From all over, beasts saw the central peak transform into a spike of ice piercing the heavens, its gleaming structure terrorising most of them and reminded the dissidents of the power in control of this place.

But it did not last long, as the wyvern and roc already flew up and crushed that dominating aura. In just a few seconds, both released spells to strike the iced mountain peak. Every beast awake saw the rain of flaming feathers and a fine jet of water flash across the peak. At first, it seemed to do nothing.

But within a few seconds of the two flying around the mountain, casually suppressing the crab’s aura, many saw chunks of ice falling away from the peak of the mountain above the clouds. Before long each chunk grew in size until boulders large enough to crush the two flying gold tiers fell down the ice-covered mountain.

And finally, the iced mountain tip completely crumbled. In the process parting the clouds somewhat to reveal the peak covered in snow like every other in the Evelard range.

Thousands of beasts- No! Tens of thousands waited tentatively for the two parties to fight, waiting for the battle which shook this place to its core. At the same time cementing the wyvern and roc’s power at gold tier without a single doubt…

But after circling the mountain a few times they flew down to their respective regions and things quietened down. The king did not reply to their attack, and no great rumblings occured.

With a single exchange this ended just like that…

“That was anticlimactic, although…” An idea came to mind, and after checking his surroundings, a Sky sight barrier formed. He quickly switched his perspective over to the spell’s and flew rapidly to the mountain’s peak. Today might be the perfect chance to see the crab.

He met no impedances near the frozen mountain, and began raising the spell higher and higher until seeing the peak. For a little while he grew concerned that the crab lived in a cave like its children, making catching a glimpse of it impossible, but reality proved kind today.

As the rock and snow mountain peak quickly rose, he saw the very tip suddenly descend into a small crater, within which a large crab resided. The crater was a simple rocky, concave surface, although small piles of plants covered the surroundings. On closer inspection the rock itself appeared abnormal, glistening with small blue lights similar to the patterns on the crab itself.

As for its size, this thing not only matched the wyvern, but he believed it to weigh several times as much with its thick shell and massive pincers.

Not only that, but the blue markings on this sea-freezing crab contained distinct and delicate patterns instead of the basic lines on that younger one. He could make out the small snowflake-like markings as well as hundreds of small swirls as though a calligrapher personally drew every little part.

However, this sight did not last long, as he saw the crab’s figure rise up slightly and the set of eyes stared directly towards him. It didn’t even give him a chance to move away as a blast of cold air shot towards him and broke the connection.

His mind reeled for a few seconds, recovering quickly with his Mind palace as protection.

“How is it so quick at that size?” For some reason, it was tough for him to grasp just how powerful a gold tier beast truly was. As a dragon he should’ve been the most acquainted with such a power level… And yet it felt strange.

If a gold tier beast of that size and toughness also possessed such speed… It really made him question just how powerful its body was. Or even the attacks it could utilise, especially since it just froze an entire mountain as a show of strength, what if it could focus all that power onto a small point to attack one single creature?

No wonder the outside lords have an agreement to bar killing one another, without it the wyvern might have already slaughtered them all with ease.

His mind soon recovered entirely and he dispersed the barrier. No point in hanging around, he headed home to eat the aurora reindeer’s bone and figure out what came next.

[Bloodline energy has reached an evolutionary threshold. Prepare for evolutionary measures to begin]

Or not…

“About 3 minutes away. I’ll just hunker down I suppose,” he spoke to himself whilst looking at a distant mountain he recognised. With the spirit, he needed 3 minutes to reach it, and then another 10 seconds to finally reach his home. On top of time to cast barrier spells, he saw greater safety in just using this remote patch of snowy land as his evolution ground.

Especially since the crab’s actions frightened almost every beast nearby into hiding, he could not have picked a better time to evolve. If he was capable of picking that is.

Water control created a large underground room for him to curl up in, and he blocked off the entrance before making a Light spell. That whole process took a minute, and now he waited on the selection of options, weighing the possibilities.

“Nexus, automatically remove all options from bloodlines below Rare+... Also remove any food-related bloodlines. And just don’t show that Volatile mutant one if it shows up.” To avoid a list of 30 options or something, he repeated the process of cutting away the weaker options before even starting.

[Evolution imminent. Your possible bloodling pathways are the following:

Divine-Draconic palace Ice-cream

Mind sunderer Ice-cream

Faith immolating…

Soul body…

Sun-moon Draconic palace…

Lunar brilliance…

Nightly embraced…

Argent soul…

Spiritual manipulation…

Dream penetrating…

Mind reading…

Dimension hopper…

World veiler…

Spirit refinement…

Eternally entombed…

Please make a selection in 4 minutes, or a random pathway will be used]

“Strange… That derivative was actually Rare+ as well?” He naturally caught that small detail at the bottom of the list, but such curiosity passed as he quickly read through all the options. Without even having to think, he was able to remove Divine-Draconic palace, Faith immolating, and Soul body.

