When outside the cave, it took an annoying degree of cautiousness for him to descend the steep incline without tumbling the whole distance, but he eventually reached the winter’s hope tree intact. Once there, he melted through the scab made through Snap chill and stored a few drops of sap in his dimensional storage.

Now he had two assimilations to look forward to.

Making his way back home effortlessly, once at the tunnel he had to begin draining the blood into a few empty pots. Fortunately, this crab contained very little and after just two pots he could cut it into pieces and begin transferring indoors.

Now he could feast! And for once, he cooked differently!

Some books on cooking actually referred a dragon on how to cook fish and other seafood, crabs included. And having read these in curiosity of cooking blood, he knew that crabs and other creatures like them could be boiled. As such, he filled a pot using the Water spell, and began putting it to the boil.

By this point the Living flame spell used less mana than he naturally regenerated, and he could leave it active while cooking.

After it boiled, he placed all the smaller crabs into the water, and then took some time to finally read through more books on the history of the third world. Particularly more modern history.

The Ancient empire of man somehow remained unshaken on this continent for well over 2000 years now, withstanding tribulations from enemies both stronger and weaker. As a result, this continent was almost predominantly human with few external species living here.

The main other race were elves of all things, and that was due to them being the strongest force in the third world! Humans ranked second, even with such overwhelming history and power, while the next were a race with annoyingly little information.

Eternals, an exceptionally long-lasting race who preferred to live in darkness, as such doing their best to possess the underground world. On this planet they actually owned well over half the underground space, making them a force to be reckoned with if not for having such long lifespans that several major factions stood between them.

And as most grew older their beliefs deepened, many to fanaticism. While they stirred trouble all over, it was these occasional civil wars which stopped them from taking over the third world over the past thousands of years.

Getting up, he put out the flame and moved over to check out the pot. Telekinesis helped him pull out the crab where he took a look at its pink shell, coloured ever so slightly in the cooking process. He removed any remaining shards of obsidian and placed them in his belt to be properly thrown out later.

Three pink crabs laid in front of him, ready to be cut apart and eaten. To make the process easier, he took a large knife and crushed the shell with its flat side, from there pulling away the shell to get access to its soft, chewy meat within.

It did not take long for him to devour the entirety of a small crab. And without waiting he already devoured the bodies of all three!

It barely filled him though, and he thought about cooking parts of that larger crab… Or maybe he could have the bear? Either way, his cave heated up from the boiling water far too much, and he quickly worked on cooling it down by creating some chunks of ice and throwing them in the water.

Without that pot to output steam, it took just a minute to cool things back down. At the same time looking at his assimilation progress of those crabs.

[Consumed River-freezing crab! Assimilation progress 25%]

“A pretty good bloodline then… I’ll go grab some more tomorrow as well.” It only took another minute of thought before he finally decided on cooking a slab of bear meat while assimilating the winter’s hope bloodline. At least by finally getting it out of the way he could focus on other things, like the snowy heaven node tree.

Not to mention, other sorts of node and mana gathering trees had to exist throughout the range. Why was he limiting himself to this one small portion?

He finished cutting apart the bear meat into small pieces and threw them into a clean pot with some ground field root. After a bit of mixing, he left it to cook while a few drops of sap entered his mouth. This was it.

Another truly useful bloodline to obtain.

[Consumed Winter’s hope tree! Assimilation progress 100%]

A fire lit within him, warming him pleasantly at first but soon transforming into a scalding mess of heat which could not feel more recognisable. It had yet to reach a fatal point, but playing it rather safe, he wanted to see if circulating mana around the heat spots somewhat slowed the assimilation and reduced the odds of overheating.

He didn’t anticipate it at all…

But it actually worked! Just like that!

The flows of mana when forced on the spots worked to suppress his body assimilating the new bloodline, or perhaps they suppressed the bloodline itself? He didn’t understand the mechanics, but it worked and gave him some arsenal to defend himself with.

The winter’s hope bloodline wasn’t even close to deadly though. And after several minutes of weakness, he was able to stand up and looked at the simmering bear meat.

