Sweet revenge dragon evo.., p.1
Sweet Revenge: Dragon Evolution LitRPG (A New Kind of Freak Book 2), page 1
Prologue
Under the guise of a stormy night, and the protection of a few cloaked guards, a stealthily dressed man left Remelo’s capital. Face completely hidden, he headed to a powerful forest directly west of the city. None of the guards made a fuss in the light rain. In fact, the water simply slid right off their clothes as though made of metal. None dared create the slightest noise, even their footsteps were silenced as they traversed rocky gravel or the muddy puddles that littered the ground. With astounding speed comparable to purebred racehorses, it did not take long for the group to arrive at their destination, an almost sacred forest of the small nation.
Once at its border, the guards took refuge under grand trees with glittering gold leaves and ancient auburn trunks, while the excessively stealthy man lowered the hood on his cloak. His guards stayed behind, he entered the gold-leafed forest. Markings of his forefathers led the way, and he entered the forest’s depths without finding himself lost. This was The Labyrinthian Forest or, to the locals, The Forest of Mazes.
After passing through one maze, you then discovered it was merely a corner to an even grander puzzle. Yet the quiet man, his astoundingly handsome face shaded under the forest’s canopy, simply passed through maze after maze with no issue. Finally, the layers of illusion passed, and he took a final step, passing through a thin film that separated this world from another. Stepping into another plane entirely.
The moment he passed through, the stormy forest instantly transformed into a cloud-covered mountain. Winds approaching tornado force swept the surroundings, threatening to throw him off a thin trail that led to a massive tower piercing the clouds above.
This was it. A legendary place for his family. The home of the nation’s protector: a solitary man who did not care for politics, wealth, or luxuries beyond normal means…
Only information and the resources to seek it out mattered.
His body endured the violent winds, and he slowly approached the giant tower, its two giant wooden doors remaining closed in his presence, the stone statues softly twitching as he knelt in front.
A person of his status having to bow… What an unimaginable idea to so many. But in front of absolute power, he had no choice.
The two statues twitched again, their fingers moving first before both heads snapped round to focus on him. From the two independent pedestals on which they sat, he saw them stand and summon large halberds. Just one of these halberd-wielding statues could kill him.
"I have come seeking the presence of Sage Phrillax. Under the blood of Remelo’s first king, I beseech your opinion and consultation." He spoke clearly and with sincerity. He did not intend to take up too much of this man’s time, knowing better than to waste the lifeforce of a dying man.
Both doors soon opened, and the pair of statues returned to their seated positions. The king stood and entered the tower. No self-respecting wizard installed stairs to traverse a pinnacle of magical creation, and instead, he saw a teleporter waiting to take him to the person he so rarely called upon. But today he needed his help, so much more desperately than any previous time.
A flash of light filled the room as the array activated, instantly sending him up tens of floors until he arrived at the 86th. Here, the Sage he sought out sat reading a thick tome before a fireplace, the burning wood diffusing the fresh scent of walnut and caramel while a stick of incense seemingly cleared his mind to unnaturally high levels.
Products capable of doing such to a Mithril-ranked warrior were incredibly expensive — even by his kingly standards.
"You have sought me out regarding the chaos brewing in your kingdom?" He didn’t look up while reading, having clearly seen enough himself to understand the king’s problem.
"Yes, Sage Phrillax. My daughter was framed for murder. Now a duke, three viscounts, and a dozen barons are all dead… The gentry and several marquises are considering a separation as they have yet to receive any attacks. And just north of here — " He was about to explain the horrific situation in the Evelard mountain range when the Sage cut him off.
"Someone is inciting rebellion, and they are extremely powerful. Whether through wealth or personal power, I have yet to see, but it is a problem you will have to deal with. As for those mountains… We no longer have a right to possess them." The words left the king in sadness, knowing he’d have to give up so much just to survive this current impasse. Politically, the people still supported his rule. It was the nobles who proved an issue.
Still, he at least wanted to fight for the great natural resource on his border. Replying to the ancient man, he said, "But its mana is nearing a holy land! If we — "
"No. Perhaps in my prime I could hold off those kings, but these days just one or two is my limit. If you are dead set on possession, you can offer the land to the empire of man… and spread news of the approaching war on the mountain. The dragon is no longer worth hunting."
In truth, the king of Remelo had completely forgotten about a dragon even existing on that mountain range. Supposedly, a single group noticed it two weeks back, but with a lack of sightings thereafter, it was put down to fools making up information for fame.
"I understand. But this enemy… Who are they?"
"Only three forces on this world are able to attack seventeen nations all at once, culling their nobles and inciting chaos to this degree." While the Sage seemed to be posing a question, the king knew far better than that. He had no clue that the extent of these attacks had spread so far; as with the other kingdoms, he suppressed the death of so many nobles.
But with the Sage’s words, he knew only one force would aim for this level of destabilisation.
"The Eternals of Signeum… I will begin taking precautions."