He’d either seen these bloodlines in the past or held no use for them, especially for the advancement of his Draconic palace. Once more, anything divine required believers to have any use, and if there was anything he truly lacked…

From there, it was easy to pick away the less useful bloodlines of the lot, especially since he knew where to focus most.

After just half a minute, he removed quite a few more. Lunar brilliance focused on transforming his physical body with moonlight, but such a result often led to glass cannons. If there was one thing he needed to avoid, it was weakening his body to the point of utter uselessness.

Next came Nightly embraced, which both enhanced all his abilities at night and gave him a few innate abilities which only worked in darkness. Additionally, it boosted all his dark magic. That one branch of magic he had yet to use once, despite knowing a few dark element spells by now.

Spiritual manipulation and Dream penetrating both lost their place due to being far too similar, but he also had no need to try and indoctrinate others by leaving messages in their mind. It was slow and inefficient, not to mention he would prefer actually growing stronger for now. Perhaps one day in the future he’d find a use for such effects though, but not today amidst a war.

In comparison, Mind reading held a clear and impactful use for the future… Especially when dealing with humans or just diplomacy in general. But did it actually help now? Maybe, but he had low hopes.

And, lastly, Eternally entombed was a sealing bloodline. It actually did that job excellently, and allowed him to trap or seal souls for thousands of years, but he benefited in no way from it. Not that he didn’t see its uses, he just preferred to have actual methods for killing or defending against opponents. And he needed to capture things alive, not just their souls.

That left 6 options to choose from. And so many of them sounded impressive on top of giving sizable benefits.

[Mind sunderer Ice-cream: A castle is merely a sitting target without means of attack lying in wait. Besides your Mind palace, you may nurture a sort of ‘Mind weapon’ as well which freely enters and leaves your mental space to attack the minds of others. This weapon is strengthened similarly to the transformation of a dragon heart, requiring slow improvements. In addition to previous bonuses, grants -20% mental space construction time, +45% mental defences, +70% psychic/mind damage, +50% max MP, temporary innate ability ‘Mind hunter’, +100% EXP when Mind weapons deal final blow]

A temporary ability? The Nexus very rarely handed out these, normally due to the ability being so powerful that it did not want anything holding onto such power for lengths of time. But even then, it had to be good.

[Mind hunter: When a being with an awakened mental space is killed by the Mind weapon, mana may be used to absorb a part of their mental space. A Reinforced mind will simply enhance the Mind weapon; A Mind palace provides a small stock of bricks to be freely placed; A Mind world enhances the mental space]

This… was just a better version of the lord hunting bloodline from last time? He’d lie if he said it wasn’t tempting to put off evolutions for a few months and instead hunt some creatures with Mind palaces, but it only took a few seconds to further rationalise that.

How many of the bronze tier beasts on this mountain range had an awakened mental space? Well, that was an easy question, any of the psychic beasts who could own a mana gatherer tree. But not a single one of them possessed a Mind palace, instead they owned Reinforced minds, being the lowest type of mental training.

And even if he tried to hold off evolving, in around a year or two he’d have no choice but to do so anyway.

An amazing bloodline ruined because this mountain range was still too weak. Naturally, it left him aggrieved.

[Sun-moon Draconic palace Ice-cream: Day and night signify the appearance of life on a world. Through the frigid nights and boisterous days, existence is nurtured and progressed, a development unto itself. Develop your world and mind, experience life and its tribulations, and allow the sun and moon to change existence. The ultimate cosmic pairing shall ruin all those who dare oppose you. Grants innate ability, ‘Day-night embodiment’. In addition to previous bonuses, grants +40% mental defences, +80% solar/lunar magic damage, +100% HP regen during day, +100% MP regen during night, +100% everything during sunset/rise]

That was awfully vague, but he sort of understood where the poetry was coming from. Also, a thought lingered as he finished reading the figures, whether the grandiose poetry would only ramp up in vagueness with every higher level bloodline from hereon.

So why did the Nexus do that?

He couldn’t waste precious seconds on those thoughts, and considered the abilities. Not to mention the innate one granted this time round.

[Day-night embodiment: By night or day, the sun or moon contained within your mental space descends into reality, one is chosen for your body and another your mind. The one merged with the sun gains unprecedented offensive abilities, enhancing all magic. The one merged with the moon gains unprecedented defence, for both magical and physical attacks]

It reinforced his beliefs for the bloodline. This one created some sort of sun and moon cycle in his mental space, both of which contained immense power and might even someday transform it into a Mind world! But for now, it seemed to be a sort of ‘direct attack’. How that worked, he had no clue.

