"Are you sure you don't want to talk with them?" Lotte's singsong voice resonated in my head, her enormous draconic muzzle resting lazily on a mountain like it was a sofa meant for titans.

"Well… not exactly sure if I do. Pulling them here would lock them in real-time suspension, and if they're in the middle of a mission that would screw them over. Damn it, I should have set up some kind of schedule, at least weekends or something, where I could call them aside without wrecking their work. That way I could actually talk to them without feeling like I'm hijacking their day."

Lotte gave a dismissive little scoff in the back of my mind.

"Hey! Don't laugh. You didn't come up with the idea either!"

"Was it not you," her mental voice was smooth, "who so recently declared your independence? Who proclaimed that your reliance on this 'ancient scaly fossil' was now officially fossilized?"

"I said I wouldn't pester you like a hatchling pecking for scraps. I am perfectly capable of unearthing my own truths, thank you. However!" I raised a single, wickedly curved claw, a professor making a point. "I would never be so boorish as to refuse a freely offered insight. Should you, for instance, feel a wave of magnanimity toward a humble and tragically undersized dragon such as myself? Hmm? Hmm?" I nodded, thoroughly pleased with my own flawless logic.

"I shall etch that caveat into my memory," Lotte replied, "now… where had we drifted?"

"Ah! The grand tour of my personal projects!"

"Go on."

"Well, 'grand' is currently a generous term. There's not much progress yet, emphasis on yet. My knowledge base is painfully limited at the moment. Hard to admit, but I actually miss school. Back then, there were teachers everywhere, their sole purpose being to explain things, plus entire libraries stacked with curated knowledge for anyone curious enough to dig. Here, I'm pretty much learning from scraps." I gave a faint laugh.

"Still, I've got Vasilisa. She's drilling me in the basics of transmutation and finally easing me into advanced alchemical theory. At long last I'll be able to move beyond simple potion brewing. That kind of knowledge just doesn't exist out in the open world, and if it did, it'd be jealously hoarded. Right now, it's literally gatekept, and I just happen to be inside the gates."

"So, my first step is to branch into magic that the system itself can't fully pin down. Alchemy and Transmutation are the best candidates for that. They might even feed into my next evolution, though I can't say for certain the system will bother acknowledging it."

Advanced alchemy was leagues beyond my old potion making. Both it and Transfiguration operated on similar principles, but their outcomes were worlds apart. Transfiguration was the quick rewrite, forcing matter to change shape or essence by sheer magical precision. It was fantastic for fast alterations and clean reshaping, but the moment you tried to meddle with composition it became costly, volatile, and borderline suicidal for a normal person.

Alchemy, by contrast, wasn't about brute-forcing matter into submission. It was about permanence and altering the core essence itself so that the new state became the default reality. Transfiguration was speed and immediacy, but the material always pushed back against it, resisting the imposed change. Alchemy dug deeper, changing the root so that resistance simply ceased to exist.

And it wasn't like this was all foreign ground to me, I'd already been dipping into the same principles in my base-level alchemy with potion making. What were potions, if not temporary templates? Each one was a construct, a framework I laid over raw ingredients, altering how they functioned once consumed. Healing draughts, poisons, stimulants, it was the same logic every time. I'd understood that much instinctively.

That was why once someone advanced past red core, the regular stuff just stopped working. Their essence, the fundamental strength of their being, grew too fortified to be shifted by crude formulas. At that point, altering them required far sharper precision, more potent brews, finer manipulation. The old recipes simply bounced off their reinforced nature.

It wasn't until Vasilisa began drilling me properly that I realized just how shallow my grasp had been.

Entire branches of magic existed outside the neat little lanes defined by "paths," open for anyone to use if they had the knowledge and power. Alchemy, transmutation, ritualism— and I'd been blind to them. Too many phenomena slipped past me, things I'd either stumbled over or even performed myself without real comprehension. All the rituals I'd enacted were just me following Lotte's instructions step by step, with no idea of the actual mechanism.

