To some extent, this evolution option really shouldn’t have been too hard on him. After all, of all the choices, only four of them even slightly interested him, and two of them just had to be final evolutions.

That unfortunate reality made sense though, final evolutions were often some multiples stronger than the previous evolution in that pathway. Like how Pure Mana quite literally expanded his mana sense almost ten-fold, with his further growth since then furthering that enlargement. But he rarely used mana sight, or sense, anymore simply because his Elder eyes did that job way better.

But now he got to choose between a bloodline which might help him greatly years down the line, or one which enhanced his body right now and even removed the fatal physical flaw of all young dragons?

Seriously, a 10% loss in transformation to keep his life?

How stupid he’d have to be to call that a bad deal! Any normal dragon required months to recover a small loss of their heart, and literally just died if it was ever completely destroyed. But now he could literally be reduced to a splattering of ice cream, and so long as his Soul and Mind survived, he regrew into a full body with minor losses!

“I pick Undying Body. Where do I just get three years of building progress from? Five years even if I go for that…” His voice disappeared as an invisible force wrapped the full-size dragon into a ball and formed an egg of his scales once more.

Aside from violent nausea and a weight compression that choked him… Actually, there was no upside to this. What evolution was this even? Fifteenth? Probably higher if he gave it some thought now. It all still sucked.

But he endured the five minutes of psychological torture, like every single time before. In the meantime, he hoped his friends had far better in this unique training ground as opposed to his repetitive revolutions.

…

Far off in the stitched realm, the situation for a certain warrior differed greatly. Not the bulky bodybuilder with so many elements in his body that it might leave any ordinary wizard puzzled, but the archer whose bow twanged four more times and blew up the head of another little worm coming up from the ground.

He easily created psychic pulses with certain selections of arrows though, so none of these gold tiers posed any real danger.

Jaren just went over to dig out the dream realm worm’s heart like many others in the past half hour now. So far he noticed a single marker in the distance which drew his attention, but unlike Icy’s special eyes, he only noticed that this pulsating object existed to draw attention. However, what caused his steps to falter was the sound of another’s not too far away.

Mala said a rather large distance supposedly split them all, so he instantly assumed a native who took a rather different form.

However, as he hid behind a bank of black sand, the footsteps stopped, and Jaren pulled a few arrows from his quiver to jump and strike.

But then the creature spoke, not in human or elvish tongues of course, but one Jaren still recognised to a great degree. How could he not recognise the language at this point?

The being, obviously, spoke out in Draconic. And he realised the caster aimed to neutralise him in advance, but with that in mind the archer jumped out of cover and spoke out, “Hold on, I’m not here to fight you!”

Disregarding the fact that the other side used Draconic, Mala’s warning even slotted in with this. Nothing guaranteed that they alone were sent to this realm, and now the massive dragon with sapphire scales made that bit clearer.

With bow and arrows lowered, the far more confused of the two had to be the dragon in front. Who stopped casting and blinked several times before they spoke to themselves. Saying, “Why is a human here?”

Unfortunately, Jaren didn’t understand Draconic like Mala and Raccelline, who put in a fair bit of time to learn the unfamiliar tongue. Which meant he just stood there, and slowly put his arrows away. The bow, however, stayed in his hand. And clearly, the two just stood there without saying anything, the situation so bad that it eventually inflamed Jaren’s impatience. “Are you just going to stand there? Not even ask a question in a language I understand?” Just to make sure, he switched from Baranot and then spoke again, “I know this ancient elvish tongue, if it helps.”

But the dragon still just glanced towards him, now with a slight sneer as though they saw something distasteful.

Intimidating to more usual folk, but Jaren wasn’t exactly unfamiliar to hulking beasts staring down at him. And while twice as tall as him with its neck swerved upwards, and its length close to nine metres, he really didn’t find it that intimidating. Did it even compare to the hundreds-of-metres-long behemoth chimaera?

Finally, after far too long though, the dragon spoke in Baranot, “How did a human enter this place?”

