‘Take off that bandage.’ The princess ordered me in an ice cold voice.

Shit. How did she know? My hair is white but there are enough other races that have white hair as a characteristic. What should I do? Will they kill me to prevent the knowledge of fusing with a dragonic bloodline from spreading? I personally don’t even understand how I could have fused with such a bloodline. It should have only been consumed by my body as a resource to strengthen itself.

Could it have been the slime that resides in my body that did this? Considering it consumed the mythril and evolved into a mythril slime, it might be possible. Did it consume a bit of the dragon essence blood and plant it as a bloodline inside my body? Did it strengthen the bloodline and imprint it with my will so that the marrow of my bones could absorb and fuse with it? So many questions. It should make for a good research subject.

‘Hey, I told you to take of that bandage. How long are you going to make me wait?’, says the princess with an impatient expression.

Right shit, she is still here.

‘Why should I do that? It’s not nice of you to ask me to reveal things I don’t want to.’, I try to say with a firm voice, hoping that she somehow would give in and leave me alone.

‘I think you and me both know why I want you to take of that bandage.’, she says unyieldingly. ‘Also that voice, I recognize it from somewhere… What is your name?’

‘It’s Sieg Alma princess’, I say with a sigh, ‘could we go somewhere else after the lessons are over? I will explain everything to you in private, but I really can’t afford missing another lesson. I hope you can understand that.’

‘Sieg?! You did the experiment already? You said it wasn’t ready yet the last time we spoke! What were you thinking?’, Melia the maid of the princess says with a concerned expression. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes, I have never felt so good before.’, I say with a smile while trying to reassure her.

The princess sighs and says in a somewhat quieter voice, ‘Fine meet me at 4:00 pm at the royal dorms.’

‘okay’, I mumble with a somewhat hesitant tone.

While they walk away I hear the princess asking Melia what the experiment was about. I feel relieved. I’m happy that the princess respected my privacy, but I’m even more happy that my short fuse decided to not show itself today. It would be bad to have a fall out with the princess in this kind of situation. While I’m reveling in my luck of not getting unreasonably angry, I start to hear whispers. Which proves that my hearing also improved with leaps and bounds.

(is that really Sieg?)

‘what happened to him, he looks completely different?’

{Why is he wearing a bandage in front of his eyes?}

[White hair and a bandage in front of his eyes, he wouldn’t have acquired that bloodline now would he?]

‘nah that’s impossible, nobody can fuse with something that volatile and incorporate it in its bloodline.’

{Some people use it to strengthen their bodies!}

‘yeah but it’s too dangerous to incorporate it to eventually create a draconic bloodline.’

[Why do you think the princess would be so angry then? I think he somehow managed to create a dragonic bloodline.]

‘you think to highly of him, he I just trash with a trash soul shard.’

[Soul shards have nothing to do with someone’s intellect.]

‘Seems that there is one smart person here’, I mumble under my breath.

Ugh, I did expect trouble to come for me, but not so soon dammit! Then I hear footsteps coming from the hall.

‘Seems that the teacher is already here’, I think, ‘she seems to be quite early, it’s still not 10 o’clock.’

‘okay, everyone sit down and shut the fuck up!,’ says the teacher while entering the room. Our teacher stands 10 feet tall. She is of the titan race. They have gigantism as an inherent trait, which allows them to have insane physical strength and a though body. Naturally they aren’t really all that well versed in long range combat, but their body strengthening techniques are top notch. Even though she isn’t giving any lessons pertaining to this subject, that does not mean that I can’t ask questions about it after the lessons are done.

‘We will be having a pop quiz today!’, she says while grinning, ‘I hope you all prepared yourself well!’

No. No, you’ve got to be kidding me right? Why is everything that can go wrong, going wrong today? Is this divine retribution for messing around with my soul shard, that’s got to be it right?

‘The pop quiz will be about all the different countries and continents! Good luck.’, she says.

She looks at me and says, ‘Sieg, I know that you had your troubles this year, but you will still have to make the pop quiz. Don’t worry the score of this test will not have a large influence over your total score of the year. You’re a smart boy so I expect you to work your hardest for the rest of the year!’

‘Ah, she is like a ten feet tall angel’, I think and then say with some more fervor, ‘yes Miss Lazula, I will do my best!’, while wondering how she recognized me.

‘hmpf, I would expect no less’, she says with a snort, ‘Okay everyone can begin now!’ She seems to be happy being called miss, most people just address her with madam. ‘Extra points for me’, I think while trying to suppress a grin from forming on my face.

I look down at the test that appeared out of thin air. It’s a big map of our continent, the western continent. I can see the different kingdoms and seas surrounding our continent. I thought it would be difficult for me to name everything. While I did not know the names of the royal houses and the names of their kings and crown princes. I did know the countries and their capitals. By reading all those books about slimes and where their breeding grounds are, I already familiarized myself with the names of the big cities and countries of this continent.

See the map here:

I knew there was also an Eastern continental mass, but I didn’t expect it to be so huge. It seems however that for the test we don’t need to know the smaller kingdoms or the ones of the eastern continent. Titans, treants, Beastmen and many other races each have their own kingdom. However their populations are too spread out over the western continent, so that they can’t really make a country out of it. It’s more like a big city where most of its inhabitants are of that respective race.

The kingdom I live in is the Trita kingdom, which is the only one of which I know the names of the royal family. Amina Xerxes is the only princess of our country. Eraldo Xerxes is our king. The queen goes by the name of Thiri Mistlight, she is a dark elf. Originally she was a princess of the Okhalwood kingdom. But both the Trita kingdom and Elven kingdom wanted to become allies, so they chose Thiri Mistlight to marry the current king of our kingdom as his first wife.

Amina Xerxes will need to marry the current crown prince of Okhalwood when she reaches the age of 21. Marriages like this between elves and humans was only made possible because the royal bloodline contains dragons blood. This allows them to live for 500 years, even without training their mana or further evolving their soul shards. The elven race have a similar life span, making it much easier to do such political marriages.

The problem of having a dragonic bloodline is however also quite apparent. The purer the dragonic bloodline is, the less fertile you will become. That is why there is also only one crown prince in our country. His name is Tazmorn Xerxes. I haven’t seen him yet. He should already be 25 years old. I heard he’s a high rank adventurer and gathered quite some fame by singlehandedly subduing a wyvern that he now uses as a mount.

I go to the teacher and submit my test, thinking that now is the best time to ask for some help with body strengthening spells.

‘Miss Lazula, could you teach me body strengthening spells?’, I ask with a somewhat timid voice, ‘if it’s not too much trouble of course.’

‘hahaha, boy where did that bad temper of you go?’, she asks while laughing and lowering one of her massive hands on my shoulder, ‘Of course if you ask it that nicely, I will definitely be more inclined to help you. You seem to already have a well-trained body, making the process a lot easier. Hmmm, Come to me at 8 o’clock in the evening. I’ll be waiting in front of the teachers dorms.’

‘Also’, she suddenly whispers in my ear while lowering herself to my ear, ‘ I have always been interested in training someone with this bloodline.’