In a luxurious palace tucked away in a mountain range far to the north, a man donned a silky robe and prepared to leave by checking that the barriers around the massive palace reported no failures or dangers in the surrounding hundred miles, and as such was seconds from departure before another stopped him.

While the robed one sported a completely bald head without facial hair, his slightly muscular body clearly matched the appearance of a capable guardian and gave off a sense of trustworthiness. A stranger might find him dependable, and it was within his expectations.

The interrupting man, with a thick head of hair, but similarly lacking any facial hair, clearly resembled the other in face and body. The only difference was his disparaging facial expression combined with a gilded and even faintly glowing tunic and blazer he wore. Asking the bald one, “You’re leaving?”

“I found out that some dragons left an egg on some insignificant mountain. Should I not check?” He scoffed, obviously knowing the answer.

“You will not. Did you forget the promise you made to your niece?” With the way his brother said it… There was no way either of the father-daughter pair would let him forget about it so soon. Bringing her along to such a weak place would hardly be a problem.

The bald man stood for a few seconds, choked at the situation. Of course he remembered… But now of all times? Still, he wasn’t above keeping his word. “Where is she then? It’ll be cold, and possibly wet, have her dress appropriately!”

“She’s spending some time with a friend. I think the Clingham family is hosting a festival for their daughter’s 5th birthday. Sofia, I believe.”

“And how long will that take?”

“A bit over a week,” his brother said, smiling almost insidiously. It left him stuttering for a few moments like the days when they were young, the younger boy always somehow more eloquent than him. Or perhaps just better at leaving him stunned. “Waiting a while isn’t even a loss to you, if it’s a young dragon, it needs far more time to find anything of interest there. Unless you actually plan on searching yourself for once?” With a raised eyebrow, the man couldn’t formulate an argument against his brother.

And so, he admitted defeat before changing back into some far simpler clothes for experimentation. “You win, tell me when she returns.” His brother left the spot, teleporting to an alchemical lab underground to resume some experiments. On a large book used to log the results, one would notice several lines scribbled out… And the word ‘Failure’ underlined profusely for each.

He wasn’t making any progress through this trial and error… He needed a proper way to reach that higher level.

* * *

But for the dragon, his experiments came out wildly successful!

As it turned out, it was easy to move mana. Almost painfully so, it made him feel stupid for not using this by accident in the past.

Not even half an hour later, he successfully pushed the flow of mana back into the ball of bones, now waiting for it to come back out to try again. The fact this bone piece never gave up showed its lack of intelligence, clearly using some remnant ability to get him to devour it.

Perhaps that process initiated an effect for reviving the bone’s owner? Quite a few powerful revival methods like this existed after all, and his books made absolutely sure that dragons knew of them. Few people wanted to become the host of a powerful being’s revival method after all, it pretty much killed the original soul.

As for this relevance, one can ask a question about it. In what ways do hatchlings die in the wild? Ignoring predators and hunters that is.

Simply put, they tried to consume something far above themselves and either died from the overabundance of mana or being devoured in turn! This happened to at least a few dragons out of every hundred, making it a figure worth counteracting. Older generations of dragons overcame this simply by including knowledge on dangerous objects as a book.

Rune covered objects alone aren’t too dangerous. However, when those runes can influence mana in the surroundings then the book advocated for avoidance of such things. Mana manipulation through words alone is a common feature of powerful languages, making wariness an important aspect.

And if a bone was actually inscribed with such runes while in a living giant… The beings who did so were far from weak.

Unable to do much else, he just continued learning to manipulate mana with his mind. Currently, the limit of his ability was pushing away all mana just a small millimetre off his scales. Furthermore, this only worked against pure mana, not spells.

By the time night fell, he both reliably searched for mana using his sensing and responded to an outreached tendril without problem. However, containing the chaotic mana inside the ball wasn’t possible at the moment. Even with a mind several times stronger, it seemed unlikely.

Giving up for the night, he decided to make this mana control his short-term goal while consuming giant bones. Additionally, he could go around digging out cry-cotton for an additional bloodline.

In fact, with this development it meant that only one Nexus mission remained! Needing to somehow grant a creature some form of his bloodline, it sounded easy at first but what exactly were the conditions to make them evolve?

If he grew a bit stronger then tying down a magical creature to mutate wouldn’t be impossible, and that could just be an initial experiment. The process could be refined in time. And so, the idea formed vividly, he believed that even this mission wouldn’t take too long.

With something in mind, he returned home soon after and got some sleep. The constant workout on his mind, from controlling mana, made rest so much more enticing as well, sending him off just minutes after lying down.

And with no dreams or nightmares in sight, he woke up refreshed and hungry.

Unfortunately, the bones within his stomach only shrunk a little bit. At this rate it seemed that every single portion required a week to digest! But that didn’t tell the worst of it all.

[Consumed Elder guard Kandir giant! Assimilation progress 0%]

If not clear, this wasn’t good. Spending a whole year to assimilate a single bloodline wasn’t at all beneficial to him. Wanting some understanding, he decisively asked, “What exactly defines how fast I can absorb bloodline energy?”

