Someway back to his cave, the Nexus had something to speak up about, very much to his surprise.

[Analysis has found that your bloodline specifically incurred the mutation of the Ice ant queen, as such a new mission revolving around this strange effect has been provided. For reference, absorbing or awakening innate abilities by consuming certain items is something seen occasionally throughout the universe. The Nexus seeks more data on how another species acquired your evolutionary properties]

“What does that even mean?!” He wanted to just accept the mission and move on, but with a wall of text bombarding his hungry mind it was natural that only half of it really made sense. Was the Nexus saying that consuming his body was the cause of the queen’s wafer carapace?

[During her evolution, the Ice ant queen’s bloodline was replaced with your own, to a small degree. However, as her own bloodline is significantly evolved, it seems that she instantly obtained a form above yours. Additionally, we wish to know the degree of mutations offered through this method]

Once again, half the message made absolutely no sense to him. But that didn’t really matter as it confirmed the guess. His bloodline could forcibly mutate creatures! Even ones stronger than himself!

Ignoring the details for now, he chose to just see the mission's details for now. Having received all three he could aim towards them instead of just living with few goals outside of growing stronger and surviving.

[Mission 3: Reproduce the effect of mutating an Ice ant queen; it must acquire a feature not already obtained by you]

The requirement of this mission proved a bit tougher since he had no clue what the odds of forming a new feature were. He didn’t have a lot of time to play around with the concept though, his major goal for now being the growth phase.

Not to forget eating a big hunk of meat as soon as possible. The leaner Lesser wizards might have less meat, but bloodlines took priority.

Being dismembered and frozen, his first priority was drinking the blood contained within each body part and for this he had a specific plan. The humans not only brought metal utensils but a variety of pots for cooking. He just had to dump the body parts in a pot and heat until the blood flowed out.

Then he just had to suffer while drinking blood again. The horrid taste was never going to end…

While a very simple solution, he found it quite resourceful, and starting off with two arms from the male wizard, he received a layer of blood just a centimetre high. It took several minutes of fast licking to eventually drain away all that fluid!

[Consumed Basic wizard bloodline! Assimilation progress 5%]

This confirmed that humans stored astoundingly little bloodline energy within their actual blood. Perhaps a heart or brain would have been better to start with?

Questions aside, he quickly got to heating the arms further and began preparing them for eating. His Telekinesis controlled a blade to cut any flesh from the body, leaving a thin layer connected to the bones and joined but little more. With some quick dicing to reduce it all into swallowable pieces, he roasted the selection of human flesh for about twenty minutes before eating.

[Consumed Basic wizard bloodline! Assimilation progress 22%]

All the meat and blood of two arms already build up to such a degree. Small, but powerful creatures were obviously the best way to go for new bloodlines. With a looming threat finally gone, he had time to focus on his home’s expansion and simply learning more spells.

The next few days did all that precisely. More than quadrupling the abode’s space while adding a few more columns for protection. Additionally, some way down the tunnel he dug out a separate room to store food. In particular, he used this one to store any food with bloodlines.

The next couple days went to forming a second storeroom for potentially useful plants which contained no bloodline. He came up with this idea when simply glancing through books on alchemical plants.

Refining some into medicinal products wasn’t impossible if he switched to an advanced telekinetic spell, and there was no harm in staying on the safer side. Who knew if medicine might one day save his life? Not to mention practicing alchemy also helped his cooking skills!

He didn’t really bother learning any new spells for those few days as well, focusing on the big things which mattered most in case more hunters turned up. But for some reason no more even seemed to approach the mountaintop. The lack of problems meant he instead had a load of free time though, and he had to answer a very tough question at that point.

What should he focus on most?

Going out to collect bloodlines could not have been more pointless, so he removed hunting as an option immediately. Rather pointlessly as well since he already spent most the past few days thinking about spells to learn.

Obviously one spell in particular stood out to him…

Instant shift! A teleportation spell which worked for five metres in any direction, a small effect but the simplest way to learn words related to teleporting. Unfortunately at 18 words it was far from easy, but spending two days on a spell was a fond memory for the young dragon.

