Floating around in the emptiness a second time, Ithil looked helplessly at the scene in front of him. He could see everything around his unconscious body. Lerth, Hikor, and Hidah were frozen staring at the unconscious dragon in front of them. After a short while, they finally unfroze and started talking to each other about what had just happened. Ithil could only hope that they didn't do any harm to him. Even worse would be if they alerted others.

Luckily, they started guarding him. Hikor even got close and tried to wake him, but of course, that didn't work.

'How will this go? I could be asleep for years, they can't guard me for that long...'

Ithil continued watching them. He couldn't tell how much time had gone by, but eventually, something good happened. The three figures suddenly looked up, their faces visibly paling. They looked at each other for a moment, then at Ithil's body, before finally running away.

Only a few seconds later, a huge copper dragon landed by his side.

'Father!'

Ithil's father said something to the three frozen figures a small distance away. They nodded and started continuing in the direction they were originally going. Ithil's father then looked at Ithil's body before muttering something to himself. Ithil couldn't hear it, but he could vaguely guess what his father had said. Rothek then picked up Ithil's body with his claws and started flying somewhere. Ithil couldn't see were because of his limited vision, but he was eventually put down in a large cave he didn't recognize.

His father disappeared just as Ithil tried to do the same thing as last time. He pushed his overflowing strength into the body in front of him. As he did so time sped up for him, and years started passing by outside. He could feel his soul grow. But something was weird, he grew way too fast. Both his body and his vision started expanding at an abnormal rate.

'I doubt this is how it's supposed to work...'

He could feel his body changing. Both the outside and the inside. It was very uncomfortable, to have your organs change shape as you were conscious. But Ithil continued. He felt forced to as if something inside him kept telling him to push harder. After an unknown amount of time, Ithil's world started glowing intensely. So much so that it somehow started hurting. Things started blurring. To Ithil, it felt like hitting a wall.

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But he continued, and after what felt like forever, he broke through. Everything flashed for a moment before Ithil was sucked away.

He opened his eyes and looked around. He was laying on a cold stone floor. He stood up, only to hit the ceiling. Small debris fell on him, covering his body with dust. He shook his head to get it away before looking back at his own body.

'...

What the-'

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Black. His body was almost completely black. Some sports were very dark copper. And he was massive, almost 80 meters, making slightly longer than his parents. He barely fit in the cave, but he couldn't raise his head. He looked around, but he was the only one there. Turning back to himself, he felt something different.

It was his morphing ability, it had changed. It had split into multiple separate functions. When he tried to morph, he could only go halfway. It was as if he only used one function when he could use all of them. He practiced for a couple of hours, and eventually, it worked. But he didn't morph into a humanoid, instead, he became a human-sized version of himself.

'I can shrink now? That... certainly seems useful...

But I still need to be able to morph into a humanoid...'

He continued experimenting, this time with multiple functions at once. Most combinations didn't work, and Ithil began to lose hope. But eventually, he found something, he could combine the shrinking with another function that seemed to change his appearance. It felt sort of built-in as if his body did it automatically once he began the process, just like before. He once again became the size of a humanoid, but this time he also changed appearance to one.

His humanoid had changed slightly. He no longer had as many dragon features. He could even disguise himself as a human when wearing a lot of clothing. Speaking of clothing, he wasn't wearing any.

'Hmm... Maybe there's a function for that?'

He fiddled around, eventually finding something that allowed him to make clothes from seemingly under his skin. He was quite limited in style, pretty much being forced into the ragged clothes he wore before. He didn't manage to make anything else.

'Perhaps I get better at it as I grow older...

Now that I think about growing, shouldn't I be nearing my death at this size?'

It was generally thought that dragons didn't make it past 100 meters. So being 80 meters at such a young age worried Ithil. But there was nothing he could do about it, not that he could think of, so he pushed the thoughts away.

Walking out of the cave, he took a deep breath and scanned his surroundings. He was on a remote part of the Distant Peaks, in a well-hidden cave. Ithil hadn't spotted it before while flying around the area.

He flapped his now enormous wings and headed for his parents. On the way, he came up with an idea.

'Being this big can't be easy... Maybe I could constantly stay at a lower size? It would help me not draw attention to myself.'

He shrank to the size of 30 meters.

'This still isn't comfortable... It feels too cramped... I hope I get used to it.'

He continued flying, though a bit unsteady.

'Seems I keep my power at full size even though I shrunk a lot... I'll need even more training with limiting my strength.'

Slowly adjusting to his lower weight, he continued toward his destination.