The Tales of Draconic Warlock

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As planned, I perfectly laid an 'ambush' for Dorian.

I found a Mountain Bear monster, that was known for its strength as my opponent. It was guarding an "Earth Fruit", which can improve one's strength greatly when consumed for the first time. The more one eats this fruit, the less benefits it would yield.

I am a Warlock, a spellcaster, which means my Strength attribute should be low. This is a weakness that physical class awakeners would love to exploit, especially Assassins.

Whenever a physical class professional faces a spellcaster, they would try to reach the spellcaster as soon as possible, no matter the damage they receive. This would be the only way that they can eliminate a spellcaster.

So spellcasters like me would try to cover up those weak points. Due to this even Earth Fruit, which was actually suitable for Warrior and like professionals, drew the attention of almost all professionals.

He would perfectly believe that I am trying to get that fruit to cover my weakness.

---

I arrived a few minutes before Dorian and started battling the Mountain Bear monster. I made it look like I was not at an advantage in this battle and Dorian who wanted to kill me, waited for his chance to take me down.

He waited until the last moment, when he struck the monster, thereby gaining the EXP that should have been mine.

This is called a Kill Steal.

Unless people were in a party beforehand, the EXP gained would belong to the one who gave the final blow that ended its life. It is frowned upon but that doesn't mean that there aren't people who dare to Kill Steal someone's prey.

I dramatically turned around and looked at Dorian in anger and frustration. I shouted at him, "Dorian, what are you doing?"

No one would be pleased that their EXP was stolen by someone else. So I need to be angry in front of him to sell the plan.

I am angry of course, not because of the Kill Steal, but because he was planning with William to get rid of me. So making him believe that I was pissed off was not a problem.

"What am I doing?" he chuckled and said, "I am going to kill you and collect the spoils".

I frowned, "You do know that killing other students is forbidden by the academy".

"Heh, if they know about this. When you don't return, they would just think that you died in the hands of monsters here and would be forgotten", he smirked as if everything was under his control.

I didn't respond back but made sure that angry fumes were overflowing from my face.

If I speak sentence for a sentence, he could wise up and see that this is a trap and that he was the ambushed, not the ambusher. I can't let that happen.

"Is this because of what happened at the entrance of Winter City?" I asked him slowly in a way that showed I was a bit afraid of him.

Normally, I shouldn't show fear in me as I defeated him before. The only reason I should show fear was if I already knew about his growth.

Of course, my show of fear didn't alarm him because I fought the bear for a long time and according to him, I drained a lot of my mana and stamina. This speech is to recover some mana and stamina, which could only delay the inevitable.

Dorian didn't answer but his smirk grew larger.

"Asshole, I tried to save you but you scanned my status panel without my permission. It was an offence, that required the death of the offender. I left you with only a few slaps.

You should have been thankful after I saved you, yet you offended me. I let you go without making you pay severely for what you did. Now you are planning my death.

You are a snake who bites the helping hand. People like you shouldn't be allowed to live".

"Try it if you can", Dorian sneered at me.

He is pretty confident that he could defeat and kill me here.

Is he that dependent on the system?

Fool, no matter how powerful he becomes, it was due to external assistance, not his own. Someday, that external factor would disappear and he would become too weak to do anything.

He is weaker than me, no matter what type of assistance that he got from the system. He should be probably in Tier-2 at most, whereas I am at peak Tier-4.

Even if he had reached peak Tier-2, I am two full ranks ahead of him.

Now that I have the evidence that I need to make sure that this won't come to bite me in the ass, I can easily kill him and end this farce.

"Nether Flames"

I used one of the least used skills as this is considered very dangerous to use on others, even on monsters. This skill would even burn the soul of the creature. The souls are a resource too, though I have no idea how to use them of yet.

AAARRRGHHHH!

Dorian screamed in terror as soon as the skill took effect.

"Mmm, where do you think you are going?"

I felt that the system was bailing out as soon as it saw him in danger and no way out. I already prepared a way to trap it, if that becomes a problem. Though it didn't cause much trouble for me, I can't let it go away.

Whoever the master behind that was wouldn't be pleased with Dorian's death. It would become a problem for me. Moreover, it is a resource unlike any other.

I have no idea how it works but if I refine it and make it truly mine, I could ascend faster. This is something I can't let go, no matter what.