Perhaps one thing the Nexus, and he himself, failed to explain was exactly how concepts ‘infect’ and ‘mutate’. The two of them understood it well enough, but the same could not be said for Korridan and Darak who raised complete blanks at the facts. On the other hand, Mala just nodded along excitedly with wide eyes, finding the facts understandable yet a complete shock to her system. The fact it made perfect sense to her allowed the others to accept it, but Akevorax at least wanted them to be on the same page.

While Mala left for her own experiments once more, he sat in the cave’s large common room with the two adult men. Both of whom sat on cushioned seats as they listened to him.

“So, from my understanding, concepts are exactly as they sound. They’re vague and conceptual, based on thoughts and comprehension similar to how we try and distinguish higher concepts. As for how they can ‘infect’ other existences, an example might be best. I’ll use a common one, soup. Is porridge a type of soup?” He spoke without any arrogance or speed, just carefully picking words such that everything made sense without any background in the subject.

“If it is porridge, and we’re being intentionally vague, then of course. It can count as a soup. But then any thickened, edible liquid should count as a soup… Is that wrong?” Darak saw the logic immediately, but held his own doubts on the thought process.

Korridan sat and listened as he often did when listening to Mala, rarely throwing blind guesses into a lecture. In time, everything received an answer anyway.

Akevorax continued, nodding along with Darak’s reply, “You get it precisely then. However, I want you to now consider taking a bowl of prepared oats and adding one drop of milk or water to it. Is that porridge? And by extension, Is that soup? What about a spoon of milk? Or 5 spoonfuls? is there a clear demarcation?”

“Of course not. And even if you have your own classification, someone may decide your ‘bare minimum’ isn’t enough to count as porridge to them,” the older man replied matter-of-factly. This wasn’t exactly an argument he never faced before, having thought of it long ago in the past, but nothing more than that.

It was a fun little consideration of how others might justify or consider reality through their own eyes; a matter of empathy.

“And that’s where concepts differ. If you applied even the smallest concept of ‘soup’ to that bowl of dry oats, it would in time become a bowl of soup. Most likely porridge, but just also any other ‘thickened, edible liquid’ as you said yourself,” the final words sent the two into a spiral of thought as they realised both the insanity and danger such a simple thing could result in. But all those thoughts eventually conjoined onto Akevorax, where they now obtained a new appreciation for how strange his existence was.

Korridan, now in a similar place, instead focused on a slightly different problem. Asking, “So if you wished to un-transform yourself, you would first have to remove that concept?”

“Yes, if I wanted a permanent and full change, but that’s far easier said than done. I’ll consider it if I reach the Exeter level,” he gave an emotionless decision to push all the responsibilities on a far-flung future self who understood things better. Or he hoped that older, wiser dragon understood their own ideals…

Sometimes it felt like he just jumped back and forth between overly moralistic and a heartless power-seeker.

“I’ll be spending a couple days in the Trapolca ocean currents for hunting, I don’t suppose anyone wanted to tag along?” He asked out of kindness, but from previous expeditions he knew that none of these humans wanted to fight underwater.

In fairness, he disliked it too, but he struggled to find adequate master tier opponents in sub-realms. Raccelline also just spent far too much time unconscious these days… Still in bed at least 23 hours a day. A rather strange number some might point out, but that’s because her shortest unconscious times were 11 hour sessions.

At which point she partially activated her bloodline once more and collapsed immediately once more.

He wished that was a joke.

Leaving a small handwritten (psychically written?) note for her, Akevorax warped out of the cave and flew due east for just over an hour. The dragon who shot across the skies barely left a shadow over any land he passed, and even to the sea creatures below, he appeared as nothing more than a flying mark in the sky for the briefest glimpse. In that single hour, his greatly heightened speed travelled roughly half the distance to the Dragonlands.

And now in the southern tropics where the waters often kept to a serene turquoise and waves hardly travelled beyond his feet, the winged beast which dominated land and sky dove into the waters. Travelling deep to the crags at the surface where the ocean lost its serene greenish blue tint in exchange for the dark blue of unknown depths.

Akevorax speedily disappeared into the darkness, but to those at his level, the light played no effect on their sight. It was one of many possibilities.

Name

Akevorax (Icy)

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus IV

Magic Primary III

Elemental Crystal Body

Maestro’s Touch

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Conjunctured Ice-cream

HP

100%

MP

100%

Level

94

EXP

65%

Unallocated Stat Points: 0

Strength

0

Luck

13

Agility

50

Growth

20

Magic

169

Mutation Rate

30

The occasional kill of master tiers very quickly pushed him to the very limit of this level bracket, now only the strongest of them sat between him and level 100. A major demarcation by the Nexus as it separated the ‘normal’ creatures and those who connected with great languages on a deeper level.

The fact a beast with an Elemental Body reached level 96 showed off just how small the direct empowerment from the transformed body types were. It would be like replacing the blade on a low-rank magical tool with one made from a far higher tier metal, say a mithril tier material in this case.