But from its description every part of it sounded powerful.

[Argent soul Ice-cream: By silver will your soul glow, singing the praise of moonlight. Its sharp edge bathes the landscape, marking your domain and all life a tenant of yours. The Argent soul repels evil and darkness, a bright, incorruptible point in time and night, forever providing solace to those bestowed its grace. The Argent soul's limit depends only on your collection of sacred lights. In addition to the previous bonuses, grants +50% soul defence, +50% soul damage, + 150% dark and curse defence, +70% moonlight damage, Soul awakening completed]

An interesting bloodline, and even harder to decipher in his opinion. It depended on moonlight and soul attacks in some way, and very clearly offered high resistance to dark magic. However, ‘evil’ didn’t make much sense on its own, and it was likely the Nexus meant something different from curses… So, perhaps it literally meant those with malicious intent?

The exact boundary between good and evil isn’t really knowable, although there existed the chance that this bloodline forced its own definitions onto the owner. If that was the case he’d rather avoid this one… But the description made it impossible to know.

What came next were the seeping veil bloodlines, one of which interested him greatly.

[Dimension hopping Ice-cream: Your body is no longer bound to a world of three dimensions, the greater universe now grants a small pinhole to travel through. With a high adaptability to space, you can better sense regions of turbulence and even channels to small worlds. Additionally, your body can be slightly moved outside the dimension’s boundaries to avoid physical attacks, however, attempting to do so too often may draw unwanted attention. Grants innate ability ‘Portal opening’. In addition to the previous bonuses, grants -35% MP cost to all spatial magic, +75% spatial damage, +45% max MP, +1% magic damage for every small world entered]

[Portal opening: Noticeable entry points to small worlds may be opened through sufficient mana usage. The cost of this depends on the distance to the small world.]

[World veiler Ice-cream: Sometimes, the best way to survive is in plain sight. The world itself aids in this, covering your very presence to seem as though you no longer exist. This mechanism exceeds camouflage as space itself covers your image and the world as a whole blocks your existence. This hiding may be partial, only covering specific features or power. In addition to previous bonuses, grants +55% illusion power, +100% defence whilst fully hidden, +100% sneak attack damage, +80% max MP]

Those weren’t short in the slightest, but he greatly appreciated the far simpler descriptions for these two. Dimension hopping may even link into some sort of mass teleportation bloodline, things which are desirable to dragons, let alone normal species.

The ability to enter small worlds is also excellent for hiding from anything below gold tier, and only a few wizards of that tier know enough spatial magic to open a channel themselves. It also granted him exclusive right to loot those worlds before the channel opened naturally or vanished entirely, some of which contained ancient bloodlines which might be nearly impossible to find in the eight worlds.

As for World veiler… he couldn’t lie and say such an absolute hiding method failed to persuade him. With hidden mana, mind, and soul, he no longer worried about gold tier beasts or such things easily locating him in his home. Whilst the physical veil immediately helped, as predators became unable to find him in any capacity.

Psychic beasts might exist in the Evelard range, but he expected no spatial beasts to appear for the next year at a minimum. Evolutions simply take too long for the majority of creatures.

And that only left one to look over.

[Spirit refinement Ice-cream: The soul is one of many ways to break through previous limits, and the most devilish know how easy it is to manipulate such methods. Through devouring souls of considerable power, your own is enhanced and tempered, their attributes and specialities imprinted on your own, and formal limits weakened. Create a burning furnace in your mind, to weaken and boil the myriad souls, before ravaging their delicious broth which nourishes one’s spirit. Unlocks ‘Soul’ stat. In addition to the previous bonuses, grants +55% soul defence, +40% mental defence, +40% soul damage, +80% soul suppression, +45% spirit refinement speed]

“So soul devouring is devilish… But it’s fine to consume flesh and blood? Nexus?” The logic made no sense to him, although he rather liked the long-term implications of this bloodline. It felt like quite a waste to throw all souls into the lantern after all, but now he could save it for the miscreants. This ability also remained after evolution, so he could use it for years to come.

Not to mention, the so-called furnace in his mental space transformed souls into a sort of consumable, but didn’t that also mean it could kill extraordinarily tough ones? It might take a while, but that couldn’t matter less.

So many choices, good ones at that, but he didn’t know which. Before he pondered at length, he checked the time remaining.

[1 minute 55 seconds]

Oh. That was more than enough.

So which would it be?