[Unknown, current theories include: age, growth state, existing bloodline, number of assimilated bloodlines, max MP, mental prowess, and your dragon heart]

That… didn’t at all narrow it down. As the Nexus didn’t know, he changed the question, “How does bloodline energy affect my absorption rate of body parts?”

[The more bloodline energy contained, the longer absorption takes. This has been confirmed for low-ranked bloodlines, data required on higher tiers]

So these bones either contained a massive quantity of bloodline energy or were so tough that his body struggled to break down such material! That now gave him a better gauge for a bloodline’s power, but one problem remained. “If these bones contain a lot of energy, then why is assimilation so slow?”

[Unknown, it is confirmed that bloodline rank is not directly related to this factor]

“Powerful bloodlines won’t always require a lot of energy? Really?”

[Yes]

Pleased at that fact, he now just felt a bit annoyed with the elder guard bones in particular. But another point appeared on the other hand, that being the bloodline energy pushing him to another evolution.

If just this one bloodline granted the same energy as 20 normal beasts, then what was the loss?

Ah… Right. He needed to assimilate bloodlines to overcome the problem of the Pure mana bloodline. Not that the solution to this is hard in any way, he just had to devour anything which granted more bloodlines.

So, while the bones slowly wore away in his stomach, he set off to the battlefield as before. This time not aiming to train but instead digging out more cry-cotton.

This wasn’t anywhere as amazing, he simply dug around for hours to find new bundles of cry-cotton and watched it dissolve relatively quickly. He guessed its stored bloodline energy was low due to it being so fluffy, like cotton.

Although, if a Lesser wizard saw him devour so much cry-cotton then they too might cry. He’d already devoured enough to make two heat-resistant robes, perfect clothing for traversing deserts or the periphery of active volcanoes. But even devouring so much cry-cotton he didn’t feel particularly great about the prompts.

[Consumed Cry-cotton bulb! Assimilation progress 12%]

Additionally, he did his best to avoid heading towards that giant creature’s domain. If he entered its range for even a second…

Nothing he did could avoid a fate of it devouring him instantly.

For the rest of the day, he noticed the Elder guard bones reduced in size somewhat more, but assimilation had yet to even hit 1%. At this rate he’d probably evolve before actually assimilating this giant bloodline. Focusing on the weaker bones above made far more sense, additionally he could wait until completing this growth phase to better absorb the elder guard bones.

Digging for cry-cotton quickly changed to melting snow through Living flame, a new problem arose with this method though.

With his body size it took ages to make a wide enough tunnel!

Out of habit he checked fire spells for a solution, in fact locating a 13 word True spell which built off Living flame to change the flame’s size or temperature. This spell, Lesser fire, is one of the basics required for alchemy, although it is rarely used these days.

Humans had tools capable of creating flames with far better control, and dragons could just learn Apprentice or Intermediate true spells by the time they studied alchemy enough to feel confident. But for melting snow to make a very specially sized tunnel? It couldn’t have been more ideal.

Rather than learn now, he continued making forced pushes towards any magical nodes he saw. Besides the cry-cotton, and plants which lacked bloodlines, he also came across the occasional bone. These were the most inconsistent things he encountered so far.

One belonged to a gelid mongrel, another two from Spiritcallers, then a series of bones from scarlet and black hoofs. Besides some intense confusion at how their bones came this far down, he quickly devoured those useful to him.

[Consumed Gelid mongrel bloodline! Assimilation progress 25%

Consumed Spiritcaller Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 4%]

But that hardly described the best part of searching for plants at this depth! In the process of devouring dozens of them by now, he accumulated a massive quantity of experience.

Name

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Pure mana Ice-cream

HP

100%

MP

100%

Level

12

EXP

96%

Unallocated Stat Points: 8

Strength

0

Luck

0

Agility

3

Growth

10

Magic

10

Mutation Rate

5

Over two levels already! And each bundle of cry-cotton still gave 3% more experience. The other major plant dropped to 5%, but it was still great enough to constantly try to eat.

Unfortunately, experience from plants still felt like a tiny drop in a huge bucket. This cry-cotton was already excellent compared to anything else on the mountain, and he doubted many things in the area beat it. Even in terms of bloodlines it was already high up in this mountain’s ecosystem.

It took the remnants of creatures from ages ago to actually find something superior!

With just a few minutes of work, he levelled up once more. Devouring cry-cotton now gave 2% of his required experience, making its effectiveness so much worse. He didn’t need this much in the first place!

Also, didn’t this mean the actual amount of experience he needed increased by around 50%? The ridiculous rate of increase never really surprised him, but that didn’t stop an exhaustion sweeping over him every time. For quite a while he realised how the maths worked.

After a second day in a row spent searching for cry-cotton, he also memorised his new fire spell while moving snow out the tunnel. Casting spells with Living flame active wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to achieve, and he saw no reason to since a bit of walking never hurt. With the spell being a handful of words, he didn’t believe it to take long to learn.