[Winter’s hope tree assimilated! 3 new bloodline directions potentially available]

That was pretty good, and before long he’d also eaten all the bear meat to see a pleasing figure.

[Consumed Rampage bear bloodline! Assimilation progress 92%]

Just one more day, and he expected to have another strong bloodline in his pocket. Instead of eating more after that, he sat down with a new spell and focused on learning that while falling asleep. It was a mix between darkness and psychic magic called Mind crusher, simply requiring a projectile to hit a being’s body before creating a growing mental pressure until the spell’s mana ran out or they collapsed.

He fell asleep before finishing the spell though. Being a 23 word Beginner true spell meant it still took quite a while overall. With no dreams or nightmares that night, he woke up rather refreshed, excited for what awaited him.

That morning, he prepared a large pot of bear meat, including its heart. This would be another great bloodline right after the winter’s hope tree! Not to mention he had the crystal-frilled lizards and crabs in the mountain to consume! He absolutely needed to go grab several more small crabs today, the usefulness was far from small.

Not to mention their delectable taste…

Ah no, he was purely doing this for the evolutions. That always had to be his priority. Of course. Just like the pot of bear meat in front of him, as it neared completion he just had to munch down on every last piece and withstand its bloodline for some more excellent choices.

[Consumed Rampage bear bloodline! Assimilation progress 100%]

Prepared for the pain, it did not come as another prompt instead awaited him.

[Authorise divinity application?]

Thinking back to what happened with the Monk bloodline, he grew wary of the trouble this one caused. But really, he lacked any good reason to refuse such a thing.

And so, he said, “Yes.”

A shock passed through him, not enough to send him tumbling, but every bit of his body seized and remained rigid for several seconds. Thousands of runes appeared in his home once more, covering every little available bit of space before that seemingly endless fall began. Down and down and down…

When it finally ended his body rolled over as though someone knocked it sideways, and only then was he able to stand up in utter exhaustion. Having to relive that sensation was in no way fun, but being prepared at least helped. How exactly?

He had no clue, but his heart still felt better.

[Rampage bear bloodline assimilated! 4 new bloodline directions potentially available

Derivative Red war bear bloodline assimilated! 2 new bloodline directions potentially available]

And not like the great weakness ever proved permanent. He just lay there for an unknown length of time before sensations began returning to his limbs, and from there prepared to leave his home for the crab tunnels.

With control over his Auric spirit having made great strides over the past couple days, he found the best way to travel was by stepping on the air itself!

But this came with its own host of problems.

Each step used a significant store of aura, and the power of each step needed to be huge for the low density air to be used as a platform like this. However, as the spirit’s so-called improvement came up soon, he chose to make a better decision after that integral moment.

In the meantime, he became rather good at judging step sizes across low hills. Not perfect, but rather good.

When climbing up the incline this time, he purposely picked a different starting and end point. Going for the same cave twice in a row made little sense, as few crabs would willingly stick around after receiving such an attack. But even then, it did not take long for him to find a brand new tunnel slightly higher up and to the right of the previous. When standing at its white rocky entrance, his mana sense already noted some surprisingly strong mana sources within.

When he sent a Third eye and Controlled light in, he simply expected to see a giant crab, or perhaps a slightly compressed one due to being on par with him in mana.

Instead, he saw a crab just as large as the one from yesterday, but instead of a pure white shell, this one featured glowing blue lines all over its shell. And he almost backed off in concern alone… But then he had to remember the situation on the mountain.

There were steel tier beasts dying casually as those wyvern and roc attacked anything slightly powerful. He wasn’t stupid and knew where their goals lay, they very clearly grew a bit more energetic with their attacks for a few hours whenever a burst of mana appeared on the mountain!

What these bursts represented gave him two ideas, but for now he chose to take the facts he knew.

This mountain would quickly be dominated by some group… And he wanted to harvest everything possible before that occurred! Without entering, he cast Voltaic burst on his wafer scales before pulling the Controlled light spell back to lead him into the cave. Unfortunately he had to avoid using Great flame bolt in this fight, but he knew of several ways to kill a giant crab, even if a bit powerful…

When he entered, it was no surprise when the weaker crabs instantly charged on sight, just like the previous ones. But the one with blue patterns did no such thing, instead observing him. It was unexpected, but this didn’t make him panic.

