He described himself as being a year old and completing his first growth phase many months ago, using this to segue into having learnt a selection of Beginner true spells and even an Apprentice true spell. Of course, he referred only to the Sky sight barrier here, keeping silent on Voltaic burst and Helix blast.

Describing his ice-cream body with wafer scales for defence, the wyvern finally reacted with a frown for once, realising this dragon’s defences were, without a doubt, the worst it had ever heard of.

But what it lacked in endurance, it made up for in sheer power. He saw some potential in the youngling, but it was still too weak to take on a proper role as a subordinate.

So he asked a question, “Why were you hunting that crab?”

Not expecting that line of thought, the dragon stuttered for a few moments before answering with a suitable foil, “I was going after the smaller ones because of their taste… The big one just got in my way and I had to fight it.” He prayed this excuse worked, having used seconds to come up with it.

But the wyvern didn’t buy it. Replying with, “Nonsense. Why did you fight it?” This time releasing some aura to suppress the dragon, reminding him of his position now. Lying would not be tolerated.

“I can absorb some strength by consuming those stronger than me!”

He thought up an excuse for his hunting habits weeks ago, realising that some answer was needed when the Sage first appeared. No one could ever be allowed to find out his ability to evolve quickly or assimilate bloodlines. In comparison, the ability to gain some power through devouring is extremely rare, but not unseen.

The problems with such powers are well known as well. “So you constantly need new creatures to develop yourself, and it seems to be quite a large number at that. One last thing, what is the object which released that aura earlier?”

He didn’t hesitate to take out the statue and show it to the wyvern. A few moments of interest died down as he realised it was a tool bound to the young dragon, and must have been given by the Sage himself. What status it represented was unknown, but such objects rarely mean nothing. He handed it back with curiosity satisfied, wondering what that Sage saw in this dragon to hand over such an item.

“You may come by once a day to receive some of my blood.” He stood in shock at the wyvern’s blood, not expecting it to so freely grant such a thing, even if just a small bit every day. While in that moment of surprise, the wyvern turned to a standing beast nearby and gave an order, “Find somewhere for this dragon to stay.” The only problem being that he simply couldn’t understand this line, it being in another language.

Before any issues rose up, he cleared up the misconception by saying, “I don’t yet know Beasten… My apologies.”

“Then you best learn it fast, he will take you to a place to stay and collect you in the morning.” After saying a few more words to the creatures nearby, one of them finally stood out and began walking towards the exit. It was a sort of lanky sloth, each step was a slow and methodical stumbling motion, and he thought it might trip every time.

But it walked consistently, remaining upright and leading him to the exit. Today had not gone as expected, but the results weren’t all that bad.

The sloth led him away from the opened mountain and up some annoyingly steep slopes before showing a rather small cave. Unlike his cool and objectively beautiful cave, this one simply had messy rock walls with lichen growing on some parts. It smelt damp and barely extended deep enough for his length to fit twice over. At least it had some good width, allowing him some freedom of movement.

Pouting at its appearance, he could only nod to the sloth-thing and look into fixing some things up. Digging through earth, safely, was far too difficult, so he simply covered the walls in a layer of ice while airing things out with Wind spells.

It dealt with the damp smell rather quickly, and he was left with some white icy walls and a stony floor. “Better than it started at least,” he said dejectedly. Hunting would be harder now as most creatures bowed down to the wyvern… but going after some critters for food should still be allowed.

At the same time it gave him time to test out how creatures evolved when eating his body. And so he went outside with the goal of finding a small squirrel or rabbit, then first using Stun to immobilise it before a Mental shock dropped it unconscious.

It only took a single Sky sight barrier, and about 10 minutes, for him to locate a ferocious looking rat and keep it tied down in his cave. Doing so actually took quite a bit of work without mutilating the thing, but he eventually created a sturdy set of bars to cage it in. From there it snarled at him periodically throughout the day, but with a quick Beginner true spell he blocked off the noise.

Lacking the power to destroy the stone bars he created, there were no concerns left. And when the rat clearly grew hungry in a few hours, he just had to cut off a portion of his wafer tail and throw it into the cell.

Making it eat turned out way easier than imagined, the thing jumped at the sweet-smelling treat immediately and scarfed it down. But it clearly wanted more food, and for that travelled a short distance with his spirit and killed a wassat after a short search. This adult one was rather long and even thick, making it a suitable source of meat for the upcoming tests.

It fit in his belt easily, and once back in the cave he cut off a chunk and threw it into the cave. With tough claws and teeth, it easily tore through the muscular wassat meat. But still no changes were in sight.

Perhaps it took a day or two, and that’s why the ant queen didn’t attack straight after getting her first bite? Or perhaps it was a bit of ice-cream which caused the mutation…

He really had no clue, neither did the Nexus. And so for the rest of the day he would feed the rat his regrown tail, by nightfall having done this same thing 4 times! It had eaten tens if not hundreds of times the ice-cream that the queen got, yet nothing occurred!

But he continued feeding it, forcing the rat to consume it at times. A Fire spell inching closer and closer worked wonders at keeping the thing in check, and for a while he considered if this was needlessly cruel for the sake of research.

