Besides the first day where everyone mostly kept to themselves, perhaps as a defence mechanism, things began to open up the next day. Mala finished the creation of that mana-dense powder, and the dragon often left to dig around the battlefield for a variety of bones. None of them really understood what he gained from it, in fact, if he wanted powerful bones then why did he ignore the giants in the strange place with them?

“Their bodies are too hard to cut. And if I really want them, I can come back in the future when I can fly.” The more he spoke with them, the clearer his broken language became. Though he believed it would improve even faster by travelling alongside them. “Now, I want to know all about you five. Your bloodlines, your techniques, your skills, spells, and most importantly, where you are going.” All of them had over half a day to consider such a thing, and now the dragon brought up that matter. The knowledge of a dragon made freely available to them… Even if he was younger than expected, it didn’t diminish the inheritance in the slightest.

“I actually wanted to ask first. But are you really made of ice cream? The idea just seems a bit… Well, you know.” Jaren looked away at the end of that sentence, leaving the rest to roll their eyes. Sure, they wanted to know as well, but did he have to ask it so awkwardly?

He didn’t have any problem explaining that aspect of himself to the group. Although, his assimilations and frequent evolutions could wait until he trusted them all with his life.

“Yes, I am pure ice cream inside. My teeth are jawbreakers, the Nexus said. The scales are wafer biscuits. I have to make one thing absolutely clear. Never, and I mean it. Never eat my body. If you evolve after eating me, your evolution is forcibly changed to some sort of candy. Understood?”

All five of them wisened up at the sound of that, having heard of some rare and dangerous creatures with forced mutation properties, but never did they expect a dragon of ice cream to be one of them.

Raccelline piped up with, “Does that mean I’ll become ice cream one day?”

And he was instantly reminded of her eating a portion of his tail from their initial meeting. It hadn’t even occurred to him, but thankfully she was young enough that evolution wasn’t even a concern. However, he really didn’t know and asked the Nexus for an answer to this.

In Draconic, he asked, “Will she evolve like that?” And received an answer instantly.

[No, every case of forced mutation revealed that the mutating agent slowly decays and is beaten back by the body over time]

That was good. Or he’d have to explain why the little girl had candy hair or ice cream skin someday in the future… That would be rather horrific for her to adapt to as well.

“It’s okay. You have to eat it right before evolution. That ice cream is gone from your body,” he hoped that the explanation was simple enough for her to understand. And while she nodded along, it was hard to tell what actually stuck in her head. “Now, you five.”

It took quite a while to get through all five in the end, especially given their relatively diverse skill set.

The leader, Korridan, was a Shieldwall, an evolution which focused excessively on defence and singular heavy attacks. Without the use of specific skills, he lacked ranged attacks, not that his evolution even boosted their damage. With the heavy blade he used, it wasn’t hard to cleave bronze tiers in half. However, his dexterity in battle couldn’t be neglected, as he moved the blade skillfully and slyly as though it weighed no more than a common dagger. However, where he excelled in physical attacks, anything magical left him wide open, and for that, he depended on a giant metal shield along with the group’s wizard, Mala.

Unlike the level-headed leader, every single member seemed to be well-adjusted but was oddly cautious for some reason, to varying degrees. Oh, except the priest, he quite liked that man, Darak.

Mala was a Sprout wizard, which represented a massively important time for her bloodline. This was due to how the evolution, Sapling wizard, actually worked. While Sprouts are equal to Steel ranks in the Nexus’ considerations, when the former evolves into a Sapling it has a far greater change than the evolution to Gold ranked warrior. Although, interestingly, the next evolution for both is practically a reverse. Becoming a Mature wizard was simply a growth in power, whilst Mithril ranked warriors go through this important event.

As for the thing in question.

The Nexus identified which schools of magic she performed best in, and had deepened connection with, before granting bloodlines which specifically focused on those specialisations. For this reason, Sapling wizards actually all have bloodline names like ‘Sapling Pyromancer’, or ‘Sapling Psi-caster’, with great bonuses to those specific schools.

And as said, this process is undertaken by warriors during their evolution to Mithril rank.

She still needed time to decide her direction though, and for some reason cared a hell of a lot more about learning magical theory than actual magic. Due to a slight guess he asked, “Why weren’t you accepted by any of the masters of your academy? You seem extremely competent.”

After a few moments, she realised that she actually had to formulate a real response to this question. None of the others knew much about the wizard graduation process, and so she normally just said that she wanted to see the world… But now?

“I didn’t have the credentials… To be precise, I never took part in research, and few want to support a disciple who hasn’t shown their worth.”

“You could’ve just said that!” That came from another corner of the space. Over there, Jaren practised using the heavier arrows given by the dragon, not criticising Mala’s reasons for joining their group, but rather her need to hide it. Admittedly, he understood her reasoning for lying about it, but with someone like Rebecca, why bother?

On that note… The strange rogue rarely left the shadows even when repeatedly found out by the dragon and Raccelline over the course of a day. He was rather sure she began sulking about a second person who saw through that ability so easily.

She perked up a bit when provided some skills to better hide her presence, namely minor augmentations like for body heat, and minor wind flows created by a moving body. And one stealth skill which completely muted the internals of a body and its mana flows, in fact, she could have passed as some magical stone in his mana sense afterwards, but its uses really only applied to active stealth

Besides all that, he just couldn’t fathom her reason for anything though. It sounded like a joke, but she really was the greatest thrill-seeker he’d ever heard of!

Admittedly, he knew very few humans, so that meant very little.

