Elijah awoke suddenly, springing upright the moment awareness returned. However, despite his alarm, he was in no danger. In fact, he felt better than he had in…well, ever. Sitting beside the ancestral tree, he glanced down at his hands, but saw no difference. One still bore the acid scars he’d gotten in the Sea of Sorrows, while the other, like most of the rest of his body, was riddled with thinner, much lighter scarring from overstepping in his use of Ancestral Circle.

It took only a second more for him to realize that he was, once again, completely nude.

Sighing, Elijah muttered, “Of course I’m naked. Again.”

The loss of what amounted to rags wasn’t a huge loss, and due to looting the ritualists, his collection of cloth was much deeper than it once had been. However, he really hated sewing – especially since he didn’t have proper tools, instead relying on bone hooks and homemade twine in place of thread – so he wasn’t looking forward to putting a new outfit together.

If only the robes hadn’t been sized to fit gnomes, he could’ve just used them as they were. But that wasn’t the case, so it looked like he had a good deal of sewing in his future.

For now, though, the day was warm enough that his nudity wasn’t terribly uncomfortable. Certainly, he’d have once been a bit self-conscious about it. But there was no one else around – aside from Nerthus’s inconsistent presence – and after spending so much time in the tower without any clothes, he’d gotten over any shyness he might’ve once fostered.

In any case, he had other things on his mind. Chiefly, the pair of notifications clamoring for his attention. The first was:

Congratulations! You have cultivated a Dragon Core. Current stage: Hatchling

“What does that even mean?” he said to himself. However, aside from the obvious – that he’d managed to reach the first stage of cultivating his core – he had no idea what it meant. “Okay, so…tabling that for later, moving on…”

He pushed past that notification and opened the next:

You have reached the first threshold. Current stage: Cultivator

Elijah knew that he’d accomplished something important, but he wasn’t certain how to categorize it. So, lacking any further information, he opened his status:

Name

Elijah Hart

Level

29

Archetype

Druid

Class

Animist

Specialization

N/A

Alignment

N/A

Strength

30

Dexterity

29

Constitution

30

Ethera

38

Regeneration

32

Attunement

Nature

Cultivation Stage: Cultivator

Body

Core

Mind

Soul

Wood

Hatchling

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Opal

Neophyte

As expected, he’d gained a single point in every attribute when he’d gained level twenty-nine. But that certainly didn’t account for how much stronger he felt. If he had to compare it to something, he would’ve likened it to how he’d felt after cultivating his body of wood. Though there was more to it than that, Elijah sensed.

So, he took a moment to look at his spell book. And at first, it looked no different – at least until he reached Shape of the Predator:

Shape of the Predator

Take on the shape of a peerless hunter, vastly increasing your Dexterity and Strength attributes and giving an average increase to Constitution. Spellcasting is suspended while Shape of the Predator is active.

There were a couple of changes. First, it had once featured the word “mighty” to describe the transformation, but now it used the term “peerless”. Second, it described the increase to his Constitution as average instead of minor, suggesting that it would be more impactful.

If he’d had any doubts about the general power of his spells, though, they were allayed when he reached his various Essence spells, the benefits of which had all doubled. So, instead of Essence of the Monkey increasing his Dexterity by five points, it now would enhance the attribute by ten points. Perhaps his other spells would see a similar increase in their potency.

But he wanted to check things out, just in case. So, after stopping by the treehouse and wrapping one of the robes around his waist, Elijah headed to the beach where he usually hunted the giant crabs. Fortunately, there was one there, and even more luckily, the unnatural growth that had transformed the species seemed to have run out of steam. As a result, the one in front of him was no larger than a truck.

A good thing, too. When the crabs had continued to grow, he’d spent more than a couple of sleepless nights worrying about world-devouring crabs. Thankfully, it seemed that such a future would remain in his nightmares where such things belonged.

In any case, Elijah used his Essence spells to increase his Regeneration and Dexterity, then applied One With Nature before pointing his staff at the crab. First, he used Entangling Roots, and at his command, thick vines erupted from the rocky shore to grab the crab’s legs. It tried to tug free, but most of the vines remained intact. And those that broke were quickly replaced by more of the same.

That was a marked improvement over the previous incarnation of the spell, which had been weak enough that he’d often forgotten to use it. Now, though, that seemed to have changed, and it was potent enough to at least slow down powerful enemies. Idly, he wondered how it would fare against something like the Voxxian monster that had nearly killed the panther.

Shaking his head, he knew that such a matchup wouldn’t end well. He had no idea how strong either creature had been, but he was well aware of just how poorly he’d match up to either the Voxx monster or the guardian panther. He’d gotten stronger, but that kind of power seemed to be out of his reach.

For now.

Elijah watched as the crab continued to struggle, but it seemed incapable of escape. From experience, though, Elijah knew that it wouldn’t last forever. Instead, the spell had a duration of around a minute before it would start to lose steam. So, he quickly raised his staff and channeled Storm’s Fury though it.

The bolt of lightning that tore out of the Staff of Natural Harmony was thicker and brighter than any he’d summoned before, and when it hit the crab, it sent bits and pieces of the creature’s shell flying away from the point of impact. At the same time, the creature collapsed into a seizure as the powerful electrical current coursed through its body. The aroma of cooking crab filled the air, telling Elijah just how much stronger his spell was.

