He made… two mistakes?

No, probably more like three or four. And he beat himself up for them at length. He got too cocky, simple as that.

Firstly, and most obviously, it was stupid to think that supreme tier dragons couldn’t easily keep an eye on him no matter where an array teleported him. Even if someone secretly modified the array to send them into an inexplicably deadly realm, the arrays themselves had limits on distance.

Limits which supreme tiers easily matched.

Secondly, he actually thought that someone got away with modifying an array so delicately crafted. Of course, the possibility existed that a function for interplanar teleportation was built into the array itself, but then it linked back to the first incorrect assumption. Simply put, his logic completely failed because he chose to believe all the elders weren’t worth trusting.

And then his biggest mistake.

Revealing his absorption ability as he drank a concentrated essence of Adret’s bloodline. Thankfully, he finally regained some common sense.

He possessed a bloodline which absorbed power from others, that lie always worked for him and now he hoped it also fooled those elders, or anyone who watched this stitched realm right now. Additionally, since he used Soul Links to talk to Mala, and she likely used the same for everyone else, he quickly reminded her, “This might be set-up by the clan. Please don’t mention anything personal.”

His worry earned a good laugh from a few members, they only ever talked about those things in absolute privacy these days. Thankfully both Icy and Raccelline gained cover stories years ago.

“I was wondering about that. If this teleportation was so random, then it makes no sense we’re all so spaced out. Or maybe the distances are just messed up,” Mala’s reply lined up even more with his mistakes, he’d been so foolish.

Thankfully, he effectively only revealed himself drinking a concentrated form of blood.

This time Icy spoke to himself in Draconic, “Just get to that tree. I’ll eat the fruit later.”

With a quick merger, he beat his wings infused with aura and launched off the ground at near supersonic speeds, a second flap redirected him towards the direction desired as a sonic boom emanated from behind him. It took seconds for him to reach his destination, far faster than his rapid gallop across plains, but also with some side effects.

He realised that without a release of mana to quell air behind him, shockwaves rapidly built up and released as horrific explosions all around him.

As far as wings went, he didn’t exactly understand why they formed the way they did. A banana-flavoured shiny layer which acted as the leathery material, it flexed slightly when poked, but actually felt sticky whenever something touched it. Not himself though, whether scale or ice cream, his body never stuck onto it. Still, the stickiness made pollen and dust a nightmare, and he often used mana to push away all that particulate matter on a daily basis.

But back to reality, where he stood amongst dreams. This dream world actually appeared near-death as no psychic or dream energies entered it, a dangerous fact as it results in aggressive and irritable natives. Like the ones who voluntarily attacked him as soon as they noticed something.

But this tree, and the oasis around it, simply couldn’t fit in such an empty desert of dreams. The pale blue waters which reflected non-existent sunlight across its serene surface. A turquoise and cyan depth filled with greenery and small fishes. Plankton, krill, clams, and even a few small octopuses occupied the very bottom.

Meanwhile, all around its edges, he saw tufts of green growing from the dead, black sand.

And in the middle of this oasis, a tree grew from the waters. Its roots reached up from the base of the lake, much like a lotus, but the tree itself grew close to twenty metres high with a thickness equal to his shrunken form, about two metres. In fact, its size oddly reminded him of that winter’s hope tree he used to see so often as a hatchling…

Like a wistful cherry blossom, its branches dotted in small buds of pink, with some of purple hidden towards the top, and would soon bloom for mere days towards the end of spring. If given just a few more weeks, he might be able to see the beauty of this tree.

Dreamy willows, such an excellent range of arbour with an impressive blossom like fruit trees.

And this one specifically was a dreamstealer willow. It drained the inherent psychic powers of ordinary folk, as well as the minutiae of power created by dreams, nightmares, and everything one’s active mind created in times of quiet.

And on its branches hung dozens of small fruits either pink, purple, blue, or black in colour.

Most appeared half-ripened, the green faded and colours set in, but until a faint glow appeared and the surfaces transformed from their current dark, matte flesh to a vibrant, glossy coat, he couldn’t consume them. A few early ripers revealed themselves though, and with his spirit the dragon walked onto water and gently approached the tree.

Mana already moved towards the small hole which connected his body and mental space, prepared to pull out his palace at any moment.

