45th of Season of Fire, 56th year of the 32nd cycle

The gargantuan creature swept the forest with its gaze, but its bloodshot eyes failed to find prey. The monster screeched in frustration, sending shivers down Newt’s spine, before it flapped its leathery wings and flew away.

The youth heaved a breath of relief and looked around, fearing other heart demons might prowl the sweltering, calcified forest.

“Is it gone?” a dark-red serpent asked, gazing at the sky.

Newt jumped back and tripped, banging the back of his head against the igneous rock.

The serpent seemed just as startled, mimicking Newt’s actions, including somehow falling over, hitting its head, and returning the human’s panicked stare tit for tat.

“Who are you? What are you doing here? You can talk?” They said simultaneously, then went into contemplative silence, examining each other.

The serpent was five feet long and merely two fingers thick, its garnet scales peppered with crimson blots, which resembled tattooed writing in a language Newt did not know. Its brownish-yellow eyes were distinctly reptilian, its vertical pupils locked on the youth before it, taking in the ghostly white skin, dark-red hair nearly the same shade as its scales, and blue eyes, wide open from fear.

“Snake?” Newt blurted, and the snake hissed at the same time. “A scaleless inferior species! Ancestral titanoboa, smite it!”

Ancestral titanoboa spared Newt its wrath. The young man shielded his head with his arms, just in case, frowning at being called inferior, but he remained quiet, fearing the mighty reptile.

The awkward silence stretched for several heartbeats, until the distant pterosaur’s frustrated shriek broke it.

“Who are you?” Unsmitten, Newt asked again, while the serpent snapped its head towards the predator’s cry.

“And who are you?” the garnet snake asked back.

First conversation in months, and I’m talking to a snake. Newt wanted to demand an answer first, but dropped the matter. Three years in the mine had curbed his ego. He was no longer a young master, but a slave.

“I am Newstar. My parents gave me the name because the sky flashed with a bright light the night I was born, and a new star appeared in the sky. But my friends and parents used to call me Newt. Nice to meet you…?” Newt left the word hanging, implicitly asking for a name, but the snake remained oblivious of his intent.

“You are one strange newt, but that explains the lack of scales and the weird, flimsy crest running down your back. Are you shedding?” The snake’s gaze lingered on Newt’s torn trousers for another moment, its pupils shrinking until it finally nodded. “Nice to meet you, shedding newt. I am magmin serpent. Your snake-speech is admirable. Good hisses. Who taught you?”

Newt opened his mouth, about to say he did not know what snake-speech was, but then he closed it. Staring at nothing.

How am I talking to a snake?

“I didn’t even know I could speak it,” Newt stuttered, and Magmin nodded.

“I can tell you have not mastered it fully, but it is the effort that counts. Do you mind telling me what you are doing inside my realm? I have never seen a specimen of your kind, so you should not be a heart demon, but then again, strange things can happen right before a breakthrough.”

“Your realm?” Newt tried to make sense of Magmin’s words, but failed.

Breakthrough, realm, is this—

“Yes, my spiritual realm. I am trying to overcome my heart demons, so I can advance my realm perfectly and evolve according to my design. You must be very young.” Magmin’s words turned enthusiastic. “Even though you are a lowly amphibian, you should also have the ability to cultivate and evolve into higher life forms. Who knows, if you try hard, you might become a lizard and then walk the path of mighty dinosaurs, developing wings.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Magmin stared up at the red sky with longing. “I have dreamed of flying ever since I hatched, and a pterodactyl snatched two of my siblings. I yearn to look down on all others who slither and crawl. Do you dream of flying?”

Newt stared at Magmin dumbfounded, trying to find the correct answer to the blathering snake’s question. It was trying to advance its realm, which meant its cultivation was at the peak of the first realm. Aside from its color, the snake looked no different from random snakes Newt had seen, and he knew he could kill those with a common stick. But a peak first realm spirit beast could slay him with a slap of its tail.

The youth was starting to confirm his suspicions, and did not know whether to be afraid or excited.

