He cut down the final list to just four bloodlines with relative ease.

True Auric Assimilation, All-sight, Elder Skinned, and Breaker of Cosmic Lifecycle. Technically, he also found Aegis-born Ancient Rules of immense interest, not as a possible choice for evolution… Its description was better explained by just reading it.

[Aegis-born Ancient Rules Ice-cream: The ancient rules will not be forgotten, they transcend time and space. We invoke them; We remember them. The Ancient Aegis will persist, its name and past is carried on like the torchbearers known only to us. The great blood transcends time and draws on non-existent worlds, a power unseen but known. We are grateful to be your aegis. Additional bonuses are delayed until bloodline’s effects are confirmed]

The Nexus only ever used ‘we’ when referring to itself… So he couldn’t help but shiver whilst reading this description. As before, he knew that the Nexus merely saw some effect and based a description off that.

But then, why did it care about these ‘ancient rules’ so much?

He couldn’t spend more time focused on the three descriptions, the one made sense at least, but the other two were seemingly-random poetry without meaning.

[True Auric Assimilation Ice-cream: Aura is colourless by nature, allowing it to very easily take on aspects and elements when possible. This creates conflict. Creating truly pure aura which may combine with all is an effective goal, and through that, the application of aura increases. More importantly, the new Pure auric spirit is no longer limited by elements. As it grows, how much it can sustain will only improve, merging with other spirits and accessories in multitudes. In addition to previous bonuses, grants +100% max MP, +200% max aura, + 100% all elemental defences]

Funnily enough, this bloodline indirectly confirmed that if he couldn’t merge multiple things like the Auric spirit into his body. It only stood out to him as it’d been a major consideration for turning down a bloodline some time in the past.

And then the three ‘reasonable’ descriptions from the world-shaker options. He intentionally ignored the World-shaker Dragon choice as it focused on granting him the power and resonance effect of that elephant.

Cool effects, but not very useful for a dragon.

Even less so for a dragon that evolved three times a year, on average so far.

[All-sight Ice-cream: Eyes of gleaming white; see through the sullen night. No sorcery or lies to stop; hills and mountains lay bare for that atop. The eyes of white care not for imposition, standing out regardless of night or day, and once their target is set, they may see things through to the world’s end. The gleam is no light, but instead an abolition, cutting through all that which intends to obscure. To see through all is a requirement of Elders. Additional bonuses are delayed until bloodline’s effects are confirmed]

[Elder Skinned Ice-cream: The sign of Elders and dark as void; an unfathomable coating never destroyed. The coat of legends grows thick; and with it you must pick. The abyssal skin is one which absorbs all to repair itself, infinite in durability and existence. Not even time may degrade the Elder, that role belongs to your foes. Additional bonuses are delayed until bloodline’s effects are confirmed]

[Breaker of Cosmic Lifecycles Ice-cream: Space and time exist in endless loops; galaxies like eggs in groups. Born, live, grow old, and die; break the cycle, you do not comply. Life Cycles of worldliness are a joke to compare, floating objects in nothingness, space as it is called. To break the cycle is meaningless, it will always reform. And so, even in such futility, the prospect endears many hearts. Why? Because the cycles are cruel. Additional bonuses are delayed until bloodline’s effects are confirmed]

The Nexus actually bothered to have some of the poetry rhyme as well. He wondered how many simulations they could have run in exchange for that.

[Not even close to enough time for a single simulation of all seven options]

Breaker of Cosmic Lifecycles still didn’t make much sense no matter how much he thought though, but it still felt like such a good one to take. More honestly, he drew most towards All-sight overall, as Elder Skinned felt like it implied some sort of issue as being recognised as an Elder. The white eyes could be passed off as a spell, at least.

“Still… Nexus, what are these ‘ancient rules’ you care about so much?”

