A few days after Icy woke up, they passed the halfway mark and neared a place of importance. Since that time, no one else evolved, leaving just Rebecca and Darak as the two left over. One could evolve at any time, while the other required more divinity. Fortunately, the cathedral they planned to visit was not far off now.
Icy ended up eating that chimaera as well, the meat surprisingly tasteless dropped all pretence to assimilate it quickly, he just ate some bits every day. Chewy like many muscled beasts, but bland as though he bit into a pile of… snow?
As he tore through another arm-sized slab of flesh, a proper comparison never came to him. The best thing he could call tasteless was air, and that really didn’t count as food. “Do any of you have any foods you’d call completely tasteless?”
Directed to the five adults with far more normal upbringings, he saw a possibility that they experienced it sometimes in the past.
“Tasteless or disgusting? Just to make sure,” Rebecca came out with a question, to which he clarified. It only took a few moments for her to think and answer, “Not personally. I’ve heard you can make really bland black bread though.”
“Certain types of porridge too. For some reason, there’s next-to-no sweetness, and it just tastes like chewy flour and water,” Darak came up with an answer, but due to vagueness, he couldn’t tell if that was due to poor crops or unsavoury conditions.
“I can probably make something, but I didn’t exactly struggle.” Mala, having picked up on some alchemy in that time, definitely knew enough theory to make something this simple, albeit useless. And as a child with above-average magical talent, combined with a fairly wealthy father, food wasn’t an issue in any regard.
But Icy switched back round to Darak as he heard that. It reminded him of some things from three years ago that he completely forgot about, and so asked the bald priest, “I never did ask what happened to you, did I?”
“It always ruins the mood.” A succinct reply, and Icy wondered if they were even thinking of the same topic. “The reason I became a priest was to find my sister. I do hope that you require no further details.”
He pieced it together, the only reason such a gentle person immediately jumped to slaughter… Icy fulfilled his hopes by changing direction a bit, “I understand, my apologies. Then your parents?”
“Older brother and father died against a bronze tier going on a rampage, and a five-year-old girl can hardly help a household… A normal five-year-old.” He gave an addendum along with a glance to Raccelline. Given how Darak spoke of it too, slightly disconnected from both male figures, he couldn’t have been that much older than his younger sister.
Well, no reason it struck him hard.
“At least that doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue here, besides some attitudes.”
“No, it’s there as always. You experienced it personally when we arrived, if you even remember. As more is brought to light and cut off; even more is hidden and controlled. Regardless, it’s hardly a thing two children need to worry about.” With that, what took three years for him to finally ask about, came to a close in merely 3 minutes.
As Icy finished the behemoth meat, he tried to remember what Darak even mentioned near their arrival. Significant scouring of memories faintly reminded him of that day when a random, passing noble tried to buy him from the group, offering considerable resources if he joined…
Did that really count? Well, it wasn’t like they– But. When he thought about it a bit more, that’s exactly what happened.
So, yes. It did count.
That noble effectively wanted to buy him like a slave. There was a big reason beasts who joined human groups were called ‘pets’ in a derogatory fashion, and why many used the term ‘companion’ as a far more legitimate way of mentioning it.
[Consumed Merging behemoth chimaera! Assimilation progress 100%]
The heat ramped up almost immediately, but just diffusing his mana throughout dealt with this. A bit of pain, and partial melting, but hardly a dangerous bloodline which threatened his life. Though, it’d been a couple years since he assimilated anything truly powerful, and he calmly looked through his status.
Without much thought, of the five levels he gained, 10 points went straight into Agility with the last 5 into Magic. The former simply kept his speed high enough when merged with the spirit to actually fight these mithril tiers, not to mention the fact that he needed to hit 50 in it along with another attribute sometime in the future.
More Magic always helped, especially since Magic Primary upgraded once more at 150 points.
Name
Icryladrom (Icy)
Title
Nexus Aid Bonus II
Magic Primary II
Spellcaster 3
Maestro’s Touch
Species
Dragon
Bloodline
Dragoncored Ice-cream
HP
100%
MP
100%
Level
61
EXP
68%
Unallocated Stat Points: 0
Strength
0
Luck
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
13
Agility
30
Growth
20
Magic
105
Mutation Rate
15
And then came the prompt he looked forward to.
[Assimilated Merging behemoth chimaera bloodline! 5 new directions potentially available]
“Just five? What was it, Extreme+?” Given that a behemoth’s power came from its bloodline, reportedly, he expected to get more than just 5 directions. In fact, 6 was the lowest he imagined.
[Merging behemoth chimaera: Legendary bloodline]
Oh, well that made sense given he evolved five times since that world-shaker bloodline. Actually, since he hadn’t even seen a Legendary bloodline in the past two years, he never got to test if one of his Nexus missions was even possible!
Not that he completed any of them, given their outrageous difficulty once more.
[Mission 1: Assimilate a bloodline above Legendary+ rank
Mission 2: Assimilate 10 Legendary rank bloodlines, 3 of which belong to Elders]
Yes, because killing a Sage or Cornem rank is just that easy! With zero progress on either made in the past two years, he at least got to enjoy the fact that Legendary bloodlines no longer posed a risk to him.
And chances are he’d easily survive the ‘+’ version of whatever stood above Legendary as well, the pocket watch and a spell he formulated himself ensured of that. 132 words and designed for a body capable of casting Adept true spells, from now on he never had to fear assimilation which granted 7 or 8 options.
Too bad it still sucked, as he barely compressed it down to 110 words.
* * *
Icy remained cognizant of the storm which stayed some distance from their group, his senses made it very clear that it had yet to move an inch in two weeks now. With that in mind, he gave a follow-up to the group over their Soul Links, “We might need to change our target, he’ll pick up on it soon.”
