Once more, a shaking advisor stood at the top of a spire in a room of pure darkness. Neither of the two spoke, but reality frightened him out of his mind, how couldn’t he know the mistakes made?

“Useless. Utterly, useless. Did you become so mindless since they escaped your grasp twice already?” He flinched at those words. At the disgust carried in his lord’s tone.

But what else could he say?

They paid off so many Great sages with lifespan they desired so much, only for the group to kill that Blossoming wizard through some unreasonable method. And he alone possessed the means to beat 23 Mithril ranks at once.

“I won’t make that mistake next time. We searched for Starlite ranks, but none of them accepted a target in the capital… It was a perfect chance too! His powers only worked against single, powerful targets. But even without…” His voice cut off as a cold glare from the darkness cut through him. When his hand reached down, it was covered in a film of black blood and only now he saw a stab wound through his chest. A lung collapsed from that unseen, painless strike. In that moment, he shut up faster than a petulant child receiving their mother’s glare.

“No one below Cornem is to personally go against them, find a way to get the dragons, or anyone else, to deal with this. All other effort focuses on the humans from now on; we prepared for a war, not to take a hostage. What a joke,” he snorted at the end of his derision, and the deathly glare ended. The advisor bowed and left, ignoring the wound through his chest. As soon as the doors closed behind, sweat poured out and he almost lost all strength in his knees.

He understood his lord’s words well enough. The emperor never shied away from insulting his subjects if they performed poorly, which meant something both better and worse.

They considered him capable, even with these failures, but considered it a joke that so many eternals took part in the acquisition of Raccelline and lost their bets twice over now. An inept bunch who failed to kill a single mithril tier dragon whose body broke to bits with any solid strike. But at the same time, he did not take any blame for this. An awfully precarious situation he remained in.

The leading joke, but still valuable.

* * *

The big mistake that pretty much every race makes when it comes to stories or records on the Dragonlands comes to a single point, and that’s how they refer to the largest peak as a ‘hub’ for dragons. Plaza, city, marketplace, and so on, all of these simply incorrect renditions of what this place actually does.

It’s a mountain for the most part. And by extension, that makes it a place dragons lived like all the other mountains, as soon as one entered they saw how a massive conical hollow existed within the mountain. And in this hollow space, hundreds of holes led to the homes taken by dragons at cornem tier, or some very important master tiers. Meanwhile, supreme tier dragons never lowered themselves to live inside a mountain, they all took ownership of a mountain peak or lived in seclusion beyond the Dragonlands.

So, then, what other purpose does the primary mountain hold?

Two others: This peak belongs to the dragon elders of the third world. Meanwhile, an underground section acted as a vault for valuables that the clan gave out under certain circumstances.

Of course, those other terms like ‘plaza’ and ‘marketplace’ came about through some way. And that’s because dragons often flew in and out of this place, but for the most part, hundreds of small arrays covered the floor here. If touched, they transmitted simple information into your mind and conveyed what one of many dragons wished to trade.

A marketplace… Sort of.

Adret led the group inside, and already they noticed another dragon roughly similar in size stood ahead. They nodded to her, to which she rushed over, but everyone else continued their more leisurely pace. Icy’s eyes flashed white for a moment as he watched the uncountable caves built inside this mountain.

Not all of them, but certainly a couple hundred dragons looked down at him. Curiosity, derision, snark, disgust, annoyance, and occasionally, respect. Even those who showed disgust did not do it openly, the death of that demon elf progenitor earned their respect too, at least, but it remained clear they disliked how a mishap outdid them.

Or maybe they were just envious. Possibly. He understood the depreciation that came from jealousy well enough, how he used to wish for real scales, flesh and blood, so much in the past. These days… He just stupidly chose power instead of ever being reasonable.

“The elders await your arrival. Just continue onto the teleportation array,” said the moderately large dragon in front of them. With scales composed of a central brown, with yellow fringes, Icy certainly wondered just what evolutions the one in front chose. At least they welcomed the group in Baranot instead of Draconic, and they all stepped forward towards the centre of this hollow space.

A small ramp descended onto a platform of yellow stone bricks, close to sandstone in appearance, but unbelievably magical. Everyone felt mana pour into their bodies just by standing on this substance. Meanwhile, four pillars separated the four ramps which led onto the platform, in the middle, a massive array no smaller than the one crafted by Icy to seal that progenitor.

