A Dragon's Curiosity

“Let’s go and take a look at your little anomaly. I’m interested in the thing that is able to make you baffled in your own [Inner Space].”

Waving her hand, the tea table and the surrounding seats disappeared into thin air, leaving no trace of their existence. Smiling at the dragon, Bael made her way towards the black gate, marking the exit point of the connection between the dragon’s space and the domain the goddesses ruled over.

In the first place, that was indeed the reason Nisha came here for, however she almost forgot about the issue after hearing the story Bael had narrated. Following the purple haired woman, the gate neither collapsed nor shattered and quietly closed after both women stepped through.

Returning to the treasure grove, the purple haired woman already inspected the various treasures lying around. Although most failed to catch her eye at her cultivation level, some of the more obscure exemplars still entered her attention, although she didn’t comment on them. As part of the older generation, it would be a serious matter if she coveted the treasures of a junior.

“As always, your [Inner Space] is a very nice place. Especially the concentration of energy in the air, it’s almost a paradise.”

Inhaling a deep breath, she twirled around, her light dress billowing out due to the rapid motion.

“Although it’s a nice place, I can already see why you asked me to come. It’s the little fellow inside the spring, isn’t it?”

Taking the words right out of her mouth, Nisha smiled happily and only nodded to the statement, happy to see how smoothly their understanding of each other allowed communication.

“Yes, it went like this …”

Recounting the experience of opening the monster eggs and forming the contracts, the elf explained the matter of the seemingly empty egg and how the spirit entered her inner world.

“Haha, I have to say, it’s always a surprise when it concerns you, Nisha. Let me say this first, you don’t have to worry about the little spirit here, it just reaped what it sowed.”

Extending her own mana to envelop the spider webs of dark grey tendrils deep inside the pond, Nisha was able to observe a similar action as the [Identify] spell exhibited when she observed it in the Guild shop and when Galan casted it earlier. Only, the level was far higher, without her [Spirit Sight] she wouldn’t have noticed the sophisticated cast.

“As a matter of fact, I’d have needed to punish this naughty little one if it didn’t already suffer under the consequences of your blood.”

The grin on her face turned slightly sadistic, albeit the dragon blushed a bit due to it. It really suited Bael, who finished up her probing, adorning her in the best possible manner.

“I don’t understand what you just said just now. It’s suffering? And why punish it?”

Even under the influence of a dangerous sight, Nisha didn’t forget her goal again.

“Let’s start with the basics then. As you have surmised, the empty egg phenomenon isn’t that hard to explain.

The reason why these incidents happen is tied together with the origin of the emerging monsters … which aren’t monster at all. Generally, there are two tiers in which existences other than humanoids are sorted. As a general catch all term, first are monsters. Born with a strong body and plenty of aura, they  turn into the second category once they awaken a source of mana within them, which turns them into beasts.

However, there’s also an opposite path to form a beast. Born with only mana, spirits or elementals aren’t often linked with beasts, yet they belong to the same form of existence. In turn, to grow into a spiritual beast, elementals need to form aura in their bodies.

This is just a general outline and there are plenty of exceptions that don’t follow these framework.”

Shifting her hip slightly and resting one of her arms on it, Bael explained it with the patience of a teacher, as if this was the most simple thing in the world. Some questions arose for her during this, but Nisha endured and waited for her friend to finish.

“The contract seal the Guild uses when an egg is opened is a form of mental attack, a monster without a speck of mana is generally incapable of resisting this, hence the seal has an almost one hundred percent success chance. Even an innate beast is still mostly an aura centered being, the contract can capture them.

Spirits on the other side are born from mana, it’s their blood and flesh. As an hereditary trait, most of them have an inborn resistance against mental attacks, so the chance to subjugate them with a regular contract is rather low.

By disregarding the constraints, they can escape without being seen, leading to the Empty Egg instances.”

Turning again and sitting near the edge of the small creek, the purple haired woman let her long white legs drift inside the water.

“If it just escaped, the little one here would have been alright, maybe. Since you can see it, you could still have most likely caught it. On the other hand, this greedy spirit sensed a rich source of mana inside your blood and a bloodline capable of strengthening it.

Hungering for your energy, it tried refining your essence before making its escape.”

Twinkling with a mischievous expression, she poked her finger into the water, sending a bout of pure mana into the cobwebs.