I didn't know jack. Ritualistic magic was right there, ripe with potential, but I had no proper way to study it. I'd glimpsed so many things that sparked my curiosity, and every time the same frustration struck: I wanted— no, needed— the knowledge. I craved it, craved the understanding like air.

And then there was my own affinity. Quantum. An anomaly, something no one had even heard of. I'd tested the waters, dropped the term around Vasilisa a few times, but she didn't seem to recognize it. And if she, with all her knowledge, was drawing blanks, then clearly this was uncharted territory. That only reinforced the feeling gnawing at me, that there was more to this affinity than the shallow trick I'd been using.

So far, all I'd managed was nudging probabilities by rigging the coin toss, forcing outcomes to bend slightly in my favor. But I could sense that was nothing more than scratching the surface, the thinnest sliver of what lay underneath. Beneath that was an iceberg of potential. My understanding of it might be the very thread connecting me to the true depths of this affinity's power.

If only Xaleth's spellbook hadn't been such a cruel jokes, starting straight from advanced spells with no primer on the basics. I wished I had a foundation to build from, but I couldn't have everything handed to me. For now, I'd have to dig into it alone. At least Lysska was aware; I'd told her about it, and she'd promised to keep her eyes open for anything similar. That was one sliver of progress, however small.

"Your thoughts seem… occupied," Lotte's voice echoed softly in my skull.

"Well, yeah. Just thinking about my future," I admitted. "I've got this week-long tournament coming up, which means putting all my projects on pause. Still a long way off from my next evolution, but maybe if I win, I'll actually get something worthwhile out of it. Hmm… wait. Didn't Vasilisa mention the judging would be done by beastkin ancestors, observing us from the Astral Plane?" My gaze flicked upward at Lotte's colossal form, suspicion narrowing my eyes. "If that's true, then there's gotta be a dragon in that crowd somewhere. Right?"

"Who knows…" She chuckled. "Perhaps."

I didn't push her for more. There was no need. After all, I was a self-sufficient dragon now, wasn't I?

We talked a little longer before I slipped out of the dreamscape and woke fully refreshed. Nothing cleared my head like those visits with Lotte. Half an hour spent there always felt like I'd gotten a full night's rest.

Anyway, back to the grind.

"MRRA!"

An indignant, pitiful meow cut through the air. Alder was draped over the windowsill, staging a dramatic performance of a creature on the brink of starvation. Geez, so dramatic.

Fine. Maybe I'll feed the tiny tyrant first.

***

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I stared at the massive serpent like monster corpse sprawled out in front of me. With The Wave finally over, dungeon life had snapped back into its usual rhythm. Adventurers and mercenaries were back in demand, guild contracts were filling, and the dungeon markets were open for business again.

Lately, I'd been digging into monster research, narrowing in on creatures whose biology echoed, even faintly, that of dragons. Of course, there wasn't any perfect match and I lacked the precise biological knowledge to draw strict comparisons, but when in doubt, I deferred to someone with expertise. Namely, Vasilisa. And, as always, she had an answer. According to her, there was a serpentine species— the Basilisk— that overlapped with dragons in certain key traits. Its outer scales, some underlying structures, even elements of its hide and skin shared similarities with draconic biology.

That, naturally, raised another problem. To ask those sorts of questions, I had to explain to Vasilisa how I knew about dragons in the first place. So I told her, carefully, that the knowledge came from my family. It wasn't exactly a lie, since my forged identity from Gwen placed me as part of Bloodtide Sect, one of the older sects in Vraal'Kor. So it was just the kind of half-truth that could slip past scrutiny.

After all, most people, unless their family had clung to their ancient traditions, didn't even know the drakkaris were descended from dragons. The very name had been purged from the recorded history here, as Lotte had explained to me. Still, Vasilisa's response confirmed what I suspected: those higher up, the important players, certainly knew dragons had once existed.

