A Dragon's Curiosity

I moved into a place of my own for the first time, a student dorm, and finished moving yesterday. Similarly, the chapters caught up to my Patreon page/drive where I write more or less, so the schedule is going to get more stable from now on, with about one chapter per week. Hope everyone still has fun reading the story ~

Silence passed in the [Buried Temple].

The sudden revelation gave birth to turbulent waves in Gabriel’s mind.

It was true that she had not spent close attention to the sprawling kingdom managed by the Dragon King, these characters fell below the threshold that warranted personal interest by a deity.

Nonetheless, each and every single one of them had come to Ator as a direct result of Rasenth and his wife Yfnir bringing the bloodline to the plane.

Every beast with a hint of dragon blood in them could be traced back to the immediate descendants of these two deities.

In truth, a dragon king was not some superior being in the clan either, they only inherited a higher density of the original bloodline.

A prince had even less parentage, although it did not matter in a clan of beasts where the average member at least reached the peak of the noble realm, often even higher boundaries depending on their function in the clan.

If Nisha truly did not belong to Rasenth’s clan, that was a piece of information of the highest importance.

Foreign influences had next to no avenue to enter Ator too, so there was no way for another family of draconic creatures to settle here.

“For all that sass your sister has, it is far more rare to see you speechless, Gabriel.

Is it really so shocking?

It’s not like I had an affair with someone else than my wife. As I said, that little one is not of my bloodline.”

Rasenth puffed out an indifferent storm of air, sending new plumes of dust dancing through the shrine.

Hearing no response from the goddess, the old dragon kept quiet for several breaths, and then began to shine with countless lights.

Gabriel, at the moment, had to hold back a scream.

She knew that this luminescence did not come from a charging attack or some formation carved into the ground itself.

Rasenth had activated his own version of the [Polymorph] spell.

As a matter of fact, the goddess knew not many spells that had as many variations as [Polymorph].

There existed first realm variants, which got improved upon through the different cultivation realms as different aspects were improved, the actual mass of the user increasing or decreasing to fit the new shape, traits carrying over from the original physique and even emulation of new ones based on the assumed form.

At the most extreme point, the version usable by deities worked well enough to let a human assume the form of a dragon, down to the scales and claws, save for the internal circulation of energy.

By itself, the spell had no offensive potential and most only used it to borrow a more convenient form when their physique got in the way of a task.

No, the reason why Gabriel almost sustained an internal injury from keeping the screams inside came from the nickname that her sister gave the dragon god.

After the two had had one too many conference with the rule of the plane, Bael had complained about the ‘old goat’, which had secretly assumed the golden haired beauty, but also raised some questions.

When prompting her what came over the naughty mirror of herself, the explanation had stumped and amused Gabriel at the same time.

Apparently, Rasenth had a tendency to ramble and bleat like a goat when he started to monologue, with many unneeded side tracks in his briefings.

She had to repeatedly caution her sister to never speak this nickname out loud and prevent the dignified god of a tribe and plane from ever figuring out who gave him this ‘badge of honor’.

No matter how cordial their relationship might be, there would be still consequences.

Unfortunately, the dragon god most likely prepared to shift into an easier form to make talking easier.

Which also meant that Gabriel was now stuck listening to the old goat, going off on a tangent instead of explaining the bomb he just dropped on her.

“Don’t worry, I will get there. To explain why I am so concerned over this particular hatchling, I need to recount some old tales, update your knowledge on dragons and why it is bad to allow your sister to meddle as she pleases.

First, that should be the influences of different races in the Abyss.

I know that you and your sister went exploring once before, did you encounter humans and other races?”

Gabriel felt almost glad that she was still allowed to get a word in, although it was likely a rare occurrence during the rest of the conversation.

“Indeed. We got lucky and grew to the Saint boundary mostly through the open portal connecting it to a well of life and death energy from the Abyss, after which we split into two separate physical forms and explored the plane outside of our precipice.

Thankfully, we had attained greater strength than most denizens and quickly found our way to your shrine, and if I remember it correctly, went with a group of adventurers returning to the Abyss from the aftermath of the hunt hosted by you.

For several decades, my sister and me journeyed through some of the minor worlds under the Great Grey Sea.

At the start, no one saw through our polymorph and treated us more or less as low level characters before ascending to godhood, we came in conflict with some human influences after the phenomena during our transition revealed that we were actually a spiritual plant and not really humans.

Then, a long chase took place, most of the more powerful places had their own deities keeping down the fort and we barely made it back to your plane, where they could not easily follow.

Bael still spits nails whenever she talks about the few friends we had before, and then turned around in order to subdue us and refine us into a miracle medicine.”

The account given by Gabriel succinctly recapped most of the core information and vastly understated the trials and ordeals the twin goddesses had to go through to ascend - in other words, breaks through the Saint boundary.