Their words had clarified his confusion over some matters, and he now knew to what extent things would grow. In comparison to the bigger picture, the mountain range wasn’t worth speaking about.
In this world, humans ranked second in absolute power… As for the Eternals, they ranked third. Fortunately, as a race, their combat power wasn’t as great, limited by somewhat weaker bodies and magical enhancements. In direct war, it wasn’t impossible for humans to win, except their domain was never easily found. To this day, they shifted around constantly; if miraculously revealed, it wasn’t strange for their capital to be demolished and evacuated by the day’s end.
Chapter 1
On the mountain, things were neither good nor bad. For the dragon himself, things actually seemed okay. No one was moving an army of beasts around or sweeping through the node trees yet. Although, he did not doubt the local node tree already had a new owner — as did the others in this mountain range.
Until he completed his entry-level mental training, he wanted to stay indoors. The mental resistance it offered would be incomparable in the coming weeks. And besides that, he wanted to nurture his Auric Spirit!
Fortunately, the nurturing process seemed incredibly simple. A small new sack underneath his heart formed during his latest evolution, and he already sensed some passive aura emitting from the sack. Inserting mana gave him a front-row seat to watch how its internals broke down the energy into a new form of power. The process slowly converted it into a generic type of aura for pressure, whereupon it condensed into a strange liquid to be stored inside this new organ. How any of this worked was beyond him, though, thankfully, the Nexus gave him a basic description of his innate ability in advance.
It should be noted that the innate ability was not aura production but rather its refinement into this usable liquid.
This liquid appeared transparent with a sort of glassy texture. First, he tried to move it mentally — something he grew used to attempting after learning to control mana — however, the fluid didn’t even tremble, let alone move. Perhaps he could use Pronounced Telekinesis to move it… although that’d be a bit extreme. There had to be a simpler way.
Water Control might work, and a simple test showed…
That it didn’t in any way whatsoever.
Condensed aura wasn’t recognised as a liquid by his spell, and even if it had been, he had no way to control it as the spell required line of sight. "How to move this stuff?” he mused. “Perhaps there’s a book on it…"
For a short while, he looked over the titles of several hundred books before laying his eyes on one called ‘Innate abilities: An introspective’. The book started off discussing a dragon’s breath attack, being the primary one acquired by all… but then it went through other types and nuances.
These included a class of abilities that generated a form of magical item within a being. Powerful clams were the simplest example of this ability to be able to transform mana and select elements to form pearls of varying quality and power — perfect for creating magical equipment. A later section of this then went over more offensive abilities that created various liquids or gases within bodies. More importantly, it described ways to utilise them, and he felt incredibly dumb as he read up on it all.
In fairness, though, no one ever told him such things were possible!
To control the product, he needed to simply wrap it in mana and push it out of his body. Solids could not usually undergo this, but very few types of bodies impeded the other states of matter.
Just as the book stated, he wrapped the small volume of transparent, glassy liquid within him, and he pushed it. The mana moved with ease, and in moments, it touched his scales where the web of dormant aura lit up and drained every last drop of liquid away.
So easy, yet he stupidly never thought of this… He tutted; he had no excuse for his lacking thought process.
The web of aura covering his scales clearly strengthened with just that first deposit of fluid, but who knew how many it needed to grow fully? His body continued turning mana into aura passively, and during the wait, he decided to check out his heart and mind.
Nothing else could get in the way, and he had plenty of time now.
A quick peer within revealed an almost identical white vanilla heart, but on close inspection, he found the sugar-mana mentioned by the system. Unlike a normal dragon, who usually begin with red crystals, his were a faint brown, akin to partially processed sugar.
This process, initiated by an awakening, was generally called transformation or heart replacement. Dragons, knowing their hearts to be the greatest source of their power, realised that this organ naturally attempted to modify itself into stronger materials as they grew older. Reproduceable processes turned into research. From that point on, techniques to encourage and enhance this modification became of great importance, and now it was common for every dragon to possess this in their breadth of knowledge.
Out of curiosity, he learnt about this in advance. A rather large book on the topic discussed how to create and integrate a magical structure into his heart so that proper functions remained, more specifically, the ones necessary for him to live. The replacement must be performed one crystal at a time, taking most dragons years to complete a single transformative process. Mostly due to procrastination if one analysed the specifics, the tiresome and endless process bored even the most devoted types.
He never placed any hope into a rapid completion. In fact, the young dragon never intended to start immediately. Only confirming that all newly formed crystal within his heart were sugary on top of their heightened mana storage and durability.
Now came the part he cared for the most: strengthening of his mind.
Books on this talked about the first step in great length and detail — finding and entering the mental space. Being more or less similar for all members of the species, there were two ways to do this.