So, under the guise of "curiosity," I asked Vasilisa if she could procure a Basilisk corpse. Not for the overlap in biology, but because every part of the beast was an alchemical jackpot. Its venom, the scale-dust that accumulated on its hide, its petrifying eyes, each one was a top-grade ingredient.

I had recipes that Lotte herself had whispered to me, something I was itching to test. I'd thought the request harmless, half-expecting her to shrug it off. Worst case, Lysska could keep an ear out, or I could even attempt hunting one myself someday. I underestimated Vasilisa's reach.

And so, here it was. Delivered to me neatly. Definitely not because I wanted to brew up some catastrophically dangerous poison just to see if it tasted good. No, no. Absolutely not. This was purely about knowledge and utility. Ahem.

The underground chamber where the Basilisk lay was dim, mana lamps lining the walls with a steady glow. A staircase on the far side showed where they'd dragged the corpse down, though given its bulk, it must have taken an entire crew to haul it here. It was a tier-four monster, no doubt about it.

I walked up and pressed a claw against its scales, testing the texture. Hard. Stubborn. Exactly what I'd expected. My gaze slid to the dripping venom at its fangs, glistening in the light. My tongue brushed my lips before I yanked one free and tossed it into my mouth. The crunch broke the air, sharp and very satisfying.

The effect was instant. Like an electric jolt, the taste shot down my throat and rippled up my spine. I exhaled with a shiver. Oh, once I actually concocted something proper from this, I could barely imagine the results. Not for indulgence, of course—strictly for emergencies, for utility. Obviously.

Still, all of that was just side benefits. The real reason I wanted a corpse close to dragon biology was for my own long-term work. One day, I intended to perform advanced alchemy on myself. The main reason I hadn't hit a true breakthrough before wasn't lack of willpower, it was lack of fundamental knowledge. I'd been stuck circling the basics of potion brewing without the deeper framework to go beyond it. This, though… this was a step in the right direction.

It was about altering the very base of something into… something else entirely. It would be a permanent shift. Only with a strong grasp of the theory, and proper alchemy, could you ever hope to even revert it or make further changes upon it.

Which brought me to the massive, magically resistant, tough-as-nails corpse sitting in front of me. My test subject. Vasilisa had made it very clear: do not attempt real procedures until I had worked through the entire body of theoretical knowledge.

Alchemical misfires weren't like potion backfires; they were messy, painful and had a very high to end catastrophically. Still, theory could only take me so far, and I was itching to get hands-on.

Alright then.

I took a deep breath.

First step: map the basilisk's essence with my magic. Even in death, the essence wasn't gone as it was structural, woven into the body like scaffolding. My raw magic seeped into the carcass, wrapping around it in a cocoon as I formed the spell.

[Essence Analysis]

Ten runes, cast in under two seconds. I was definitely getting faster. The spell still guzzled mana like a broken dam, but I had plenty to burn, and proficiency would come with practice.

This was my first time putting alchemy into practice, so I wasn't going to alter anything yet, I didn't even have the right reagents or apparatus to attempt serious restructuring. At most, I might manage a temporary transmutation. This was about observation, about deepening understanding.

So I sat, patient, as the basilisk revealed itself piece by piece. The layered composition of its scales and skin. The lingering mana nodes embedded like faintly glowing sparks inside its body. The mass and balance of flesh, organs, bone. It was like dismantling a painting, not cutting it into puzzle pieces but breaking those pieces down further: the pigments, the paper pulp, the wooden frame that once held it. And then reassembling everything in my mind to glimpse the true complexity behind what had once just looked like an intimidating monster sprawled on a dungeon floor.

Fascinating. The essence was more than its physical body, it felt more like its… blueprint of existence. And while I was tempted to scribble everything down, I didn't need to. I had Vasilisa's reference book at hand, and Basilisks had their own dedicated section, complete with diagrams.

