Silva was stunned the moment he heard that. He looked at Ragna with wide eyes.

"What?"

"Well, I learned from the Dark Dragon that you don’t exactly grow the same way as us, and that’s why you eagerly fight constantly, because you gain strength from combat.

But I looked into how I could change that. As an artist, I seek to create. I took a sample of his blood and I worked on it, taking many years to develop the very next method that could allow you to grow like many other people and follow the normal path as well.

That’s not to say it cancels out your normal path where you grow via conflict, but it is to help you on occasions where there is no conflict, so that your growth never stops." Ragna explained.

Aren heard that and all his attention was caught already. He stepped closer.

"Can I see it?" he asked eagerly.

"Come with me," Ragna said and started walking. A door opened in the wall and he walked through. Silva eagerly followed behind, leaving the room they were in and entering a long stretch of hallways.

Their footsteps echoed inside the empty space, Ragna in front and Silva behind.

"You see, the thing about the Dark Dragon, nothing about him is stable," Ragna said.

"Everything that has to do with him is always tied to a lot of stress and struggle. I wanted to make the technique into a simple memory crystal and that would be all, but it refused to be compacted.

I fought so desperately to try and press it down, but even after many years I have made no progress. So now I keep it inside a special room inside the ship.

This room was made specially for this technique, intricate and detailed, to ensure that everything that’s in there remains properly kept."

"So how do I use it if it does not want to be manipulated and controlled?"

"You are going to have to enter it, merge with the technique, and face it head-on. You just show it that you are worthy of the knowledge that it possesses, and only when you have done that will you be able to harness this technique.

I have had a few demigods come and try to understand it, but their minds were fried. It refused to acknowledge them at all. They all died," Ragna explained.

"Uhm, should I be trying it out if it’s out to kill people?" Silva asked.

"Well, you can choose to run away and possibly miss the greatest opportunity, or you can stay to face it.

The technique has a few criteria to choose its user. First, the pride. It assesses your pride as a being, and the only way to pass is to surpass its pride, and very few things have more pride than a Dark Dragon.

The second is desire for power. You must show it how desperately you wish to be strong, just how much you are willing to do for it.

If you manage to get through these two, the next is the blood of the Dark Dragon. Is your blood as strong as his own? And if it is, you pass. And only after you get through these three can you gain access to the knowledge, and that’s where the final part comes in.

You are attacked with a massive amount of knowledge with so much strength that it could destroy the brain of a demigod. All you have to do is process all that information at a rate faster than how it is coming in. If you can do this, then you have managed to take the technique, and it will live in you and you alone."

Silva listened to every word that was said, and for some reason he could not help but keep smiling. This challenge had him hyped. He wanted to see if he was capable of this as well.

He threw his hands behind his head and walked with a relaxed flow.

"I guess I’ll give it my all. Let’s see if this technique can really take all that I have to give. After all, I am the better Dark Dragon."

Ragna smiled when he heard that but said nothing else. They made a few turns through the hallway and landed in front of a massive metal gate. From merely looking already, Silva could tell that this was many layers thick. He was not even sure he could blow this up with a punch.

Maybe if he gave it his all, he could.

Ragna walked to the door and stretched out his hands. The moment he touched it, red geometric patterns spread all over the door, and then a grinding sound, low and heavy, came from the inside as the doors began to open.

They had barely opened and a huge surge of energy rushed out. It slammed into both of them, their clothes fluttered, and it tried to push them backward.

Silva looked up as the door opened, and what he saw sent a shiver down his spine. Floating at the center of what seemed to be a very massive ball was a purple crystal the size of a large house.

It sparked with purple lightning that slammed into the floor and walls like it was trying to destroy them. The walls and the floors were filled with purple patterns and runes, all used to stabilize the crystal that was at the center.

"This is it, the technique I spent many years crafting, one of my finest works.

If you step in there, you must understand that you are ready to face the technique. It might take days, it might take months, and it might take years. It’s hard to say just how long it will take, but that relies solely on you. You must finish it as fast as you can and survive.

I’m pretty sure you have a lot that you want to get back to."

"Yeah, a lot. Don’t worry though, if it’s me, I’ll be out in a jiffy," Silva said and walked in.