But no response came. From what he expected, a raging tree which lashed out at an invader and thief, instead came a burst of soothing psychic force that covered his entirety. This force remained static, and even as they came within arm’s reach of the tree, it hardly reacted. He concentrated his thoughts, and in turn, condensed a psychic force which reached up and gently plucked a nearby pink fruit which glowed and glistened.

It fell off as soon as his mind grabbed hold, and Icy repeated it a few more times.

Three pink fruits, three purple, two blue, and two black. He stopped here as a further attempt to pluck caused the branches to shake gently, as though a message for him to not overstep his bounds.

As excessive action possibly drew ire, and he saw no reason to attack this tree for now. More such trees likely existed all over, or at least similar such places, and if they marked him as an enemy, it hindered him and the group. Furthermore, if he really wanted to loot this place, then it seemed best to group up first and use numbers to–

“Oh? You were teleported near here too, Icry?” His body spun to see a silver-scaled dragon approach from the left. Adret, one of the last dragons he wished to see.

“Of course they did…” Icy whispered to himself, quiet and muffled enough that she couldn’t hear and just sighed at her approach. He properly replied to her as well, “Yes, not that far off. I came to pluck some of these dreamstealer’s fruits. It seems to limit how many you can take.” All but one pink fruit disappeared into his dimensional storage, and the single fruit entered his mouth.

It tasted… watery. He wished that was a joke. The fruit contained no sweet, sour, nor bitter flavours. Just a refreshing watery taste that left one disappointed.

But it came with great benefits.

[Consumed Dream fruit (pure)! Received 45% EXP

Consumed Dreamstealer tree bloodline! Assimilation progress 4%]

The entire chewed fruit digested over the course of about 10 seconds, which, for his current body, likely indicated a Legendary rank bloodline. Perhaps even something slightly better, but he questioned that thought at the sight of so much progress from a single fruit.

Also, a very interesting, unique aspect of the Nexus showed itself. And he also received almost half a level in a single fruit, which meant he could easily level up another few times with the ones left on him.

She approached the tree in precisely the same manner, but spoke out something interesting about the situation, “I once read that the clan has a special way to nurture these trees, supposedly this plant can evolve and gain intelligence with certain conditions. But the tests are extremely tough to complete.” He never saw anything related to this in his memories, although with so many books left, he openly admitted that the niche evolution requirements of a rare tree never really entered his line of research.

Besides, the possibility remained that this information resided in the dragonlands itself and not inherited memories. It’s too hard to fit every bit of detail and knowledge inside the library.

“What does it evolve into then?” He naturally asked out of curiosity.

“Three things: Dream devourer. Dreamworld manifestation. And the rather wordy, Endless groves of dreams. I imagine the clan wishes for a manifestation tree, or perhaps they wish to create a new pathway.” She finished her selection as the tree shook its branches once more. She, too, obtained 10 fruits. But on the gigantic near-blooming willow, hundreds of early ripened fruits remained, let alone the thousands upon thousands of unripe ones.

“Certainly interesting to know. I suppose you wouldn’t know what this stitched plane’s purpose is?” He spoke to her normally, as one would a colleague, the hatred and vilification gone from his tone.

Not because he faked those emotions, but because the Adret in front of him was the only sort he tolerated. The dragon who behaved reasonably with knowledge and didn’t chase after him or pout at the behest of those stronger members of the clan.

“You didn’t know? This place has a few uses. It’s an artificial dream realm formed of a pure dream realm for its core, then subsidiary realms stitched in. Terror, Nightmare, and Reality, as is pretty clear. Some use it for experiments, the clan also uses it to grow materials for speeding up Mind palace building, but most importantly, it holds the trial site for the third world’s dragonstone.” The information offloaded by Adret left him in a momentary state of realisation, and reiterated just how little he knew about the dragonlands.

He never even realised that the dragonstone required a trial’s completion!

That other stuff all made sense, at least, but his lack of knowledge here really stood out. But nothing much could be said or done. Most information on the dragonlands required a dragon to actually go there, so it stood within reason that he knew next to nothing about the dragonstone besides its effect.

“Before we go… I’m taking some of your sap. No, you don’t get to refuse,” He snorted as the whole tree shook rapidly. The long willow branches swayed messily as if a storm ran past.

