Sometime later:
The dragon stood on top of a tall cliff overseeing a still green valley under him. Blue magma was flowing around his black scales, slowly reforming his armour. He looked down from the cliff, his eyes falling on the small group of his minions.
The scaly kobolds knelt all over the forest, their heads touching the ground. Before them, a much smaller group of his craftsman stood with eyes filled with expectations.
The dragon finally opened his mouth, his voice booming across the valley, “Mortals, today I will give you a choice! Take my blood and serve me as immortal, ageless beings, or refuse it and serve me until you die of old age.”
The dragon’s gaze swept through his minions.
Immediately one woman stepped out of the group and fell on her knees, “Your Highness, please give me eternal youth. I never want to become old!”
It didn’t take long, and the rest of his minions also stepped forwards and fell on their knees, keeping a space between them and the first woman. They didn’t look as eager, but Vesuvius could still hear their hearts loudly pumping with excitement.
‘Mortals, and especially humans, are straightforward, promise them gold or immortality, and they will do anything. Well, except for that stubborn count. But there would always be these weird exceptions that are too stubborn or care too much about some odd values.
‘Maybe my plans are wrong? Do I really need even to transform them so eagerly? Can’t I just wait until they turn old and their eagerness to live longer grows stronger? Or ignore them altogether and instead transform these that are willing and save myself lots of effort and headaches?’
Vesuvius continued, his body aching to end this charade as fast as possible, “Alesia, feed them my blood, and give them their bright future.”
The young elven girl slightly bowed and grabbed a small bottle with diluted red liquid. She slowly approached a stone bowl, her long blonde hair waving behind her. She opened the bottle, and magic leaked, filling the whole air.
She leaned over and poured out the blood into the bowl. The mortals waiting for it froze, their eyes dilating when watching the red light radiating out of the bowl.
“Drink my minions drink!” At once, all of them jumped from their knees and rushed towards the bowl like a bunch of berserks with widely open mouths and eyes. They stuck their head into the bowl, pushing against each other and growling like a bunch of animal fighting for food.
“Alesia, you will be in charge until I wake up. Take care of everything. You have a supply of my blood and marrow. Use it smartly to start my kingdom.”
“Of course, your Highness! By the time you wake up, I promise I will build you a city!”
The dragon looked at her one last time and flapped his wings, rising high into the sky before turning towards the volcano growing out of the ground on the horizon. With flew flaps of his wings, his body speeded up and vanished on the horizon.
He dived into the caldera, his body falling into magma that immediately started to bubble and smoke. The heat and energy flowed into him, all of his pain vanishing with his nanites overflowing with more power than ever before.
‘Time to hibernate.’ Originally he wanted to solve the problem for the dragon god before going to hibernate, but now his plans changed, ‘I need more power to move around comfortably. This time they sent a few ships. What if they send a whole fleet next time?’
He was sure that his body would have a huge qualitative and quantitative change if he reached the adult stage.
‘Even if they send expeditions to search for me, it might take years just to collect enough funding, and then they will have to search the whole mountain range filled with monsters.’
He closed his lids, feeling and enjoying the energy flowing into him. The pulse of his hearts slowed down as they linked with the magma around him, each pulse of them sending a ripple through it. His thoughts slowed. The blackness of his closed lids and the comfortable heat of the magma made him slowly fall asleep.
POV Alesia:
The young elf looked around herself. There was nothing but wild nature around her. She felt almost at home, the greenery of the trees making her heart feel at peace. The fire elements spreading from the volcano and the heat from magma flowing underground pushed back the winter around it, allowing the plants to grow for the whole year.
She looked at her colleagues trashing on the ground, their bodies quickly changing and evolving into something better.
‘They will finally get rid of the mediocrity that is the curse of humanity.’𝒪𝐯𝐋xt.𝗇t
She felt like there was lots of work before her with the immense expectations put upon her. Yet she was happy for it and all of the confidence that her master had in her. She felt pressure, but at the same time, she was sure that she could easily build a city as she had access to a dedicated and free workforce with strength far beyond any human workers.
She suddenly stopped, feeling magic vibrations pass through the whole land. She could feel it; the currents of magic had changed, all of them flowing towards the volcano on the horizon.
‘Is this power of dragons?’
“What is this? I can feel my muscles bursting with power! I feel like I can hammer iron just with my fists!” the dwarf had already woken up. He was looking at his fists with his reptilian eyes. His already bulgings muscles grew even more, and a pair of horns poked out of the sides of his head.
‘Uhh? If this is supposed to be a kingdom and his Highness is the king, then wouldn’t that make me a regent if I am supposed to lead it in his absence?’ Alesia felt her heart pound as she fully enjoyed the fancy-sounding title.
She looked towards the still kneeling kobolds in the shadows of the tall trees.
“Start mining and chiselling stone to massive blocks. We can’t let his Hig… Majesty down!”