Still, he needed more tests. So, he aimed another couple of casts at the crab, killing it.

“Solid improvement,” he muttered to himself. Indeed, the spell had never been the most potent, and before, it had taken at least a eight casts to kill one of the crabs, depending on how strong the individual monsters were. Having that number cut in half was a remarkable increase in power.

Still, he had more spells to test. So, over the next few hours, he did just that, finding another crab on the other side of the island so he could determine how much stronger Swarm had become. Curiously, the afflictions it inflicted weren’t that much stronger, but the size of the swarm itself had grown by nearly half.

However, the biggest change came when he finally decided to test Shape of the Predator. The transformation occurred much as it always did, but instead of sprouting fur, he grew glistening black scales. Looking down at his claws, he saw that they were far longer as well, and upon seeing that, he quickly sought out a small pool of water so he could look at his reflection.

When he did, he let out a reptilian hiss.

He certainly didn’t look like a panther anymore. Indeed, if he had to describe the new expression of Shape of the Predator, he would have said it was a curious mixture of alligator, wolf, and panther. More than anything, the new form looked like some undiscovered dinosaur, swift, sleek, and more than anything else, deadly.

The next big shock came when he used Guise of the Unseen. Instead of simply melting into the shadows as he normally did, he watched his blurry reflection fade away entirely. No – that wasn’t necessarily true. He didn’t become invisible. Instead, the ability acted more like a chameleon’s color-changing defense mechanism, though it was obviously aided by Ethera, because if he stood still, his scales were almost completely indistinguishable from their surroundings.

So, not only would he gain far more attributes, but the viability of Guise of the Unseen had seen a significant boost as well.

Elijah tracked down another crab, but this time, he only intended to use abilities native to Shape of the Predator. Chiefly, Venom Strike, Predator Strike, and Guise of the Unseen. However, when he pounced, using Predator Strike, his claws went through the animal’s shell like it wasn’t even there. He destroyed the monster’s frontal nerve center with that single attack, and it collapsed in a heap, still alive but incapable of moving anything but its back legs.

Silently apologizing for the creature’s suffering, he proceeded with checking Venom Strike’s viability as well, and he got the results he had expected. The crab died only thirty seconds after Elijah had used Venom Strike, which injected it with a much more potent neurotoxin.

He still had one spell to test, but because Calamity had a significant dormant period after being cast, he chose not to experiment. After all, it would be quite an issue if he needed the powerful spell and didn’t have it available. So, as he had since acquiring the spell, he kept it in his back pocket, just in case he needed it going forward.

Once he’d finished testing his Strength, Elijah returned to the Grove. There, he found Nerthus waiting for him in the tree spirit’s customary spot on one of the ancestral tree’s branches.

“Thanks for bailing on me, man,” Elijah said. “Do you have any idea how many questions I have? I mean, could you always use the World Tree like that? And –”

“What happened to you?” Nerthus interrupted. “I…you…you are different.”

“Right. Yeah,” Elijah said. “Well, the Blessing of the Dragon – you know, the reward for my task? Well, it gave me three options. I could have taken an item called Dragon Wings and –”

“You refused?! Dragon Wings are some of the most sought after items in the universe!” Nerthus exclaimed. “They allow for true flight. Do you know how rare that is at your stage?”

“Right. Maybe I should’ve taken that, but I don’t think so. The other option was a spell called Firestorm. I’ve gotta tell you – that one tempted me,” he said.

“As well it should!” Nerthus shouted, clearly excited.

“Well, I thought the other option was better,” Elijah said. “I upgraded my core.”

“W-what? How? That should not be possible on this world…the Ethera is too thin.”

Elijah shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you. That was the reward,” he said. “It’s at the hatchling stage, if that means anything to you.”

“Hatchling? That doesn’t…I’ve never heard of that…what kind of core did you get? A nature core? Tree? Perhaps the predator core?”

“Dragon.”

“W-what?”

“That’s what it said on the box,” Elijah stated. Then he read the notification aloud, “Congratulations! You have cultivated a Dragon Core. Current Stage: Hatchling.”

Nerthus fell off his tree. Elijah rushed over to make sure the tree spirit was unhurt, but he found the small creature muttering to himself.

“That isn’t possible. You can’t be…no. They wouldn’t…but she would have the power to…oh, dear…”

“Calm down, man. What’s going on? Is a Dragon Core really that rare?” Elijah asked.

Nerthus fixed him with a look of disbelief, then said, “It is beyond rare. As far as I know, it may well be unique.”

“Oh. Well. That’s good, then.”

“Good? Good?! It is unprecedented!”

“That’s what I said. It’s good. Maybe I’ll be able to get off this island, now,” Elijah said. His brief trip across the strait had reawakened his need for human companionship. Seeing all those people living normal lives – he wanted something like that. Certainly, he had no intention of abandoning his Grove, but he could always return with Ancestral Circle. “Anyway – what’s so good about it?”

“Oh…yes. Right. Where to begin?”

“How about you start with why you just about have a seizure every time someone says the word ‘dragon’, and then we can move on from there.”