Unlike being stuck in his home for a month, the constant work required to dig out cry-cotton kept him focused. On top of learning this True spell at an excellent speed, he harvested a few more cry-cotton bulbs while checking his surroundings carefully for more. As usual he sensed sparse hotspots in all directions… But to one side he sensed a truly giant source of mana.

After just a bit of digging he confirmed the source.

A ball of bones with ice and compacted snow keeping it all in place. Its hollow interior housed a single object. A single bone.

He didn’t even bother approaching any further, this was another trap. After the last one’s lesson, he simply did not dare approach. Having learnt well enough, he moved past it and continued searching for plants. At one point he found digging to be far too much of a pain, and to simplify the process created a spiral heading back upwards, dumping snow in the tunnels below until he could melt it all down.

His stamina made such labour easy to complete, and still for the most part he focused on memorising the final words and speaking them all in sequence.

But nearing the top, where he expected to see poppies with several lines and even some white petals… he instead met with mostly red ones. While a couple showed those distinct lines, it wasn’t a majority.

And then he hit the surface.

All around he saw small holes nearby. The ones he dug days ago, when he arrived here… But that meant he moved less then ten metres from the original path underground!

“That’s not possible. I dug tens of times further than this, maybe it’s my staircase?” He remained unconvinced though, walking up and down the staircase to see if it slanted heavily towards the battlefield’s edges.

Of course, it did not.

It wasn’t that the situation completely stumped him but that most ‘classic’ answers to such a thing made no sense on a mountain with so little mana. If this place were of a higher level he could throw one of several magical explanations on top and call it a day… but such a thing didn’t actually make sense now.

“It just has to be spatial then. Perhaps those bones caused it?” he said to himself with weak reasoning. In truth he doubted that some instinct-driven bones could do this sort of thing.

But to make sure nothing obvious was missed, he tried his best to scramble through books on spatial distortions in case anything mentioned magic-inducing runes capable of doing so. Or perhaps it was just a remnant effect of the battle so long ago.

At least he now had a reason why the snow all remained stable here. He couldn’t even grasp how everything worked under such strange conditions, but he did make a single conclusion about the place.

The bottom of the battlefield was far bigger than the top. How he'd make use of this was a new question, but surely he could just keep on digging like now? Running out of cry-cotton wasn’t a worry now either.

[Consumed cry-cotton bulb! Assimilation progress 34%]

That figure seemed small, and it kind of was, but that evening he completed the Lesser flame spell. Casting it worked the same as any other True spell, requiring mana release to begin some point into the spell as a precursor to the actual casting. With it active, he immediately noted its appearance was similar to Living flame, albeit half the size in its basic form.

Finding the right settings, he raised the temperature to begin with, stopping once it melted a tunnel comfortable for his size. It drained around 2% of his mana every second.

Hatchlings really weren’t designed to use True spells it seemed, but this was enough. He finished the day with cry-cotton at 34% and his new spell ready to cast, sleeping to prepare for a mass collection tomorrow…

Was it any surprise that the next day he rushed to 90%?

Nothing else happened on this third day of collection, although the bones within him shrunk to the size of small pebbles by nightfall. He then awoke to them all finally disappearing, but the Nexus showed that it remained stuck at 0% assimilation. Devouring this bloodline really would take months, perhaps even years!

On this fourth day he received the conclusion of all that work.

[Consumed Cry-cotton bulb! Assimilation progress 100%]

In his home, the familiar sensation began but to a degree he hadn’t expected. Like the scarlet hoof bloodline, it began as usual. A powerful mind-numbing calmness and warmth spread throughout, However, as the warmth continued it also grew hotter and hotter. Before long the sensation of burning appeared from within, no different to those times he stood too close to fire spells.

But the pain only lasted so long, eventually soothing and vanishing entirely. From there he sank down, lying prone moments before the exceptional tiredness latched on like no other. His mana sense revealed no danger around his home, and so he quickly faded off to sleep. Not that he could physically resist it anyway.

[Cry-cotton bulb assimilated! 2 bloodline directions potentially available]

That’s not to say he hadn’t done anything else on the fourth day, once hitting 99% assimilation, he instead focused on consuming other plants and bones.

Having yet to narrow down any surefire way to obtain giant bones, he felt glad whenever either type appeared. Obviously the Spiritcaller bones excited him far more, but they proved so much rarer than anything else. Overall, the day of work rewarded him well, on top of assimilating a brand new bloodline he received…

[Consumed Spiritcaller Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 7%

Consumed Warborne Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 29%

Consumed Ice-mind berry! Assimilation progress 66%]

In the hours of insane boredom, repeatedly digging up plants with walls of snow separating him every time, he decided on a new plan for when he awoke. One which had formed for weeks now but got delayed several times in favour of bloodlines or avoiding hunters. He refused to sit down and wait for some unlikely opportunity to come by. How much longer could he put off his own growth?

It was time he tried his hand at that winter's hope tree.