Icy looked down at the snow-swept mountain below him. On it were a few small buildings with lights pouring from their windows. On the other side, a few large stone and metal objects stood, hidden by the great mountain. Those items all belonged to his soul experimentation. After such a long time he not only built a better soul furnace, but a strange array table.
The array table, exactly as it sounded, was just a large workshop table engraved with some arrays. These pinned a soul in place for precise experimentation, something he only ever performed in his mental space.
But right now, he looked down at the mountain and buildings. An important decision came today, it not only marked the group’s final day in the capital, ready to head off, but Icy completed two bits of research. One of them obviously related to his Mind palace or he wouldn’t look over it with such a face.
“Three years, or five years… Uncertainty, or surety… Why is this such a hard decision?” He looked down on the blizzardous mountain and remained indeterminate, his sighs echoed throughout the space as they came from the depths of his mind and soul.
Intermediate Mind palaces, such an easy thing to reach with a sufficiently large and slightly defended building. On that larger house existed several arrays on each side which defended it to an immense degree, and met the requirements for this level.
But Adept… That came with an issue. Even the fastest dragons only completed this level after 5 years of continuous work, and they selected dedicated psychic bloodlines. He needed 5 years just to cross this single stage, in comparison… But only if he chose to build the equivalent of a manor and defended it with additional selective objects.
That wyvern, whose name he completely forgot, created a garden of flowers from various attributed lightning. Not to mention some other decorative parts on top of a significantly larger manor with some arrays for protection.
However, his research aimed to create a mountain-scale array that forcibly enhanced the entire mental space! His whole mountain became a weapon, and on descension activated the array’s effect. It just demanded that he somehow supplied it with enough mana to actually activate. Except for the parts where he left out the time required to create specialised materials, like metals in the mental space, and the outrageous mana requirements.
“Must I truly use that then?” His face almost appeared disgusted when he mentioned it, even so indirectly. In the end, he settled with such pressures and formulated an alternate array too. One which only fatally harmed Cornems and Sages… if he reacted in time to kill them.
That array also required 3 years to complete, but he found a record amongst his memories that showed it a plausible method to advance. As for the higher tier option, no one ever tried to create an array as complex as his as a measly mithril tier… He could come to a decision at the dragonlands. They left tomorrow at dawn as well.
When he returned to the house that night, everyone had already gone to sleep in preparation for the day.
Icy joined them, exhausted by how much he fretted over his impactful choice.
* * *
“So, when are they meant to get here?” Jaren stared out across the rolling plains outside the capital, but nowhere in the distance could he see dragons. Unless they placed some invisibility in advance, but he doubted such a thing.
Korridan gave his own concerns, not too worried as they knew the departure time stated ‘sharply’. “Is it really fine for a couple dragons to just turn up here? Then again… Guess they wouldn’t really care.”
“Elves are generally pretty friendly to magical beasts. They probably wouldn’t keep the forest of gods if they felt threatened,” Mala answered, although it didn’t work to convince anyone very well. That forest still sat a few thousand miles away, with a few Primordius ranks charged with nonstop supervision.
“They should be here any minute now. Ah, that seems to be them now.” Adret’s gaze pointed out two shadows from the south-west, precisely where the group looked this whole time. They all saw it clearly just as she did.
Two winged beasts, their movements slow and lofty but with speeds that differed from such simple beats of their wings. What must have been miles upon miles of distance closed at an astonishing rate… Just ten seconds to make it clear. They sent cornem tier dragons at the least, perhaps even something stronger, and they’d all easily make it to the Dragonlands in about an hour.
However, when the two dragons touched down and Adret confirmed their identities, Icy stood in to make a short diversion. “We need to visit Saevana and a few other cities in that region first. It should just be about five minutes in each.”
Now close up, he saw the two massive dragons for what they were. Laden in red and orange scales, the two clearly chose some sort of fire element pathway, and he could tell they completed their fourth heart transformation. With an unknown Mind palace, and something which exceeded a Formed soul, that blocked his attempts to search for either, none of that immaculate power broke his will in the slightest.
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Even just a touch of their claws sliced him like jelly. And the tiniest glance of their breath attacks boiled him in seconds.
One of them snorted instantly at his words, the heat of that simple action alone half-melted the Ice Coat on him, but still the other replied, “Fine, but make them quick.”
Answered in Draconic, only Mala roughly understood what they said. Racceline kind of understood too, but mostly from Icy's attitude instead of translating the words..
He just nodded and removed the shrinking magic, his form instantly catapulting to a dragon several times the size. While still smaller than a house, this form greatly outsized any shed or shack. He stood at about seven metres in length, with two wafer horns from his head and massive wings that fortunately remained folded close to his body. However, in front of the two fire dragons in front, his form appeared like a baby.
