The endless storm outside gave the little dragon more than enough time to continue doing his best and learn about the Nexus. Like a frightened little sponge, he absorbed every bit of information about it, from insignificant details like the rarer fields offered by the Nexus to how different species received different boosts.

The other stats in the status panel provided 5% boosts to their specified category for example, and of them only luck and growth really needed descriptions.

Luck turned out to be a rather uninteresting stat, as it simply provided a chance for any source of experience points to be multiplied. But growth did exactly as he expected, directly speeding up the growth process of a dragon, the uses of which were incredible.

But for the most part those uses only began to matter after he turned a few weeks old, so he held off focusing on it for now.

What saddened him though was the explicit lack of any defensive fields. Most dragons received something like ‘Endurance’ or ‘Toughness’ fields which did as expected… But because his bloodline provided literally no defence, he was denied such fields.

Besides sleeping and reading, he would also take small bites of the egg to stay full, after some amount of time devouring another quarter of his egg. One thing he quickly realised was that, like some special plants, consuming his egg provided experience. Although the quantity was too little to hit level 2, with his intellect the concept of fractions came about rather easily.

And as the last bite at 99% experience finally disappeared down his ice-cream throat, the Nexus displayed a simple message.

[You have reached Level 1! Received 3 stat points]

These points were the foundation of the Nexus. At every level he could freely choose which fields to place them in, but once confirmed, the boosts and decisions became near permanent. Only nearly since some extremely rare methods existed to receive all the points back for re-allocation.

The dragons held some, but only the greatest geniuses were ever given the possibility if they needed so. Not that it mattered right now.

As for where to put these points… The book simply told him it was best to hold onto them until he gained a clear idea of what to do. And that’s what he chose to follow. No way the information built up by generations of dragons could be so wrong, however it was very general.

Finishing the book on the Nexus, the dragon looked through his massive library of information to find a new selection. Things like ‘Hunting Methods on Mountains’ or ‘Advantageous Fighting for Dragons’ held the potential to help him immediately, but he knew that none of that was even an option.

Hunting? Fighting? He needed to survive first and foremost. When that storm ended, his sweet smell might attract something, and for that he needed a suitable attack. To that magic became his only answer.

The first introductory book he read described a few fighting methods of dragons as well, saying that physically weaker ones often relied on their magic to make up for flaws. While a massive time sink, with the aid of the Nexus he expected to be capable of survival at the very least.

Oh! He also realised that learning about what lay outside was important… Or rather the book mentioned the outside world several times. Not knowing could be dangerous to a weakling like himself.

Just how to find specific information like that became his major problem. Especially given his lack of ability to identify this location. As he sulked on that fact for a little while, the hatchling inevitably fell into a nap and rested for a while, waking up to a box hovering in front of him and a sharp pain on his back legs.

Looking back with squinting eyes, he saw two ants nibbling away slightly at the back of his ankles. Each of them was no bigger than the puny ice-cream claws on each foot, and held the still frozen lumps of his body in their mouths.

Instantly mad that two tiny ants actually had the guts to come up to a dragon like this, he stood up and turned around to crush them. A foot whipped around and hit the insect's carapace, simply knocking it away as the other finally reacted to the attacking hatchling.

Even with a chunk of his body still in its mouth, it easily outspeed him. Attempting to bite it, he realised that catching it was hopeless, in comparison the other ant lay on its back nearby.

Still in the process of rolling itself over, the dragon decided to at least receive some payback by only killing one. Rushing over to it, he began crushing the ant’s body over and over again. Finally something cracked and its bodily fluids splashed onto his foot, a pleasantly cooling sensation overall. With him killing the weak ant smaller than most leaves, the Nexus sent out a prompt.

[Killed Level 1 Ice ant! Received <1% EXP]

It was far from level 2, even with the egg to help, he needed countless many ants to level up. Hopefully some higher level ones came by soon.

A momentary thought actually reverted that thought, he only wanted low level ones to come by for now. Looking into his health, the two ants did very little damage in all their time of taking bites from his ankles.

But what if tens came? Or hundreds? Or… the hatchling curled up and shook slightly, far wearier of his surroundings and no longer treating the snowstorm outside as his sign for safety. Some small critters could clearly travel safely underneath this thick curtain of snow, making vigilance paramount.

Looking down at the squished ant’s body on his foot, very little solid material remained but a thought still passed through the young dragon’s head.

