Things at the base of the mountain began heating up. A large expedition group of twenty people, with the two robed mages situated at the group’s centre, performed their final checks before ascending.

Moderate paths to the top existed, but heavy winds combined with cold weather meant that most mistakes ended up costing lives. Even with magic they could only stave off outside temperatures for so long.

And when fighting a dragon, even such a young one, every bit of combat strength mattered. They were going up against a greatly intelligent beast with physiques greater than any of theirs and magic on par with the two noble wizards.

While draconic incantations may seem weak, that was only by view of dragons, a species which truly claimed to be the masters of all elements. To a mage even the simplest two-word incantation matched the basic spells which apprentices required a year or two of intimate study to finally master.

As for eight or nine word incantations? If they cast such spells, the Nexus would officially bestow them the title of Lesser wizard. One where any who hold it are treated well all throughout the continent, with the exception of a few places.

And the two mages within this group were precisely that level, even after spending so many years in the academy they needed a few more to reach the next level and cast True spells.

Even if the results still fell under the basic tier, it was clear that civilizations directly affected the Nexus’ titles and names. Lesser wizards existed to accommodate for lower magic talent in other races, and provided a fair boost to one’s thinking speed when studying spells, a useful title for most wizards.

Therefore, it was only logical that they travelled together to capture a hatchling. Augusticus had sent the two hunters with an anti-magic net in hopes they captured the beast before it cast any spells. But that proved pointless as they returned with nothing at all, not even having information on the legendary creature.

The mountain trek required time due to their group size and all individuals being harnessed together for safety. With their mages it would be a breeze to safely camp at the peak though, especially if they found a cave to keep away from the wind.

* * *

Meanwhile, the young dragon now sported a large mound of snow inside his cave, having dug so far that he needed to cast light spells simply to see towards the end. Along the way he discovered some sources of mana, but nothing great enough to draw attention. The ants had to be somewhere close though, he accidentally came across a few other pathways dug out by them as well!

It was not long after that he finally sensed the thousands of small, shifting bundles of mana a distance away. How to kill them became the natural question, but with hunger rising up he decided to plug up the holes directed to their nest and return to his cave for food. These past few days rapidly reduced the small stockpile of meat available.

From most of the Cantou and gibbon remained… Now only half the gibbon and the organs of the Cantou remained. As before he threw out the guts, but the rest made an excellent meal when roasted.

“Roasting… Perhaps I can learn another flame spell. That Lasting flame spell looked good, but who knows?” Keeping an eye on the food more than his wayward thoughts, the flames kept appearing in a rhythm every several seconds, before long the sizzling of meat, and its savoury smell, filled the cave.

With the small pieces he used, just fifteen minutes of the magically created fire allowed for a full cooking, which he hungrily ate. Making sure to squeeze each piece in his mouth excessively, the juices being his favourite part about eating any meat.

With the pile of flesh, lungs, and liver all devoured, he looked through two spellbooks for flame incantations. The Incantation book recorded two which met his requirements, one being Column of flame, and the other being Flame roar.

If not for the fact that the latter was formed on his mouth whilst roaring, the ability to spew out flames sounded perfect…

Perfect for anything not made of Ice-cream. He melted far too quickly in the presence of fire, even a dragon of pure Ice would last longer. And the Column of flame spell could not be re-oriented, it always formed a column a few metres high.

As the book of incantations had nothing which fulfilled his need, the large book of fire element spells came next. He avoided using these books as only the first several pages recorded incantations, but now he had to hope for some offensive means which fit his requirements.

The first page held the Flame bolt spell, a typical scene from browsing through the other elemental spellbooks, but then he immediately found the Cone of fire spell. It formed a concentrated point of flame and exploded it in a cone in whatever direction he wanted!

“Another eight word spell, I wish I had more time.” Mindless wishing never worked, and soon he began practicing the words as usual. The process of memorising and practicing became routine for him, pronouncing most words even felt natural at this point, it took something extremely weird to actually make him struggle at this point.

