehension.
Veldora, as powerful as he was, found his instincts failing. His vision blurred. His senses—enhanced a thousandfold by Faust—were overwhelmed by data that shouldn't exist.
"This world… this place isn't bound by law or principle!" Veldora growled, bracing himself as shards of unreality clawed at his skin. "It's madness!"
Varvatos slowly descended toward him, his presence folding the conceptual space into silence with each step.
"This is where mortals and gods alike are stripped of their crutches," Varvatos said. "Here, your Faust means nothing."
Veldora's golden aura flared wildly as he tapped deeper into Faust: Lord of Investigation, sub-skills activating one after another—Omni-Perception, Causal Trace, Principle Dissection—but it was like trying to read a book written in paradoxes.
Every attempt to analyze Varvatos only returned one message:
"Error. Conceptual parameters undefined."
Still, Veldora wasn't one to surrender.
With a deafening roar, he released a shockwave of raw draconic energy, his divine storm swirling into an infernal hurricane.
"Then I'll do what I always do—BREAK THROUGH IT!"
He lunged forward, his fist crashing toward Varvatos like a collapsing star.
But Varvatos didn't flinch.
With a single wave of his hand, he invoked a spell whose name couldn't be spoken—only felt. The world buckled, and Veldora's blow froze in time, suspended an inch from Varvatos' face.
"Impossible…!" Veldora gasped.
"This is Chrono-Severance. In the Zero Continuum, I wield time as a medium—cutting moments like pages from a book. That punch? It never happened."
He raised two fingers—and gently tapped Veldora's chest.
A thousand seals blossomed over Veldora's body like burning tattoos, locking his mana, his storm, his thoughts… his will. He collapsed to his knees, unable to move.
"Even a True Dragon," Varvatos said softly, "cannot defy the one who walks beyond definition."
Veldora gasped for breath, trembling. His pride—so immense, so eternal—was wounded, but deep down he wasn't angry.
He was… awed.
"You… you're not bound by this world," Veldora muttered, sweat dripping down his face. "You're something else entirely…"
Varvatos knelt, placing a hand on the dragon's shoulder.
"Do not see this as shame. Even gods fall before knowledge they cannot grasp. You are strong, Veldora. But strength without awareness… will always be inferior to understanding without limitation."
Then, with a snap of his fingers, the Zero Continuum shattered—and they returned to the cave.
The fire crackled again. Water dripped. Time resumed. It was as if nothing had happened.
Veldora sat in silence, his golden hair glowing under the ambient light, fists clenched.
Then—
"TEACH ME."
Varvatos raised an eyebrow.
"Teach you what?"
"Everything." Veldora's eyes burned with hunger. "That place… that power. That magic. If I can master Faust, I can surpass it. But first, I must understand what lies beyond."
Varvatos smiled.
"Then your true journey begins now, Storm Dragon. Not as a beast of calamity—but as a scholar of the transcendent."
And in that moment, a new bond formed—not of rivalry, but of mutual evolution. The True Dragon and the Transcendent Mage would shake the very foundations of the world.