"No!!!! I won't die! I am the last descendant of the ancient Alchemist family! And the great Floor Master of Heavens Arena! How can I fall before a brat like you!"
Just as Allen finished articulating his ideas for developing the ability known as the "Philosopher's Stone," Valenza suddenly staggered up from the ground, immediately conjured all four Philosopher's Stones simultaneously, and then opened his mouth and swallowed them all, crunching them in his teeth.
Instantly…
His entire body rapidly swelled up like a balloon, and his flesh and blood quickly disintegrated within seconds.
Fire and Earth merged, creating scorching hot magma!
Wind and Water merged, generating solid ice!
In less than half a minute, the guy had transformed into an elemental giant, half of his body composed of magma and the other half of solid ice.
Seeing this, Allen immediately retreated, his expression a mixture of a smile and a mock. "You truly are impatient. You couldn't wait to put it into practice right after I finished talking. But is it really alright to abandon your physical body like this? In your current state, once your Aura is depleted, you will likely die instantly."
"It doesn't matter! As long as I can kill you, I will seize all your Nen, including that Nen Beast, the Red Dragon, according to the contract. With it, I will have infinite Aura!" Valenza let out a twisted sneer, revealing the thoughts in his mind.
After all, the contract concerning the Red Dragon had been finalized when the two first registered for the match.
Based on his observations, he had already confirmed that the boy could, by meeting a set of conditions, make his Nen Beast devour others, thereby plundering their Aura and Nen abilities.
The key to this was the phrase "staking all your Nen" mentioned before signing the contract.
Literally, it meant that the winner would seize everything from the loser.
"Oh? Not bad! You actually figured that out. But do you know why I always intentionally stop and tell my opponents how to better develop their Nen ability when I'm on the verge of victory?" Allen asked with a loaded meaning.
"Because that's also one of the preconditions for you to steal someone else's Nen ability, isn't it?" Valenza answered without thinking.
Now that he had elementalized, he clearly no longer needed lungs to breathe. The painful expression on his face completely vanished, replaced by sheer confidence.
His elemental body had no weak points; as long as the Aura in his body wasn't exhausted, no matter how severe the damage, he would recover in a few seconds.
Allen nodded slightly. "Correct! But that's only part of it. The other part is because I enjoy seeing my opponents unleash even stronger Nen through Vows and Limitations when they are pushed to the brink. That way, after I win, I can steal more Aura and more powerful abilities. So, compared to the generous returns, bearing a tiny, insignificant risk is nothing at all. Because I was far stronger than all of you from the very beginning, and I've never even shown my true power in this Heavens Arena! Everything you've seen and imagined is merely a fraction of my full capabilities."
"You are a greedy and arrogant brat! But now, you will pay the price for your arrogance."
Saying this, Valenza violently swung the fist flowing with magma, slamming it down hard.
BOOM!
The scorching magma fist instantly smashed a large crater in the center of the ring. Simultaneously, the stone slabs and the concrete pillars underneath began to melt due to the high temperature of the magma. The astonishing destructive force elicited screams from the audience.
But the next second...
Allen suddenly raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Pap!
A large mass of pale-blue liquid air suddenly dropped from above, hitting Valenza's body, which was half-composed of scorching magma.
Hiss…
Instantly, the biting cold froze half of his body solid. Even the blazing magma quickly cooled within a few seconds, turning into a pile of fractured black stones that scattered to the ground.
At the same time, the other half of his body, composed of ice, began to rapidly melt into water under the influence of the Transmutation Aura.
"No! No! No!!!! How is this happening!"
Watching his body rapidly disintegrate, Valenza completely panicked, desperately trying to expend his Aura to repair it.
Unfortunately, it was all futile. He could only watch helplessly as his body slowly collapsed, finally meeting his end.
Allen opened his mouth to explain at the last moment: "My apologies, I forgot to tell you that my ability is not simply turning water into steam, but changing the state of all matter in the world—that is, converting them between solid, liquid, and gas states. As for the coldness and high temperatures, those are merely the transfers of heat that occur in a normal environment after the form change. Finally, thank you for your hard work; you even helped me complete elementalization at the last moment. You should know that this is an excellent, yet extremely dangerous, ability that I certainly wouldn't have the courage to try on myself. Farewell, Floor Master-san. Red Dragon, devour him."
As the final word left his mouth, the Red Dragon, whose size had already swelled to that of a small yacht, instantly materialized. It opened its mouth, turned the dying man into a cocoon, and swallowed him.
"How is it? Is the elementalization ability he used at the end dangerous to use?" Allen asked directly.
"Yes. And it is extremely dangerous. Once you elementalize, you can never return to your original form. I recommend that you don't directly use it on yourself, but instead use Conjuration and Manipulation to create an elemental form puppet," the Red Dragon suggested, her eyes gleaming with intelligence, speaking in a highly incongruous loli voice.
Clearly, after consuming a certain number of cocoons, it, or perhaps she, had begun to develop independent intelligence and personality, much like a true Azerothian Aspect Dragon.
"Manipulation and Conjuration?" Allen instinctively frowned.
These were the two Nen types he was currently least skilled at and had hardly focused on developing.
"Precisely. You could try using some special catalysts, such as the Bindings of the Windseeker, or perhaps the Eye of Sulfuras or the Essence of the Firelord, to directly create copies of those ancient and powerful Elemental Lords. Of course, before that, you could practice first by combining Elemental Fire, Elemental Water, Elemental Earth, Elemental Air, Essence of Water, Essence of Fire, Essence of Earth, Essence of Air, Breath of Wind, Lava Core, and Fiery Core to try creating some lower-level elemental creature replicas."
After saying this, the Red Dragon quickly dematerialized, floating invisibly beside her master.
"Using the four Philosopher's Stones as a foundation, and the elemental materials dropped in the dungeon instances as catalysts, and spending Aura to create elemental life... that truly is a genius idea." Allen's eyes glowed faintly. He instantly recognized the viability and massive potential of the development path the Red Dragon had laid out.
Without mentioning anything else, just imagining the sight of summoning Ragnaros the Firelord and instantly yelling the phrase, "By fire be purged!" filled him with a feeling of deep nostalgia and excitement.
Of course, Prince Thunderaan of the Wind Elementals wasn't bad either; he could instantly toss people high into the air, letting them freefall to splatter into a mess on the ground.
And for an enemy, facing such an almost invincible existence would absolutely be the nightmare of nightmares.
Crucially, Allen's Hunter tradeskills were Mining and Engineering, so he couldn't craft the powerful legendary weapons Thunderfury or Sulfuras. Therefore, using them as catalysts to create powerful helpers was practically a guaranteed profit.
However, considering the low drop rates for the Eye and Bindings, and his current progress in the Molten Core dungeon, it would be more practical to start by trying to create replicas of the lesser elemental mobs, like the Fire Lords and Magma Giants, from the raid.
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You can read the ahead chapter on Patr if you're interested: p-atre-on.c-om/Overgod [Just remove the hyphen to access normally]