Compression casting is precisely as simple and complex as it sounds.

The idea was obvious, speed up casting by cutting down on the time taken to say all the words. In practice the bare requirements was perfect pronunciation and timing for a spell, and then it got harder.

The trick was to ‘overlay’ words on top of one another to say multiple words at once. This meant understanding how a word sounds in its entirety and then producing a noise which merges any number of words with it.

However, things like intonation, timing, length, pitch, and so on, are all accounted for in the process.

The result for simple spells is simple, simply grasping how it sounds to merge the two words and speaking them. As a result, he started on Ice bolt. With just 4 words it meant having to layer four noises to cast it in a single word.

Alternatively, it is far easier to merge it into two words, and he completed this in a little over half an hour. After all, he’d used Ice bolt so much the exact usage of the spell had been burnt into his short memory. Flame bolt proved harder though, although he reduced it to three words in an equal length of time, turning it into a two word spell took 4 times the length.

In theory, this all allowed a dragon to cast a 50 word spell in the same length of time as 10 word spells! However, for most spells it was hard for younglings to do more than merge 3 words into a single one. Rather than moan about complexity though, he simply repeated this learning process for various incantations.

And as one final matter.

Compressed words and regular ones may be used freely, so long as the whole spell is spoken. This is common for weaker spells with extremely easy portions but a few tough words. The best part of this practice being how so many similar ‘phrases’ exist between spells, allowing a lot of those incantation compressions to be translated to higher tier spells.

Beyond spellcasting, he also spent a few hours that day purely on transforming more of his heart into crystal. The pumpkin seed sized chunk grew to that of an almond, having received just a bit more thickness. But he hoped that in just a few more days he could transform enough to encourage a change.

To be precise, a dragon awakened their breath innate ability once they converted 3% of their heart to crystal. Granting a very basic elemental attack, but nonetheless their breath weapon.

As they further reinforced their heart, the breadth, power, and extent of this attack only improved. At certain milestones it even gained more properties, like some nature dragons whose breath could not only nurture plants but grant them a temporary ego to seek out and capture any nearby living creatures.

But with so much variation, he really had no clue where his breath would go.

And so, for the rest of the day, even somewhat into the night, he practised compression and further increased that packet of crystals. When time came to sleep, he imagined the completion of the latter before eventually falling to exhaustion.

In fairness, a bundle of eternity ferns really does help with that. The assimilation continued smoother than ever before.

[Consumed Coniferous eternity fern! Assimilation progress 42%]

* * *

When waking refreshed, he cooked up some more of the butterfly body and ate the crispy, roasted insect to a generic enjoyment. The moonlight masked its flavour once more, but his resistance to it improved once more as he willed himself to stop its depressive result.

He hadn’t even realised it happened until a few moments later, and spoke aloud, “My will alone actually influences it? But why not my spirit then? That is what the bloodline said, Nexus, what was the Auric spiritual bloodline description?”

[Auric spiritual Ice-cream: Aura is not merely a form of suppression or attack, it can do so much more. Aura may be condensed into a shape, given form, and finally, given will. Your Auric spirit will grow alongside your aura, and strengthens in response to strong willpower. The Auric spirit may be attached to your body or allowed to fight freely on its own accord, its future only bound by your own. Grants Innate ability ‘Auric imbuement’]

So he was right!

But in battle he’d never seen its power increase so wildly, in fact its power output didn’t change at all… So was his will in battle simply too weak? “Is the effect unresponsive due to my species?” He checked in with the Nexus, but with a lack of response it evidently pointed towards either the ability working.

But too weak of a will… That made no sense. Especially against that sea-freezing crab, he held absolute surety of his victory. But none of the auric attacks dealt significantly more damage.

He needed a bit more time to think about it, perhaps his will simply hadn’t been strong enough. Or perhaps he needed to unlock some sort of corporeal will like the True dragon sleeping within him.

