They all knew that an awakening left the person famished afterwards, and only the equivalent of a dozen meals filled them up in the past. But something about a dragon tearing off half-cooked meat from a skinned bison was…

Mind-boggling really.

After just ten minutes, he’d consumed enough meat to equal his body mass, but with ice-cream being far lighter than flesh this was hardly a surprise.

After an hour, he consumed all the meat on the bison’s legs, neck, and ribs, having left the belly and back for last as to slightly cook it a bit more. At this point the quantity of steel tier flesh he devoured equalled his own body in volume, and while most of the hunger passed he didn’t feel full in the slightest.

Fortunately, they listened and hunted some large bronze tier rabbits for the group to eat as he finished the bison on his own.

By the end, only its guts, lungs, skeleton, and head were left over. At least he assimilated its bloodline, the downside there being that this weak steel tier merely possessed a Magical+ bloodline.

[Assimilated Earthen-hair bison! 1 new bloodline direction potentially available]

And of course, he gained experience from killing the level 24 beast, not that it even amounted to a tenth of a percent due to it being more than five levels lower. Only after a constant two hours spent eating was he able to finally relax and sit down. A far larger body just means that even more food was required after such an awakening, and he dreaded to think what happened when those ginormous beasts ate after one…

He finally checked his status again with this new evolution happening. Without any real idea on how to distribute the mass of points he received from the wyvern, he just kept them stored until a proper idea came about.

Name

Icryladrom (Icy)

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus II

Beginner Mind palace

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Soul Capturing Ice-cream

HP

100%

MP

100%

Level

30

EXP

96%

Unallocated Stat Points: 30

Strength

0

Luck

0

Agility

10

Growth

15

Magic

30

Mutation Rate

5

Out of curiosity, he checked the full list of available titles, of which there were rather few, and noticed a clear problem. Asking the Nexus, “Isn’t there normally a title given for awakening all three aspects? Is there something wrong with my awakening?”

[Obtained title ‘Complete Awakening’. Unlock requisite - Awaken in body, mind, and soul]

A bit suspicious that the Nexus had to be questioned for him to receive it.

He checked its effect, and it worked precisely as expected.

[Complete Awakening: All training that the Nexus can improve is made 5% more efficient]

One of the few ‘easy’ to acquire titles that had such a great effect that dragons all recommended it to their young. In fact, it was probably the only way to obtain a title with this effect with his low volume of training.

Two heart transformations, an Adept Mind palace, or a Formed soul, were the next three titles he could acquire that increased the efficiency of their respective training methods. He was years away from any of them, making Complete Awakening the only such title for a very long time. He hadn’t even completed a single heart transformation. An Apprentice Mind palace was still a couple of weeks from completion… And well, he literally just awakened his soul.

And there’s technically an upgraded form of Complete Awakening with a 25% boost, but he’d probably be a century old by the time he obtained it.

The Nexus hated giving out anything which made training these awakened aspects any easier. But it was rather generous when it came to great languages or practising techniques.

A reasonable trade.

Still suspicious of the Nexus’ lateness to granting that title, he awaited for any followup on its part, but even as the group settled down to sleep, nothing came through. Throughout the evening, the group did the same as most nights. Trained for a few hours, played some games to stay occupied thereafter, and mostly just discussed things of importance and interest. Particularly the last of those.

Well, in his case it was specifically discussing magic with Mala or helping others entertain Raccelline. She tended to grow quite bored of the evening chats, but fell asleep early on in most cases.

It only occurred to the group a couple months back to set a bedtime for the young child, but given that she generally slept at a reasonable time, it simply became a forgotten matter. Not that she could even stay awake too late if she tried, even with such power it seemed that her brain truly matched a normal child her age.

And while Icy’s evolution wanted to be a hot topic of the evening, it soon became a fact that not a single person there knew enough about soul magic to possibly understand its uses.

Of course, that never stopped anyone from throwing out random suggestions. Both Jaren and Rebecca suggested some form of hidden weapons using souls, but how that possibly worked wasn’t a question anyone could answer. Mala naturally found herself interested by the use of souls as ritual materials, but found herself unable to do anything after realising that all Icy’s rituals made use of Draconic, not the spellcasting runes she knew intimately.

Even Darak suggested creating soul-healing tonics if his evolution allowed for it, at least the idea of healing one's own soul by devouring others is no new idea. Perhaps an unsavoury one is a better description…

And Korridan threw out an idea which sounded rather insane, but upon clarification sounded feasible. The first was to compress countless souls into physical objects, perhaps even a metal to create equipment. Much like how Icy made metallic objects in his Mind palace…

And the more realistic idea was to instead grant some degree of consciousness to a weapon by imbuing it with a strong soul. In theory, this could make a weak weapon far more magical, and even strong enough to move on its own accord.

A set of ideas, but how many could be done were unknown to the group. At the very least Icy could set up a soul furnace now, so that might help someday…

For now they got some sleep to continue their journey to the port.

* * *

It was only another week before the group finally caught sight of the ocean, and from there a few more days before Avril Port finally entered their eyes. There was very little left of this journey now, but all of them knew that these two months had merely been time to get to know one another. For them to be capable of trust, and better understand each others’ powers.