Silence slowly turned Magmin’s eagerness into disappointment. “Of course you do not dream of flying. Your kind lives in dark caves, in shallow ponds, you would dream of a larger pool of water or deeper caves, not—”

“Actually, I have often dreamed of flying,” Newt said, and Magmin perked up, staring at him with bright eyes.

“You did? I am not the only one? My jealous siblings ridiculed me for wanting to evolve wings. They said I should develop poisonous skin, venomous fangs, or increase my body so I could crush my prey. But I think wings would open the world to me.”

Newt nodded, then hesitated for a moment before asking the obvious question.

“How does that work, evolution, I mean?”

“Ah, you do not know how to cultivate? Makes sense, makes sense, amphibian brains would have trouble understanding higher concepts unrelated to eating, sleeping, and mating.”

Newt barely resisted the urge to speak, mostly because he was overwhelmed by the numerous protests fighting for their right to be heard.

He wanted to say he understood more than just eating and sleeping. He knew elemental theory, astronomy, how to cultivate… His father had been drilling him on arcane subjects ever since he had turned six years old, but through sheer force of will, Newt kept his mouth shut and listened to the snake ramble.

“Now, young newt, each of us has a second heart, one which lets us take in this world’s warmth. Others have a third eye, which lets them see the world’s truth. Every moment of our lives, our second heart or third eye draws energy from the world, expanding an intangible realm within ourselves. When we sleep or bask in the sun, we use the time of our body’s inactivity to shape and structure this ever-growing realm. The better we organize it, the more energy we can draw, the more we increase the speed with which we grow. Are you following?”

Newt nodded, and Magmin gave him a smug look. “How old do you think I am? Come, guess.”

Newt stared at the snake, with no idea what to say, but Magmin merely opened its mouth, waiting for an answer.

“Fifty years,” Newt said, and the snake hissed in laughter.

“Oh, newt, you know nothing about higher life forms like reptiles. Snakes like me need at least one evolution to extend our longevity to fifty years. I am in my prime, at the peak of my strength, twelve years old, and I am already at the threshold of evolving. I am a genius; you may bask in my infinite wisdom.”

Newt was not impressed. The snake was just a kid.

“Twelve years old?” he asked, and Magmin nodded, deaf to the tone with which Newt said the words.

“I am legendary, am I not?”

“Yes, you are,” Newt said flatly, “and you were explaining how cultivation works.”

“Right,” Magmin said, sounding pleased. “We take in energy, expand our inner realm, and then give it structure so that it draws even more energy from outside our bodies.”

“You already said that,” Newt interrupted, much to Magmin’s displeasure.

“I need to build up the explanation. Now, where was I? Right, I know not about your species, if you are a newt then you should rely on energy from water, since that is where you live. I am a magmin serpent, living near volcanoes, and I thrive in heat and rocks, so I draw my energy from them. The few of my kind with the ability to cultivate have a realm resembling a volcano we live on, but I thought it was boring, unoriginal, and underperforming to just expand a single volcano over and over as I advanced my realm. I was certain I could draw heat from outside in a better way than relying on a single volcano. And so I invented these,” Magmin pointed at the scalding tree with the tip of its tail.

“World is full of trees drawing water from the ground, and I thought to myself, why limit yourself. If the ground has heat instead of water, they could draw heat, right?”

Newt nodded in confusion, struggling to follow Magmin’s logic.

“Well, wrong!” Magmin hissed with way too much enthusiasm as it slapped its tail against the rocky ground. “If you use the trees from outside, they burst into flames, crumble to ashes, and then your head hurts for hours.”

Magmin flashed Newt with a fanged grin before continuing. “But if you change the flammable thing called a tree, and infuse it with more earth energy, it transforms into wonderful, comfortable rock, and draws the energy quite nicely. Albeit, most of it is now earth energy, which in part defeats its purpose.”

The snake whispered the last sentence, then pointed towards the spirit gems with the tip of its tail.

“And behold! Spiritual energy keeps flowing.” The gem accommodated the demonstration, falling off the branch, and rolling down the hill. “They go down, down, all the way until they strike the barrier and expand my realm bit by bit.”

Newt swallowed.

This snake actually is clever.