“So you can speak! I entered alongside some friends. Yes, one is a dragon. We were teleported through this place randomly by that array up by your elders, he had to collect a reward,” Jaren’s entire reply began to completely fill itself with an apathetic, bored as hell, energy. He just wanted to get back to what he was doing before meeting this dragon.

His journey with one made of ice cream, and who preferred the company of humans, absolutely spoiled him when it came to talking to them. To exacerbate this matter, most dragons had never even talked to a human before they grew substantially inside the Dragonlands. Those who actually conversed with one often died soon after.

Startled by his uncaring attitude, the dragon called out but quickly did their best to retain a tone of control. “Wait! Who said you may walk free? Even if you happened to befriend one of our kind, no human should ever be here. I will escort you out to face the punishments of invading our lands.”

In reality, Jaren came really, really close to laughing. But he held that attitude to play along. In fact, with the link set up with Mala he could even try to see why other dragons came here, or try to see if he could take anything of value for himself.

And also… Icy clearly just received the clan's goodwill. He could probably kill another dragon and get off with a slap on the wrist. With a sigh, Jaren nodded and replied, “Fine. I’m heading to that spot over there after you deal with your matter. What even is it?”

“You can also see it?” The dragon’s eyes sharpened, it clearly underestimated the human in front. Although for Jaren he simply overlooked the fact that he only saw this pulsating thing due to his modified eyes. “That’s a trial point. Dragons may attempt it to receive that trial’s reward. I’m heading there anyway, so just follow along.”

Inadvertently, the dragon lost its own pressure simply as it lectured to the human. Rather than a captor escorting a prisoner, the dynamic quickly morphed into that of a teacher and student, Jaren asked questions and the dragon simply answered them.

“Also, you never told me your name.” This time, an unexpected stop halted the pair, and the sapphire dragon turned back to face Jaren, before they shook their heads.

“I am called Pritaslo, when spoken directly, translated to Unbreakable Gem. Born of stone, evolved to sapphire, and now to the unbreaking stone. And born a female, as I’ve heard that matters to you humans.”

“Rather eloquent… But I thought diamonds were considered unbreaking?” Jaren, rather unseriously, bit back with a question just to push her a bit.

Honestly, at times like this, he graciously forgot that not everyone was like the party and understood his sarcastic quips. She clearly didn’t appreciate it, with a glare in response before her head turned back round to continue the journey. Of course, Jaren just rolled his eyes in response, a rather wide difference existed between fearing a dragon and a preference to avoid trouble.

“On the other hand, my name is Jaren. And your confidence in the idea that no one would ever send humans here is incredible. Why are you here exactly then? And what’s the official channel?” If he revealed his identity, then chances were that few dragons willingly fought against his chance of being here, but he saw no reason to do so when a brilliant source of information walked in front of him.

“I entered two nights ago to take a chance at the dragonstone trial. My contributions were great enough to warrant an attempt, and alongside it, we are given one week to pass through this place to acquire rare resources set up here by the clan. Most, if not all, aid in our Mind palace development. As for the regular channel for entry, it involves the submission of a grade 2 material to be given an attempt at any regular trial.” A lengthy but sustained answer from Pritaslo, although the resources available certainly triggered some desire in Jaren.

Humans generally required years to directly reinforce their mind, and at some point, all that converged energy could be shattered to fine dust and used to expand the mental space. As mentioned before, this allowed the formation of palaces, which may be repeated at incredibly high levels to create Mind worlds.

“Do the items here also speed up Mind reinforcement?”

“Of course, but it would be a waste of all this precious work to use these things on such a menial enhancement. Not that any dragon would willingly trade you such things,” she finished her words with a snort.

He just smiled and continued the walk forward towards that impossible-to-describe pulsation in front. After about fifteen more minutes, Jaren then realised that the strangeness of this thing came from the fact that it wasn’t an object moving or changing size, but literal waves of pulsation through air itself. Like how the distance grew blurred and wavy in great heats, but clearly, a magical phenomenon to draw dragons here. Space itself compressed and expanded to create this confusing sight, and after an hour, the two finally made it there.