However, this often felt like a one-way street as it was clear that Icy hid a lot more than he claimed. While he mentioned that he liked to eat new bloodlines all the time since he gained a small amount of power, it didn’t explain why he was rather picky and obviously sought out stronger beasts. While obviously, they would provide a greater boost, that didn’t mean a weaker one gave nothing. Or, at least, a bronze tier would still give a boost to a steel tier. Perhaps if he’d reached mithril there was some validity in the statement…

Naturally, the whole group had their own past as well, but hardly was it anything they considered a critical secret.

Mala openly discussed her time in the academy, Darak recounted his experiences in dozens of parishes across the south of the continent, Korridan explained what it meant to be a guard captain of a reasonably-sized village, Rebecca eagerly mentioned the things she stole as a child and young adult, and Jaren had a simpler upbringing as a small-time hunter jealous of those warriors who captured bears and moose so casually.

Funnily enough though, not a single one of them mentioned those critical, life-defining moments of their childhoods.

Not to say Icy didn’t mention his time dealing with the harassment of ants, or taking partial control of a mana gatherer tree. He also mentioned that by mutating others with his ice cream he could absorb their mutated parts, allowing him to obtain his scales and teeth.

The time he was hunted by humans that were mysteriously betrayed came out at one point, although, they now knew enough to tell that the eternals were involved with Remelo’s politics back then. Such deaths can hardly be called a surprise.

“Before this all really starts, as in our journey together… I should probably admit how my ability works. Don’t look at me like that, I always see your faces.” Icy sneered at their attempts to appear innocent, it felt like a mockery given he’d explained his mana sight long ago. He looked down at Raccelline sleeping beside him and removed a sizable bone from his dimensional storage.

One final Elder guard bone.

Live demonstrations are generally the best way to learn something, no?

As none of them made any comments, the obvious confusion on their faces made it clear that they really had no clue about his assimilations. And it wasn’t that he couldn’t hide it, but rather that even dragons know what a dysfunctional dynamic is.

He explained briefly, “What happened with her hair wasn’t at all unique, something similar happens anytime I consume enough of a new bloodline that’s stronger than I can withstand.” A magical tool from his storage was used to cut the bone into swallowable chunks and let them slowly break down in his stomach, the Nexus reporting his progress.

“So you can accidentally kill yourself? And this isn’t the first time… But why hide it?” Mala almost instantly inferred the implications of his statement, something usual when she knew about the topic already. But her question at the end was perhaps the only part which mattered.

“Because I do not grow stronger from doing this. The bloodlines may be stored within me, and parts used for my evolutions… in effect, I may gain bloodline components from anything I consume. But not just the bloodline, I absorb their energy as well. And there’s a hundred.” He stopped paying attention to them all and cast his makeshift spell immediately, moving further away from Raccelline so that the heat didn’t wake her.

[Consumed Elder guard Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 100%]

“What do you mean energy? Their bloodline energy?” Jaren asked as Mala thought about something without saying much, and all were unsure of what the dragon was doing.

Though, they recognised the sounds in this spell. It was the same he used after eating Raccelline’s hair.

The spell completed just seconds after he exploded with a burst of heat. His Ice Coat melted in seconds, and he growled a bit from the influx of pain, but quietened down after cycling his mana fervently with the spell finally taking effect. The burst of heat dimmed, and now the painful heat reduced to a negligible point with the suppression of his mana helping. But at the same time, he felt every inch of his ice cream body lock up again.

Mala did cast some freezing spells on him again, but all of them had very little effect as he knew that this assimilation wasn’t lethal. Although, he’d never argue against staying slightly more comfortable.

The assimilation process lasted a lengthy ten minutes, but by the end, he simply had to dispel his makeshift solution and slowly regained flexibility throughout his body. At the same time seeing exactly what he wished for.

[Assimilated Elder guard Kandir giant bloodline! 6 new bloodline directions potentially available]

“Yes, bloodline energy. But I can only absorb it alongside the bloodline, not after absorbing the latter entirely.” It took them a few seconds to realise just how casually he took the deadly process, and then, that he responded to Jaren’s question from quite a while back. But all of them could understand what made this ability so frightening in next to no time.

Darak had a slightly more positive outlook on this information, and said, “But that makes whatever evolution granted you this something amazing, if you shared it with your race you’d be–”

“It’s not from an evolution, it’s due to my innately unstable bloodline.” And so, he explained the specifics of the situation rather clearly. Mala did ask for a body sample, something he anticipated for a while now, but no one else really knew how to take the massive load of information. From what was already an impressive dragon who possessed the divinity of a dead race, they couldn’t possibly imagine that he had secrets capable of topping such an identity.

But a one-of-a-kind identity that received missions from the Nexus?

If one compared to the two statuses, it made demigods look like nothing special. And there was one fact that all of them had to accept in the end, a rather impressive one at that…

There was a very real chance that Icy actually grew beyond being a supreme tier dragon one day.

But such a time was so far in the future they’d probably be dead long before it occurred, rather sadly. However, now that he’d told them the bulk of his secret, there wasn’t much point in hiding the rest. And the conversation continued for quite a few hours, before he covered himself in a chilly Winter Aura to fall asleep beside Raccelline.

As usual.