Jumping away before the crabs could touch him, the rather large cave made it easy to dodge the group. Whether the large or small ones, he simply jumped away from them whilst casting Wind blade storm.

However, just as the spell came out, the spirit detached from him and floated over to the spell, a burst of aura exploded outwards the pressure alone sending the weakest crabs scurrying away in fear. Only those stronger ones stayed back in fear, but it didn’t matter as ten green blades coated in a grey mist fired out.

He avoided the smallest crabs, only aiming for the larger ones who resisted his aura, and each blade performed extremely well. The combination of a spell and aura proved immeasurable, and its power seemed to jump up a whole spell tier! He watched as each Wind blade sliced through the crabs’ shells and left marks on each one!

The spirit returned to his body, weakened extremely as well. He immediately condensed the aura stored beforehand and fed it to the spirit, allowing it to quickly begin work on rejuvenating itself. Now just came the final strikes on the injured crabs leaking blue blood everywhere.

But just as he prepared another spell, the silent crab with marks began making noise and rushed towards him. Such a foolish move.

He merged with the drained spirit for a moment, jumping forward and slashing out with an aura coated claw to the crab’s face. Somehow rather dextrous, it easily raised both claws to block, but did not expect the hidden Voltaic burst within. As an unprecedented bolt passed through its body, the crab grew enraged and snipped out.

Its body actually withstood the full power of an Apprentice true spell!

He took a leap back and unmerged the spirit. The other crabs ran away as fast as possible, a combination of oozing injuries and intense fear both caused by the dragon's single move. At least he no longer had to worry about those little ones impacting him in this fight.

But overall, this was a lot worse than he expected. If a lightning spell failed… Then he’d go for a psychic one!

Casting Mental shock, the crab knew better to let him succeed, and the patterns all over its body began to pulse. Mana passed through them at a steady speed. It would be fine if the crab left itself a target while charging this ability, but it followed up by rushing at him with its giant claws, the sharpness of each he did not doubt for a moment.

The Auric spirit needed a minute to recover just enough for this battle, which meant using Jump seals in an annoyingly low cave…

Ah, who cares if he hit his head a few times. He just needed to dodge and block for now. Retreating while the crab walked forward, the cracking of its claws with every snap sounded like a burst of thunder echoing in the cave. Rather than dedicate time to Mental shock, he needed to distract it with smaller things.

He cast an Ice bolt in just over a second whilst backpedalling, the weak shard of ice simply bounced off its thick shell with still glowing patterns. Whatever it charged up was nearing completion, and if his guess was right… This would be his moment of opportunity.

It jumped forward as the weak bolt spell struck its impeccable shell, feeling insulted by the opponent's disgusting excuse of an attack after just injuring a few of its stronger brothers and sisters. One claw came crashing down from above while the other tried to kite him if an attempt to move backwards was made.

Neither worked as he used a Jump seal on his side to fling himself into a nearby wall. Beginning the cast of Mental shock at the same time, drawing the crab’s rage again as it assumed the lizard-like beast intended to mock it once more!

But while holding some brains, it was clearly too much of an emotional creature. And rather than attacking nonstop, it focused on charging its patterns for some reason. He got to find out why before even finishing his spell.

A thin film, like a sheet of wax paper, appeared all over the crab’s body. It gave off a faint blue light akin to the crab's patterns and a cloudy mist rose off it. He sensed the mana within and quickly curled up into a ball in hopes the outer scales blocked whatever the film did. At the same time, his Mental shock released as the misty film rapidly expanded in a bubble of strangely flowing cloudy water, coating anywhere touched in a layer of white.

All the while, his spell smashed into his opponent's unprotected mind and watched as it fell to the floor, literally drooling from the mental impact. His head tucked into his body, some mana surging into his scales as a last second precaution against the unavoidable spell.

When it touched the surface of his skin, an incomparable cold passed through the youngling for the first time in its short life. A cold so intense… he truly shivered for the first time.