The recommended one was to cast a Beginner true spell that sought out an individual’s mental space and forced his consciousness within. The downside of this process being that you couldn’t escape until the spell ended, and even then, you had to cast it once more from inside the mental space to truly exit. None of this was much of a downside if safely hidden in reality. However, those with stronger minds could directly find and enter their mental space with ease, though the exact way this worked wasn’t stated in the book — instead, sticking to a vague description of ‘You will know how to do this once reaching the minimum standard’.
The spell wasn’t too difficult as well at only fourteen words long. Most normal dragons could learn and pronounce such a thing after a day as a youngling.
He needed only twenty minutes to memorise it.
And the moment it activated, his body entered a deep sleep while his consciousness travelled far within himself.
…
He awoke to see a mighty mountain piercing a cloudy sky, a rich blizzard smothering him. However, what caught him off-guard was the sheer cold. The freezing environment and blistering snowflakes crashed against him without relent.
Shivering was a first for him.
Shaking in the horrific weather, he steeled his mind and prepared to climb the mountain after making out a perfectly stable — albeit thin — path circling around its perimeter to the peak. It was there he decided to take control. Behind him lay nothingness, an endless spread of fog that seemed to extend out to infinity, leaving this mountain as the only thing above its grasp. His mental space was limited, but this alone satisfied any dragon.
Travelling up the mountain was a slow and agonising journey, but still, he suffered through the pain to head towards the top. On the way, he licked up a small bit of snow on a whim… It tasted faintly of sweet berries. Not too surprised, he sighed and continued.
Exhaustion seemingly disappeared as endless stamina allowed him to continuously climb as long as he willed. Time was only so much of a construct here, and he didn’t care at all about taking hours to reach the top.
Soon, he escaped the rocky base, hitting the point where increasingly thick snow blocked his path, requiring him to drag his body through it. Too loose to step on, he risked sinking into an inescapable hole if he walked.
At least now, hours after beginning, he could see the peak in sight.
Dominating one’s mental space was a requirement, many dragons took two or more trips to complete such a task.
The mountain’s top featured thick, heavy snow as well as a strange suppression that overlaid his mind at all times. It pushed him down, literally, trying to bury him. He had to take control; he had to possess his own mental space.
No dragon should be ruled by their own natural powers!
And so, he walked on, compacting the snow every few steps and withstanding this mountain’s brutal pressure. Its size wasn’t really that incredible — especially when compared to any in Evelard. Half a day allowed for ordinary humans to ascend the real mountain range. Although, with his body such an ascension needed double that time at least… Therefore, this mental space was small in comparison. No need for excuses or relative semantics.
No one knew how long it truly took, but he rose further, ascending into the cloud layer as an inescapable cold froze him. No longer stinging, he felt the biting chill penetrate his deepest parts, attempting to snap him in half.
Being so close, he couldn’t give up now. But when did he give up in the face of objective survival?
He beat back the ants, then killed their queen. He took control of a winter’s hope tree. He even acquired a divinity!
He was not even a year old, and already garnered more achievements than some ten times his age!
He passed through the clouds, every step harder than the last as the building pressure tried to demolish him with every minuscule rise.
But it couldn’t kill him, and that mattered most. Resolutely enduring the pain and numbing cold, weak feelings never capable of touching his great fear — that belonged solely to death — and so he took another decisive step forward…
A blinding light filled his vision, and he squinted and turned away. The pressure’s seemingly endless growth vanished like a snuffed candle, and he breathed freely. The torturous cold vanished, replaced with a chilly, but pleasant, wind. Finally adjusting to the light, he looked outwards.
Thick clouds rested just steps below him, going on as far as he could see. A small band of blue sky rested above the pillowy greys, quickly darkening into a sullen night sky filled with a multitude of stars. In front, a single star rested at the intersection of sky and space. The source of light that blinded him.
A great roar claimed his place. He would forever be above his mental space, and nothing could shake that. The roar went on for minutes, echoing until it resonated with the world itself. His voice controlled it, and his mind possessed it.
The successful dragon then found a somewhat flat patch of snow at the peak and curled himself into a tight ball, resting and eventually drifting off to sleep.
Moments later, he awoke in his home once more. The remaining life essence within his stomach had disappeared, but his body remained almost the exact same size. Opening his eyes fully showed two Nexus prompts waiting for him to check.
[First growth phase completed. Growth status changed to Youngling.
Mental space dominated — containing the unique modification of ‘Flavoured Snow’. Mental fortifications may proceed as usual]
Both messages were within expectation, although hearing the Nexus confirm that fortification could continue was a slight relief. He had worried that some sort of modification to the process might be necessary, and he was wholly incapable of doing such a thing.
Which meant… everything was actually okay?
Admittedly, there were some peculiarities, but overall, things didn’t seem too bad. One thing he’d initially overlooked was that the sugar-mana of his heart was actually weaker than the ordinary mana of other dragons, but he didn’t really care about that. Defence stopped being a concern sometime around the time that young wassat had bitten off his leg. If reliance on a dragon’s body was not allowed, then he would cover up that flaw by training in all regards.