Sure, it’d be a bit sharper due to the raw magical power alone, but without proper tempering and magical refinements, it was no better than that weaker blade. If you just wanted sharpness, there exist low tier metals which hold incredibly thin edges without any threat of warp or damage against equal opponents. Which meant that higher level metal effectively only mattered for the durability it offered!

In the case of his Body, the elements and great runes took the place of any random higher tier material. Meanwhile, the evolutions represented refinements.

Now this all raised a question of why he came to a tropical sea to hunt for master tiers. There existed many trenches and abysses throughout the ocean laden with wildlife rife for hunting, but those areas also contained a scarily large number of higher tier beasts who watched over their territories with scrying eyes. These tropical oceans were lawless and uncontrolled in comparison, too tame for anything competitive to reside at length.

It took no more than ten minutes for him to locate the first of many prey.

Resting against the sandy floor of a large underwater pit, this camouflaged mantis shrimp buried itself within the sand and waited for food to arrive at nearby sites of vegetation. Namely bioluminescent seaweeds and outright magically glowing krill nearby. A smaller type of its species might gladly eat this substance itself, but at almost a metre long with claws of thick chitin, the supersonic blows it struck out could kill any mithril tier instantly.

Meanwhile, its camouflaged body hid both its presence and body heat excellently, completely blended in with the surrounding sand. The light of nearby food lit up this small underwater space as well, but buried underneath the fine particulates, with scales transformed to match the surroundings in texture and colour, it was no wonder most normal creatures completely missed its presence.

In fact, his momentary observations showed that some sort of stealth-related innate ability covered up the spatial presence it created. A real rarity for creatures without a clear spatial attribute.

As he slipped into this underwater space from large cracks up above, the mantis below remained completely immobile. It sensitively recognised this foe of equal or greater strength and held no qualms with him, in fact, even if the strangely-scaled dragon was weaker, it inherently avoided confrontation with other master tiers.

Unfortunately, to Akevorax this action already defined its fate. His thoughts summarised the decision simply, ‘Wrong Choice’.

An orb appeared, its dark green surface barely visible in the underground luminescence. Not even the trail of light which usually followed its straight path could be seen, but at that point it was already too late. The large mantis shrimp sensed the tangible threat to its life hurrying towards it, and punched against the settled sand to launch itself away. Here he actually frowned. An attack which previously perforated Elemental Bodies now only bore a hole through the mantis’ chitin-like carapace…

Had he underestimated the actual defensive power of Crystal Bodies by targeting creatures with limited durable internals?

Indeed, fish weren’t the best measure of toughness, he admitted that mistake as the shelled mantis shrimp threw itself towards him. Both hind legs snapped in the water, kicking to accelerate itself in his direction at speeds his eyes failed to keep up with. For now, his other senses did the heavy lifting.

It didn’t actually attack as it zipped towards him though, instead punching the water to suddenly change its direction and ably ricocheting all around him without needing a moment to stop.

Every few jumps, it made sure to approach his body and rocketed a shelled fist into his giant body. Every strike either blew off a limb or drilled a hole into his body with ease. Yet every wound healed just as fast as the mantis shrimp reached a safe distance away from his body, the mana cost of the repairs quickly tallied up though.

“Well, that was fun. And you taught me a good lesson too,” he nodded ambivalently as though a fist didn’t just penetrate right through his belly. Control over his Body made pain a switchable feature by all means, and aside from a dull ache to remind him where the damage came from, he rarely ever felt dreadful pain these days.

The shrimp’s time finally came as the spiritual head and neck wrapped around his own once more and crushed the beast’s soul. It sat idly in the waters, dazed beyond recognition.

And it could do nothing in time for a dozen attacks to destroy its crystal heart. Acceleration wasn’t even required for this foe, and as expected its objective power level came below that Elder-blooded catfish.

[Killed Level 94 Sneaky lightburst mantis shrimp! Received 23% EXP]

His wounds healed before the shrimp even died, and he left the corpse for others to eat. But not leaving the underground space. Akevorax focused his sight on the openings to tunnels and similar ‘rooms’ separated only by thin rock walls.

And for a brief moment, his eyes gained their wispy whiteness to peer through these barriers and see what laid not too far away.

“Three… Six… Seven… Oh, that shot up. Twelve master tiers, three Elemental Bodies. Just as bad as rumours say." His words formed bubbles in the water as he openly mocked the appearance of so many beasts all roused by the dead corpse not too far away. A veil of space covered him immediately and mana burned away as he hid himself from all those beasts, now completely unseen by the simple-minded lot not too far away.

While Tropical oceans were gentle and quiet, the waves negligible out in the far waters, the tales beneath the surface told very different stories. And the Trapolca region specifically garnered a reputation for its lawlessness as nothing cared to bring control or order. Countless beasts rose and fell every day.

Waters like these could be summarised easily.

The best hunting grounds for the strong.