Without even sparing a glance at the other books, Akevorax gently pulled out the singular one, which drew his gaze without end. Its appearance was nothing special in a library, just a hard cover with a soft leather around it. The title had been engraved in golden lettering on both spine and front, with no other information besides its name, written entirely in Beasten like most books there.
Ever since his discussion with Mala so long ago, he never sought out this sort of magic, patiently waiting for the day Raccelline could revive someone.
But… But what if he just took the faster route?
To have her back with their ages all the same, so she wasn’t alone in the world all those years in the future.
A quick flick through the couple hundred pages quickly confirmed its effects, and he couldn’t help but ask, “How much information is missing compared to the resurrection magic you mentioned?”
[About 5%. It would cost 0.15 Authority to purchase now that you have the bulk of the method available]
Such an incredibly cheap price… He could do it. Just harvest a bunch of humans for their three parts, then begin work on reviving Rebecca’s Mind through the magic. However, this was hardly a decision he could make alone, especially as some problems remained with this method. Intuitively he decided to ask Jaren about this matter, in the end, it concerned him the most, so it made perfect sense to go to him.
You know, instead of any of the others. Akevorax didn’t exactly hide his intentions very well.
While the book quietly disappeared into his storage ring, the other forbidden tomes now garnered some interest. Although he clearly still struggled to retain focus in light of what just happened.
“Chaos flame, Soul viruses, Black hole, Living radiation… They really built up a catalogue of these things. No reason to leave them for someone else, though,” Akevorax shrugged with that realisation and stuffed them all into his dimensional storage right away.
Each of the effects contained within was only forbidden because the global damage to life they caused could end countries if allowed to spread uncontained.
Soul viruses literally destroyed half a continent when they first came into creation, the result completely obliterated an entire major race on that planet!
At least all the valuable notes and educational material on this level directly helped Akevorax with regards to array building. Ideal metal alloys for internals, crystal selections, carving methods, precision, complexity, efficiency, and so on. These books aimed to provide comprehensive knowledge across the board, but a single one can only fit so much information. As a result, besides the more general and unfocused topics, he could put time into reading highly specialised books too. This applied to Mala as well, as the books on alchemy also followed all this.
He also just took the various skill and spell books because he could, nothing more important than that. Many of the former specifically existed for animal bodies, four-legged ones to be precise, but dozens of bi-pedal focused books also existed.
Very little of the content up on this level was useless, which just meant he pretty much took everything available. However, more things of value existed here besides the library’s selection of books. Akevorax broke the library’s stone floor and excavated the broken arrays to take for himself. The blackened metal completely failed, and he even managed to cut through the incredibly strong metal, mostly with the help of intense heat.
And then he stripped the array of everything he could, easily able to extract the Origin Force infused spell. As the metal returned to its chrome finish, a small, blue flame melted everything together in a crude crucible until he ended up with several ingots of silvery-white metal.
Even without polishing or sanding, still gave off that iconic finish, an amazing material designed for supreme tier arrays.
That concluded his trip into that place.
With the ruins finally completely looted, he took his leave and snuck away after remembering the mountain-shaking event which happened not too long ago. Beasts of all shapes and sizes frantically scoured the mountain range, several mithril tiers floated about to try and locate the source of disturbance but coming up blank even with the use of several spells. Not just the roc as well, as several types of birds repeatedly created the recognisable rings and runes over and over, but Akevorax simply threw a veil over himself and supplied it with mana.
This simple action hid his existence from the majority, and he quietly flew back towards the battlefield with the uncanny plan to hide…
What else was he going to do?
“The kingdom’s going to be in such a mess isn’t it? Not my problem at le– Oh, they can see me,” Akevorax pulled up his head to stare at a pair of winged beasts in the distance.
As they hovered in place, focused on him, the two immediately swooped down and reached his position in seconds at their supersonic speeds. While one of the two was a roc, their feathers a very pale green like lichen, with mesmerising blue eye patterns near the tips, he couldn’t recognise the other in the slightest.
“What is a dragon doing in our lands? Your clan has no right to enter this place,” the roc spoke to him condescendingly, Beasten used between the three, as was common. That, in turn, only invoked his own arrogance towards the low-end master tier in front of him. If this roc had at least transformed their flesh and blood to magic, he might have accepted such behaviour, but Akevorax knew who possessed the right to look down on him.
The dragon snarled back, “I grew up here, and participated in the battles back then for control. Do I not have a right to visit my own birthplace? Besides, I’m not here on any orders.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“So I take it that earthquake was your fault? We will capture you if necessary.”
Akevorax couldn’t win this fight on his own, that much was certain. Frankly, it already overextended himself just to fight regular dragons at his own level. To try and push up a tier was just too hard with his current body. However, he didn’t have to fight.
They wanted to capture him to send a ransom to the dragon clan. However, that only worked for less valuable ones.
A small bit of stone dropped on the floor in front of him. With its curved triangular edges and absolutely bland appearance, it could’ve simply been a pebble picked up from anywhere. Except that both birds clearly felt the endless, surging power within, an overwhelming strength which filled their minds with terrifying roars as another race dared to approach such a legendary object of his race.
