[One year later]
[Third person POV]
CRASH!
In a wooded clearing a large yellow dragon could be seen fallen on the ground while above it was a humanoid figure.
"Do you surrender?" Asked a dark-skinned, golden-eyed young man as he had his foot on his opponent's neck.
The young man looked a bit dirty, with a few cuts on his skin and a bit panting, but overall fine.
His opponent on the other hand.
"Never" A deep female voice coming from the dragon answered him in a growl trying to get up only to receive a stomp on his neck causing him to spit out a large amount of blood.
"I won't ask again" The boy's golden eyes hardened as a golden aura covered him causing the ground to shake.
"Love you should accept defeat at once" A deep voice commented in exasperation.
The voice belonged to a gigantic western dragon fifteen meters tall.
It was Tannin.
An ancient dragon king.
"I don't want to" The dragoness complained again only to receive a glare from her opponent and Tannin.
"Alright, I concede" growled the woman finally accepting defeat.
"Finally" Murmured the young man with what seemed a mix between complacency and exasperation.
Immediately he said that dragon wings came out of the purple eyed young man and he took flight in the direction of the former dragon king.
"Good job Issei" He was praised by a blue haired woman sitting on Tannin's shoulder earned a nod of agreement from the giant dragon.
"With this you have defeated all the Ultimate class dragons in my territory" Tannin congratulated him causing a smile to break out on Issei's face.
"I can't believe that brat is stronger than me" Growled the irritated voice of the yellow dragoness who looked badly beaten with several nasty cuts and bruises, but they were dragons it was normal for them to end up like this so no one was worried.
"Face it dear, you lose so you're only second mate" Commented the blue haired woman with clear mockery in her eyes.
"You want to fight Verity?" snarled the clearly insulted dragoness as lightning flashed from her body.
"Anytime Electra" Replied the woman as her eyes became slitted and her canines sharper.
"Don't start" Tannin cut them both off before they began to fight.
From new...
"Ddraig if I ever have more than one partner remind me of this" Issei mentally asked his partner who nodded.
[I don't think it will do much good, but I will] Promised the dragon as they both had fun with the scene.
"I'll go ahead" Issei spoke to Tannin as he tried to stop his wives from destroying what was left of the forest.
"Alright" The demon-dragon replied to which the young man was about to summon a magic circle to retreat.
"Oh yeah" The dark skinned young man commented before leaving.
He looked at the area that had been completely destroyed by his battle with Electra.
The destruction would have been much greater had it not been for the barrier put up by Tannin.
He snapped his fingers and the trees began to heal as some grew, a few seconds the whole area returned to normal.
"Now I'm leaving" A golden circle appeared under the young man's feet about to take him away from the place.
"Verity!" Issei shouted to the dragoness who was arguing who turned to look at him.
"What's wrong?" she asked stopping arguing to turn to look at him.
Issei's eyes also became sharper and his canines grew larger.
"You're next."
Without another word he disappeared, but he could see the delighted smile on the blue haired woman's face.
[POV MC]
I appeared in my house in the outskirts of Tannin territory, it was a simple hut which I had built by recreating the Wood Element: Four Pillar House Technique (Mokuton: Shichūka no Jutsu) I had to imagine the whole structure the way I wanted, which took a few days, but it worked.
I came to this place almost a year ago after I left Kuoh, I couldn't stay in the village I knew people would arrive to investigate the death of those guys and because there would soon be too much attention on that place for me to continue strengthening myself without attracting attention.
I needed a better place to train and what better place to train than with Tannin who usually trains young dragons and was a friend of Ddraig's so he accepted me right away.
Luckily Ddraig himself recommended him to me so I didn't have to look for an explanation of how he knew about Tannin.
The former dragon king was a very tough teacher, but he helped me a lot to break my bad combat habits and to learn more magic, draconic skills and to perfect the skills I already had like my elemental affinities.
My fire, wind and nature powers had become much stronger during this year.
Plus I had learned all kinds of magical skills from many dragons in the territory.
I will say talent is a broken skill.
But the most important thing I gained during this year was battle experience.
I had hundreds of battle against the dragons that lived in Tannin's territory some liked to fight in human form like Verity and others preferred their Dragon form like Electra and Tannin himself.
Still, all that helped me a lot to become even stronger.
When Tannin arrived, I estimated my raw power at a medium level of the Ultimate class without the use of the Boosted Gear but still I could not defeat low and medium level Ultimate class beings due to my lack of experience.
So I decided to start from the lowest fighting low level Ultimate class dragons and even though I lost many times because I was fighting dragons hundreds of years old after the first month I started to win.
It took me almost a year, but I defeated all the Ultimate class dragons including Tannin's eldest sons. Electra was the most powerful Ultimate class dragon in the land.
And she had finally been defeated by my hands.
I had had hundreds of battles this year, some quite bloody and brutal.
Definitely my favorites.
Currently after all the training and battles I was at the top of the Ultimate level and felt that I would soon advance to satan class.
There were only 8 dragons of this level in the territory and 6 of them were old dragons that preferred lonely caves in the deepest of these lands.
The remaining two were Verity and Tannin himself who was the strongest in this place by far.
Verity was a low level satan class so she would be my next target, I had defeated her once when I used the Boosted Gear but I wanted to do it without using my Sacred Gear.
Tannin on the other hand I couldn't beat him even using Balance Breaker, using the armor my strength was easily brought to the average satan class, but I was still easily shattered by the former dragon king.
Tannin had been a great help in getting better at using his Sacred Gear, he had once forced me to have it active for two months as he chased me by throwing his fire breath at me.
It was the first time I had seen flames more powerful than mine.
After that he had forced me to fight him and make me put my armor back on every time he destroyed it.
Now I could get into Balance Breaker very easily and last much longer.
We had even experimented a bit with Juggernaut Drive, but I could only maintain control for a minute before forcing Tannin and his handcuffs with the help of Ddraig containing the power that way to knock me out.
My next goal would be to overpower the former Boosted Gead carriers to take full control.
I planned to do the same thing Vali did to achieve Empyreo Juggernaut Overdrive.
Using words like Issei did in the original story to achieve Crimson Dragon Emperor is definitely not my style.
Oh during this year I unlocked Touki.
It was during a training with Tannin that my Ki materialized in the form of that white aura.
When I wondered what that aura was the compression hit me.
Touki.
After that followed another strenuous training by Tannin to perfect my new skill.
I then fused it with my dragon aura after 6 months of trying, but I still hadn't perfected it, but thanks to that skill I was able to fight Verity who was one level above me without using my Sacred Gear and not get slaughtered in the process.
I still lost, but I put up a fight that was more than most high level Ultimate class can say.
That was three months ago and soon I would be ready for my rematch.
This new ability was the reason I was able to beat Electra today without so much trouble, it strengthened my skills and physical attributes in a big way.
What can I say I am excited.
My other goal is to defeat all the satan class dragons in this place except Tannin without using Ddraig's power and then master the Boosted Gead to get a new form.
After that I would have my revenge... I mean rematch with Tannin.