Rather than bother himself with it for so long, he instead spent the rest of the day grasping more compressed words for every domain of magic.

Great flame bolt became a 10 word spell, as did Water control and Helix blast. Sky sight barrier and Voltaic burst only reduced to 15 words, but he continued focusing heavily on the compression of Proto-barrier in preparation for more barrier spells down the line.

Others like Mental blast, Mental shock, Sword wind, Snow blade storm, and several more, decreased in words by about half. Literally halving his cast time for all these spells already greatly improved his battle power!

And he could compress them all even further, the problem was that he purposely focused on compressions which were common throughout all spells.

As for his heart, he quickly neared on the requirements for his breath attack, the small almond-sized chunk of crystal had been extended slightly, but more importantly reached all the way through his heart’s walls.

Prepared to hit the point today, he settled back down to continue the process, but was interrupted by the boisterous roars of his leader. Spoken in Beasten, he frowned at the words.

“All non-assigned beasts, gather now!” While he had a mission, the wyvern likely meant beasts assigned to watch the various trees. In which case he thought it best to leave immediately and understand what happened, unable to awaken his breath attack, he didn’t see it as much of a loss.

His greatly sped up spells should possess the same, if not more, power than any basic breath could grant.

When he reached the cavernous mountain, he was surprised to see thousands of bronze tier beasts all around him. The wyvern’s power clearly impressed a lot more than he realised, and the number of steel tiers at the front was by no means small. At the very least fifty of them bowed down to this leader.

A very recognisable sloth on two feet also stood amongst them, but others like the anaconda remained at their posts.

Two minutes later the wyvern left his mountain to come speak to all the beasts, flapping its wings a few times and hovering about them all. He told them all, “To the north, a coalition between the butterfly and salamander lord has been formed, and they intend to charge and capture three of our node trees. Currently they have captured one, but we reinforced the other two in time.”

Instantly, murmuring appeared amongst the beasts, many of which were shocked that the two parties dared offend the far stronger wyvern. Naturally, weaker beasts like them shared no right to understand how exactly this war for kingship worked.

“Silence! The lord is speaking!” A giant steel tier alligator to the side turned and crushed the noises. Its scales appeared white yet translucent, but it also grew large spikes of ice all over its body. As its deep voice quietened everyone, the beasts fell back into line.

“As I was saying. You must go and protect the trees, possibly retake them if you get the chance. Remember, this is a war, not a hunt. Focus on maiming, not killing. An injured beast will give up, and you may preserve strength on harming more.” Before sending them off, the wyvern gave some advice to the various beasts who’d only hunted to kill in the past. As most looked up to their lord with ferocious glares, he seemed content whilst saying, “Now go! Crush our enemies!”

Thousands of bronze tier beasts immediately ran off, charging with no hesitation or thoughts of their possible deaths. The steel tiers all hang back, ensuring that all the beasts continued forward while the wyvern hovered above the hoard, not taking action himself.

While lords are forbidden from attacking another’s subordinates, there was nothing stopping them from intimidating others.

With no reason to refuse this order, he joined along at his slower pace, only using a Wind burst seal to try and keep up with the obviously faster hoard. In fact, a war like this wasn’t all that bad, it allowed him to quickly find beasts with specific properties, like toxic ones as a perfectly innocent example…

Because why shouldn’t he at least make use of all his abilities?

It took him just over thirty minutes of running to finally reach the fringe of the battlefield, and even then this was merely the point where some beasts gathered to select where they’d support. There was no semblance of order in this fight, it transformed into complete chaos where some battled in a 1-on-1, to several beasts overpowering individuals.

Some strong groups even formed and utterly crushed anything in their way… He couldn’t even fathom how many would die in this battle.

Yet the beasts all fought wildly for some reason.

Without questioning, he watched over the battlefield and picked out some more troublesome opponents coming towards them. Honestly, he had no idea how anyone could tell apart friend or foe, perhaps they spoke in Beasten constantly? Disregarding that, he could tell those charging forward to be enemies, and picked them off with Great flame bolts.

