A Dragon's Curiosity

“I heard some related rumors and it might not be a one time thing that people collapse.

As for the exact details, I‘m unsure, but a senior gave me advice and I can only repeat that.

In the next period of time, you should buy and store some food to make a secret stash and not let others know about it.

If you feel unwell or notice signs that others are not feeling well either, it‘s better to err on the side of caution and make a trip to the temple instead of delaying things and getting worse.“

Nisha herself was unable to reveal the full scale of the disaster that threatened to engulf the Leandar kingdom in the near future.

Even if she was willing to speak and tell her friend Aubrey the entire truth, it was still doubtful if the brown haired girl was willing to believe her without any evidence.

It was better to wait until the kingdom made an official announcement and proclaimed the measures taken against the disease.

The other girl could still benefit from the small hints and have an easier time due to taking action before anyone else.

Because the [Thieves Guild] placed a heavy emphasis on food and struck a deal with the dragon to purchase a large amount, Nisha also included this piece of intelligence.

Whether the receptionist acted on her advice or not, the elf was aware that this was the most she could do to help the other person.

“Have you also heard about this? I thought this was a one-time incident!“

Aubrey was greatly shocked that the big incident that she was still brooding over was even more severe than she had expected.

With the involvement of the city guard, the temple and the guild, it was already a big event by itself, but on top of that there were rumors outside as well.

With additional causes, it definitely swayed Aubrey who originally put her trust in the higher ranks of the guild and thought this matter no longer had anything to do with her.

“I'll pay more attention and mention it to my family later on.

Since there‘s more to this than meets the eye, I‘ll need to go and report this to my superior, so I don‘t have more time right now.

Next time you come to the guild, look for me and I‘ll introduce the missions in depth to you, it‘s not convenient for me to talk more right now.“

Seeing that her friend placed sufficient attention on the issue, Nisha also bid goodbye and left the guild building.

Her experiments with the two different principles yielded enough results for now, and the dragon‘s stock of food now had enough fourth rank flesh to keep her fed for a good amount of time.

With the goals the elf set for herself at the beginning accomplished for now, Nisha decided to return home and ponder on [Solar Flare] and [Midnight] some more, as she barely scraped at the surface of their mysteries.

In order to truly understand the heritage passed to her and properly utilize them, only prolonged research over a period of time would help her understand them.

Nothing untoward happened on the way back and with a change of clothes, the female adventurer Nisha returned to being the young mistress Nisha of House Dharnas.

Greeting the guards with a friendly wave of her hands, she noticed that one of the priests already assumed his post at the gate.

With a short incantation, a cleansing halo of fire washed over the girl, using the power of faith to expel all darkness and evil.

Being subject to a divine spell, the dragon was curious how it differed from a normal spell, but was unable to tell much in a short period of time.

Funnily enough, Father Andrews thought he generously used a third rank prayer to pay his respects to a main family member still in her youth, yet he still ended up late.

As a fourth rank cultivator, Nisha still enjoyed some benefits and noticed that the bloody smell around her was alleviated, but it would not help her much if she truly contracted the [Blackroot Plague].

Fortunately, her physique pretty much prevented her from falling prey to the illness, so she did not correct the man and embarrass him in front of the guards.

Giving her thanks to the priest, she passed the guard station and entered the main house.

As one of the possible heirs of the Duke House, the easy to approach and friendly young mistress treated the servants and maids rather well, making them thankful and motivated in return most of the time.

Entering through the main door, she was about to greet the maids sweeping the hall and cleaning up when she noticed that their expressions were slightly strange.

Unsure what exactly was wrong, she still waved and nodded at them and climbed the stairs in the direction of her own room.

The Grand Marshal Luthais Dharnas had his own work to do, and with the appearance of a disease threatening to break out in the near future, the man spent less time in his office at home and sometimes spent the night in the city guard headquarters, with nothing but a blanket and a pillow beneath his desk.

Henry spent most of his time training with his [Guardian Griffon] and [Cerulean Sky Owl] recently, hoping to consolidate their power as soon as possible and raise them to fourth rank.

He aimed to enter a knight order and distinguish himself through combat, so his contracted beasts could not lag behind his own cultivation.

As a student of the royal academy in his last year, the young man could choose to graduate early as long as he found a suitable place of employment and the academy would gladly see one of their graduates enter a famous order, since they would share some of the glory.

Not needing to greet any of them, Nisha prepared herself to steady her cultivation at the fourth rank and truly enter the early fourth stage.

Besides steadying her cultivation level, it also included learning new spells such as [Fire Shard], [Dark Shard] and [Decay Shard], as well as the [Shroud] series of defensive spells of the same elements.

Upgraded from the third ranked [Bolt] spells, [Shard] spells compressed the elements until they were no longer hazy and incorporeal, but rather a physical core of concentrated mana with attached energy.

This increased the destructive and penetrative power of the spell several times and demonstrated the gulf between third and fourth rank.

Similarly, [Shield] spells got upgraded to [Shroud] where there was no longer just a membrane of mana protecting the caster, the mana used to construct it formed nets and structures to ward off damage better.

Even if a [Fire Shard] collided with a [Fire Shroud], the added defensive structure helped to block off any damage as long as the caster had sufficient mana to keep up the barrier.

For her aura skills, the dragon had to wait until she updated the information on her guild card and got another chance to pick corresponding skill books from the library to learn methods of utilizing aura at the fourth rank.