And with the actual spellcasting being his main problem now, he truly appreciated the amazing convenience of draconic magic. For some strange reason a few wayward ants crawled through the enlarged tunnel he made, but he sensed them in advance and provided a pleasant roasting to each one.

[Killed 3 Ice ants! <1% EXP]

In the early afternoon he already had all the words memorised and in a speakable state, all that remained was stringing them together without flaws and following the prescribed flow. Only trial and error made a difference at this point, but with six words completed and a mana reaction, he believed it to be a quick manner.

By chance, on some practice run he pronounced all eight words correctly! The reaction continued, wildly sucking mana from his body and merging it into a highly condensed ball in front of him. While appearing no different from his Light spell, he could feel the dangerous mana contained within and immediately shuffled backwards in fear.

The radiated heat alone left his body tingling…

Mana continued to flow out, stopping just after dropping his MP by 20%. But then he felt the ball of fire grow unstable, the mana within warping and threatening to burst at any moment, something about its outer layer pushed the power within towards a certain direction, this having been set by him in advance.

He moved backwards even further, now at the edge of the cave while his orb threatened to strike the pile of snow he often used as target practice. Somehow, even from here he felt in danger of whatever this seemingly simple spell released.

How bad could it really be? Ten Flame bolts is powerful but even at this distance he’d feel safe.

The condensed ball of flame finally snapped, and all the pent up energy burst with a rampaging force to immolate all in its path. The flame erupted as a cone, spreading out all over the snow mound with frightening heat and consistency, melting the entire thing in just a few seconds!

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It all happened so quick, and had been directed away from him, but he still felt the flush of heat at this distance. Moving even further away, he hoped the cave’s internals helped cool him off. Additionally, he cast a Wind spell to move the hot air away, even if the altitude rapidly chilled it like everything else in the place.

After what felt like far too much time he found the air breathable once more and moved forward to check the damage, the blistering burst of flames had not completely melted the mound as he imagined, but greatly reduced its size, nonetheless.

Before, the snow pile easily dwarfed him, being several times his height and length… but now the small remains were small enough to cross in just a few steps! Meanwhile, the resultant puddle of water quickly froze all over, leaving patches of ice outside his cave. He hoped for a heavy snow to cover up all the effects.

But now came the fun part!

Returning to the cave, he entered the tunnel and quickly focused on refilling his MP. Even at this distance he could tell a truly insane number of ants formed this colony, and it was probably the biggest one of this whole region.

But that just meant even more to destroy! These insects should have learnt to avoid him after their first groups were killed, yet they repeatedly attacked for no proper reason. Surely the losses he imposed on their colony was more food than he could possibly provide?

Things evolved past mere troubles ages ago… Unless the ant queen held something of incredible value to settle their differences. He doubted that she held such intelligence seeing how the ants behaved though.

Now at the tunnel’s front, he moved away more of the snow until just a short distance to the ant’s tunnels. By now the disturbance of his digging transferred through their walls, and some began moving towards him as well. At the same time, he moved backwards whilst casting Fire, burning the few who came through and melting that last bit of snow.

Another two Fire spells quickly opened a hole to the colony, and he made sufficient distance in that time. The spells dissipated after a few seconds and he saw ants by the tens pour into his tunnel, but by now he already completed the fourth word…

Mana poured from his body and formed a bright ball further down, finally forming completely as the eighth word exited his mouth. Cone of fire, what a beautiful spell…

The delicately crafted spell broke apart, highly condensed flames being pushed out towards the horde of ants rushing to their deaths! Instantly, hundreds must have died yet more continued pushing through.

All the while he continued moving backwards, that already cost so much mana yet it felt like he barely made a dent. Rather than use another Cone of flame, he already saw how the heat completely melted its surroundings, and a solid bump should block off the tunnel. With that understanding, he started casting Explosive bolt to strike the back of this tunnel.

The spell still required nine words, taking four entire seconds to cast. But even if a few ants reached up to him, a surging confidence knew he could kill them in melee. Two seconds quickly passed, the distance between everyone quickly closing….

