With a half-full stomach, he cleaned up the cave with some basic Wind spells, the scent of meat soon left and he calmly exited. The greatest priority was ensuring that he never interacted with humans, and not once did he speak around them.

And if they ever saw him cast a spell? He’d get to that if it happened.

For now, he walked to the root as usual, but this time walking a distance away from the winter’s hope tree before diverting away. He did not find any plants leeching off the stream of mana this time, but there should be some throughout the snow field. And while he once tried eating a piece of the root for the sake of it, a few attempts found it unbelievably tough. Neither the Ice or Glacier bolt left even the slightest scratch, while using Telekinesis proved worthless as the blade of Ice snapped in half.

Perhaps an Explosive bolt could penetrate the root, but he feared the consequences of breaking the thing. What if something intelligent at the node tree decided to investigate?

Thoughts aside, he made progress beyond the root and found himself in a brand new place rife for looting.

A few weak magical plants existed sporadically, which he promptly ignored, while the stronger ones were consumed with due haste. In total, he found three more bushels of ice-mind berries. After the third one he received a pleasing prompt from the Nexus, as well as 5% more experience.

[Consumed Ice-mind berry! Assimilation progress 25%]

Slow progress, but expecting so many magical plants was asking a bit too much. Unfortunately, he found few plants beyond that. What was strange were instead the sheer abundance of weak magical plants, the sort which lacked bloodlines but still presented some alchemic value.

Out of curiosity he checked quickly and found most to be identical. Hundreds of small poppies with white streaks extending from the flower’s stem to the petal’s edge. He lacked time to check what sort of thing caused these to grow, but clearly this specific area housed something of interest.

Eventually he did find something underground, a small rod containing some mana. Not a whole lot, but more than the flowers all over, and he checked the find just in case.

It was a bone. Just a small, solid leg bone. Nonetheless, he did his best to shatter it with a Glacier bolt whereupon it snapped like a twig. The crisp cracking sounded out, and he quickly swallowed a few smaller pieces to check the species.

[Consumed gelid mongrel bloodline! Assimilation progress 1%]

That would be around 3% for the piece of bone… He breathed out disappointed, finding a weaker bloodline. Still, he ground up the rest of the bone and swallowed it fully. While an unlikely guess, he opted to follow the snow covered mass of poppies in hope the densest region of them contained something with a bloodline.

Every few metres he would pleasantly come across more bones of slightly varying strength, although only a few turned out to be more gelid mongrels. He obtained the beginning of two more bloodlines, both of the same species interestingly enough.

[Consume Black hoof horse bloodline! Assimilation progress 7%

Consumed Scarlet hoof horse bloodline! Assimilation progress 3%]

Having consumed an equal quantity of bone for both types, he already wanted to search for more Scarlet Hoof bones. Another higher quality bloodline was always appreciated, especially if it granted more evolutions related to movement.

Compared to the weaker mongrel bones, the horses turned out to be far more common. While rather old and decaying, they still held a good portion of the original bloodlines. And how exactly a single, old bone equaled several mouthfuls of blood is a question he had yet to receive an answer to.

The Nexus simply gave its standard ‘lack of data’ reply!

Still, he continued forward with often breaks for digging and breaking bones. After an hour having dug up dozens of Black Hoof bones and a handful of Scarlet Hoof ones. It was no surprise when he finished assimilating the former, although the latter proved harder to complete. As expected, the completion of the Black Hoof bloodline turned out to be a light weakening, leaving him feeling right as rain just minutes later.

[Assimilated Black Hoof bloodline! 2 new bloodline directions potentially available]

That wasn’t the only pleasing thing though, as another prompt came right after.

[Mission 2 has been formulated.

Title Upgrade Mission 2: Assimilate 3 bloodlines stronger than the Mutated glacier wolf]

Unconsciously smiling at the new mission, he soon dismissed it. Once more the Nexus gave him something which he aimed for regardless, a fact worth enjoying for a moment. With the prompts finished, he continued forward but still dug up every bone he found, hoping that a new bloodline appeared soon.

He did not know if the scarlet hoof was strong enough.

One strange thing began popping up whenever he dug a hole though, that being something he sensed below him. Rather than mana, he instead noted that a thick layer of ice laid deep beneath the poppies. And he had to wonder why such a thing existed.

If he dug down in other places he expected to hit a layer of dirt and rock, as one expected on a mountain. Perhaps that layer of ice hid a secret cavern, but he opted to avoid the thing overall as something ancient might have survived below.

Waking up a sleeping dragon is known to be a poor choice, ironic as it may be in his case.

As the sun moved past his head into the afternoon, he figured that investigation mattered more than completing bloodlines right now. With that in mind he moved further forward and ignored anything which contained mana equal to or less than the scarlet hoof bones. By now the bones grew abundant, as did the poppies which practically surrounded any remnants he dug out.

Additionally, the poppies here all featured pure white petals, although the rest retained that strange white line through them. He had to be near the centre of this place, was it some sort of large scale battle between two groups of animals?

