For now, the group quietly watched how things progressed in the city. By now, most people could tell that the ‘official’ was building a rapport with civilians to seem like a kind person, or perhaps he truly was just a good elf and wanted to bolster the identity of the empire. Either way, it had a common effect of increasing the sway he held in the city, as it could result in some positive effects from the empire down the line.
While those in command might be apprehensive about anything from that monstrous elven power, for civilians. their nationalism came before benefits. Besides, bowing down to the empire and accepting beneficial trade or assistance are two wildly different matters.
As such, every day, it was common to see the demon-elf ambassador wander around and purchase local specialties with a small entourage at times.
And then… There was one day that she walked around with him too.
“What’s the matter? Is she a demon-elf as well?” Jaren naturally picked up on Icy’s sight first, as an archer, his eyes were ridiculously empowered with every evolution. How else could he aim for something a kilometre away?
“She’s not… But I… Why though? What does she gain from it?”
“It would help if we could ask those questions alongside you. I’m sure there’s some benefit for her no matter what she is.”
Icy turned around and found that the others also heard the matter he discussed with Jaren, to which he pulled away from the window and answered. “She’s a dragon. A shapeshifted dragon, but strange for some reason.” His last sentence was cut off by Jaren’s far louder voice.
“A… Wait, a dragon? Why the hell is a dragon working with a demon?” Of all those surprised… Actually, all of them were surprised. To pick out any individual was impossible, although it was Jaren and Korridan who were the loudest here.
The rest remained speechless from it.
Furthermore, this was a gold tier dragon, a level which took anywhere from three to five years to achieve. Icy couldn’t see any wings hidden through her shapeshifting though, so she likely hadn’t begun her third growth phase. It was common for dragons at their stages to have gold tier power, but she definitely exceeded Icy’s by a fair bit.
Of course, the Nexus bonus closed that gap… On that note, he realised where exactly he needed to place his points most for what came up. Over the past three months he’d given it a fair bit of thought, and like Mala pointed out back on the island, just having stronger magic is all a spellcaster truly needs.
But for the sake of his Auric spirit remaining competitive in terms of speed, he already threw some more points into agility, just 10 to be precise. Then 25 were dropped without hesitation to increase his magic stat, an amount which made all his Intermediate true spells significantly stronger than any other gold tier. In reality, the seemingly tiny boost offered by Nexus Aid Bonus was the second most powerful thing he possessed.
The ability to assimilate obviously came from a step above.
Name
Icryladrom (Icy)
Title
Nexus Aid Bonus III
Magic Primary I
Lord Slayer
Species
Dragon
Bloodline
All-sight Ice-cream
HP
100%
MP
100%
Level
41
EXP
68%
Unallocated Stat Points: 8
Strength
0
Luck
0
Agility
20
Growth
15
Magic
75
Mutation Rate
5
More points in Mutation Rate would also greatly benefit him as the various powers within him would intermingle more and produce crazier combinations, giving some stuff worth taking when his assimilated bloodlines weren’t of any interest.
The tiny amount of experience points gathered came down to the fact that he left most kills to the group as their levels lagged behind a bit, mostly at levels 35-38. Killing a couple hundred lower-level beasts slowly gave enough experience to also reach level 40 though. This gave everyone their third title slot, for which they copied him and kept Lord Slayer equipped, an important fact as unintelligent beasts filled the surroundings of the dragon pillar, some of them were lords as well as a single king existing.
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However, the pillar immediately kicked out any beasts which grew intelligence, usually due to an evolution.
“I wonder what she is exactly. Is it an evolution… Or is it something he did?” It was a question he felt obligated to ask as she could actually shapeshift as a youngling dragon.
Very few gold tier beasts can fully control their form to this degree, and it was just as ridiculous that his eyes could somehow ‘revert’ this transformation to show off her true body.
Just what the hell were Elders in the first place?
Besides that, the fact that her horns were already partially grown stood out. Normally, those were tiny stubs on a youngling until their wings began to grow, at which point they remained stubs, but the beginning of horns could be seen. Yet, this female dragon already had some horns poking out from the top of her head, even whilst shapeshifted. And then there was the point of contention… Her heart.
To have such a beating, red heart, it was natural for Mala and him to conclude she’d taken the path of a blood dragon. It even lined up with her reasoning for joining a demon, as she could easily loot the dragon pillars whilst justifying finding a powerful backer to harvest blood from.
Not to mention, strong blood is highly attractive to that kind of dragon.
Many dragons are hunted purely to acquire their blood and hearts, although ‘many’ can be considered an exaggeration in some circles. However, there did exist some dragons who were hunted due to their nature. One which aggressively savoured the blood of many fell into that category. Not that they can help their nature.
If necessary, they would kill her.
With Raccelline and a group of Gold ranks, it was possible to kill a real dragon of this power. It would be far tougher than the injured and mana-dry wyvern they killed so long ago.
The day of the pillar arrived, as Icy, Jaren, and Rebecca immediately realised that the two moved towards the forest after two weeks of staying in Fragheim. Their tools had to be rather mediocre to take so long, but it gave sufficient time for preparation as well. Rebecca even somehow obtained some of the demon’s hair for Icy to analyse.
