[You have now entered your second growth stage. No major changes to state]

“Nexus. An explanation. Now.”

[You have now entered your second growth stage]

His jaw dropped at the response, utterly unsure how to respond or even process the idea. Also, when had the Nexus become so snarky? This was incredibly uncharacteristic of it.

But he knew better than to give in as long as the Nexus replied, and asked once more, “So you’ve ignored my question entirely?”

[There is no explanation available. We have simply measured that you entered a growth stage roughly 15 seconds ago. Further analysis has shown no immediate reason for this yet]

About to tear off his scales in frustration, he settled down and thought about it for a few moments. The obvious question was obvious, but he looked past it to try and understand ‘what’ had caused this instead. His evolutions made no sense as the drain on his life force actually delayed his first growth stage.

Besides, the Nexus should’ve noticed such an obvious change considering how it practically monitored his bloodline constantly. Or so it appeared to him.

That left few other options.

A mana-rich diet.

A mana-rich atmosphere

…Or the missing divinity.

“Can draconic bloodlines absorb divinity?” He asked a simple question which would clear up the whole matter in seconds if correct. The Nexus didn’t reply at first, but he knew this to be a sort of ‘thinking’ period as it was almost obligated to answer bloodline-related questions. So, he sat in place and waited, then received his answer over two minutes later.

[Inconclusive results]

Not bad.

With some degree of results he stood up and stopped worrying over it.

Oh, his reaction didn’t make sense? When considered from his point of view it pretty much confirmed his guess.

Either it was the divinity, or the process involved completely exceeded the Nexus’ understanding of the universe, the latter of which had been proved to be so unlikely that he rolled his eyes at the thought. For now, he just needed to quickly complete this growth stage and reach the end of his Youngling stage, especially since this normally resulted in a boost in size which most dragons used to cast Intermediate true spells.

Albeit very few, but one is definitely more than zero.

Intermediate true spells meant an easy way to kill steel tiers, as well as a proper method for damaging gold tiers. What more did he need in these times?

This growth stage also focused a lot more on physical enhancements than size, in fairness. So the actual rise in mana storage wasn’t that wondrous. As long as things worked the same, he expected his body to be strong enough to resist all bronze tiers at the least, so better than the paper-mâché he’d been made of so far. Also, it meant a noticeable improvement to his teeth which already chomped through a steel tier’s flesh rather well. When merged with the spirit, he bet that a solid crunch would shatter their bones straight away.

Unfortunately, this less significant growth stage only did so much.

Only the third one, which occurred around 4 years of age, grew out a dragon’s wings and transformed them into a Young Adult dragon. This growth stage is perhaps the most important and memorable to all living dragons.

Because it meant gold tier strength! But more importantly, dragons escaped the most dangerous period of their lives, and rewarded themselves with a name to represent their struggles or triumphs whilst in danger. And with the ability to… absorb divinity, he saw a clear way to reach that third growth stage even sooner. One might ask why exactly divinity allowed him to reach growth stages faster, but if no dragon in history, nor the Nexus, ever figured this out, then why should he bother?

He had better ways to spend time. Like fixing that spell, searching for bones, or watching over…

“Ah, finally! Go ahead and evolve, I’ll be waiting.” He stared greedily at the fourth captured beast, a large black bird very similar to a crow but with smooth wings as though made of metal. Well, this would’ve been the case if he hadn’t cut these off along with its legs whilst capturing the thing. Innate abilities in those wings posed a severe risk as he hauled it back here, and as it evolved he adequately prepared to fight it in a strengthened state.

Naturally, he didn’t waste the free food source. More bloodline energy rarely hurt as well.

First, he cast the new barrier spell he learnt to trap them temporarily. Entrapment Shield was a strange name, all things considered, but it did rather accurately reflect how the spell worked.

At the orange-brown dome formed over the beast which had retreated into its metamorphosing state, it slowly formed a full bubble and then gained slight transparency, which reflected the spell entering its ‘stable’ state. From here on, he could fling in any Apprentice true spells or below and risked nothing!

The crow’s shiny feathers detached to form a smooth eggshell like his own wafer scales did during evolution, and it didn’t take long for the shell to crack as the crow’s beak pierced through. Its eyes glared at its captor, a murderous rage instilled within as it had yet to realise just what surrounded it.

And then… He cast a Lava Spear. The crow dodged. Barely.

So he cast it once more as it tried to fling out waves of feathers towards him, but the barrier blocked the hundreds of attacks which appeared like black beams of light.

Then it switched to melee, jumping forward to smash its beak into the barrier, but saw how its face bounced back from the casual attempt. A lava spear pierced its left wing at the same time as well, and burnt a hole through to leave a rather obvious wound on the beast. It might still be capable of flight, but the pain as its originally black eyes teared up was more than clear. It wouldn’t be long until he got his first evolution, in fact, he could already see what exactly that change was.