Mongrels and horses, but why on a mountainside like this… He still didn’t even know the place’s name.

With a bit more walking he found something of great interest, bones with mana easily double the scarlet hoof’s! While less than the wyrm king, this thing had to be powerful!

Rushing down, he moved down to find a single, massive, tooth. The single piece of yellow enamel was as large as a foot, and he scarcely believed that something of such size lived in this place. Moreover, it died against horses and dogs!

No! Clearly this place sported an event of more significance. Humans can ride horses, as can other species, so who knew what happened here!

With that comprehension, he first chose the obvious and direct route of finding out more. In the small tunnel, he formed a glacier bolt and smashed it against the tooth. Unsurprisingly, it only revealed a small indent where the tip of the bolt hit.

“I really don’t want to ruin it… Who am I kidding, there must be more teeth. Just a test, that’s all this is,” he said in a coaxing tone. Wanting to avoid the fact, he moved away from the hole and better smoothed out its walls to create a direct route to the tooth.

From a, hopefully, safe distance the nine word spell he recently learnt came to light. A shell of earth filled with the volatile Flame bolt, and it flew off into the hole… An explosion rocked his ears moments later and he saw chunks of rock and tooth falling from above.

Some pieces remained too big to swallow, but he quickly found one the size of his claw, and as such directly ate it. The chunk sat in his stomach, slowly reducing in size at a noticeable speed but just barely.

He ran around to find small pieces of tooth to swallow. Within the tunnel as well he found stone and tooth coating its walls, as well as a fine dust at the bottom. He gladly licked this dust off the walls, finding the chunks of teeth within him equal to at least half the original.

Not a great pay-off, but that didn’t stop the Nexus sending a prompt every second about its current progress. Once more he disabled it and checked manually.

[Consumed Unknown giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 0%]

“Unknown? How is that possible?” He perfectly understood that the bloodline was unknown to him, but wasn’t that why he waited for the Nexus prompt regarding it?

[The bloodline contained is too decayed to accurately gauge its source]

“So assimilating more should eventually reach a point where the Nexus can tell me what it is?”

[Yes]

A rather upsetting find, especially since he never knew this sort of thing could even happen. Although, he accepted that a tooth really wouldn’t contain much bloodline power. In that case he needed to find more bones!

But first he sat in the hole for a quick 5 minutes to refill his MP, every use of Explosive bolt left him weary, especially in a place with so many powerful bones. With every moment he believed that the wyrm king died here even more.

He continued deeper, following the mass of poppies with slowly increasing mana. On the way he found a few more giant bones, incredibly decayed and barely holding together. Unlike the tough teeth, these clearly contained more mana and bloodline power, which unfortunately meant the plants here devoured it faster.

He was lucky to come across the sparse bones, who knew how much time he had until the surroundings completely cleared this battlefield. He really wanted to know what sort of fight happened here.

The first bone he found crumbled under the impact of a Glacier bolt, which he followed up by smashing it into tiny pieces for consumption. Once more then bone sat inside him, but it rapidly shrunk unlike the tooth.

[Consumed Unknown Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 1%]

That whole bone, a large piece the size of his head, only amounted to a tiny 1% progress. If all the bones presented this level of damage then he doubted any chances of assimilating it. And, indeed, the next bones were barely any different. Easily snapping and cracking under the mediocre force of a Glacier bolt as well.

After devouring enough bone to equal his body weight, the effects were less than desirable.

[Consumed Warborne Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 5%]

The name of these giants alone only made sense with this situation, and further confirmed this place to be a battlefield of some sort. What didn’t make sense was the existence of giants on this mountain, but the precise implication exceeded his current knowledge.

However, all that truly mattered was consuming more bone.

For the next few hours, he proceeded to the depths of the buried poppy field while digging up masses of bones. At this point he fully devoured that tooth as well, opting to avoid such things here on.

However, teeth by far made up the majority of objects he dug up! In the meantime, he finally found a new type of giant bloodline, having devoured a bone which appeared no different from the rest.

[Consumed Spiritcaller Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 1%]

The bone was as long as his body but only as thick as his foot… Devouring it required the use of four Glacier bolts and some use of Telekinesis to further shatter the pieces. He knew that progress would be slow, but these numbers really depressed him.

He needed over a week just to make solid progress in assimilating one of these giant bloodlines! And now a second, harder, bloodline appeared!

Since assimilation didn’t directly raise his strength, that week of time could be spent focused on learning several incantations and eating more for the sake of his growth. He really had to question if coming here for the giant bones made any sense.

On one hand, no creatures seemed to come here. In the past few hours only a few rabbits, hares, and chipmunks had scurried past the battlefield as a whole. But nothing stronger dared to enter, like the mere remnants of this place frightened them. Or maybe…

He gulped and prepared to leave immediately, only now realising the risk of this whole place. How idiotic of him to assume that nothing dared to stay here.