There was a good reason no one ever tried to steal dragonstones, and the two instantly realised his status from this item alone.
What would the dragons do if they found out the best of a generation was kidnapped and ransomed by another beast race?
“You– You must be the dragon who killed the progenitor. I apologise for not recognising you in advance… We’ll take our leave,” the roc spoke awkwardly from the moment it realised what he presented. Meanwhile, the other bird, with a coat of brown feathers but luxuriously red-breasted quietly, looked away from him instead. Both flew off immediately, unwilling to get involved without direct orders from stronger members of their race.
And Akevorax’s didn’t even have a chance to laugh by the time both vanished from sight. Until things quietened down a bit, he thought it best to hide out and provide more ‘free meals’ in a day or two.
Unfortunately, as soon as he made it back to the battlefield, yet to even descend into the prymite egg, someone interrupted him.
A black shadow which rose up from the white snow, the almost liquidous black mass built itself up into a humanoid structure and then filled out the gaps until a figure emerged. It was far less pleasant and perfect than the shadow hidden in Lostradus’, clearly a limitation as they directly constructed this apparition in front of him. But such a projection method interested him anyway, too bad it likely required a Sage on the other end to utilise.
As the figure rose, it also clapped gently, neither mocking nor sincerely congratulatory. Finally, it said, “That was quite impressive, how you broke that array. A bit inefficient, but at your level quite an amazing sight. You dragons rarely let anyone down.”
He wasn’t interested in the unimpressive praises, nor meaningless criticism, cutting off the conversation to ask, “What are you here for?”
“Why else? I’m here to see your answer, it was quite hard to see anything with all those dragons around, but out here, there’s no one making things so tough. Now then, what do you choose… Your friends’ safety or a life of danger?”
The shadow’s tone dropped, pessimism and coldness the only things which stood out at this stage. Akevorax could tell it really wasn’t a bluff, and with the party’s strength, they truly couldn’t stand up to any dedicated attacks from the eternals. Or rather, they’d ensure he died no matter the cost… But he never once feared them. The sole reason he even considered their offer was to keep everyone else alive, after all, he pretty much got nothing out of it.
A contract and incessant observation only hindered his growth in the long run.
But now, the very humans he’d take the offer for turned it down perfunctory, and they’d probably hate him for taking it. In which case, his future would likely have a lot of eternal corpses to digest.
And he did need the humanoid bloodlines…
“That offer isn’t my decision to make. I can’t take it,” with his head shaking, Akevorax’s crystal clear voice troubled the shadow as it rubbed its chin and glared into the young adult dragon’s eyes.
Fortunately, the wizard behind this spell could only transfer their irrefutable annoyance and anger. Countless orders to resolve this lingering threat amounted to days of stress, going so far as to level with a little dragon he could squash with ease, and after all that, it rejected the offer! One unilaterally beneficial to it and the group!
Why did those humans at all care for their fellows? Besides the priest, it made no sense that they’d sacrifice themselves!
“You do understand the consequences of this? We will not allow for failure! Why must we be the race relegated to the derelict undercurrents like rats?” He tried to play towards Akevorax’s emotion, but with such a charged attitude it was clear he frankly just felt aggrieved as a new factor entered their plans.
However, it completely over-extended his beliefs and expectations. Akevorax replied, “Why is that my problem? I frankly don't care about other humans, and I’d bet you hardly care for many of your kin, but you have the gall to treat my attitude as irresponsible! I rejected your offer. Now, what will you do?”
“We’ll ensure you regret it.” And with that empty announcement, the shadow collapsed into a pool of black water and dispersed entirely.
Akevorax couldn’t help but wonder who exactly would end up the biggest loser in this conflict.
* * *
Things beyond the mountain hadn’t exactly gone peachy as well, as the devastating earthquake which rocked the peaks travelled far enough for those nearby to also feel it. With tens of wizards automatically alerted to the supposed threat, they didn’t take any time to scan frivolously for the source.
And whilst not all of them, a few Mature wizards happened across the dragon with yellow wafer scales standing In the mountain range. It stopped in place, revealed to the world, as a roc and robin at master tier came to meet it, but both powerful beasts flew off as soon as it revealed a strange stone. From there, the dragon used a strange cloaking method to hide from all their spells before finally appearing once more in a daze. Stood quiet, as though in wait for something, no one really sure why it hadn’t moved for a whole minute, but not long after, it reapplied the cloak and vanished.
None of the human wizards watching could identify the stone, information on dragons wasn’t exactly well-known to the world in the first place outside of a few specific things.
Like the processing method for dragon hearts and blood…
In less than an hour from all this occurring, as the dragon retreated to a safe place whilst invisible to all their spells, the various wizards all met up eagerly with more than a few mithril ranks joining in per their invitations.
Ever since the mountain range enjoyed an explosion of power, more and more flocked to this location as its incredible mana provided a haven for even humans to train in. But more importantly, the material benefits interested them greatly.
Gold and mithril tier beasts galore!
But today, the roughly 40 individuals who met up came for a sole purpose. One they never anticipated as dragons at their level often hid reclusively in the Dragonlands for several years.
They could actually hunt a bountiful tonic of unworldly use to them!