The talons…

His attacks stopped as his head turned for a fraction of a second. To the side, a tube of mana shuttled towards him through the snowy battlefield. He barely even registered its appearance as the crow and barrier completely vanished, and he was left to stare in shock as the beasts directly adjacent to the crow instantly disappeared as well.

Not even a single scrap of flesh remained.

“Since when could it… That damn thing! I spent a week trying to get these things to evolve, and it took them! And how the hell did something actually grow to mithril tier in that lousy mana?” Shock overcame him for just a few seconds, but was quickly replaced with anger as the realisation of these losses at the same time.

The damn beast which always hid away in these battlefields actually escaped! But that wasn’t the irritating bit.

He resented it for stealing the prey he reared for the past week! A mutation which he truly desired as well, some new claws which were actually tough! Maybe not as good as metal, like other steel tiers, but enough to actually cut things. Like his teeth in that regard!

Pacing about the tunnel designed to contain the nearby beasts, the ones who survived stared in shock as their neighbours vanished without even the slightest notice. And then the lizard who captured them clearly grew mad about the fact, stomping around and talking in another language.

Not many normal beasts on this side of the mountain knew about the dragon, or else they might have distinguished him by now.

Still, this clearly meant that the removal of that divine relic allowed that creature to escape its confines. But only massive concentrations of mana drew it outwards, which likely meant any evolution would do so…

He’d been tricked from the start! This place wasn’t safe at all to use…

“Well, not entirely. Maybe I could trick them here so it eats them? Gold tier mana should definitely be desirable, and easy for it to sense.” He spoke of the crab, wyvern, and roc in this matter, but remained unsure if he could lure all three here and ensure their death so easily. Certainly, all three of them combined might be capable of fending off a mithril tier beast without proper intelligence, so his plan might fail horribly and only implicate him.

As for the mysterious beast’s lack of intelligence, he believed its previous actions proved this matter quite clearly. He stared at the three remaining beasts and came to a conclusion on what to do with them all.

A Lava Spear through the head ended their suffering, and effectively useless nature.

[Killed Level 21 Barrowed chipmunk! Received 5% EXP

Killed Level 22 Flambule! Received 12% EXP

Killed Level 22 Cherry-spotted bear! Received 15% EXP]

Moving them above ground was simply too much work. And if they left the battlefield he couldn’t ensure that no one would check up on the evolving beast, which implicated him in more matters.

He’d have to wait until he left the mountain range or killed all the gold tiers before trying once more. Although, the former grew more and more tempting in his mind, it was no longer a distant idea but just an acceptance of reality. Staying here no longer allowed him to grow easily, especially since he could barely walk around outside.

“So… I guess it’s almost time to leave. That’s rather depressing, but I suppose I thought too much of myself. Not even close to being irreplaceable, I suppose the Nexus would disagree at least.” As this avenue for growth only constricted with the trouble that mithril tier beast introduced, it truly allowed him to reflect on the sheer difference in power.

He might be a dragon, a special one… But he was still a child in the end.

But if he did leave, it’d be with a bang. A huge one at that… But first, he needed to consume a load of life essence to hasten this new growth stage. The second one isn’t that much longer than the first, and he didn’t intend to beat around the bush when it came to harvests. First, he learnt the Apprentice true spell, Psychic Bomb, a rather literal spell, and set off for the mana gatherer trees.

If he got time as well, it wouldn’t hurt to assimilate the snowy heaven node tree near here, they should be Rare+ level bloodlines at a minimum.

With the Psychic Bomb spell, it was extremely easy to instantly knock out any bronze tier creature, even those with psychic bloodlines felt doozy with a single explosion, granting enough time for a Mental Blast to send them out for the count. Every time he approached a tree, he used a quick and messy combination of Lesser Fire and a Sword Wind to create a deep gash and suck out mouthfuls of sap.

After two trees, he already had a considerable sphere of life essence.

This much would’ve instantly grown him roughly two weeks for the last growth phase, but the resultant effects back then were rather troubling. However, with every growth phase it’s well known that life essence became less effective, to the point where the final ones required tonnes of essence to accelerate the process by a mere month.

So, he expected the cherry-sized orb to provide a week of growth at most. Maybe even less, which meant he’d be sucking trees dry for the next few days. Not literally though, as his presence and identity cleared up with such knowledge, so he preferred if no lords learnt of this matter.

Which they wouldn’t, as long as the trees remained uninjured.

That night, he came to discover that the considerable orb of life essence barely allowed his body to grow another centimetre in length… It was close to nothing. And it improved his sense of scale once more, as he realised that the quantity of essence he needed hadn’t merely doubled, but instead multiplied almost fivefold.

That’s right… What would’ve been 2 weeks of growth in the past was now merely two days and a bit.

Which meant he’d probably need a lot of those trees. Good thing there are a couple thousand across the mountain range.