Many dangerous adventures undertaken by them along with a few lucky chances allowed them to succeed where other beasts, spiritual beings and humans were stuck for the rest of their lives.

And now they lost all desire to step out of the plane governed by the dragon tribe, lest the human foes they made in the Abyss get a hold of that information and attempt to finish them off countless turns later.

Thankfully, the physical planes of the mortal realm were protected by the natural rules of the world, original inhabitants faced no resistance to return after descending to the Abyss, while those born in the lower strata were prohibited from ascending to the mortal worlds unless they paid a massive price.

After that was the problem of locating a target in the myriad planes making up the middle worlds.

With Rasenth ruling over Ator, neither Gabriel nor Bael were worried over being attacked here.

“So you have experienced the greedy and treacherous side of human nature.

No doubt about it, most of them have certainly no scruples at all to sell out even their own relatives in order to secure some benefits.

Nonetheless, I still allow them their place on Ator. For whatever reason, humanity does function like a grinding stone for all elements around them.

Whether they capture the land around them and reduce the wilderness, or if they are reduced to wandering packs of tribal remnants, with the ebb and flow of time, countless heroes rise against the dangers threatening humanity, as well as existences endangering their foundation.

For some reason, their struggle amuses me to no end.

Do you also know why humans restrain their greed in front of dragons, phoenixes, giant tigers, and similar beast families?”

Gabriel acknowledged his words as the truth.

Although the tree species she originated from had no strong medicinal effect, there were countless alchemy recipes and corpse refining techniques that could turn deity level beings into priceless miracle pills and elixirs.

The efficiency was far higher for plant based beings, though, hence humans would rather hunt down ancient plant spirits to raise their own cultivation than to cannibalize other members of their own species.

Similarly, the Abyss had their own unique culture as well. Compared to hiding like rats and concealing their identity there, the beasts with high prestige had no fear while going around if they were not the lowest level warriors or mages.

After all, if all witnesses died, it did not happen, at least that was commonly accepted by most influences.

“Each of these renowned beast bloodlines is greatly desired by all cultivators, every part of them, blood, flesh, skin, hair, is a natural treasure.

And still, humans and other beasts refrain from preying on them.

The reason for that is the heritage behind them! All of these families come from an ancient clan, spanning back hundreds of thousands of turns.

There are entire worlds occupied by them in the Abyss, connected through ancient formations, housing their members and producing countless treasures due to the high density of energy.

Even the lowest member is a wealthy fat sheep in other places, and other powers still caution their descendants to conflict with them.

If they are wronged, the other side still has to apologize, otherwise the apocalyptic retaliation coming towards them might just be the end of their lineage.

One of these clans is the Ancient Dragon Clan.”

Gabriel had vaguely heard about the super-powers in the Abyss before.

Humans similarly had some organizations that were feared everywhere, but she had not heard about the beast clans before, when she was adventuring with Bael.

It made sense, in some regard, that there were blood lines with longer heritage.

And with enough wealth accumulating, their descendants also enjoyed better treatment right after birth.

These advantages snowballed more and more with each generation, lest one of them experienced total destruction.

With the passage of time, some of them had the capital to stand as giants among men.

For a species such as dragons, with a perfect physical body and outstanding spirits, it was not strange to rank among the forefront of ancient clans.

The blonde goddess acknowledged that her sister and herself lacked the foundation and heritage to compare with them and stroll freely through the Abyss.

She still waited on the relevance of the story, why Rasenth told her all of this in the first place.

“You see, I was born an age ago in a rather small plane in a place far away from here.

My parents were a rather violent pair. My father, a giant dragon, ruled over his own mountain range and demanded tribute from every subject, whether they agreed or not.

Furthermore, my mother was a wandering water dragon, in search of a challenge and apparently, also a mate.

After countless battles, my egg came to be. Before you ask, they died in a peaceful manner in their shared home.

Well, as much in peace as a pair of violent beasts arguing and fighting their whole life could be, anyway.

From this pairing, I inherited giant dragon blood and an affinity for the water element.

With good heritage and parents that would beat me up until I could fend for myself, my own cultivation proceeded rather smoothly.

When I left home to look for greater skies and entered the Abyss, it did not take long for me to meet my wife - after breaking my horns in the metaphorical sense, of course - and got into a fight with her.

Apparently I take after my parents too, as I proposed to her during our journeys in the heat of a fight between us.

I won’t bore you with all the sappy details, but in one of our dives into an ancient ruin, Yfnera contracted a rather serious disease during an ambush from other explorers.

Without any avenues available and too poor to afford a medicine on the suitable level to heal her, I travelled to the world housing the Ancient Dragon Clan and sought help.

After all, I’m also a part of the clan, right? With my heritage, I hoped to get some assistance.

Well, with about half of my bloodline coming from a giant dragon and the other half having some armored dragon and sea serpents, I was informed that my blood compared to true dragon heritage had not even one tenth of the purity.”