“I heard that there’s a lot of spatial seals and warp barriers placed around the peak, but you actually needed a supreme tier array just to enter?” His light chuckle strangely returned no echo, but the dragon beside them smiled and nodded.

The array appeared quite simple when seen from above, just a few thousand runes supported with the common channels for mana transfer. However, this only tricked fools and the uninitiated.

When he stared down close at these runes, it could be seen that there were smaller runes engraved within them, adding an unbelievable degree of functionality. The mana transfer channels contained these tiny, almost unnoticable runes too. This array that appeared to contain about 4000 runes, actually required closer to 15 million!

“Ridiculous… Just ridiculous,” Icy muttered to themselves as the giant array beneath lit up with a blue light as mana poured into the unbelievably small and compact runes, with a purple light brightening by the second. After just a few more seconds, a flash of white light filled the hollow mountain’s innards, and faded straight away. The platform returned to a weak blue lighting, and that array simply appeared as lines of crystal socketed into the ground.

That was another part which amazed Icy. They didn’t choose the easy method and poured in a molten metal, rather, they perfectly carved pieces of crystal to slot into the cast created for this array.

Just. Ridiculous.

…

All eight of them opened their eyes to feel warm sunlight on their bodies as soft breezes passed by. In front stood another stone ramp, this time formed of something akin to granite, but smoothed for dragons to walk up with ease. At the top, they found five dragon elders in shrunken forms all corralled in an arc to face Icy as he stepped up.

Not a single emotion was present on anyone’s faces, and he couldn’t tell if they liked or hated him.

“Ice cream… It is best you changed this name soon. While the humour is not lost, it hardly contains the mannerisms of a True dragon,” an elder to his left spoke up first, enunciating his name so it cleanly sounded out as those words. And before he even ascended to the top of the ramp and stood opposite the group too.

Was it an insult or plain advice? He could not tell.

“I am actively considering it, dragon elder. But was talk of that not taboo?” Icy spoke of the True dragon he mentioned, since that came down to the so-called Will of a True dragon, he thought not even the elders dared break the rule.

“What you refer to is. But the identity of a True dragon is open to interpretation by all. We naturally provide the ideal one,” he rolled his eyes at the young dragon that thought to catch him out on such a matter, although Icy only half-meant to annoy him. It’d been a legitimate question he asked.

The central elder cut off both sides of the argument though, controlling the situation, “Elder Dreisetno, drop the matter. We came today to reward this young and brave dragon. Elder Bolnarstinum, please lead.”

“Of course. To shorten this proceeding, the dragon clan humbly thanks you for the effort presented to locate, reveal, and then exterminate the original demon elf. Once we heard of this matter, it led to an unprecedented concern amongst the other worlds too, so the fact that we can be certain their core has been uprooted is of immense value to all dragons across the seven remaining worlds. We did not bring you here for empty words though. The clan presents you with two rewards, First Elder, what are those rewards?”

“Thank you Elder Bolnarstinum, after much deliberation with the Third Dragon Lord, we have decided to grant Icryladrom a permanent residence within the primary mountain, until his passing, as is always the case. However, the bulk of his reward will be this generation’s dragonstone.”

All four other elders turned their heads immediately, shock worn on all as they never anticipated such a thing.

Dreisetno spoke up almost immediately, “This… is a bit much? While he completed a gracious feat, do not mistake me First Elder, but he only killed a Blossoming wizard. There are many promising children with just as much power and array knowledge as him, to take away their–”

“Their what? The dragonstone is normally given to encourage the youth to achieve great things in the name of dragons. And here, this young adult has already outperformed almost every child of his generation.”

“But– But… I just mean it’s wrong to dangle the reward in front of them and suddenly take it away.” Dreisetno’s argument broke down rather quickly, even he knew that Icy’s performance perfectly fit the requirements for this competition.

“I apologise to the First Elder, but I must agree with Elder Dreisetno here. But not for his reasoning. I simply do not believe that these actions warrant this degree of reward. Perhaps something of grade 1 quality in the treasury is better?” Another elder spoke up now, this time all the way on the far right, but Icy did not know his or her name.