A normal bronze rank beast simply melted in the presence of such a spell, at best dying instantly… At worst he saw some crawl about with massive burnt wounds, just inches from death.

Only one beast survived his spell, and without hesitation, he merged with the spirit and left towards it, his speed caught the attention of those nearby but none dared interrupt. As he approached the beast, a sudden compressed Mental shock left it drooping before an aura-clad claw cut through its furry neck.

By the time it came to, it bled profusely all over and had to use any remaining strength to stem the bleeding, just barely surviving on the battlefield.

Some steel tier beasts noticed the ridiculous exchange, but could not interfere as the two sides focused on beasts of an equal level. However, it was clear that this slaughter frustrated them.

As the dragon continued to slaughter the more troublesome bronze tier beasts with the help of some others to draw focus, one of the higher tier beasts was able to slip away in exchange for a large injury on its leg. A tiny price to snip away a budding problem, and running on three remaining legs, he now had to face a snow leopard.

A steel tier one at that.

His mana sense immediately saw the figure dashing towards him, and jumping away with a turn, he immediately focused on the leopard. Its ruined back leg stood out, and he immediately thought of a way to make it struggle.

He cast Voltaic burst on his scales while they two danced, his rapid ability to jump around made it impossible for the leopard to catch up, having to turn constantly. But once completing Voltaic burst, he pelted it with inconsequential spells like Fire bolt, Explosive bolt, and even Blinding flash.

The latter actually left the leopard blind for a few moments, but its eyes adjusted in seconds anyway. Without any remnant light elements to maintain the blindness, it naturally had little lasting effects.

Still, he saw its rising anger as he toyed with it. Precisely what he needed.

Casting Momentous rampage, he made sure to complete the spell standing directly in the leopard’s line of sight, and finally charged for it. But no animal at its level was stupid enough to ignore what just happened.

It leapt away to dodge his attack, remaining outside his range… Except not really.

His legs tensed up and he pushed off once more, the second jump caught the leopard off-guard. And with an even faster speed this time, even as it tried to move away there was nothing it could do.

Momentous rampage completed its cast and a metallic glow appeared all over him, but it did not slow his speed or increase his descension, instead allowing him to crash right into the leopard’s body and making it collapse under the weight of an elephant.

But it was the Voltaic burst which impacted it most, stunning the beast and leaving it spasming on the floor with its weaker defences. However, as he went to slash at the beast, he saw the auric claw scratch over but left no mark in its fur.

Furthermore, he sensed the lightning elements in its body began dissipating, but the leopard continued spasming. He leapt away decisively and saw the leopard's claws rush out trying to catch him, but failing. Its acting would’ve actually worked if he couldn’t easily see mana and elements to such a degree.

But it stood back up even madder than before, looking at him with red eyes on top of thin-slit eyes. He did not doubt its mind looking for any opportunity to jump and tear his throat out.

“Insolent lizard, you think it’s so easy to fight a steel tier? You should know your place!” It spoke in fluid Beasten and disparaged him, as though he was the one who called over a higher tier beast.

But rather than point out the hypocrisy, he considered how to break the defences of this leopard. Only one answer came to mind in the end.

Helix blast.

But how to… its injured leg. He needed to break another, or at least make it unresponsive. How did it come out unharmed from his massive weight crushing it though?

It took a few moments until his mana sight accurately peered into its body and saw several fractured ribs, however, a stream of mana held the bone together and allowed it to act as though nothing happened.

“You are very sly… But you’re risking your life if you stay.” A hard fought battle did not benefit either of them, and forcing the leopard into a retreat greatly aided his side.

But from its meaningless growl there was no intention to leave.

His mana sense showed no further steel tiers coming here, also meaning no one would dare help him. If his Mind palace hadn’t recently upgraded to Beginner-level he might have freaked out, but not now.

Now was a perfect time to test the power of this evolution.