Still, seeing it firsthand through my own magic gave a depth no text could rival.

On to the dangerous part. This was where alchemy's reputation was earned.

[Deconstruct]

The moment I tried to pull the essence apart, my magic sputtered and died. Expected. I tried again. And again. Each attempt fizzled out before it even began. I couldn't do it… not at this stage. My alchemy simply wasn't strong enough. My failure came at stage two, well before reaching stage three, the point where proper reagents and an actual laboratory setup became mandatory. Still, I had hoped to at least touch the threshold.

Oh well. Not the end of the road.

I cut a section from the end of the basilisk's tail, where the venomous bony barb still protruded and placed it before me. Once again, I scanned the fragment, rebuilding its essence blueprint in my head. Then I closed my eyes and reshaped it, not as a tail, but as something new.

A blade.

I crafted essence points for metal density, for the hilt, the edge. I blended in pieces of the tail's own blueprint, the venom gland, the barb, worked into the weapon's structure as new features. Once I was satisfied with the imagined composition, I braced myself and cast the spell.

[Template Lock]

The moment the words resonated, the mental image clicked into place.

This time I had far less essence to work with, so I wished it would work this time.

[Deconstruct]

The material still stubbornly clung to its magical resistance, but I forced my way through with raw will and mana. Bit by bit, it yielded. Every single point of essence unraveled, the once-beautiful puzzle undone right in front of me, fragmenting into countless minuscule, shimmering molecules.

Guiding my mana like a fine blade, I threaded it through each individual particle as I began weaving the next spell.

[Recompose]

The response was instantaneous. With a serpentine whirl, the loose fragments spiraled together, coalescing into a gleaming barbed dagger. It bore the color of midnight, its wooden handle polished to a lustrous gleam, smooth yet solid in my grip. The blade itself was jagged and barbed, every edge glistening with a sheen of venom so potent it almost hummed with malice.

I raised it close to my face and inhaled deeply. AHHHHHHHHHHH!! Letting the acrid-sweet scent flood my senses before my tongue flicked out to taste it. The instant the poison touched me, my eyes rolled back involuntarily— OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS!— as a spike of intoxicating pain pleasure shot through me.

My macro-trophic sac, faithful as ever, immediately flushed the toxin from my system before it could do any damage. This was strong, seriously strong stuff. I twirled the dagger in my fingers, testing its weight and balance. Against red-core creatures, this could be devastating if they lacked poison immunity and relied on their natural regeneration to purge toxins. Even a few seconds of paralysis would be a death sentence in the middle of a fight.

But then the blade quivered violently in my grasp, like a trapped animal trying to break free, and I exhaled a long, tired sigh.

This was the line between crude transmutation and actual alchemy. The dagger was already struggling to revert to its original form, fighting against the alien essence I'd forced into it.

Fine. I had a solution for that too. My fingers flicked into precise movements as I began weaving one last spell.

[Seal]

This was a stabilization spell. An anchor to bind the altered essence pattern and prevent it from collapsing back. Not truly permanent, of course. Every hour I'd have to refresh the seal. The more complex the transmutation, the shorter the stability window and the steeper the mana cost.

Still, I twirled the dagger again and brought it back to my nose for another sharp breath, then stuck my tongue out and, with deliberate motion, pricked it against the venomous edge. This time the toxin hit harder, rushing through my veins like fire.

I crumpled to the ground, twitching in a heap of sheer, shuddering pleasure. Maybe— I wasn't admitting it aloud— I moaned a little. Just a little.

When I opened my eyes again, my reflection in the dagger's gleam was joined by a horrified badger's face.

"SQUEE!" Belle's familiar voice echoed in my ears.

And on the stairs behind me, another doll-like figure had materialized.

Heat flooded my cheeks; blood roared in my ears. Without a second thought, I abandoned everything and slipped straight into the Shadow Dimension.

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