Digging through a whole library of information for a single type of mushroom is a lot more trouble than he originally gave it credit for. Especially since the solar-death shrooms made themselves so easy to find.

On the other hand, he had no clue what Seeping veil referred to. The fungus was not in that one detailing common magical ones, and now he began thinking why the veins were purple of all things.

Elements are generally coloured rather fittingly, red for fire, green for nature, blue or white for ice… But some colours made less sense. Spatial magic is either purple or transparent, life elements are golden just like Divinus characters.

And as these spores could not be gravity magic, his immediate thought turned to curses. However, most curse spells fall under the dark element which is pure, well, darkness. There is no colour there.

However, eventually thinking about the name enough came up with a plausible answer. Talking aloud, he questioned the name for minutes at end. “Why is it veil though? What veil… Shadow realm? Outer realms? Dream?”

He froze for a few moments when considering the dream realm, or rather its subsidiaries. And after enough searching he eventually found a book detailing the realm and some peculiarities. Besides the obvious rather friendly dreams, some offshoots like the nightmare and terror realms existed.

Many don’t realise, but sleep is perhaps the most powerful tool of a mortal. It is the dreams of millions which allowed the realm to form, and from there it became a self-sustaining ecosystem.

But that doesn’t mean all are happy to reside in a land dependent on the dreams of others.

“Here! Seeping veil mushrooms… planted in reality and randomly mutated with the fears of nearby existences. Recommended to destroy if caring for an ecosystem, a dragon may wish to allow the mutation to succeed and form Nightmare piecer stalks. Let them grow?” Rereading the passage a few times, he confirmed the book's advice as well as the identity of this event. While easy to discover the truth, or part of it, that didn’t give an answer. So, he moved over to the section describing such mutated mushrooms.

Nightmare piercer stalks were one of two possible mutations for seeping veil mushrooms, the successful one which those who planted it desire. It allowed for the veil between dream and reality to weaken, granting passing for monsters in those worlds to cross over.

But a species invading the lands of another is nothing special, even he practically yawned at that. What shocked him was the reason this book told him to keep the mushrooms alive, that being a very powerful use to devouring the natives of the dream realm.

“May be consumed to strengthen mental space; especially useful for young and middle-aged dragons.” He gulped at the concept, having a resource capable of empowering his mind right at his doorstep. In fact, he only feared one thing about this whole situation.

That a dream monster above gold tier came through to this world and wreaked havoc on the mountain… But if it was anything lower he knew the wyvern could suppress it.

He opted to bring up this matter to the wyvern later as well, this being its mountain at the end of the day. If it wanted the trees purged of the infections then he expected it to be a few hours of work for their side at most. But really… such a resource sounded amazing.

But if they couldn’t manage the number of monsters charging through the pierced veil they’d have severe problems in the upcoming months.

After all that researching he finally decided to finish assimilating the reindeer’s bloodline, and with the sheep’s information wondered why no derivative bloodline existed in its body. The possibility that it fully absorbed such a high level bloodline remained, albeit unlikely. It said this opponent ate a brain, or rather claimed to, so where was…

Eyes fixated on the beast’s pure white antlers, the ones which generated an image of the moon, he immediately understood just where that derivative bloodline remained, if at all.

Ignoring the thing’s glassy eyes, he cracked up its skull and saw its brain within. Not pink and fleshy like every other beast he’d eaten, but rather an exquisite marble display. He even doubted it to be flesh, and prodded it with his tongue to see it quiver in response.

The bloodline had to be stored there.

And looking a bit more, the antlers likely contained some as well, hopefully providing a sizable portion of this unknown creature’s bloodline. He greedily imagined finding its body and devouring it for another Advanced rank bloodline.

Cooking the brain not only took a lot of time, but the lack of a pot greatly worsened the experience as well. If before he regretted not having it, now the desire to race home and grab some only grew exponentially.

However, he eventually managed to cook through the brain and began eating it. Taking the cool chunks and feeling the firm yet soft meat, easily mushing it down with his dextrous, gummy tongue and swallowing.

It tasted… uplifting? It made almost no sense, but besides a slight solemn shadow growing over his mind, the food felt like the shadow was trying to lift him up and provide some comfort.

While unable to replace the touch of someone who actually cared for you, it gave him some solace at a minimum, and he cherished every bite of the brain. Ignoring the Nexus prompts in favour of settling himself firmly in the emotions it bred within.

He repressed it far too much, but those desires to find his parents never truly left. Especially to receive some comfort from the kinder of the two.

But he knew this sensation would end soon, even if subtly begging for it not to… And when it did all that remained was emptiness without even that shadow covering his mind anymore. He wasn’t sure what to do, and just lay down with the Nexus to check on.

A distraction at best.