[Highly classified information. It may be possible to reveal them if the bloodline works as the description implies]

Now he just wanted to know how it got away with sharing him that much in the description alone. There was next to no chance that the effect was accurate though, and even if the name was right, then a possibility that it required him to act in line with some annoying ancient laws existed.

Perhaps because half the options didn’t make perfect sense, he felt like the decision making process wasn’t the toughest thing in the world. However, of the few options he did choose, they made this a pretty troublesome ending overall, albeit not a hard one. Pure aura would undoubtedly return, after all, the Source Seeker evolution was another way for him to interact with the Pure source, and also elemental sources. He didn’t have a death wish trying to seek them out was the thing.

It was way too tempting to the defensive or esoteric option amongst the remaining three choices though, but he knew well enough to not do so. The reason he needed the eyes so badly was actually rather simple too.

“I pick All-sight, that desert is going to kill me without it.” The Nexus didn’t reply to him as the process began.

A usual wealth of trouble followed. The nausea and breathlessness assaulted him, not to mention a headache which forced him to spasm, somehow. But his evolutions rarely had long-lasting problems, and shortly after, he broke out of the egg and stretched slightly.

Without even thinking, he could feel how his eyes changed, it was truly instinctual. More so than innate abilities.

When he looked at his eyes, they were still white and made from vanilla ice cream, no different to before, but simply by focusing, he felt as though a switch flipped, and a shining light filled the room with white. As well as this, the eerie glow in his eyes left a quickly fading trail wherever he moved, this ability seemed like something expected of a ghost.

As for effects, he found the walls and earth around him no longer held back his vision, but it burned through mana at an incredible rate. Around 20% of his MP per second, it was effectively like casting an Intermediate true spell every second!

This was further worsened by the fact that he chose a new bloodline, therefore wiping the bonus MP given by the Nexus for the previous one, but a new set of effects had yet to be generated! His max MP was cut in half!

“Except… these arrays block out vision spells. And I can still see all the way to the surface. Are Elders really this ridiculous? I know they’re called Legendary for a reason, but I don’t think any master tier could match this.” He disabled the eyes with a single thought, finding the use of this far more convenient than any other so far.

Even his mana sense as this form of vision could actually be disabled rather than constantly filling his mind with his surroundings.

He found a couple prompts from the Nexus awaiting him. The first of which talked about the innate ability he just activated, and confirmed pretty much everything he already knew. See through things at a huge mana cost. However, the second one was of far greater importance.

[The term ‘Legendary bloodline’ will be phased out by the Nexus now. These are now only referred to as Elder bloodlines. Please collect more bloodlines so that we may further categorise them]

It reminded him of a thought he had a while ago. Icy asked about it alongside a more topical question, “On that note, does this mean that most beings that reach master tier have Legendary bloodlines? Where does my current bloodline sit purely based on bloodline energy?”

[Yes, though more evolved beings will have bloodlines of an even higher level if predictions follow. Your bloodline is hard to measure fully due to not following the calculations used by all the others, but based on bloodline energy alone, you compare to Extreme rank bloodlines]

That was an interesting thing to note. Not extremely useful, but still very interesting. He wondered if taking assimilated evolution as opposed to developing existing ones resulted in a lower or higher rank than usual as well.

At this rate, it seemed like he would exceed whatever bloodline supreme tiers had with ease! Not that it mattered much since his talent didn’t seem linked to his bloodline rank either, this was something he and the Nexus both realised quite early on.

Each rank roughly corresponded to a relevant level for that being, and in general, the limit of each bloodline was one power tier above the current rank.

For example, Rare rank bloodlines were seen mostly in adult gold tiers, and they could be anywhere from bottom of the barrel to the very top of that tier. But it was almost impossible for them to become mithril tier, but that’s where Rare+ mattered instead. The bloodline was significantly more powerful, and thus any beast with a ‘+’ bloodline had a fair chance of entering the next tier without another evolution.