Two days was a fair estimate given food and the occasional distraction, a fair assessment.

Without much tension though, he ended up spending quite a fair bit of time just reading books. As well as picking up more human words, he felt rather certain in guessing if someone was after him or another goal, even if discriminating that goal wasn’t possible. This all ate up more and more time, and he spent every minute of it putting off this first spell.

Overall, a spell which reasonably should have taken just two days ended up dragging out for almost four. Almost immediately after learning, he tested it out.

The draw on mana started at the tenth word, but it just kept on absorbing everything he threw out. It was here he noticed its frightening drain on his mana before even finishing the spell. But it didn’t end there.

After saying all 18 words, he thought his mana release was stable enough, but suddenly found an incredible force pulled in all the surrounding mana in an instant, only for the spell to fail right after! A quick check of his status revealed a ridiculous fact!

Name

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Slightly magical Ice-cream

HP

100%

MP

40%

Level

10

EXP

22%

Unallocated Stat Points: 12

Strength

0

Luck

0

Agility

3

Growth

0

Magic

10

Mutation Rate

5

“How did I use 60% and still fail!” He took several seconds to finally react further than that, and felt the rapid absorption of his body trigger at the same time, this was actually happening.

He could use other True spells like Snap chill at least 3 times before entering a dangerous state… but just a single teleportation spell and he met with similar results?

Something had to be wrong. And yet, after rereading the books containing spatial magic several times, the figures all had to be real.

Every spatial spell used massive quantities of mana until one reached higher tiers. These True spells were amongst the simplest, but that simplicity came at a cost of brute forcing it all with more MP.

Meanwhile, higher tier True spells used complexity and precision to overcome the difficulties of space. While they required more mana overall, the percentage use of a being’s max MP was lower. Which left a simple conclusion for a young dragon in the start of its growth phase.

As some humans put it, he was shit outta luck.

But knowing is often better than not-knowing, and just learning this spatial spell made things easier for those spells down the line. With that in mind, he decided to choose a new spell rather than fretting. Over the past few days he often wondered if the more traditional-looking scales allowed him to use spells which reinforced them. Body toughening spells were pointless with his innate skill, but other types of reinforcements existed.

For example, heat-resistant or ghost repelling scales, both of which were amongst the True spells he felt comfortable learning. He’d had enough of fearing the flames he used so often, and being a 15 word spell meant it was within reach. The words associated with reinforcement of scales took time to learn, but he recognised most of the others.

Just one day to not only cast the spell but understand the pattern to release mana. Whether he remembered that release rate was another matter entirely.

The so-called tiers of True spells aren’t complicated. It was similar to how humans simply used the number of rings a spell asked for to decide their ranks, but the Nexus instead looked straight at a combination of effect, complexity, and mana usage for its tiers.

11 to 25 words was the ‘normal’ range for the lowest tier, Beginner true spells. 25 to 60 for Apprentice, and 61 to 100 for Intermediate true spells. Things changed a bit for higher tier spells, but that was mostly down to how dragons changed their casting method. The naming system for spells was questionable, and the Nexus never actually explained why its creators picked such a scheme.

But that summed up how True spells worked, and he stuck to learning Beginner tier ones until feeling comfortable enough to speak 26 words in one go.

With every day of eating, he also grew closer to acquiring more bloodlines, having consumed enough of the wizards’ flesh and blood to fully assimilate their usefulness. Unexpectedly, the effect was rather mediocre in his eyes, the assimilation process barely compared to the Snow wassat from months ago.

Even when accounting for his improvements reducing the effects of weaker assimilations, he was rather disappointed with the potential in their bloodline. Its prompt did give him some hope though.

[Assimilated Basic wizard bloodline! 2 new bloodline directions potentially available]

Hopefully, one of those two pushed his control of mana to a great level as well as increasing his max MP by a huge amount. Not that he held huge hopes.

Following the assimilation, he discarded the dismembered bodies in the snow field outside. Unsurprisingly the parts were taken just a few hours later, something which worked to his favour. And with one bloodline finished he began his next meals, and perhaps the bloodlines which he believed strongest in this group.