Other races would absolutely agree… And really, he only thought about how the Sage helped him out in return for some aid. Since he didn’t particularly care for this creature’s bloodline, he promised to let it go if this test for a food-based evolution failed.

But only on that condition!

During the day, he had focused on some books teaching Beasten to dragons. By far, the language was extremely similar to Draconic in mannerisms, the differences were just how the sounds made could not match a dragon’s specific vocal cords or tongue movements as easily.

Most of the language came down to remembering just a couple hundred specific characters, and then memorising how combinations and irregularities worked. It would take a few weeks to properly understand any of the beasts and talk this language, but overall he found it several times easier than the human ones.

With that noted, he saw the rat finally fall asleep and cast a Frost shell to stop anything weak from trying to attack him at night. It hadn’t been an issue in his last cave due to being a bit off the main path and tucked away at the edge of the mountain, but here in the middle of a massive snow field?

It led him to sleep in the barrier, even if it only lasted for a couple hours on its own.

He woke up sometime after dawn to the rat hissing and crying out, likely hungry for a couple hours. He almost laughed at the sight after it shook in fear from him force feeding it yesterday.

Throwing in a pile of meat and his tail as usual, he left the cave as a sloth already appeared outside. It led him to the cave where the wyvern already sat up upon seeing him. It cast some sort of spell using rings and he saw a large stone bowl appear on the ground. The wyvern made a cut along its body and syphoned a stream of blood out and into the bowl.

Once filling it, he sealed his wound and laid back down. “Drink, then I will explain.”

As it closed its eyes once more, he looked at the massive bowl of blood, easily equal to his own body size… In size, this was about the same as a pot of blood that he usually stored blood in. So, without further waiting, he walked up beside it and dipped his tongue inside, the warm fluid making his mouth ache a bit.

[Consumed Blue storm wyvern bloodline! Assimilation progress 0%]

It needed to be cooler, and on that note, he created a pillar of ice about the size of himself and used Telekinesis to stir the blood. With the ambient temperature also cooling this bowl of blood, it did not take long until he could swallow it without fear of being in pain.

No one in the room raised a fuss at his actions.

Each mouthful of blood took a few seconds to vanish, indicating that it did not contain a truly exceptional amount of bloodline energy. But what troubled him was the progress made after consuming that bowl.

[Consumed Blue storm wyvern bloodline! Assimilation progress 3%]

So that meant he needed to do this 30 more times just to assimilate this wyvern’s bloodline? Given that its blood contained as much energy as the stormlord wolf’s…

This guy was actually really damn powerful. No wonder the bigger wyvern sent him of all their progeny here. But what exactly were their goals? Was this really just a huge free-for-all to take ownership of the mountain?

“Thank you for your blood. It seems I’ll need a lot more of it. As expected,” he only added the line to give the false impression that he possessed one of those strange bloodlines which grew stronger by devouring. And that seemed to sell it as the wyvern finally rose up again.

“Do you understand how the bestial mandate works?” The wyvern asked a question to which he shook his head, having never come across such a term before. And then he explained it immediately, “When our races’ leaders fight, the destruction often causes the dominant races to quell such combat immediately… Often at our losses. So our forefathers made a compromise. Send talented children and see who is left as the king after one year, at which point that species claims ownership.”

“I don’t understand, don’t you just have to kill the king to take control then?”

The wyvern shook its head at the childish question, replying simply with, “Merely having the Nexus’ title is not enough. You must be recognised by those living here.”

A strange requirement, but he saw no problems in it. Even amongst beasts, a king earned some degree of respect. Not knowing Beasten obviously meant he never communicated with the beasts here, but no doubt most of them treaded lightly around conversation about this place’s current king.

Which seemed to be one of those crabs as well?

“What would you like me to do then?”

“Grow strong enough that you can beat or kill any other bronze tier beast, you’re close but still a bit off. Then you'll have the bare minimum needed to help.” The wyvern did not stand on ceremony and simply closed his eyes, sending off the dragon.

“I understand.” Realising more than ever just how much respect this wyvern showed, he dipped his head and walked out. He didn’t expect someone of this power to truly treat him as an equal, but it felt great overall. In comparison, it felt like the Sage and Raccelline treated him as a cute pet who helped a bit. To truly be respected for once, he realised that joining the wyvern wasn’t actually that bad.

His freedom was cut down a bit, but he now had the protection of someone far greater. Hiding his evolutions would be a bit annoying though…

Back in his cave the rat laid on the floor with the ice-cream and meat finished. For the rest of the day, he focused on learning those important Beasten words whilst feeding the rat.

Then he did that for the next day as well, grabbing another bowl of wyvern blood in the morning for another 3% assimilation progress.

And in truth, he simply lived like this for a week, nothing having changed yet aside from one all important thing. The Auric spirit claimed to be near its first improvement, and he couldn’t be happier to see what change occurred. Unlike what the spirit expected, it had taken closer to 100 bundles of liquid aura to finally improve it, but he had ample time at the moment.

On his eight day of joining the wyvern, he fed the spirit the final sackful of aura.