[Consumed Moonlight reindeer bloodline! Assimilation progress 89%

Consumed derivative Lunar-clipped butterfly bloodline! Assimilation progress 12%]

For just the brain he found a considerable quantity of the creature’s bloodline, but seeing its name changed that thought process immensely. A butterfly, even a massive one, had nowhere close to the mass of a normal beast. Wasn’t it very likely that he would fail to assimilate this high rank bloodline even with the full corpse?

For now it put the thought aside in favour of destroying the reindeer’s antlers. The method he settled on was a powerful roasting under Lesser flame until they lost some durability, then crushed to bits using Glacier crush. He considered Helix blast for a moment, then actually grew some brains.

No way that could end well.

Eating the antlers also provided bloodlines for both the reindeer and butterfly, but he received a pleasant surprise as the latter exceeded expectations.

[Consumed Moonlight reindeer bloodline! Assimilation progress 95%

Consumed derivative Lunar-clipped butterfly bloodline! Assimilation progress 22%]

Additionally, he tried eating part of the skull and other bones, but nothing else contained this butterfly’s bloodline. Was it due to the reindeer only eating its brain?

Unfortunately, his brief look through some books on stronger butterflies did not find a lunar-clipped one. While a bit troubling, it didn’t really cause any major issues. With that matter finally sorted, he ate some more reindeer meat to finally complete its assimilation.

Almost immediately, a blazing heat passed through him, searing him inside and out to the point of wincing and tightening every limb uncontrollably. He moved some mana within his body to reduce the heat, albeit lightly, and simply endured the painful yet safe assimilation.

Just half a minute later the pain completely passed and he laid on the floor as a useless sack of ice-cream.

“Rare rank. At the least,” he said to test his ability to talk. Reality left him exhausted, and with his speech in a slurred but fixable state, he used the spell to enter his mental space immediately.

This first house wouldn’t build itself.

As for how he built on the brick wall, he could reasonably continue building from the floor like before, but reading some more on the intricacies of the first house revealed how else he could use mana in the place.

The strangely mouldable mana wasn’t just for show in the end, setting it in place only meant it formally became part of his Mind palace. But what about the rest of the mana he used? Like the influx which compressed a brick into merging with the palace?

Well, no one actually said it was incorporeal, he’d just assumed such a thing. It could create temporary steps for him to climb up, or more simply make a platform that allowed him to fly. The problem being that his mind had to be strong enough to support that sort of flight.

It turned out that while flight was possible, the power required made further construction impossible. As such he gave up on the idea for now and simply made a ramp of mana up to the top layer of bricks to continue on this work.

After three more layers of bricks, taking somewhere less than two hours, he finally grew tired and decided to leave. Ordinarily speaking, placing bricks in one’s mental space is always exhausting, but this exhaustion more often came from mana loss. As he recovered so quickly, the only problem became his mind naturally growing tired.

Night fell soon, and he slept after an hour of crystal creation, now the largest clump of crystals in his heart matched a large seed in size. Besides storing a bit more mana, it did very little. The dragon feared touching any more delicate portions of his heart until confident of the transformation process.

But those things only mattered when he awoke. His recent actions caused undisputed concern for others.

* * *

Near a node tree with thick purple veins growing up its grey trunk, a group of six small figures huddled together. While not far, they maintained a distance great enough to ensure none of those near the node tree heard their voice. All spoke in Beasten, and to an extremely fluent degree.

“That lizard and its lord might ruin our plans… Is it really okay to keep things going?” The first to speak, a larger than average squirrel, was also the most paranoid. In truth, it joined their group last as well.

“Ruin it?” The largest of the lot, a one-eyed goat of all things, scoffed at the squirrel’s lousy question. It neared disgust as it seemed to not trust the power promised to them. “So what if it’s suspicious? No beast on this mountain besides us knows the origin, just stay hidden. The node tree switching hands does not change anything.”

“And how dare you underestimate our lord in front of theirs! Ours is a great figure that exceeds the steel tier, and will become king once able to enter our realm.” The most fanatic of the bunch, a cantou with a silver horn, once more praised their lord.

While all were respectful of the great being who came to them in their dreams, only this beast became a truly devout follower.

“Enough talking. Our business as usual, have any nightmare stalks appeared as the lord requires?” The one-eyed goat steered their conversation to the regular topic, needing to know if they could abandon their sides and instead focus entirely on preparing for their lord’s arrival.

Each took their turn to reply, shaking their heads or saying, “no.” In the end, none of the required mutations happened… Although they discussed the growth of several ‘Dreamfold pods’.

Of the two mutations available for seeping veil mushrooms, the less desirable are precisely these pods. While they contain some dream-manipulating energies, being relatively inert meant their best use was as alchemical ingredients.

But another major use existed… They fed the pods to beasts in hopes more dreams pierced the veil and allowed their lord to contact them.

After all, a true king required its subjects.