- Heartstones and Evolution

"Elder Drake?"

[Elder Drake: A version of Drake that has lived many hundreds of years. It has grown out wings and is capable of short-term flight. Its capabilities with breath attacks has grown to be near the same as a Lesser Dragons.]

"So, I basically just become a Lesser Dragon?"

[No, you just have similar breath attacks.]

"What's a heartstone?"

[A heartstone is what you can create after strengthening the 7 rings around your mana heart. A heartstone has a capacity that is about 5x more than a regular mana heart, and it makes your magic attacks nearly 10x as strong.]

"Ahh, so it's mana heart+?"

[Essentially.]

"Should I make it before or after I evolve?"

[It doesn't matter. It will neither benefit you nor be a detriment.]

"I'll go ahead and get it then. How do I do it?"

[You need to bring mana in from outside your body and put them into every ring, and your heart at the same time.]

"Oh fuck, that sounds dangerous."

[It is, you need to be extremely careful during this process.]

Yeah, I'm gonna be more careful during this than a brain surgeon! After getting these notifications, I decide to go back home and create the heartstone before I forget what to do. I lay down on the leafy floor of my cave and take a few minutes just to breathe before I start the process.

I start by bringing mana into my heart and do this for another hour due to procrastinating. Finally, I build up my courage and divert some of that mana to each ring at the same time. Instantly, I hear a cracking noise inside of my head. Each ring breaks instantly and forms a nebula of colors around my mana heart. Despite the pain from something literally exploding in my brain, I keep pushing the mana into that nebula. After another hour of just watching the nebula grow, I see a slight twinkle of light in a far off corner. Then another. Then ten. Then a hundred. Then a thousand. Then millions. Millions of tiny twinkles happen all across the nebula surrounding my heart. Creating the most beautiful show I've ever seen. These white twinkles begin to change in color and size. The ones nearest to my heart becoming brighter than the sun. Green, blue, red, brown, yellow, white, and purple. All blazing like shooting stars. Then all at once, they start traveling slowly towards my heart. Their journeys take a lot of time, so much so that I don't know how much time has passed since they started, and most of them are only halfway to their destination. However, watching their journeys doesn't feel like a chore. It feels peaceful. Like watching the waves of the ocean from the shore. After another long stretch of time, the first light reaches its destination. It forms a blood-red crystalline casing around my heart, becoming something you'd see on an heiresses finger. The second one reaches the outside of the crystal and explodes out creating another layer on top. Then the third. Then the tenth. Then the thousandth. Then the millionth. The crystal seems to stay the same size despite all the different layers added on top. It instead seems to become more smoothed out, having nearly become as smooth as glass. The color deepened as well, giving it a look like a glass full of wine. Soon after, the last light sneaks its way towards the crystal. As it touches the crystal, several different lights cascade from the inside, creating a pulsar-like effect. The lights go off into the distance, far away from where I can see. Then finally, the lights stop, and the only thing left is the warm, pulsing glow of the heartstone. With each beat, the light grows brighter, then dimmer. Each beat like a war drum. I open my eyes and release a green, icey breath.

[Heartstone created!]

Every pump of the heartstone feels like an engine is fueling me. I feel like my mana is bottomless, and I decide I need to test it out. I walk outside of my cave and use the most amount of strength I can to create a giant beam of water. I face towards one of the mutated gigantic trees and cast it.

*PSHHHHHHH*

*BOOM!*

*CREEEEEAK*

The second the beam hits the tree, it cuts through it like a hot knife through butter and sends it crashing down. With how gigantic this tree is, the noise created by it falling sounds nearly like a bomb going off. Having verified how powerful my magic is now, I walk back to my cave.

[Lesser Hydra killed!]

[Extra energy will be converted into modification points.]

[Modification points awarded: 2]

"Wait what?"

[That beam of water kept traveling after going through the tree and appears to have hit a B-class lesser Hydra.]

"Holy shit, really? How far did it go?"