As the five of them began to debate it amongst themselves, Icy turned his head to the group behind him and saw that many either rubbed their foreheads or glared at the two dragon elders who obviously wished to withhold this reward.

However, neither could tell if this came from a malicious reasoning or if they truly just didn’t want an outside dragon to come in and take such a valuable object. Only Icy roughly knew of this item’s value, and even then he only claimed that much. A rough idea.

“It is quite a mess. Indeed, the lord’s foresight was accurate once more. Fine then, we shall put it to a vote as I was told.” The middle dragon, First Elder, spoke out with words that made the two who opposed this matter gulp. Neither realised that the Dragon Lord already guessed their intentions, however, they wouldn’t face any repercussions and continued with things.

“That is two against so far, I agree with First Elder’s choice, so that is two for as well. Elder Casstilandri, what is your decision?” Bolnarstinum summarised the situation, which left just a single dragon undecided who sat on the very left, right past Dreisetno.

“While I agree this young dragon deserves a sufficient reward, I must also agree with Elder Gintsetbo. I am against the decision, it is nothing personal, young dragon. If your actions in this matter were greater, I would support this matter.” Casstilandri spoke very softly, perhaps as the decider of this matter, she felt some responsibility in explaining why he would not obtain the dragonstone.

“One moment. So, if I performed a greater feat regarding the demon elves, would you change your vote?”

The dragons all turned to Icy. His words might be phrased as a question, but all of them understood that he hid something else… Supposedly his party took the divine relic afterwards. Would they willingly hand over such an unbelievably valuable item just for a dragonstone?

Casstilandri woke up from her stupor as she thought of what his words meant, just like the others, and replied, “Of course. But it can’t be something insignificant like the extermination of a few demons.”

Mala roughly translated what she heard, and right after, all five of the humans behind him smiled at the sound of that, meanwhile, Dresetno immediately felt his heart throb. Whatever the young dragon said next, he knew it wouldn’t be good for him.

“What if we were responsible for unveiling the organisation of demon elves, and alerted the dragons to their existence?”

His words echoed like thunder through their minds, but two of the elders reacted far poorer as they realised what this meant. Immediately, Gintsetbo spoke up, “Stop giving suggestive ideas to change the outcome. How can you prove this matter?” No one knew if this child possessed a silver tongue, but he shut down any possibility of this matter straight away.

Or tried to, but the elder never stood a chance.

“Arisil forest’s dragon pillar. Just under three years ago, we called upon the pillar’s spirit to equalise the power between myself and the demon elf, Frellsae, before uncovering the truth of their origin. You’re welcome to go check.”

“Ridiculous! That’s all common knowledge. You’d go out of your way to waste our day to confirm this information?” Dreisetno scowled at him in his reply, the infuriated appearance sweetly

“Then, did you know the information did not come from Frellsae, but rather a youngling blood dragon who joined Frellsae and demonified herself? And that her body was taken by the killers after she detonated her own heart?”

“That… The only way you could know that was… How? How could you be there and then kill the progenitor? You grew that much in two years?” Dreisetno’s voice broke down with every word, he simply couldn’t believe that this young dragon achieved so much. And for his power to go from a middling peak of gold tier to the peak of mithril in so little time…

Not just him, but Gintsetbo, who also opposed this matter, just frowned at the revelation. Information which the clan kept hidden suddenly came out today, information they did not want the world to know as one of their kind willingly demonised themselves. And so, the only other who knew of this matter was the one who killed Frellsae. They knew that Icy lived in Fragheim for two years, but the fact he resolved the threat and brought all this to light…

“You do know how to make a scene, young one. I change my vote, I am in favour of his reward.”

Dreisetno opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off without a moment’s notice from the First Elder. He could only quietly look down as his gaze filled with hatred. The elder said in a pepped and delighted tone, “Excellent, the matter is completed. However, the matter of revealing this situation is far too great… How about we include any item he desires from the grade 1 treasury?”

Two of the elders gave firm agreements, while the other two weakly accepted it. They couldn’t really say anything against Icy now. Though it still really annoyed the group how much trouble it took to get a reward that the Dragon Lord recommended to him.

Why the hell did politics always end up this way?