With his choice made, the list of options disappeared and he curled up into a tight ball as usual. While he didn’t say much about the process, as his scales detached to form an egg, internally he was dreading the process.

Sure enough, it came right away.

Gravity instantly flipped, and at the same time, a newfound dizziness struck him like he couldn’t tell forward from backward. And right after, the flipped gravity now felt like ropes attached to his limbs and pulling in separate directions, trying to tear apart his body which had been reduced to a fine mush due to the evolution.

Why the hell anything remained conscious through this was a mystery on its own.

The nausea only grew stronger, and the familiar suffocation came about. However, as he lacked a solid body for these things to actually affect, it was instead a mental torture that he pushed through.

Not that rejecting it is even an option.

When the sensations finally died down, he soon felt the reappearance of his legs and tail, as well as jaws to open and close. The evolution was finished, and he rushed to break the egg with his Auric spirit, smashing it to pieces to see the others waiting on his changes. Unfortunately, none of the assimilated evolutions had ever caused a noticeable change to his physical body.

And with this one focusing on his soul, it made even less sense for a change to occur…

“I forgot to mention, the soul-related evolutions all result in an awakening.” Icy quickly spoke to the group once he made it out, as it was actually a rather critical piece of information, and he didn’t know how long till it began.

“Will that cause any problems?” While everyone in the group knew a bit about awakenings, Korridan still assumed it best to check in case a dragon was unique in some way.

“Perhaps I grew a bit too trusting now that I think about it… I’ll be unconscious for some days. And I apologise for not discussing that part sooner.” It hadn’t really occurred to him, but a soul awakening meant leaving himself completely vulnerable, with the group here having to carry him. While he didn’t believe it hard for even the physically weakest of the group, Mala, to achieve, it was rather rude to not mention.

Well, this wasn't the first time they carried his unconscious body, so there was at least a basis for the trust.

Korridan replied unconcerned, “If it’s just that, then don’t worry. Dragons don’t cause any scenes, right?”

To which he shook his head, but then slowed down when thinking about it a bit more. Whilst awakening his heart didn’t cause a scene, he knew that his mental space had likely created some sort of illusion… Souls don’t tend to create anything similar but that was due to most souls being ‘blank’ during an awakening.

Did something special happen to those who received a soul-related evolution beforehand?

“Not normally… But if any scenes appear, or you lose control of your souls. Just put me down and stay away for a while?” He couldn’t think up any better answers purely due to not having done his research.

A simple way to check this was to see the awakening process for spiritual beings, sort of like the terror eels. No doubt similar creatures with a natural soul talent would evolve in that direction, and he’d have a concise answer to give. However, with an unknown amount of time till the awakening began, there was no way to research, so he provided some vague warning.

Hopefully Mala knew a spell to see souls.

[Awakening process starting in 36 seconds]

Wow! Such a great advanced warning!

The sarcasm was insufferable, but he just huffed out and told the group. There really wasn’t much else to do though, and he laid down flat with Raccelline beside him. While her forehead was a bit tense, she didn’t appear upset and it left him wondering precisely how she felt at the moment. But with so little time he could only gently rub his head against her and say, “No need to worry, there’s no way for me to die from this.”

Still silent, she only nodded and gave his neck and head a light hug.

The timer struck zero, and he lost all strength in his body. Unable to resist, his body forcing him to sleep like a puppet whose strings had been cut. A fair analogy as his soul stopped controlling his body from that moment onward…

* * *

Just like his last awakening, very little time seemed to pass in his dreaming state. Although, for some reason, a few dreams even felt like they went on for weeks at a time, but they faded soon after to the point where he couldn’t possibly remember.

Things externally weren’t any different, as Korridan did learn a bit more about his newfound power at Gold ranked. His hulking frame stilled ached and bruised from any serious hits by Raccelline… But he was just barely able to overpowered her. It obviously should be made clear that he had more than a few points in his strength stat, meanwhile, Raccelline only recently gained a few levels as she killed things with the group.

Though, the several steel tier beasts she happened to kill also raised her level to 18 already, just that she hadn’t assigned any of those points yet…

Even with doubled strength through the Nexus he barely beat the prodigal child.

However, it was his defence which really spiked, as none of the group could stab through his body whilst he activated a new innate ability. Even the weapons provided by Icy only left small slits, though being stabbed wouldn’t end very well. And Raccelline using that even stronger blade might as well cleave him in two just as it did to the wyvern’s wing. On the other side, he could also wield it now, albeit only better than her due to his experience with blades.

For these days, he often just carried the unconscious dragon over his shoulder, the rather large figure honestly no heavier than a sack of bricks… A bad analogy for those who weren’t warriors.

