Secret arts, at their core, are a form of curse.

  By bining mystical items usi inrations, the mysterious energy within these items is activated and applied to the subject.

  Due to the diverse nature of mystical items and the ck of a structured theoretical system like magic, secret arts are highly experiential. Any stable and trolble secret art is the result of tless failures.

  These failures often e with life-threatening risks.

  Most practitioners of secret arts might spend their entire lives without disc a single effective secret intation.

  Having one or two personal secret intation is the highest dream for all practitioners.

  However, for "fearless" pyers, there are no such s.

  Professional pyers of secret arts oftee pitions of "a thousand ways to die" with failed secret arts, sharing them online for others to admire.

  As pyers tio explore secret arts, this once obscure system rapidly became a popur one.

  With an abundance of resources and more high-quality items avaible for experimentation, various extremely powerful secret words emerged.

  Ier stages, the limitless potential of secret arts made them the most dominant power system in the game.

  Just look at E's Wings of Time and Space to uand how formidable te-game secret arts bee.

  Given the current ditions, Lucas couldn't perform overly eborate secret words.

  He could only choose a secret art that would quickly grant him a certain degree of self-prote from the avaible materials.

  An ued find at the Whisperer's Mystery Shop led Lucas to the secret word he would use this time.

  Bloodline: Devourer Beast

  The name sounds impressive, mainly because this was a secret art developed by pyers, and the name was given by them.

  It wasn't exceptionally high-end but suited Lucas's current situation perfectly.

  E took out the bck wooden carving she had bought at the Whisperer's Mystery Shop and ha to Lucas.

  While trolling both bodies was a bit awkward, it was manageable for simple iions.

  Lucas held the carving with both hands, fag the snake head towards himself.

  A rhythmic drumming sound filled the chamber.

  Uhe dlelight, ghostly images of trolls wearing animal skull masks appeared. They surrounded Lucas, beating their waist drums and perf a ritual dance.

  Their synized ts echoed rhythmically. In Lucas's hands, the carved snake on the wooden der moved.

  It slithered upwards and coiled itself atop the wooden n, its head fixed on Lucas, red tongue flig.

  E approached and pced a small pieeat before the snake.

  The snake swallowed the meat ie. Then it twisted in agony.

  A pair on horns burst through the skin on its head, and four dragon cws emerged from its belly.

  The bake skin peeled away from head to tail, with small snake scales transf inte crystalline dragon scales, turning red in color.

  It lifted its head aed a faint dragon's roar, exhaling a small fme like a lighter's fme.

  A pair of wings unfolded from its shoulders.

  After ing the drago offered by E, the sransformed into something resembling aern dragon. It flew around Lucas once before nding on his right hand.

  Its tail coiled around his wrist, and its body gradually merged into his skin.

  A red dragon-stoo appeared on Lucas's right hand and wrist. The troll specters' daurned into a joyful rhythm.

  They twisted their bodies, rapidly beating their waist drums, and danced closer to Lucas.

  One by ohey merged with Lucas. The drumming and ghostly images gradually faded away.

  At this moment, Lucas felt a surge of frenzy rising from deep within him. His muscles writhed untrolbly, and his bones made crag sounds.

  The excruciating pai him with his mouth wide open, uo make a sound.

  E handed him a bottle of focus potion, which Lucas took and drank in one gulp.

  E then handed him a stamina potion, which Lucas also drank in one gulp.

  The effects of the potions kicked in quickly, and while the pain remained, it was bearable.

  The ges in his body rapidly ed his stamina and energy. When he could no longer e, he took another potion from E.

  At this point, Lucas felt grateful he hadn't chosen a more advanced secret word. If he had attempted it, he might have exploded instantly.

  The pain and bodily ges tinued. After two hours, it finally began to stabilize.

  Lucas's clothes were soaked with sweat, and the ground was littered with more than a dozey potion bottles.

  At the same time, Lucas felt the ges brought about by the secret art.

  His body and appearance hadn't ged signifitly, but the sense of power aened senses were now something he had only experienced in E's form.

  Though it still didn't match E at level 60, pared to his previous self, it was as if he had entered airely new realm.

  He was likely strohan a two-star hero, though slightly below a three-star.

  As the physical strain from the increased strength subsided, Lucas exhaled a long breath.

  He then raised his right hand to look at the tattoo on the back.

  The Devourer Beast: this was a troll bloodline developed by pyers based on a race called the Eater trolls from the Mandel Jungle.

  Pyers with the Devourer Beast bloodline possessed the strength of trolls and their formidable regeive abilities.

  The Eater trolls had a unique ability—they could temporarily gairength of the creatures they ed.

  This ability came from their totem, the Swenbernbary Snake.

  Pyers called it the "Greedy Snake."

  The Eater trolls would seal the elderly Swenbernbary Snakes in a special type of tree found in the Mandel Jungle.

  As the tree grew, the Swenbernbary Snake would merge with it, creating a stern oer yer of the trunk.

  This pattern looked like it had been carved into the wood.

  The Eater trolls would cut this se of the tree and, through a ritual, gain the ability to temporarily acquire the strength of the creatures whose flesh they ed.

  The meat had to be raw and in rge quantities. The ritual itself was a form of secret art.

  A pyer who discovered this secret art experimented and improved upon it, creating the Devourer Beast bloodli art.

  Pyers with the Devourer Beast bloodline didn't o e raw meat themselves; they only o feed the totem snake meat, and it could store the acquired strength for a certain period.

  When the stoo on Lucas's hand was in dragon form, it indicated that part of the Red Dragon Niele's strength was stored within the dragon-snake.

  Lucas released the stored dragon strength. The dragon-snake flew out from his hand.

  It roared, not the previous faint sound but a genuine dragon's roar.

  Its body expanded instantly. After cirg Lucas o transformed into a shower of sparks aered his body.

  Lucas's eyes turned inton-like vertical pupils, radiating golden light.

  His skin became covered with a yer of red dragon scales.

  His face also took on a slightly dragon-like appearance, and with each breath, fmes flew from his nostrils.

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