It did not hurt to review the skills learned in the past, as they still had room to improve.

Ready to start practicing, Nisha was quite surprised when she entered her room and the damage to the corner where she broke through was already repaired.

Although it was possible to see a tiny line where the old wood stopped and new replacements were fit in carefully, it would be hard to notice the difference if no one told someone about it beforehand.

On top of that, a new bed was already prepared and set up, inviting sleepy visitors to drop into the fluffy sheets and stuffed blanket to whisk them away into a dream.

Given the degree of damage, the elf was very satisfied with the efficiency of the craftsmen employed by the Dharnas House and had her appreciation.

What made her unable to decide whether to laugh or cry was the state of the corner on the opposite side of the room.

Perhaps the reason why the employees cleaning the mansion gave her strange side glances earlier were rumors about the destroyed state of her room, no one could truly prevent such a matter from leaking when multiple people were involved in the cleanup.

Before the matter had a chance to die down and fade from the mind of the servants, another incident arose.

Prior to leaving in the morning, Nisha already noticed that her contracted beast Accalia was in the process of breaking through the great barrier between the third and fourth rank as well.

Given its nature as a wind beast, it was not unusual that the elevation of her master's cultivation influenced the wind wolf.

Due to the blood contract between them, Little Lia inherited a drop of pure dragon bloodline and a mental imprint of a beast ranking much higher than its own level.

The evolution direction of the wolf was already influenced before when the shadow of scales appeared on its body and it transformed into a [Scaled Wind Wolf].

Between the third and fourth rank was a great leap in all aspects, so the wind wolf‘s body underwent another transformation in the process of breaking through.

Nisha was not too worried about it and left Little Lia some room to complete the process, yet she underestimated the accompanying phenomenon with the evolution.

Fine thin lines marred the corner where the wolf tossed and turned, residues from sharp wind blades breaking away in all directions and cutting deeply into the wood.

Hundreds and thousands of the fine wind blades criss crossed over the nearby surfaces, with some of them damaged so heavily that the wood broke down into fine fragments and left a hole in the floor or wall.

I should have thought about this. Since my own breakthrough destroyed the environment, Little Lia was bound to raise a commotion too.

Lamenting at her own carelessness, it was too late for the dragon to intervene and only inspected the wolf before her.

Her own blood changed the contract between her and the beast, unlike the ones used normally by humans to obtain a monster or beast follower.

She was not quite sure what the changes entailed, but she felt much closer to the wolf and treated it as a member of her own family, although not quite at the level of her three dragon siblings or the late grandfather Eldrin.

Nevertheless, Nisha did not wish for anything bad to befall the beast during the breakthrough.

Casting [Identify], the elf simultaneously looked at the information obtained from the spell and with her [Spirit Sight] at the same time, evaluated the state of her contracted beast.

The greatest obstacle in the evolution was already over by the time the elf returned from her trip and the barrier between the third and fourth rank was broken by Little Lia‘s efforts alone.

Stepping a single foot in a higher cultivation realm was usually enough for a cultivator to make the jump and eventually transform all of their energy into the same state after a period of assimilation and steadying.

Monsters and beasts were exactly the same as humans in this regard and had to accumulate enough power before breaking through, but once they elevated their state once, they no longer had many obstacles to truly step into a new realm.

Perhaps the biggest difference was the restriction of bloodline that made it more difficult for many species to overcome the limit of their ancestors.

Nevertheless, there also existed an equal reward for overcoming the additional troubles, which was exactly the current circumstances of her own beast.

Nisha noted that the feedback from the spell [Identify] no longer termed Little Lia as a [Scaled Wind Wolf], a wolf species with a minor amount of dragon blood, but rather a [Storm Trail Dragon Wolf].

The elf had seen the dense congregation of wind aura around Accalia‘s paws, but did not think it was unusual at all.

Most of the wolf's skills relied on its sharp claws and sturdy limbs, so it made sense that they were the strongest part of its body.

It was more surprising to see that he underwent an evolution in bloodline and now had a Dragon title as part of its species name.

When a dragon mated with another monster or beast, their offspring generally failed to inherit a pure dragon lineage.

Male dragons were especially notorious for being lustful, and as a result many mixed blood descendants sprang about everywhere.

Yet their impure lineage downgraded their quality and most of them turned into inferior drakes, flood dragons or scaled beasts at most.

Only the purest descendants with a genuine chance to return to the ancestral bloodline were recognized as deserving of having Dragon in their species name.

Nisha originally thought that her wolf beast already profited from growing a set of sturdy scales previously, and that that was going to be the extent of her own blood‘s influence through the contract.

Unexpectedly, the wolf made a giant leap forward and obtained an even purer lineage for itself with this evolution, growing closer to the origin of its owner.

Furthermore, this did not mean that the wolf would lose its original form in the future and grow wings or shed her fur.

As the name of the species implied, it was a Dragon Wolf instead of a Wolf Dragon, representing that Little Lia merged the drop of blood from her master into its own bloodline rather than getting assimilated by it.

Now it only remained to be seen whether the wolf managed to obtain more benefits from its changed lineage or if the two different inheritances clashed with each other and lowered its potential.

If the two influences complemented each other and improved the physique and skills of the wolf overall, it was not impossible that a king among beasts was going to be born in the future.