Unlike his concerns, no effects occurred though, even after four days around his unconscious body there hadn’t been the slightest problem. The chances that it only occurred at the end did exist though, and around the sixth day of him being unconscious, it became a noticeable concern. Awakenings generally took a week for humans, at least that was the case for them to access their mental space. However, as none ever awakened their souls it was hard to exactly equate the two processes.

Icy told them that since dragons awakened their unique dragon hearts as well as their mental spaces at the same time, it took slightly longer than a human’s case, but by merging the two awakenings it took far less time than two individual cases in sequence.

Seven days was the rough expectation… Now they had to be ready for whatever came.

* * *

Day 8.

A storm had been gathering for the past couple days, Mala already knew that the cause was far from natural, and after travelling it became clear the thick clouds of black above followed them closely. Not only did lightning rage in the sky, and the bulbous clouds of rain threatened to wash out anything which lived, but streams of some golden energy flitted about the deeper parts of the storm. Hidden from naked eyes, which was what truly worried the group…

Day 9…

A light sprinkling of snow followed them without end, the air around them chilled to dangerously low levels, and the storm above now was so wide that it may as well cover a full third of Messecan. The strange event causing such a chill whilst nearing summer obviously drew attention, however, more interesting was how no one bothered investigating it.

Or rather, they did but found it too minor to care about. Some orders were passed down to commoners that the cold would persist shortly, but would pass soon after and there was no need to worry about rainfall if it occurred.

At least, the travelling group didn’t hear anything else of note…

But as the ninth day entered its evening, as hard as it was to tell with such heavy clouds rolling above them, things finally changed.

Some parts for the best, and others somewhat worse.

Rain refused to fall, however, lightning was free to strike. The bright lines of white fired out from the frighteningly large stormcloud and threw out hundreds, if not thousands, of the jagged bolts all over Messecan. Bolts which contained little magic, but could still fry an ordinary person instantly, or start a frightening fire in any one of the main towns and villages across the nation. However, anyone paying attention would’ve noticed the obvious hotspot of bolts in a seemingly random spot towards the eastern side of the nation.

All of them focused on a small patch of land around a sleeping lizard. Some struck its oddly patterned body, but not a single mark remained, and it slept through the raining bolts as though nothing happened.

The light spattering of snow did increase to a small flurry, but hardly were the flakes large enough to cause damage, nor did the winds blow hard enough to cover anyone’s vision with the white specks… While the heaviest of those winds did knock over some less stable homes and structures, it was hardly a problem.

And not even half an hour after this peak began…

It ended. Just like that.

The winds quelled, the snow reduced over and over until nothing more fell, and the seemingly endless fury of lightning cut off as though it never existed.

Many came to realise they were overly scared at the whole situation for seemingly no reason, as though staring at the clouds themselves invoked a desire to hide away. But looking up now, it was certainly an intimidating blanket but such extreme clouds were not unseen, simply rare due to few catastrophes occurring.

And even those at the bottom rungs, uneducated labourers who could not escape their pitiful conditions, knew that such storms only happened due to something’s actions. Almost always the blame was some ‘powerful wizard’.

The clouds above remained still, and simply overnight were carried by the winds towards the middle of the continent. Due to something artificially restraining the water, the various clouds were forced to thin out which resulted in an even wider storm that doubled in size. And from there the multitude of upper air currents resulted in the cloud branching off in multiple directions.

For some their rain fell rather soon, whether in Messecan or its direct neighbours. But other pockets were carried for days, the rain which fell starting and stopping simply due to meteorological phenomena.

However, it was the young dragon which sat around a blackened patch of dirt who could be argued as the source of it all.

And the group certainly noticed his tail twitch and eyes wince from finally waking up. A grave hunger swept through him from the time asleep, as did the overwhelming tiredness which he didn’t understand, and saw that the belt and necklace remained untouched on his body, and that the entire party came to check on him.

[Awakening of soul complete]

His eyes struggled to open at first to read the bright prompt, and on impulse, he asked the first question which came to mind. “How long did I sleep?” Speaking in his native tongue as it came naturally.

[Awakening lasted for 9 days 22 minutes and 58 seconds]

Still somewhat weak, he opened his eyes and looked around to see the patch of burnt grass around him as well as the storm clouds above. Instantly realising that he’d caused a bit of a mess simply by awakening, while before he simply assumed that it required mana to interact with storms in any way.

“Is it my luck that a raincloud happened to be here?” The lightning was no surprise given his ability, but the group all realised that he had a completely incorrect assumption about what happened.

But he was corrected soon enough. “That cloud has been following us for a few days now,” Jaren pointed out the fact clearly.

Icy winced at it, his mind racking over the reality that he instantly accepted but simply could not understand. If what they said was right, then his awakening somehow gathered or formed a massive stormcloud on its own without an emission of mana on his part!

Was this going to be a problem in the future as well?

He’d seen how frightening the power of a bringer could be, but this became a bit too destructive now. How annoying to be forced to keep such a thing in check all the time.