[Consumed Battlescourge demonized elf bloodline! Assimilation progress 0%]
Was that the official term for it, or simply how the Nexus categorised this sort of being?
[‘Demon’-ization is a known process, we simply adjusted the name to fit the culture of your lands]
Well… That was fair. It would be like calling Dragonkin, ‘draconized humans’ or whatever race that lineage of Dragonkin came from. Nothing too strange, overall.
[Nexus Mission has been generated in response to plausibly interesting development: No bonus Authority allocated]
The new prompt took him out of his thought process immediately, and he immediately jumped into the topic now that a mission finally came to him. It may only be a single one, but something was better than nothing after 3 months of nothing.
[Assimilate the strange dragon and demonized elf’s bloodlines. This mission will expire if the two beings are no longer accessible to you. It will count as progress to advancing the Nexus Aid Bonus title]
The new mission format was interesting, to say the least.
A temporary mission which could actually be failed, these actually came up in the past from the few notes he found on Authority and missions. The only reason a demonized bloodline held so much interest was likely due to demons also being so rare. No doubt the Nexus loved the idea of him trying to acquire the demons’ racial talent.
That wicked ability to grow by eating blood and souls, could a better talent for invasion possibly exist?
If the Eternals somehow acquired it, then they’d have both started and won a war against the world long ago. Although the same was true for almost every dominating species across the remaining seven worlds.
“Let’s head off then, we won’t wait when following. The pillar does not allow for localised teleportation. It attempts to place everyone away from one another, especially if one is stronger.” He explained this mechanism quite a while ago, but reiterated it anyway. It was designed to stop a single, powerful individual from dealing with every problem within the subspace.
With Icy’s eyesight, he could easily follow the group through the forest at such a distance that a Mithril rank failed to see them. That demon elf’s eyesight might compare to Jaren, but what did that matter if a few dozen trees, each thicker than your waist, blocked sight of anything more than 100 metres away?
Sight enhancing skills and spells only penetrated so deeply, and a warrior demon should not possess great spellcasting aptitude. No Intermediate true spells could easily detect them at their distance too.
And then, they came to the spot where that dragon spoke a long phrase and the rift in space opened. Once everyone on their side walked through, Icy walked up and spoke the same phrase.
It required no mana, and simply used around 1000 ordinary Draconic words used for talking. Once uttered, a seam appeared in the air, and they saw the space around it swirl, twisting the line into a spiral before exuding the lines further out as cracks in space itself. Finally shattering to reveal a black space behind those cracks and swirling patterns…
Well, no point in waiting now.
* * *
The instant each of them touched the spinning vortex, their figures froze in mid-air, and everyone saw each other slowly fade one by one. However, to those who touched it, they were instantly transported through dimensions, the surroundings moved too fast to distinguish what the channel itself looked like, and they could only scramble to stand up as the surroundings changed from the grey sand forest into a field of lush greenery.
In fact, this was how Arisil appeared before the del trees took root. A beautiful forest of green, red, yellows, and blues. It was a shame that such a place had been wiped from the world.
Icy looked around and found that besides some beasts, a sizable amount of magical plants grew freely. Most of them were simply vast mana supplies from what he studied, but the odds favoured the idea of some containing Advanced rank bloodlines. Nothing amazing by his standards, but he definitely needed the bloodline energy when all of this was over.
Whilst gathering a verifiable ton of materials, he also realised that plants weren’t the only thing to ‘grow’ here. While it was said these subspaces generated materials, he honestly only thought of the plants and beasts in that…
But underground, pieces of elemental stones and magical ores were clearly growing at painfully slow rates. Quite literally growing from nothing.
To give some sense of power as well, Icy was currently near the bottom of gold tier when he fought on his own with spells, but his offensive power rose to a relatively high level amongst the tier with his Auric spirit. Obviously, a ridiculous attack power offered by his magic was the bigger reason for this.
Meanwhile, the plants in this place were designed to restore mana to those from steel tier to mithril tier… And the latter weren’t even that rare. Meanwhile, many of the metals which grew here matched that range too, resulting in several bundles in his immediate vicinity which could be used to produce High-rank magical tools. In other words, easy equipment for gold tiers.
But then the better ores?
To think he could produce something as good as that lone blade which Raccelline occasionally used. A real Treasure tool, he certainly thought it’d be a few years till their group could afford to get any.
Without waiting, he made frequent use of Earth Control to dig out the materials he desired, storing them by the kilo every few minutes. The beasts nearby didn’t even faze him too, most of them being steel tiers, but he had to quickly begin moving inwards. The pillar at the centre was of real importance.
Before long, Icy happened upon one of the Gold ranks belonging to that demon, it was a quick death as his body and soul were accelerated to 10 times their usual speed, and he cast an Intermediate true spell so quickly that the elf only saw a flash of light before dying.
It took him just one second to cast the 98 word spell, Light Blade, having compressed it to 60 words. With the boost of his bloodline doubling its offensive power, he truly believed that only defensive Gold ranks could survive such an attack.
Who asked him to recieve such a stupidly powerful soul armament? And in what world didn’t he abuse its ability?