The two of them were utterly gigantic at almost forty metres long, and even when all of them stood on all-fours, they doubled him in height with ease.
Adret removed her own transformation into a human form and took her true appearance as a far smaller dragon. At just six metres in length, and many of her limbs thinner than even the dragon of ice cream, it could be seen that she lacked physical prowess due to her moonlit bloodline. With scales of silver which released a faint glow, and her eyes somehow emitted a grey, sparkling radiance with irises a dulled, grey lustre.
And yet, even as what many normally considered a weak, spellcasting dragon, she easily beat out Icy in physical prowess about ten times over… When he used the Auric spirit.
Without it, he knew that not even a hundred-fold of him matched up to her. No amount of assimilations or evolutions could ever make up for this gap in strength. Not unless he changed his body to have something more than just food, but that came with newfound risks that Mala theorised in the past six months.
…
As they promised, the group passed by several cities directly east of the elven empire’s capital where the whole demon elf incident even began. They looted all the various private safes and accounts of the organisation which still remained, and with good luck too, as the other leaders never bothered to send anyone to collect this stuff. To provide a short list of what they found:
Some hundreds of scrolls, some skill books, piles of alchemical ingredients, ores with other materials, and just a bunch of mithril tier beast bodies.
One skill book in particular clearly originated from the dragon pillar reward, and this one created a series of elemental clones. Each element augmented a clone somewhat differently. They only survived a single hit, but the power and tricking ability of this skill made it a somewhat incredible option to most warriors.
But, for obvious reasons, it helped rogues and assassins the most.
Other skill books mostly focused on demon-specific skills which made use of things like Scourge power, blood, and occasionally, souls. The three expertises of demon warriors. They took them anyway, since nothing stopped ordinary warriors from using these skills, it just required sufficient control and talent in those fields.
The rest all came from materials looted in the pillar’s subspace… And also some other places. Icy noted that more than a fair quantity of master tier ingredients stayed in these safes, in fact, several of the scrolls released offensive and defensive Master true spells too! They really earned a jackpot, and as soon as they made it back to civilization, could commission full upgrades to everyone’s equipment.
“All done? Good, hold on properly.” The six of them rolled their eyes, and this time all stuck to the backs of both larger dragons, Icy shrunk himself down to not take up too much room.
In the end, Adret joined too, as her speed only matched both cornem tier dragons when they travelled leisurely. For this part, they seriously beat their wings and set off. Every flap released a sonic boom and wind flung downwards at such speed that it not only ruptured eardrums, but stood to demolish homes and uproot trees. And it would have happened if both dragons didn’t also quell such forces with mana through their wings, this stilled most of the airflow and reduced what ought to be an explosive cacophony into dense and powerful gusts of wind.
Five miles a second, the top speed they reached, and yet it still took over forty minutes to reach their destination.
While there existed two major continents in the third world, these two actually sat rather close to one another. As evident by the border their party crossed by ship. However, the other ends of both continents turned into oceans as far as the eye could see. Some islands covered this land, but for the most part, only an endless blue filled this half of the planet.
And situated some distance from Trifer’s west coast was a strange island known as the Dragonlands. Hardly a unique name or place.
Every planet contained one of these, and they all looked rather similar at a distance, dragons simply created the land in a desirable spot in the middle of the ocean. Giant craggy mountains which rose up to form tall, spiky peaks.
If you added a large, gloomy castle and some constant rain clouds, it easily compared to some cliched villainous hideout. But most of the year, only the waves lapped at the stone boundaries, while bright sunlight shone down on the various mountains. Dragons often flew about, many of whom fought in the air either to train their aerial combat or relieve boredom.
On the mountains themselves, they all saw hundreds of caves dug deep into the earthen peaks. Tens of metres high, some contained arrays whilst others just stored some food and such.
Some dragons dove into the nearby waters and returned with large sea beasts several metres long as meals, Icy grumbled in realisation that his access to sweets dropped considerably.
The Dragonlands, a home for dragons, could be considered many things… But homely was definitely not one of them.
Flown towards the base of the tallest mountain, they all prepared to get off and deal with the situations to come. Good, bad, spiteful, or just bland? None of them knew how the dragons might see Icy and themselves, but with rather great safety, they looked forward to the results. Down below, no dragons waited on him, and the two fire dragons dropped them off on a simple platform which contained a pathway into the grand mountain.
He never expected to receive a ride here below the age of 10. Not that anyone needed to know his age, if they assumed him similar to Adret in age, then all the better. “Hope my parents aren’t here,” he quietly mumbled as they walked into the core of the Dragonlands.
How he reacted to them in the flesh wasn’t easy to guess. Actually, he failed to imagine any satisfactory conversation…