Dragon Tribulation of All Realms

Chapter 5: Classic Opening
Wu Chen opened his eyes.

He was back on the wrecked plane, back in his dream. But this time, his 'friend' wasn't by his side. Standing there, he was alone.

Is it because I ate too much that my body spontaneously entered a dormant state?
Or was it that his soul was weakened by using the dragon sacrifice mask, causing him to fall into a coma?

It's all possible.

But none of it matters.

Wu Chen reached out and casually grabbed the Infinite Desert Eagle pistol, which had flown away with his severed arm in the explosion and now lay quietly in his palm.

"This is my gun." Wu Chen could sense the connection between this gun and him - this object with the prefix of "strange object" has completely become his property. No matter where it falls, as long as he returns to his own dream, he can summon it back to him anytime and anywhere, unless it is completely broken and can no longer be an independent whole.

This is true for guns and masks as well.

His body seemed to have become much stronger after being reshaped. Of course, it was also possible that he had simply reached the average level of ordinary people in the Elder Scrolls worldview. Even without the mask—

In the dream, Wu Chen took off his mask.

The surging tide within him subsided silently, yet a trickle of current remained. He raised his hand and gazed at his palm. Even though the vast amount of knowledge in his mind seemed as hazy as a phantom, he knew that in this world, the most basic magic did not require high technical proficiency.

"Flame." A tongue of fire emerged from Wu Chen's palm. Its essence was simply the release of magical power, tinged with elemental properties by the caster's emotions.

A calm mood can shape tongues of fire. A depressed mood can shape frost. And an excited heart can shape flickering lightning.

Also interesting.

In many fantasy works, lightning often represents a relatively high-end ability. But in The Elder Scrolls, on the planet Nirn and the continent of Tamriel, anyone with talent can easily unleash lightning and thunder from their hands by instinct.

Is it because everyone here has some degree of magic resistance? Or is it that magic lightning isn't real lightning, unlike real thunder, which has the power of hundreds of millions of volts?

The answer was unclear, but it wasn't particularly important. Wu Chen had already charted a path for his own growth: understanding the current timeframe. Considering the appearance of the Duneville projection, it was likely around two hundred years into the Fourth Era. Whether the main storyline had been triggered was unknown, but at this point in time, the Nords, Skyrim's primary ethnic group, were at their peak of dislike and rejection of spellcasters. This also meant that the barrier to entry to Skyrim's Winterhold School of Magic was at an all-time low.

Isn't it better to have a teacher to guide you than to grope around blindly? Even if you have the most advanced teaching materials in your head, it's still the same.

The main plot of the Winterhold School of Magic happens to be related to a sealed dragon priest - although that is probably the dragon priest who is most restrained against spellcasters, at least, it will definitely die in the official history route.

If there's a worldline protagonist, the protagonist will kill it. If there's an academy protagonist, the protagonist will kill it too. I could just blend in and put in some effort. No one in the real world counts as a KD anyway, so grabbing a kill in the final battle is definitely easier than trying to fight myself. And even if the protagonist suffers a butterfly effect from my arrival, at least I have the entire academy as a backup.

It must be done.

No, that's the only way.

Even if he woke up and found himself lying on Summerset Island, the southernmost tip of the continent, he would definitely find a way to reach the northernmost province of Skyrim if the time was right. Of course, if he was thrown to the neighboring continent of Akavir, he would just have to consider himself a failure and get used to life as a weapon spirit.

It shouldn’t be so bad—Wu Chen shook his head.

He tried to practice magic again, feeling the magic power fade and slowly recover in his body. Then he picked up his pistol and randomly found a tree as a target and fired continuously.

The touch was very real; he could clearly feel the trembling of the gun and the flash of the bullet. However, the recoil that previously required two hands to control was now easily handled with one hand.

The body had indeed been strengthened, and the degree of strengthening was quite high. However, it would take about two hours for the magic power to recover after it was completely consumed.

It's a bit slow, but there's plenty of room for improvement.

but……

Wu Chen frowned and looked towards the edge of his dream. The feeling of awakening was coming upon him, and he sensed a slight sense of danger.

"what happened?"

..............................

"Bang!" His body hit the ground hard. The sound of an iron cage closing could be heard before him. A burly Nordic-style man wearing fur armor stood outside the cage and spat viciously onto the ground. "You woke up just in time, you pig." The burly man had an iron battle axe slung across his waist, the blade still stained with dried black blood. "Now, you're a prisoner."

prisoner.

In the Elder Scrolls series, the protagonist of each game basically starts out as a prisoner.

Wu Chen tilted his head and looked at the Nordic man outside the cage... or to be more precise, the Nord's eyes, which could even be described as nostalgia and curiosity.

Wonderful feeling.

Although I felt like I was kidnapped by a group of robbers, it was still a wonderful feeling.

My hands seemed bound by ropes, yet a trickle of magic flowed through my body. My gun and mask seemed to be gone, yet I felt I could bring them back with just a thought.

——So when you are dreaming, time in the outside world still flows?

——Yes...it can flow. Then why can I freeze at the moment of the plane crash?

The flow of dreams seemed to be controllable. This was a rather remarkable discovery. This joy even managed to slightly wash away the offense of being kidnapped. Perhaps due to his abundant confidence, Wu Chen didn't even feel much anger in his mind.

"You look like you're still asleep." The Nord bandit glared at him, but then revealed a bloodthirsty smile. "Ah, but you'll wake up soon. The boss will be back soon, and he'll definitely be interested in you."

His smile was accompanied by a bloody smell.

That was the real smell of blood.

Wu Chen's gaze shifted. Outside the cage, he saw a bloody corpse, two pitch-black hounds tearing at its fresh intestines and organs. The intense crimson suffocated him, and a certain excitement caused him to lean back slightly.

This feeling of discomfort can be interpreted as fear.

The robber laughed heartily, kicked a hunting dog, and walked away without caring about his relatives.

His footsteps gradually faded away.

Wu Chen glanced around, convinced he was in some abandoned fortress—rough stone walls topped with narrow ventilation holes. He saw dozens of iron cages, most of them occupied, the prisoners shivering or languishing in silence.

There are more Nords with a Nordic feel. Good, this is indeed Skyrim. The bodies are being fed to dogs, not summoned undead, and the dogs aren't hellhounds. Good, this probably isn't a wizard's coven or a vampire stronghold. These kidnapping bandits seem to specialize only in wielding swords and brute force.

"It's interesting too." Wu Chen suddenly laughed.

He knew why he was laughing, and as for the trivial fact that he could understand the locals, he no longer cared about it.

Some prisoners looked up at him, with numbness, despair, and gloating in their eyes.

A soft, warm sound, like the sound of a beach under the sun, rang out from a cage beside him.

"What are you laughing at, Breton?" said a reasonably well-dressed Khajiit, a species that resembled a large, upright cat. "Don't you realize your imminent death? Or have you figured out how to pay these villains a ransom?"

He called Wu Chen a Breton. A branch of the human race, said to have elven blood, they were the most adept at learning magic. It was unknown where he had discerned this trait.

"I'm laughing at myself." The killing spree had been inevitable, yet I kept finding excuses to justify it. But now, I no longer needed to find justifications.

A faint flash of lightning appeared at Wu Chen's fingertips.

"Tell me, Khajiit." He turned his head and looked at the big cat.

"What era is it now? What year, month, and day is it?"

(End of this chapter)