Resting after his near death experience meant the world to the hatchling, allowing time to heal his wounds.

When he finally awakened, vivid memories reminded him of the current situation. Shocking him to alertness as imminent concern cleared up any residual drowsiness. Looking down, his right foreleg wiggled as he pleased, fully healed as though nothing harmed him. He simply needed to make it back with the corpse in hand. Without it he may as well starve to death.

Outside, the faint scent of burnt flesh completely vanished, and he immediately crawled out his small pit to search for the corpse. To his surprise, the body remained! Just… Half intact.

Large bits of bloody meat were strewn about, and a lot of its innards already froze when in contact with the cold air. But the half intact corpse was still edible!

In fact, he welcomed whatever came because it meant lower chances of him being their prey instead. Not to mention a lighter corpse being easier to drag back. He knew that this bloodless half could not be eaten out in the open. But the pangs of hunger only grew stronger when seeing fresh meat lying around.

Without hesitation, the hatchling went over, careened his head to check the foreseeable landscape, and tried to chew the scraps left all over. His soft teeth utterly failed to break apart the meat, but the small pieces easily travelled down his throat.

Repeating a few more times, he cleaned up all the remnant bits but his body hungrily calling out for more. Without much choice, he licked up some blood-stained snow and swallowed anything capable of sustaining him. Every single fleck granted a small update from the Nexus.

[Consumed Snow wassat bloodline! Assimilation progress 21%

Consumed Snow wassat bloodline! Assimilation progress 22%

Consumed Snow…]

There was so much to consume. While the wassat presented little width, its length was astounding to say the least. What proceeded was 10 minutes of swallowing snow mixed with blood, stopping once he hit 99% for this bloodline.

By now simply tearing off a small sliver of meat from the corpse completed this assimilation, and looking over at the frozen corpse made the next step extremely clear. Grabbing its furry, frozen tail with his soft teeth, he slowly dragged it back home over what felt to be hours.

In truth, the moon above made it clear that only 20 minutes or so passed… but he wanted to exaggerate a bit.

Fortunately, his fire completely burnt off the face of this creature, and then whatever came after decided to eat that roasting flesh. Since the hatchling had no real aversion to blood or bones, he simply felt glad its frightening eyes and maw no longer remained.

Instead he felt like laughing, and mocked the dead creature. “So big and scary aren’t you? But look at you! Dying from a weak mutation of a dragon!”

While greatly self-depreciating, having a source of venting helped immensely. But now came the cooking and eating phase. In a week of two he should, in theory, exit the birth phase and slowly start growing, something he greatly looked forward to.

Cooking the wassat proved easy, just a single flame easily melted and began to roast its flesh. Wrapping the remaining corpse into a ball, he aimed to release the flame slightly above the air as to slowly cook the creature.

Each flame only lasted 6 seconds or so, and after a minute of doing so a problem became apparent. He needed at least ten-fold his current MP to have any chance of cooking it like so. At least, nowhere near enough to cook it properly. If he just wanted to char the outside then his small amount of MP was enough. But that wasted his first real food source.

Eating it raw was a possibility, but he really did want to try cooked meat. Knowing when to give up though, and after a few attempts of pulling away flesh, he finally separated a few muscles. And his expected message came.

[Consumed Snow wassat bloodline! Assimilation progress 100%]

Within him a similarly soothing warmth filled him, embracing it properly somewhat gave off the sensation of his egg and how nestled he felt within… and then the same weakness as before arrived. Its intensity was laughable compared to the previous bout of exhaustion. Just minutes later it passed completely.

[Snow wassat bloodline assimilated. 3 new bloodline directions potentially available]

Even stranger was that the weakness seemingly vanished. Standing up, he felt perfectly fine and asked the Nexus, “Why was the assimilation easier this time?”

[The Snow wassat bloodline is far weaker than the Snow gibbon, naturally it is easier to assimilate]

There was no way for him to know this in advance, and the pleasant surprise left him quite happy for the first time in a while. Now he just had to focus on learning more spells to aid in eating. But the Nexus interrupted that plan with an unexpected prompt

[Your situation has now grown of interest to the Nexus, and we would like to offer you a mission. You will be granted the ‘Nexus Aid Bonus’ title, which will upgrade as you complete missions. Do you accept?]

“What’s the title’s effect?”

[It provides an additional 1% bonus in every field, upgraded versions grant a higher added bonus]

Without saying much, he found himself excited beyond belief that such a title existed. To change the bonus from 5% to 6%, that alone was something which comprehensively boosted his ability in any domain by a sizable quantity. What about the upgraded title then?

“I accept!” Without even hesitating for another second, in fear it might retract that offer, he instantly received the title. Just as promised, when looking at his status, he found it sitting there with the effects exactly as stated.

