The dragon was lying on his pile of gold, and his golden reptilian eyes looked unfocused as he carefully read through all four options.
The dragon’s eyes were dimly glowing as he read through the great power it offered, ‘The first one… To be a messenger of the dragon god doesn’t sound weak.
‘The power of that divine shielding would grow with a number of worshippers that I can collect, while I can easily buff and heal them. That will make me very hard to kill. With my draconic blood, I could probably transform whole hordes of monsters and animals into my army, which will keep regenerating under my powers.’
The image of a massive horde of draconic beasts and fanatics controlled by his dragon powers, moving like a tsunami, constantly getting empowered and regenerating under the golden light radiating out of the enormous silvery dragon covered in the impenetrable golden barrier of light in the sky appeared in Vesuvius’s mind.
‘Then there is the tertiary affinity with all nature focused elements, bringing lots of versatility together with a broad spectrum of high resistances. ‘
The dragon couldn’t feel but be mesmerised by the sheer power of such evolution. Still, he soon shook his head, upset about one significant setback of this evolution, ‘It feels like not my power but power borrowed from the dragon god and my surrounding army. I don’t like to rely on someone else too much. What is borrowed is not truly mine. Also, if I got caught without an army of my minions and somehow prevented from escaping, I could end up in an awful situation.’
Putting the second option off the table, the dragon looked at the second one, ‘Nothing unexpected. Why this isn’t considered a natural evolution when it feels like stepping closer to gaining all powers of a volcano and fusing them.’
‘I had a similar option during the previous evolution. The same is also true about the chemical one. That can mean that I will likely gain the remaining one during the next evolution; by that time, it should be already full fused volcano dragon.’
Vesuvius quickly skipped towards the last option looking at it, ‘Just as I thought, this one is again some brand new path. It seems like high DPS, high agility with low defence one.
An image of a humongous dragon surrounded by whirls of perpetually rotating winds of magma, fire and lightning formed in Vesuvius’s mind making his heart beat in excitement. The dragon’s large wings sent wave upon wave of lava and fire in every direction with each flap. The destructive, fiery winds, crackling with electricity, surrounded his whole body, coiling and twisting, propelling him forwards at the speed of the plane. Everything around the beasts disintegrated in a destructive show of fire and lightning that moved freely like a wind. The beast flew above the city, houses and everything under him, getting annihilated.
In the end, he returned back to reality from his fantasy, once again shaking his head.
‘Agility may be a good defence if I had more lives, but it is not very good with only one. I could end up dead with one bad hit or one surprise attack. I already gained materials to give me powerful regeneration that will make greater synergy with robust defences, and this evolution isn’t offering that.
‘Also, destroying everything just with my presence may sound cool on paper, but in reality, it would be pretty impractical. So I will keep with my volcano path as I am already so close to finishing it up.’
He was sure that he could very likely control destructive forces around his body thanks to his affinities with ease as he did with electrifying smoke around the current him, but having to do that constantly due to the destruction of these elemental winds would be a hassle.
Vesuvius had already witnessed with the ancient storm wyrm the power of the completed concept of thunderstorms, so he could easily imagine how powerful the completed concept of volcanos would be as it contained even more sub-elements.
‘Yes, I will keep with the path of the volcano until I complete it at level forty, then at level fifty, during metamorphosis, I will modify it into something better. After that, I will see how the future evolutions will improve on it,’ as an experienced player Vesuvius know the importance of future planning and not making rush decisions like changing the path he chose mid-game.
An image of a bigger version of himself covered in thick clouds of gasses, ash and steam with magma flowing all around him and lightning striking from the sky appeared in the dragon’s mind. Then the dragon in his mind opened his large armoured mouth covered in glowing runes revealing even more runes in his mouth, and released a massive beam of magma so hot that it turned white with streaks of gold mixed in.
He had no solid information about the evolutions of the volcano dragon after completing his volcano concept. Still, he could guess that it would take some exciting path, ‘Maybe an infernal volcano, supervolcano or maybe with the cores I have even something like a combination of curses, radioactivity and volcanoes…’
Suddenly, the dragon’s eyes went wide as he got one extremely destructive idea.
‘Wait, maybe I would be able to spit corium lava like that one that is made during nuclear meltdowns. It is so deadly on earth that it can produce heat by itself, being hot for weeks, melting through the meters of concrete like nothing, while just looking at it can kill you.
Thinking about the future of what he could become caused Vesuvsiu undescribable animalistic happiness making him impatient to get level fifty as soon as possible, to open more paths for him.
‘There is also volcanic winter; options for future growth are almost infinite, or maybe something simpler like replacing stone part of volcanoes with metal.’
With half of the options off the table, the dragon started to think about his two remaining options, ‘More heat and water or some chemical reactions.’
Vesuvius felt both of them had their merits, but then he realised, ‘Well, does it even matter? This whole thing looks more like a problem of order in which I choose these two. For now, the hydrothermal feels more straightforward with the useful utility of breathing under the water and lava. Rather than adding three more elements, I will empower my already existing ones and add only two.’
The dragon made his decision as he picked Hydrothermal Lightning Noble Volcano Runedragon. His vision turned black as drowsiness spread through his whole body and mind.