On a more positive note, he learnt way more than expected about this place than ever expected. For example, a full explanation on how the dragonstone trial usually worked, and where they went to undertake it.

From her descriptions, a couple dozen dragons usually entered this place at any one time, some for the trial and others just to acquire various resources from the opportunities here.

He dreaded whoever explained to those dragons why their attempts to take a higher ranking on the trial’s board were invalid. Rightfully, the dragonstone stood in the trial grounds for a couple years, and any dragon below 20 years of age could challenge it for a ranking. First place won the stone, usually.

But no doubt the elders’ and even clan lord’s, words completely overwrote those orders. But on second thought, as the scenery finally changed around Jaren, he smiled with a laugh-worthy thought and said aloud, “This will be a fun trip.” Pritaslo looked back confusedly but ignored Jaren’s words. In her eyes, he just made an ignorant comment about the sight in front of them.

But his mind considered a new fact. Icy would have to fight all these dragons, no way they just sat and accepted the loss of the dragonstone. A fun thing to watch.

As for the sight itself, it didn’t actually amaze him. As the two stepped through some sort of boundary which created the illusion of swathes of desert, in fact, a large ruined temple existed below the spatial pulsation above. While the ruin, with statues, bricks, and pillars created of an interesting white, chalky stone interested him, what really stood out were the two newer metallic statues placed in front of its entrance.

A sort of brass which actually shined closer to gold, both appeared as massive, empty suits of armour with halberds in one hand. And their other hands, the ones closer to the doorway on either side, instead raised to their chest with a palm shown.

Jaren needed no real explanation as a barrier of complex white symbols and geometry blocked off the entrance. He thought some special item unlocked this place, but when the sapphire dragon stepped in front of both statues, their palms clenched and released the barrier. He shrugged, just happy that the entry worked without any ridiculous tests of knowledge. Though, Icy’s Origin Force probably just broke this array anyway.

Manus could really verify that no one made arrays to deal with that energy, then again, how could they build an array which resisted something no one even knew of?

A simple enough entry though. And as she stepped inside and Jaren followed in right after, but her turned face quietly hid a smirk, waiting to see whether the human was merely forced outside or captured for trespassing. However, as they moved beyond the giants, and he stepped in through the doorway, she looked back in confusion.

Even going so far as to ask, “How is this human allowed to enter the trial grounds? Only those with Draconic heritage should be able to enter.” Jaren smiled at the question, only because he saw a way to gravely annoy the female dragon in front of him. And what could be more fun?

While neither of the two statues moved to speak, a booming voice still echoed throughout the temple to answer her question, “The elders commanded that he possess an equal status to a dragon.”

“But… There’s no precedent for this! At the very least they can provide other materials to enhance a human mind, to waste our resources like this–” A strange response in Jaren’s eyes.

She saw him as unworthy of touching such things, fairly, he internally added, as Mind palace resources truly were wasted on him. And while she clearly despised that the rules were broken for a human, she sought some sort of recompense for him too!

…Why couldn’t they all just be assholes so he could hate them?

“We follow rules. Ask the elders yourself,” the statue’s response cut her off entirely and no longer replied to any further remarks she made. Even what Jaren felt to be some swears in Draconic, but eventually she quietened down and now turned back to him with an oft-seen glare.

The anger only deepened when she saw his smile too, and that more than came out in her words, “How!? What did your wretched kind do to force our elders to do this?”

“I guess I’m just a bit too special?” He chuckled a bit and scratched his neck innocently.

The minute action caused those sharp teeth to grit; meanwhile, he imagined a few veins popping. It was just way too much fun annoying her. He’d be a fool to stop so lightly, he even thought to make up a bunch of feats to further this all. Even the simplest had to exceed the insanity of killing the progenitor though, only through that could he push her further and further.

“Oh right, I’m a busy man, can’t squabble too long. and try to keep up, you walk so slowly,” his final words earned another dagger-like glare as she rushed after his suddenly increased speed into the temple.

No longer hesitant or taking his time, he already saw that the others wouldn’t stand about either with so many luxurious things for the taking! He wondered how exactly they found this stitched dream realm too.