At three seconds the leading ants could no longer be hit by his explosive bolt, he already decided to create it further down the tunnel to cause a collapse near the nest.

And at four seconds he finally cast the spell, but tens of ants already reached him, with several climbing up his legs. If this continued he’d be limbless soon, but he just rashly continued moving backwards.

At five seconds the Explosive bolt completely formed. And then it drilled through the tunnel full of ants, killing dozens inadvertently before digging into the mushy snow at the intersection.

He turned around in the tight tunnel and activated the Wind burst seal, ignoring the nips all over. Running as fast as the small legs allowed, he only aimed to escape the tunnel as everything around him shook. Thunderous crashes filled his head, but he ignored it all, not daring to look back or stop to deal with any ants.

From the instant the Explosive bolt fulfilled its job, everything nearby completely destabilised, the tightly packed snow holding up the ant’s nest gave way first. His own tunnel had no reinforcements though, causing a cascading effect which rapidly chased after him.

A literal mountain of snow, ice, and rock quickly began to fall through and cover the tunnel, crushing thousands of ants in mere seconds and causing both tunnel and a portion of the nest to collapse in a chain reaction. Behind the hatchling was a wave of snow, quickly approaching moment by moment.

But he only needed to do one thing in comparison. Reach his cave.

He could see the tunnel’s exit from here! It wasn’t long, just a short distance before reaching safety! But the already thundering snow sounded like it was right behind him, and no more hidden strength resided within his body. There was nothing within him that could move faster…

Without thinking further, he mumbled between breaths, “3 points into agility.” The effects took place almost instantly. An instant 18% boost to any movement allowed him to make just a slightly greater distance as the collapsing snow caught up with him. With the thumping of his heart and collapsing snow filling his mind, the two sounded no different as his stumpy legs used every bit of strength to push him forward.

But finally…

He made it to the tunnel entrance, only then realising that the noises long since stopped as only the heavy thumping of his dragon heart remained. A wall of snow behind him completely blocked off hours of work. Yet, he only felt happiness from it all.

“Ah! You damn!” The pricking mandibles of some ants continued to frustrate him, and it took significant effort to find them on his body and pull them off. Fortunately, their mouths were so small that each bite only removed a tiny portion of ice-cream.

But as he finally cleared them up, the Nexus allowed him to check his current state. Not to mention the overwhelming prompts about killing ants it compiled.

[Killed 824 Ice ants! Received 98% EXP

Killed 12 Ice soldier ants! Received 34% EXP]

He checked his status for a confirmation of his body.

Name

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Slightly magical Ice-cream

HP

90%

MP

45%

Level

7

EXP

23%

Unallocated Stat Points: 8

Strength

0

Luck

0

Agility

3

Growth

0

Magic

5

Mutation Rate

5

Those numbers looked a bit… slanted? He believed the kill counts to be accurate, especially as the Nexus refused to count cases where the environment is a primary killer. Like many species, dragons tried to cheat the Nexus by killing far stronger beasts with heights.

But why did over 800 ants give so little experience? Was there something about the Nexus he missed in the book? It had to be that, but instead of checking he simply asked, “Why is the experience from ice ants so low?”

[The EXP granted for killing anything 5 levels lower than you is decreased to 10%. This effect is applied every 5 levels lower]

So this was apparently always a feature… Perhaps he just forgot about it. Anyway, the logic was clear enough, it simply discouraged powerful beings from slaughtering the weak for easy levels.

He still earned over a level from the whole event though, and many ants remained to be culled. However, he wanted to be far more prepared next time.

Only after destroying the whole nest could he sleep soundly!

But first he had to hide from any passing humans, which meant making himself a comfy underground chamber. It was one thing to hide from dangerous humans who eclipsed him in ability, but disgustingly cowardly if he wanted to hide from mere beasts.

After the past month, he completely believed that all surviving dragons understood which battles to pick and avoid, which in some way meant this had to also be the path of a true dragon! And with such simple reasoning, he got to work going back down the patch of snow and digging out a spacious descending descending tunnel further and further underground.