Darak, their priest, was perhaps the human he got along best with. The man's kindness reached a level he assumed to be storybook, and he understood why Raccelline happily journeyed with them all the way here. As a Sprout priest, he too would choose a focused path for his evolution, but this path is generally a lot easier for those who work under gods as options are limited. Going by his role in the party, and attitude overall, he focused on healing with some methods to attack in melee. The only thing he could teach were defensive skills to this priest, and even then many of them lacked when compared to divine spells.

And lastly, Jaren, a cynical and snarky archer that he hated and understood the most. There was something about that sardonic attitude which he simply got compared to all the others. Being made of ice cream from birth probably does that.

So, besides handing over a set of skills relevant to their power levels, and some spells for Mala, the only things he could really offer were new weapons. Authentic High-rank magical tools for each and every one of them, although the weight clearly made them struggle a bit.

On the other hand, he gave Raccelline that one mithril tier blade he couldn’t really use and saw her swing it about with ease… Okay, her strength technically exceeded gold tier, but just barely, as she clearly had to use both arms to lift and swing such a weapon.

Not to mention its broken hilt made holding the blade so much harder.

For everyone’s safety though, they decided to not give the six-year-old a weapon capable of cutting through them all with slight movements.

Instead, they blunted one of the regular daggers the dragon held and handed it over. Even if not sharp, they wanted her to just learn how to hold it and avoid accidentally hurting anyone with it for now. When she held it better, and even learned to swing, they’d gladly hand over a real weapon. It was cruel to expect others to always protect her, and as the princess of the empire, she absolutely needed to learn how to survive on her own… If worst comes to worst.

“Dragon, what’s your name? You never told us,” Raccelline spoke up sometime after he gave everyone in the group various skills to learn, and it was a thing he’d been putting off for so long now…

A name. Most dragons normally have one in mind before they’re one year old, but they only adopt it after a few years when they’ve survived this dreadful start. But now, he absolutely needed one. It was rude to expect everyone to call him ‘dragon’ in the foreseeable future.

“I have yet to choose one. Nothing I thought of sounded good.” It was a simple response and all the others seemed to nod along, perhaps they somewhat understood the pain of having to choose names.

“What about Creamy? Because you’re made of ice cream!” He stared into Raccelline’s eyes from the overwhelming, jaw-dropping suggestion, but when her hopeful and gleeful eyes appeared, he legitimately couldn’t find it within him to say anything rude about the name.

But he wasn’t an idiot. Instead, a kinder rejection was met, “I don’t think that’s a great name for a dragon. It sounds too… human.” He came up with the best excuse possible, and began to think up some names in Draconic that would fit his identity.

Trekalphar? Literally translated, it was “Bloodline ‘Monster’”, although the latter word was more often taken to mean an abomination.

No, he couldn’t be that self-deprecating. This body sucked, horribly, but it wasn’t all bad. At the moment it actually presented the potential to reach supreme tier, and that alone meant something in the long run. However, what name could he actually take on that might actually stick with him for the years to come?

It took a while, but he did come up with a clear point after a minute or two.

Why did this have to be his permanent name? By tradition, he wasn’t even qualified to select his name until reaching gold tier, so why not just pick a fun one to use in the meantime. One which sounded good to humans, and maybe filled Raccelline’s hopes as well. He did owe her a massive thanks for getting that soul lantern for him, and now even arriving with a group of humans he could travel with for the foreseeable future. Not to mention, so long as no one knew he was a dragon, none would bother hunting the random pet of a small adventurer group.

Small being relative to the world. Five steel tiers are pretty damn powerful in any town or village.

“I’m thinking of Icryladrom… If any dragon hears that they’ll probably get a good laugh.” When he considered the name's meaning, he admitted that Raccelline’s childish selection got to him a bit.

Immediately, Mala couldn’t hold back asking, “Why? What does it mean?”

“It literally translates to ‘Cream of Ice’.” All the adults immediately giggled faintly once they heard that, not expecting him to seriously consider the name, but he couldn’t really care. To humans, Icryladrom sounds… Well, it’s fine. Nothing super imposing, just a couple draconic words strung together with a vague meaning.

Most dragons picked far more poetic names than just what they literally were made of. However, one of the group was having a completely different time with this name.

“Ickyladom? I-cyl-a-dom… How do I say it? Icy-la-drom?” Raccelline adorably spent a whole minute to herself just trying variations of the name, and whilst all of them wanted to correct her, they waited to see how the dragon took this, both as a test of character… And because it was really damn cute how she interacted with him.

He sighed under his breath and came to a simple solution for the child, telling her, “Just call me, Icy, okay?”

She confidently nodded to the dragon and continued saying, “Icy. Icyyy. I like it.”

Once more all the adventurers chuckled at the short interaction, but they couldn’t help but feel like they’d taken a second child under their wing all of a sudden. Indeed, even if baby dragons have the intelligence of an adult, he truthfully experienced roughly the same as the girl in front of him.

It seemed that they’d make good friends. Hopefully at least.

With the dragon’s name finally chosen, the group focused on preparing for revenge and getting to know each other far more. Including the dragon telling them all which happened so far, although, he left out one utterly minor detail about it all.

Oh no, it wasn’t a lie.

He just never mentioned that the ruin’s treasury had been emptied by him after escaping. Not that such information mattered if they died here, but he always wanted to know, without a doubt, that they wouldn’t abandon him after acquiring the knowledge they sought. Likewise, they stayed to simply test the dragon in one regard.

Would it attempt to abandon them if things worsened? The days lowered that belief considerably, but trust required time, not three days trapped underground after receiving a handful of skills and knowledge.

Oh, and for some reason, the dragon dug around the battlefield around them to dig up bones? None of them understood why, and clearly, this dragon hid a major secret from them all. Needless to say…

Trust must be earned.