Name

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Vanilla Ice-cream

HP

100%

MP

100%

Level

3

EXP

36%

Unallocated Stat Points: 9

Strength

0

Luck

0

Agility

0

Growth

0

Magic

0

Mutation Rate

0

[Nexus Aid Bonus: All stat fields offer +1% bonuses. Can be upgraded through completion of further Nexus Missions]

Not a hint of doubt, or lack of clarity for that matter, existed within the title. He felt excited about his situation for the first time, seeing this horrendous body and bloodline as some cruel boon. Additionally, the Nexus generally allows for multiple titles at certain levels, so this very general effect could be aided with additional titles which boosted magic even further.

“What are the upgrade conditions?” Of all the things he desired, boosting this title alone directly improved his strength the fastest.

[To Be Decided. You must wait regardless, your body is entering an evolutionary phase for an unknown reason]

The wagging of his tail stopped as he laid down in disbelief, trying to feel the faint fluctuations of mana within himself. For several minutes nothing came up, even though the book said evolutions are massive things for dragons which take time and growth. Most hatchlings received their first evolution around two months after birth.

But he somehow evolved just after a week? He immediately leapt to the conclusion that assimilations caused this, although he also began to doubt the Nexus. The chances of it mistaking his weird state as an evolution did exist.

“Is the Nexus sure I’m undergoing evolution?”

[Yes, your draconic endurance stopped suppressing mutations within you approximately 5 minutes ago. This is all valuable data]

But even at the ten minute mark, as given by the boxes in his vision at least, nothing felt different. Only a few minutes later did the Nexus’ update finally differ.

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

Chocolate Ice-cream

Strawberry Ice-cream

Weakly magical Ice-cream

Fur-coated …

Elastic …

Strong …

Weakly psychic …

Hibernating …

Please make a selection in 3 minutes, or a random pathway will be used]

Without a second to worry, he immediately looked through the 8 options. Of course there were questions to ask, but right now if he picked the wrong one then things would only get worse.

Chocolate and strawberry were instantly removed from his list of possibilities. Their main effect was to make him taste and smell of them! Who in their right mind picks such a direction?

But all the others were of somewhere between immense or minor use, the two obvious selections being Weakly magical and psychic. While his body remained as vanilla ice-cream for the most part, it gained a greater affinity for mana and psychic powers, respectively. Weakly magical instantly became his most desirable option, and he read the other four right after.

As for how the Nexus presented such information, he simply thought of that bloodline and a prompt instantly appeared in front of him.

[Fur-coated Ice-cream: A thick layer of insulating, fire-resistant fur coats your body. Due to its size, it can cushion blunt blows rather well and may be magically strengthened. In addition to previous bonuses, grants +10% physical defence, +15% various elemental defence, -10% movement speed effect from spells]

The various percentage-based boosts applied as long as he possessed that bloodline, and were given by the Nexus like his points. However, the small descriptions were his bloodline’s intrinsic effect, and what he cared about far more.

Furthermore, the Nexus specified any meaning on request. For example, the ‘various’ referred to a selection of elements, namely fire, water, ice, lightning, and light. Overall, a comprehensive analysis in 3 minutes was impossible, so he picked the best of all eight.

In the end it was between two options, and only a single question determined which he picked. What would a true dragon do?

[Hibernating Ice-cream: Enter a hibernation state by restricting movement for 3 hours, reducing food requirements massively while sustaining yourself off mana. In addition to previous bonuses, grants +50% food requirement outside hibernation, +20% MP regen during hibernation, -25% all senses]

[Weakly magical Ice-cream: While retaining the physical nature of your previous bloodline, mana now flows throughout you better in all regards. You are more sensitive to anything magical nearby. In addition to previous bonuses, grants +10% MP regen, +20% max MP, +10% pure mana resistance, +10% magic damage]

“I pick Weakly magical Ice-cream!” The other option had been Hibernating Ice-cream… and he knew in his heart that no true dragon would hide away for years to slowly build up their power. An intelligent, but cowardly and weak way of existing.

As the bloodline was chosen, the world turned upside down. Then upside in… And in some ways he didn’t know were possible. His insides flipped and nausea filled him, but the hatchling felt it impossible to move, a powerful force restricting his limbs and tucking him into a tighter ball by the moment.

The top layer of his body detached from him, a sensationless act which he barely even noticed as that ‘skin’ merged together into a sort of cocoon. Before long his body began to cool down rapidly, the situation pleasant as the world around him enhanced in like he could see everything with greater clarity. He felt flows of something around the cocoon, slowly being sucked inwards to his body.

A sudden thought had him checking the Nexus.

[Evolution Progress 67%]

The speed of the process amazed him, even if his memories told him the Nexus completed it relatively fast. Evolution was the most basic part of every living being's power, and the Nexus did its best to supplement the overall process.

Unlike the fundamental rewrite spoken of before, an evolution is far more natural. One’s bloodline gains enough power to trigger a mutation into a new form. This mutation eventually takes over the original, but it is the Nexus’ role in all this to streamline and speed up such a process. With its existence, allowing for an easy way to decide between mutations and quickly push it along.

Nothing mentioned in the Nexus book explained how evolutions worked prior to the amazing tool’s inception, and he wondered just how old the thing really was.

Now that he picked his evolution… It was just a matter of waiting.