In the end, the tree could only give up, and Icy didn’t feel particularly threatened by its mithril tier mana. A small dagger coated in aura easily slipped into its trunk, and a clear sap with tinges of gold flowed out. His dart soul armament quickly hit that slit in the wood and proceeded to extract and condense sap.

While he noticed that the tree’s mana flow slowed a bit, by the time the dart’s crystal chamber filled up, the damage barely seemed noticeable. He took out a balm used to close wounds and spread it over the tree’s leak.

Just like that, it stopped ‘bleeding’ and gave up as Icy left.

That little bit of sap and life essence took days to recover at most, so it couldn’t stand on any ground to fight back. Not to mention as a tree brought up by the dragonlands, it followed strict rules with its immature intelligence.

Ten fruits per dragon, but it could attack and kill if they still tried to take more. But no rules about the creatures in the pond or its sap, unless the being wished to kill it through some means. While it detested the sensation of slowed mana, the tree did not possess the right to fight back.

And so, Icy left with his small but concentrated dose of sap. Unlike the mostly transparent fluid from the tree, his clearly shone with a golden lustre and possessed a faint pink tinge. Consumed in one gulp, he didn’t particularly care for the life essence and extracted it with mana for future use.

[Consumed Dreamstealer tree bloodline! Assimilation progress 35%

Consumed Dreamstealer sap! Received 98% EXP]

Useful, absolutely, but not enough, in a funny twist. He shouted back to the tree as the two set off, “I’ll come back soon for one more dose.” The willow frantically swayed, and ruffled its drooping and extended branches, but he ignored such a thing.

With 40% progress from ten fruits. He either needed another eight or just one more dart-full of compressed sap.

The fruits themselves were useful to those with some dream-related bloodline, but outside of that not too great. His World Veiler evolution unfortunately counted as a spatial bloodline, unrelated to dreams, although a possibility that he reacted to the purple fruits remained, albeit with low probability.

[Bloodline energy has reached an evolutionary threshold. Prepare for evolutionary measures to begin]

That put a small dent in things.

Not too large a matter though, he created a small platform of sandstone once more and engraved an array on its surface. Now filled with magically conductive alloy, he placed down the mana gathering device obtained from the dragon pillar years ago to activate it.

When Adret finally asked why he created an array all of a sudden, he gave an answer, “My evolution is starting soon and maintaining a barrier around myself is a pain. I’ll be inside for about 5 minutes.”

Not for a moment had he considered including her in the process. Firstly, he just couldn’t trust her given where her allegiances laid, and secondly, he didn’t trust her at all.

A bit petty… Well, yes, at this point, more than just a bit.

But he never gave that thought its peace of mind, as the evolution began and he focused on all the options in front of him. All the filtered options of course, even if he paid very little attention to assimilations this time round. Only Adret and the Behemoth chimaera’s bloodlines stood out.

The fact he waited 7 months to complete this assimilation was insane, who knew how many more months he saved from this tree’s bloodline energy and whatever he got from her slowly gathered condensed blood.

[Evolution imminent. Your possible bloodline pathways are the following:

Magical Concocting Ice-cream

Auric Sweet Gem Ice-cream

Origin God-force…

Trifecta Emperor…

Mindwielder…

Fateslayer…

Soul Researcher…

Unknown progression to Auric Insanity bloodline

Draconic All-sight…

Elemental Stormbringer…

Self-cloning…

Recursive…

Ultimate Absorption…

Life nor Death…

Undying Body…

Moonlight Crown…

Lunar Solstice…

Scales of Purity…

Broken Moon…

Please make a selection in 5 minutes, or a random pathway will be used]

The list of options still grew to this length, mostly dominated by evolutions that advanced his current bloodlines. In fact, from this sight, he noticed a couple ‘final’ bloodlines for certain pathways.

One option in particular drew concern though, and he asked, “Were there some problems with that… option?”

[We told you that the chaotic nature of unstable Origin Force couldn’t be tracked by us. It’s one thing to simulate its merger with another bloodline, but a direct evolution is impossible. If you wish to know, of all the simulations for that option, the highest set of identical results we received was five]

That was a long message; he got the feeling the Nexus didn’t particularly like that bloodline. And just to see what happened, he followed up with, “I take it that means you can’t give a description?”

[ … ]

He frowned in disappointment. Icy truly thought that response might have been what made the Nexus swear for once, but it seemed he didn’t push hard enough. Very disappointing.

Now for real work.