“How could it have known that there exists a strong poison hidden in your blood? A mere spirit trying to refine a toxicity that even I would have to be careful about? Only in its dreams. With the refining process started, the little one lost control and panicked. Instead of refining your bloodline for itself, it would die instead. The only thing it could do to delay that was to submit to you and enter your mana. Luckily you already opened your [Inner World] already, otherwise even the beneficial suppression from your mana alone would not suffice to keep it from dying.”

The mass of white and black barely reacted to the mana, trembling slightly before remaining motionless.

“In the end, this little spirit here is constantly refining mana from the surroundings, hoping to assimilate enough of it to get a constitution like yours, to awaken as a spiritual beast with your bloodline. It’s rare enough to get an elemental with a blood line in the first place, so the chance it will survive and achieve it is low in the first place, but a spirit turning into a spiritual beast is the same as a monster awakening into a beast, akin to a goldfish turning into a dragon.

In a way, it is also fortunate it was just born, this little one does have a chance to succeed as well, it is like a sheet of white paper with nothing written on it yet, making it feasible for your blood to leave an imprint.”

Laughter with a slightly wicked tinge emerged from deep within her belly, Bael was truly amused.

“You showed me something good. It’s been awhile since I saw something so … interesting!

Go ahead, ask me the questions you want to ask. I’ll answer them all as a form of repayment.”

She didn’t turn around nor take her legs out of the water, hence the dragon sat beside her, taking of her shoes and letting her own feet drift through the crystal clear stream as well. Some of her questions had already been answered while others remained bothering the elf.

“You said this happened because of my blood … but, earlier on this day, my step brother Henry came into contact with it when he made his contracts. Is he in danger as well? Will it be harmful for him?”

Her first concern was for the people living with her.

“Hm, he should be safe. I didn’t watch at the time, however we studied the effects of your blood for a bit. After you fought with that rude man in the Adventurer’s Guild and he passed away, Gabriel sent someone to retrieve his corpse, the poison you used interested her as well. Can you believe that, they simply buried him without doing any cleansing rituals, when our servant reached the place he could see the earth rotting away at a fast speed.

Anyway, with a good sample of your refined blood, we studied the effects and looked at the composition, a curious thing really.”

At this point, Nisha had to interrupt.

“Didn’t you say it was poison? How is that my blood?”

The dragon instinctively knew her own blood wouldn’t be detrimental to her, still, so far it was her firm belief that the toxin which killed the adventurer was a result from using an innate skill, not her own blood.

“Oh, don’t worry. In fact, it is what you think, and much more. The refined sample is somewhat limited in its quality, so there are some conjectures on our part. Overall, it’s also an extraordinary thing, if you allow me to say so. Aside from the regular life sustaining purpose, there is no other component mixed in. It can heal almost any wound with a superior regeneration ability while the blood also heavily corrodes and poisons whatever it comes in contact with. Maybe there are even more hidden uses, but for you, this is actually good news. Instead of harming you, you only retain the powerful healing component, the blood comes from your body after all. You must have noticed you heal faster than average, right?”

Expectantly looking at her guest to prove the theory the two goddesses came up with so far, Bael rattled on without stopping, surprising Nisha somewhat. Apparently these two had the disposition of researchers.

“Well … I do heal fast, however so far I attributed that to the fact that I am a dragon. My little siblings also heal quite quickly…”

Towards the end, the elf’s tone trailed off, she couldn’t deny that she healed the fastest among the four dragons.

“Exactly! And the most important part among this is that there’s only one component! Even if someone tried refining a miracle drug, the effect is inherently tied to the destructive properties. And most couldn’t even detect the healing aspect. If anyone applied it without any treatment done to it or without your intent to modify it, the healing and corrosion balance each other out. It’s simply blood at that time.”

Extremely satisfied with herself, Bael showed a smug look, almost as if this was her ability and not one belonging to her guest.

“I understand this somewhat … but wouldn’t that mean I could refine my blood as an alchemy ingredient? To either make a powerful toxin or create a miracle potion by eliminating either of the opposing properties?”

Aside from the initial shock, the resulting opportunities were equally impressive. Ever since the hateful man challenging her in the Guild died to her anger driven attack, she had refrained from messing with it. Currently, Bael explained the reasons to her, giving her some confidence to be able to deal with it. There were even upsides, it wasn’t a purely destructive gift!