The others agreed, and not just to hide the fact they could access those safes.
Right now, that part of the empire swarmed with Sages and Blossoming wizards. So imagine the response of an obsessed chimaera creator if he saw the object of his desires walking straight into such a highly defended spot. That seemingly idle storm may suddenly rush towards them at an unexpected speed, crushing them without a moment’s notice.
They quietly created a path towards the west with that in mind. This technically headed towards the empire’s capital, but a huge area of land stood between Saevana and anything else of great importance. None of them actually felt sure of this decision though, with such little time spent on a major decision, it worked against their usual set of plans. In time, they agreed to see if Manus provided any insight on the matter, and from there decide if Saevana or the capital aided their lives more.
When they finally entered that cathedral, Darak’s evolution came before all those other matters, this one of great importance as Icy wouldn’t have faced any potential soul damage from Severing Blade with a Mature priest present. His spells now dealt with minor soul and mental injuries, meanwhile, this level of healing magic easily regrew limbs after a few uses.
One spell completely stopped bleeding, while another rapidly created blood suitable for the individual. Just these two spells could save anyone near death on a battlefield. But along with this, he received divine spells for barriers, physical enhancements, creating consecrated ground, and two which released attacks.
The last two were added in case he ever truly needed a weapon.
Besides a very thrifty purchase, wherein they handed over hundreds of crowns to pay for all the Adept divine spells, Darak asked about the prevailing danger which constantly hung over Icy’s head.
But once finished with business in the cathedral, he was only able to tell the group one piece of bad news. “His lordship found no such chimaera around the continent, if it does exist, then even the God of Salvation is unable to locate it on their land. We have been offered refuge, but no one can predict how long until the creator is dealt with.”
They tried to figure out a solution to this problem, but nothing obvious came through. None of them wanted to hide out in a cathedral for years to come, for multiple reasons. The mana here, while enough to nurture gold tiers, was too low for their needs. It lacked the skills and techniques required for their future growth. And most importantly, the level of beasts here meant little to no experience, while Icy evolved far slower.
A rather demanding strategy to hide instead appeared.
Once outside, Icy utilised Fabric Warper to hide the whole group and slowly moved them forward while within. They guessed that the chimaeras lacked methods to see through such a method of hiding, and so they might be able to escape the sight of any nearby chimaera in the meantime. Where they went after this also came to mind.
Just make it to the city where this all started! They’d be untouchable over there, and while not perfect for their future growth, at least one city up there had to provide skills for Mithril ranks. They’d also have to make a diversion halfway across Trifer simply out of fear, a plan which may outright fail as this new threat closed in without any method for the group to counter it.
Anyway, the fact that even Salvation failed to locate this threat worried them all far more.
“Still worried about your name?” Jaren asked as they walked alongside Icy, light conversation eased the high tensions while that young dragon carefully moved an entire bubble of folded space alongside them. His mind adapted to the weight of each step, but that didn’t exactly make it easy.
“Not for now… I’ve been thinking about aura again though. Actually, it was when Mala suggested using that statue, I’d completely forgotten about it,” Icy replied tersely.
Ever since he took an evolution to enhance his spirit, a heavy question had come to him. In the past, he played with the ridiculous notion, but glossed over it because ‘it just made sense’. But now with his Elder eyes as well as a better understanding of magic, along with this bloodline, he truly asked…
Just what is aura?
A power which could be formed by literally anything, which ‘suppresses’, and that is not stated lightly. With Korridan as a test subject, he confirmed that even a combination of an imposing will and physical strength produced aura. Not a single lick of mana involved, just pure intent and the wall-like man’s rock-hard abs.
Any element can produce aura, he and Mala tested this fact. So long as the spell is used in a manner of ‘suppression’ it can generate aura. This applied to raw elements too, but proved too hard to duplicate with the exception of mana.
“I used some of your knowledge to test some things, and if you wanted to create a single one you’d need around 10-fold your current MP,” Mala spoke out loud, repeating a fact she told him just a few days back.
But now, as he stared at the statue given by Raccelline’s uncle, using his Elder eyes which glowed in a ghostly manner, he discovered something which actually exceeded the confusion from his tests.
The statue itself contained no aura, obviously, given what his tests proved.
However, he found that unknown Magicus runes resided within, and when activated, the statue simply applied simple waves of suppression which received augmentation from these runes. The reason it used so little mana, not even a single percent of a real Sage’s MP, was because it didn’t even produce the same quantity of aura as a Sage!
The aura instead contained Magicus’ power. Somehow, going against everything he knew of relative power scales, the statue imprinted a great language onto tiny hints of aura while keeping it intact. But it was only after a few days of thought that he came to the proper conclusion.
Aura, which formed from any and all elements, instead took on this aspect of Magicus! As a Sage’s body naturally contained Magicus engraved into itself, obviously any release of mana for suppression created that special aura known to this tier of wizards and above.
Now, that alone wasn’t worth fretting over. For Icy, the revelation instead slotted several things he knew about aura into place, but left the main question unanswered.
Just what is aura?
And with this understanding of great languages, he wanted to know an exceptional amount. What happened if he merged liquid aura with these languages?
Thinking of that scene back in the cathedral, Mala still found the memory funny whilst saying, “You were rather arrogant to ask a god to do that you know? But it worked…” Her voice trailed off, now focused on the new sight which overturned what she knew of colours.
He didn’t know its real difficulty but to pass up a good idea was utter foolishness. As long as he formulated a successful method, as long as he managed to merge liquid aura and any great language… Even if that damn chimaera creator came himself, Icy could single-handedly kill him.