What if eating creatures also gave him exp? That might be why his parents left that corpse in here as well! Although eating that frozen body might be a bit tough now, this single smooshed ant would be his first attempt at it.

A long tongue unfurled and licked away the carapace and ant fluid’s left on the cave floor and his foot, inadvertently taking off a tiny bit of ice-cream as well. It helped make everything a bit more digestible.

Swallowing the little bits in his mouth, nothing on his status changed.

After a few more seconds he knew that these unimportant ants weren’t even worth being food. Deciding to eat a bit of the egg, he only recently woke up and already felt tired from that small bit of movement. Perhaps putting points into agility right now was the best option?

But, just as he chewed down slowly on another mouthful of the sweet eggshell, a new prompt from the Nexus appeared.

[Consumed Ice ant bloodline! Assimilation progress 1%]

“What?” Trying to wrap his head around this information, he truly had no idea what this all meant. The book said nothing about ‘assimilation’, and none of the titles he checked even mentioned consuming bloodlines!

From the lack of response, he realised the Nexus required a more specific question. This time asking, “What does this prompt mean?”

[The Nexus is unsure, but your body naturally integrated the ice ant’s bloodline. More data is required for further analysis; please complete the assimilation for a better explanation]

Dragons, being such an ancient race, recorded such a thing happening several times. The Nexus, while unbelievably powerful, actively claimed against being omnipotent. This could be no better proof for that.

He replied with a trailing volume,“Will this harm me?”

[Unknown, but it is unlikely to be worse than your current situation]

That… was true. He had no good comeback for that conclusion, noticing his exp rise up to 12% before curling up once more and reading some of the many books on magic within his mind.

Accessing such memories was akin to having a portable library wherever a dragon went, and many would go on to include their own knowledge into this store. Closing his eyes was no different from being able to glance over these bookshelves, and then he could pick up and read as he pleased.

One called ‘Newborn Draconic Incantations’ was at the top of the list for him, its first page literally stating that it served as fundamentals for spellcasting dragons. He enjoyed how all these books were written in a simplistic and easy to understand manner, some of the higher level content felt like a whole different language.

The lowest tier of spells were either called incantations or Basic spells, and were extremely simple to cast. He started off with precisely these, being short he could hope to cast one of them in a few days. But it only took a few hours for him to realise how much effort all that required. Learning to use magic turned out to be a beast unto itself, and even on his third day in that cave he struggled to speak a single word. Having consulted at least three of the low level spellbooks in his mind, it became apparent that only one problem existed here.

His pronunciation.

A baby could hardly be faulted for such a thing, even if they were a dragon. So what if he spent hours every day practising, saying it in his head and trying his best to have it come out precisely the same?

Something wrong always happened. A mispositioned tongue, a slightly lengthy growl, or even just remaining silent for too long a period. Draconic magic got rid of lots of troublesome mana control in exchange for troublesome speaking. But he had no better options, other spellcasting methods looked far too complicated for him to learn in a few days, let alone months. So, he sat down and continued...

* * *

The snowstorm had yet to be sedated several hours later, and it did not take long for another handful of ants to enter his home once more. The moment he saw this group of three appear, he instinctively ran over to crush them.

Unfortunately, they all escaped instantly, teaching the hatchling an important lesson in patience. Next time, he planned on being slow, waiting for them to arrive to then strike and kill! And as the third day closed, he realised the snowstorm did not subside even the slightest.

While dragons could go weeks without food, right now he wanted to eat to obtain a bloodline. A thought finally returned to the young dragon, almost on instinct it bashed its head into a wall. Never had it felt so stupid than this moment!

There was that unknown corpse on the floor this whole time! As long as the bloodline remained intact there was no reason he couldn’t assimilate it! In an absolutely chuffed manner, he waddled over to its frozen body and tried to find something easy to consume.

Well, the body all felt like rocks to his tongue, so the pool of frozen blood became his last resort.

With a lot of effort, he was somehow able to get part of his soft tongue beneath the floor and blood. Lifting up with all his might, a tiny bit of the pool flaked off into his mouth.

Barely equivalent to one or two drops, he did not know what happened to the material after eating but it didn’t matter so long as a prompt appeared. And just a few moments later, his hopes prevailed!

[Consumed Snow Gibbon bloodline! Assimilation progress 0%]