“Indeed, that certainly could be a future use. Just make sure not to overdo it, even with your regenerative ability, losing too much blood is harmful for the body. And who knows, my sister and I haven’t yet completely studied it either, it’s a true marvel. All we know is that it is highly volatile, maybe there are other hidden applications cancelling each other out so we can’t test them. Don’t get stuck in conventions, as long as you are creative you will certainly be the best at discovering your own body.”

Maybe the purple haired woman sensed the distress Nisha felt over the issue, taking the initiative to reassure the dragon and embracing her for a hug.

“One last question, Bael. Why is the poison so terrifying? I believe you mentioned even you had to be careful when coming in contact with it. Aren’t you much more powerful than me? It shouldn’t affect a goddess …”

Getting an urge to tease the girl in her arms, Bael couldn’t help herself.

“Aw, are you worried about me?”

Originally meant as a joke, she felt the hesitant nod more than that she could see it. The honest answer had a rare disarming quality to it, turning the mischievous goddess serious again.

“It’s not that much of a trouble to Gabriel and me after studying it. Actually, I started developing a mixture of my own, hoping to copy the effects.

When the toxin spreads, it doesn’t attack the body or breaks it down. From the point of contact, your blood changes the surrounding flesh to match itself. From a healer’s perspective, this is neither here nor there, to purge it would mean to destroy the afflicted flesh, but before the surrounding tissue shows signs of infection, it’s already in the process of changing.

To stop it with the victim’s aura or mana itself is tricky as well. By flooding the wound with energy, you only provide it with more room to grow, even vital energy gets invaded and corrupted.

On the other hand you can’t withdraw it from the wound either, when the energy leaves the flesh even more room opens up for the poison to quickly spread.

You see, sink or swim, both choices have their own troubles. And a healer wouldn’t be able to purge it with spells or external aura application, there even exists a chance the infection would spread if someone tried that.

As an expert of death, I have to say there is still a lot for me to study about it in the future. It’s marvelous.”

The account originally scared the dragon, wasn’t this thing coursing through her veins? But at least Bael seemed to have fun talking about it, she probably wasn’t lying to make her feel better.

“Are there really no ways to cure it?”

Worrying about accidentally infecting someone with the more destructive inclined blood, Nisha wasn’t confident in figuring out by herself in time in case it happened.

“As the owner, I think you should be able to counteract the toxin in the same way your blood does, providing more blood with a modification towards healing should be one way to take care of it.

And as for Gabriel and me, we naturally have our own protection after studying it. The trick is to attack at the point of infection at a rate superior to the spread. Once it is contained, you can slowly purify the toxin. Of course, this only works in the case the one trying to heal has mana or aura many times stronger than the level contained in your blood.

Imagine that, a god having to struggle to cleanse the poison of a mortal. You’re really full of surprises.”

Rubbing her head in an affectionate way, Bael’s tone also subtly hinted she wouldn’t talk any more about it, but it was already more than enough for Nisha.

“Thank you very much for taking the time to explain everything to me. I appreciate it.”

Hugging her friend with the purple hair one more time, the dragon let go.

“Don’t worry about it. Even if one of the old guys meddles, we already received plenty of compensation for this level of information. I’m happy you found it useful.

But now, you should hurry up and go to sleep, the academy will start soon for you, right?”

“You knew?”

Amazed a lofty being like the goddess would actually  pay attention to such mundane details, Nisha rose an eyebrow.

“Of course, Gabriel and me often sneak a look when you aren’t paying attention. You’re our favourite mortal, after all. Sleep well, Little One. I’ll give Gabriel your regards, she’s taking care of the garden at the moment. Have fun, learning something new is something joyful.”

“I’ll take that as the wisdom of my elders. Thank you again.”

Joking one last time, the elf opened the gate connecting to the domain her friend came from.

Laughing at the hidden barb, which was fully disarmed by the friendly smile and Nisha’s cheerful disposition, her only choice was to give the dragon a playful tap on the backside, eliciting a yelp from the surprise.

“What elder, I’ll have you know I’m the younger one between Gabriel and me. You’re still far too green to call me an elder.”

Laughing amiably, the goddess returned to her own space, leaving behind a perplexed young girl rubbing her bottom.