Anyway, it was deemed an inevitability by the Nexus that such a convenient display occurred. The universe was mysterious, but it followed some degree of logic.

Firstly, he wanted to test out this bloodline and took Raccelline out to the forest for some hunting. It was hardly a new experience for the two.

* * *

Desert forest doesn’t exactly sound right, no matter how much one reads it. After all, most trees are not equipped to deal with sand and harsh sunlight, but Arisil received such a title as the wildlife here did, in fact, thrive in the dry conditions.

Many years ago, this was just a regular forest, filled with greenery amidst the waves of trees. The chirping and cries of insects and beasts, respectively, revealed a vibrant and lively place for many to live. A desert doesn’t just appear without intervention though, and in this case, it was the introduction of a tree normally used to keep wetlands and swamps dry… But when added to ground with a relatively low and stable supply of water it doesn’t end well.

Icy and Raccelline weaved between the identical trees all around them, every single one the same without a single other species in sight. Their barks were tough like chitin with great leaves like palm fronds covering the tops to form a tight canopy which ate up as much light as possible. These trees had no branches, putting all their energy into growing taller than others to take complete ownership of the skies. And then the roots dug deeper than any other into the ground.

Called del trees, they were like mandrakes in this sand. Their trunks stood above the ground with spear-like roots growing outwards before stabbing down, they created small nesting spots beneath each tree.

However, the trees were hardly an issue here, and neither was the heat unbearable as this place was no natural desert.

What made it dangerous were the things which lived beneath its dull grey sands. Spiders, snakes, lizards, bugs of all sorts, and even some smaller mammals. They made the wassats he despised long ago look like childish threats, many of these predators presented poison capable of killing steel tiers in minutes…

And that meant his poison rose by leaps and bounds by coming here. His gummy tongue’s innate ability now released thorns with a potent and corrosive poison, and gold tiers without any resistances undoubtedly perished. Too bad everything which lived in this forest naturally resisted such creatures or they’d have died long ago.

At this very moment, the two casually walked through the desert. Every so often, Icy’s eyes flickered with a white glow, but that vanished after less than a moment.

Along with this bloodline, he also finally received a confirmation of the Nexus bonuses for this bloodline. They rarely lasted long, but they always played some part. “Though… I feel like the best bonus is just more MP. It’s just way too useful,” he spoke to himself with Raccelline beside him, his muttering made no sense to her. And the statement was really only true for dragons as nothing stopped them from casting higher tier spells except their mana.

[Additional bonuses for All-sight Ice-cream: +120% max MP, -50% mana cost of bodily enhancements, +100% light element damage, +100% dark element defence]

Not a highly offensive bloodline, as expected, but with the reduction of enhancements, he instantly doubled the usable time for his eyes. In fact, it also applied to his scales’ innate ability making it useful in multiple regards. Too bad he didn’t know many light offensive spells, though, a few Intermediate true spells in that domain were rather renowned.

He knew well enough to wait till tonight for learning more magic.

Through the grey sands, he easily picked out anything which presented danger. Many of them also appeared in his mana sight, and so they were never of concern to the two. Instead, what drew his ire most were the small clusters of beetles positioned not too far in front of him towards the right. Of all the hundreds of species in the desert, only two of them actually failed to register in his mana sight, and of the two, it was these bugs which appeared extremely often.

One might wonder how it’s possible to hide from something which detects mana, as it would be like trying to hide the very matter which formed your body. But in fact, the World Veiler bloodline alone achieved this. If not for the fact that he created the veils, he’d effectively be blind inside the little pockets!

And so, just like how Rebecca learnt stealth skills which partially hid the quantity of mana within her body, ironically by consuming mana to do so, these beetles developed special carapaces that forcibly ‘bent’ most sensing techniques around their body.

In Arisil they weren’t the deadliest foes, but they absolutely resulted in the greatest number of deaths.

But now, their little squirming balls beneath the sand were clear as day to him.

This was a great hunting ground.