Philip sprinted through the burning streets like a madman on fire, pushing past terrified guards and fleeing citizens.
People were screaming about their lives, their families, and their precious gold, but Philip only had one thing on his mind, his sweet sweet stash of unrefined magic junk sitting down in Brandon’s cellar.
"Out of the way you slow pokes! MOVE!" Philip yelled, jumping over a fallen wooden beam that was still crackling with blue dragon fire. "Move your legs! Some of us have actual valuable property to protect!"
A fleeing knight in broken silver armor stopped and stared at him in complete disbelief.
"Are you insane boy?! The dragon is preparing its ultimate breath attack! The lower district is going to be turned into a crater in less than thirty seconds!"
"Not if I have anything to say about it!" Philip barked back through his painted wooden clown mask. "That lower district contains three crates of unstable thunder cores and my second best pair of boots! I am not letting a giant lizard ruin my net worth!"
He sprinted right past the stunned knight and slid across the hot cobblestones into the central plaza.
The air was so hot it was crisping the edges of his tunic, and the sky above was glowing with a terrifying deep blue light as the dragon gathered massive amounts of plasma in its throat.
Philip looked around frantically for anything he could use.
His current physical strength was okay, but against an S rank dragon that could flatten a city block with a single stomp, throwing regular punches was just going to break his knuckles.
Then his eyes locked onto the ruined granite fountain in the middle of the square.
Stuck deep inside the cracked stone bowl was a massive, dark blue metallic object.
It was nearly two feet long, jagged at the top, and shimmering with a deep, greasy metallic sheen under the blue flames.
It was an S rank dragon scale, snapped off when the monster had clipped its heavy wing against the stone watchtower earlier.
Philip’s eyes lit up like golden glitters behind his wooden mask. He ran over to the fountain and practically fell on his knees in front of the scale.
"Oh my sweet baby Jesus," Philip whispered, running his dirty fingers over the cold metallic edge. "Look at the density on this bad boy. This isn’t just regular magic scrap. This is pure uncut S rank mythic grade material."
He grabbed a heavy granite paving stone off the ground, lifted it over his head with both hands, and brought it down on the dragon scale with all his physical strength.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The metallic scale was tough, but after three violent blows, it shattered into a neat pile of dark blue, sparkling dust right on top of the flat granite fountain stone.
"Alright Steve-... I mean Philip," he corrected himself out loud, his hands trembling with pure manic excitement. "Time to see what happens when you take a hit of S rank dragon skin."
He leaned his face down over the flat stone, pressed his right nostril firmly shut with his thumb, and took a deep, aggressive, totally irresponsible snort of the dark blue powder.
SNIFF!
SHOOOOOOOOOK!
The reaction was immediate, violent, and completely abnormal.
Usually when Philip inhaled pulverized magic items, the magic hit his lungs, rushed up to his sinuses, and then flooded his nervous system with liquid energy.
But dragon scales were different.
Dragon scales were made of dense, indigestible metallic mana designed to withstand thousands of degrees of heat.
The dark blue powder completely bypassed his lungs, slid right down his esophagus, and slammed straight into his lower stomach like a bowling ball made of molten lead.
Philip froze on his knees. His eyes bulged out so far behind his wooden clown mask that they almost hit the star cutouts.
GURGLE!
GURGLE!
BZZZZZZT!
His lower belly began to make a sound so deep, loud, and metallic that it sounded like an ancient rusty tractor trying to start up in sub zero weather.
His stomach visibly swelled up, stretching his tattered tunic until the seams started popping open.
"Oh no. No no no....," Philip wheezed, grabbing his stomach with both hands while his face turned five different shades of blue. "Oh man... that was a mistake. That was a high fucking level mistake!"
"Hey kid!" a wounded mage lying nearby yelled, looking over in terror. "Are you okay?! Your stomach is glowing bright blue!"
"I’m not okay buddy!" Philip screamed back, his voice pitching up in the middle of chaos. "The fire magic didn’t stay in my lungs! It went down! It went way down! Fuck!"
Before Philip could even attempt to throw up or digest the metallic power, the compressed dragon energy reached the absolute bottom of his digestive system and demanded an immediate exit strategy.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A colossal forty foot beam of blazing blue dragon fire violently erupted straight out of Philip’s rear end with the deafening roar of a military jet engine!
The sheer physical recoil of the rear end explosion was so overwhelmingly powerful that it launched Philip’s skinny body sixty feet straight up into the air in a fraction of a second, leaving a thick trail of blue smoke and burning fabric behind him!
"MY PANTS!" Philip shrieked into the sky, his voice echoing over the entire burning city as he zoomed upward. "MY FREAKING TROUSERS ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED!"
The blue butt fire was pushing him through the dark smoke clouds at a hundred miles an hour like a localized rocket missile.
The wind was whipping past his wooden clown mask so fast that his cheeks were vibrating, but there was one massive, catastrophic problem.
He had zero steering control.
"Stop! Stop burning!" Philip panicked, waving his legs uselessly in the air as he soared higher and higher over the rooftops. "How do I turn this thing off?!"
He was currently speeding directly toward the high stone wall of the royal cathedral at extreme speed. If he hit that wall at a hundred miles an hour, dragon buff or no dragon buff, he was going to turn into a thin smear of red jelly on old stone.