Two Bronze ranked warriors, and with his new body there was no doubt that such bloodlines could produce useful results. As well as the other bodies to eat, he was looking at a slow assimilation progress taking three weeks or longer.

* * *

Things outside the mountain weren’t anywhere near as peaceful though. At the mountain's base a collection of hunters found the entire place tough to enter. Not because anyone stopped them, in fact there were recommendations to do so every day. Many grew curious if the dragon had been hunted, and urged others to take the plunge.

This problem came in the form of the children of a baron and viscount having gone up to hunt a dragon, yet neither returned after a full week. The supplies they took with them were well known, and the fact no one returned gave rise to increasing fears

If two Bronze ranked warriors fell, then wasn’t it suicide for the rest of them to head up now?.

But two weeks proved the point at which few decided to go up with little results. The snow storm a while back completely covered up all human tracks and the dragon hunters only dared to make so much noise.

Things changed a few days later…

Off the mountain’s side a group of local game hunters found two bodies in light armour with their icons shredded beyond identification. Nationwide laws required all corpses to be given to a magistrate, for a variety of reasons no ordinary civilian knew of, who then provided slight recuperation for the hauling or information. The former gave more pay for obvious reasons.

While no one could identify the two bodies, how many went up the mountain over a week ago? This body was already rotting with large chunks of flesh missing from its face and arms, a gory sight to the civilians who saw it. But for the magistrate, they quickly invited the Augusticus and Bachlar families, both of whom sent an envoy.

The results weren’t as clear as the magistrate believed though. Both families amply denied the death of their two future heirs, refusing to acknowledge the burnt, scruffy corpses to be their guards.

The death of two talented wizards would be a huge blow to their finances and futures, therefore denial became a silent accord between them. At the same time, the families launched a private investigation into the matter.

But over in the nation’s capital, a city named Belize after the Cornem ranked warrior who supported the ruler in taking over this vast swathe of land, a gathering of the nation’s elite began a week ago.

This event led to two in particular to meet, and things could’ve started off better…

“I won’t stand for this Graham! How do you think she killed them all? You still haven’t answered the question!” A wrinkled but muscular hand tightened its grip on a cane whilst sitting, the last few days had been the worst in years.

A similarly aged man, Graham Bachlar, shouted to the lower rank noble, “We both know she’s been desperate for a dragon.” But he was cut off as the shouting match continued, such a situation could never leak the room for both their reputations.

“How. Did. She. Do. It. Answer the question!” The strands of patience between the two had worn thin, and in such a situation things like titles no longer mattered. The two ageing men released a portion of their mana, immediately sinking the room into a heavy pressure where a servant could faint by simply opening the door.

But as the two stood relatively equal in such a manner, neither let up for minutes. Eventually both huffed and stood opposed with sneers, Graham replying, “I don’t know. But the moment I figure out how, I’ll ensure the Augusticus title vanishes from Remelo’s history!”

“And did you ever consider for a moment that your son betrayed them?”

“Don’t you dare! That boy has shared his life with my men several times, he would never do such a thing.” The weakening confidence in his voice suggested otherwise, but that did not stop him from believing it.

“And Pearl has never acted out of self-interest like this before. So who amongst us is wrong?” He refused to let up the train of thought, neither side could possibly conceive their heirs caused this. Pearl may have sold most of her assets, but she’d have earned them all back in time even if the expedition failed. Not for a moment had her position been shaken.

But the Bachlar’s head would not stand for it any longer. Breathing heavily, he planned on finding every last trace and tracking down the girl who caused their family such losses.

“Farewell Camren, you best pray to the divine ones. Your family lost an heir, but mine lost a prodigy,” his accentuation made his beliefs clear, and Graham stood up to leave the baron’s personal study. Not turning back during his departure.

But Camren only spoke his mind about a related matter, ignoring the threat and weak insult. “I just don’t understand why we found the bodies so quickly…” There was no kindness left to bring up. He allowed Graham to leave, with not a single servant or maid to send him off.