[After calculating the speed of the beam when cast and the time before it hit the Hydra, I'd say it quite possible traveled for four miles, taking out everything in its path before hitting the Hydra.]

"Haha! I didn't even see all the destruction it could cause! I thought it was already insane that it broke through a tree that my body wouldn't even go through!"

I work my way back to my cave to begin my next evolution. I dig my cave much deeper and bigger than it was previously and seal the entrance after creating vents so that I don't accidentally choke myself out. I lay down on the softened ground and leaf bed I made and confirm my evolution.

"Elder Drake."

For the first time, I feel a ton of magic leave my body. I open my eyes, and see it forming a cocoon around me. The mana surrounds my body, forming a second skin of sorts before solidifying and becoming a crystal. Just as I was about to ask about the crystal, I lose consciousness.

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If anyone were to look into this cave, they would see a gigantic emerald slowly expanding, and the air around them would feel thick and sticky because of how insanely high the density of mana is. If you were to stand here for an extended amount of time, you would see green crystals begin to form on your skin. This, of course, did not go unnoticed by the outside world. However, due to Adams' quick thinking, nothing was able to find his exact location. The only thing they could do was fight over who could stay near the exhaust vent coming from his cave and absorb all of his second-hand mana. Eventually, a beast much stronger than all the others near it bit, ripped, and tore its way to the top. Causing all other creatures to give up and run away. This beast eventually laid its beautiful white pelt down near this vent, greedily absorbing all of the diluted mana from the vent.

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I feel my skin dissolving and my bones and muscles restructuring themselves. It's not a painful sensation though, if anything it's quite pleasant. I can't open my eyes however. Or more like, I don't have any eyes. They dissolved as well. I feel something start to grow from my back. In four different spots I feel bones growing from my back. I feel the flame gland under my tongue start to grow. My entire body feels like it's going through growing pains. After what feels like months or even years, I eventually feel my consciousness returning to me. I open my eyes and see an emerald casing surrounding my body. I stand up and break through it effortlessly.

"The hell is this?"

[Mana crystals: The high-class solidified form of mana. Very useful for lower class creatures. A lower class creature would absorb the mana from them over time. Some high-class creatures create a mana crystal cocoon around them during evolutions. Its weaker sibling is known as the mana stone.]

"Status."

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[Status:]

[Name: Adam Lowell]

[Race: Elder Drake]

[Title: Beast King, King of the Starter Forest]

[Level: 1 / 100]

[Class: B-rank World Boss]

[Domains: 1]

[Mana Heart: 1st - Heartstone, 2nd - 0 rings, 3rd - 0 rings]

[Inherent Magic: Transformation, Minor Spatial]

[Modifications: Body Transformation, 6th Sense, Bile Glands, Toxic Claws]

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"Minor spatial?"

[Minor spatial magic. It allows you a 10x10 meter spatial dimension. In other words, inventory. It also allows teleporting small objects within 20 meters of you.]

"Ah, sounds useful."

To test it out, I try to store the giant crystal cocoon.

[Mana crystal x138 stored]

The crystal seems to break apart at first before the individual pieces start to disappear.

"I'll probably have some use for them in the future."

I create a wall of silver to see my reflection in. It seems that with the heartstone every single element gets strengthened, and with Earth it means I can produce precious metals.

I look at myself and am honestly pretty shocked. I seem to be moving towards being more bipedal again, but I'm still quadruped right now. I have two gigantic wings on my back up near my arms and another two wings about half the length of the other wings. I'm about the same size, maybe a little bigger, but I'm definitely more muscular. With my wings curled in, they add about another 5 meters to my height. My eyes turned from the green they were before into a red eye with a diamond shaped pupil. My scales turned black with a slight green hue when the light hits them right. Overall, I look pretty damn intimidating.

Now that I'm done with everything, I decide to leave and start my hunt again. I tunnel back to the surface and I see something sleeping in front of the entrance.