Vesuvius rested with his eyes closed, his imagination drifting straight to the next option. The images ran before his eyes as if he was watching a movie.
A bright golden light lit up in the darkness, revealing a dragon fully covered in cracks of glowing golden and purple magma with pulsing and branching vein-like patterns glowing all over his black body.
The dragon opened his mouth, and a stream of golden fire shot out, the glow of his veins brightening. The flames weren’t stopping as they surged out, and everything in their path evaporated, not even a speck of dust remaining untouched.
At the same time, projectiles rained upon the dragon. Crimson-red fireballs, mana bolts, and large glowing arrows smashed into his armor, shining in golden light, only to harmlessly sizzle out.
The golden runes engraved in it pulsed upon each impact.
Vesuvius felt his two hearts beat so fast that he felt that they might burst out of his chest, ‘This one is mandatory. It will work like the foundation for my powers using divine energy, and their number is growing. I invested before in the foundation for my mana, and it paid off.’
Even though the six droplets of divine energy sounded like nothing, Vesuvius knew how staggering it was, ‘With my two hearts, I can only store two droplets now. And with this evolution, I would gain five more, making it seven.’
He also noticed that the system showed generalized calculations for that dragon subspecies, not counting in his second heart, ‘What if I will get two cores as I have two hearts? Well, I should probably also think about its problems…’
He looked at it again, his head almost exploding as he tried to find something wrong with it. He read its description repeatedly, his eyes darting from one corner to another.
Finally, after a few seconds, his eyes flashed as he found something almost a flaw.
‘It has only one issue… I will have three sets of veins in my body. One for pure liquified mana, one for blood, and now this one for this… divine blood. How convoluted will my body be? If I also get veins for pure lifeforce or something like that, in the future, I would be almost made of veins.’
He knew he was exaggerating, but it was the only thing close to being a flaw. It was just too perfect, versatile, and fitting for him to think about not taking it.
‘Yes, I will take this one for sure. Now, I just need to select the second one.’
Suddenly the dragon stirred in the pool of burning liquid in shock as he realized something, ‘Can I feed someone my divine blood? Will it have different effects from my regular one? Also, what about my liquified mana? I need more experiments.’
It wasn’t even a benefit mentioned by the system, but he felt like it was something not obvious yet potentially game-breaking.
‘Maybe that would make it perfect with the warlord one… No, it would be a bad idea to base my evolution upon assumption.’
In a good mood, the dragon moved toward the last option. The option constantly nudged him with its undeniable power and the warning that came with it.
‘If even the system warns me then the consequences must be something dire. If it was some small thing the system wouldn’t even mention it.’
He temporarily suppressed his worries to just focus on its powers.
He imagined a dragon surrounded by an angelic army. The world around him distorted and bent, the rays of light fired by the angels bouncing off or unexplainably changing their trajectories, none of them reaching his body.
The next second, the dragon flapped his wings and sent ripples through space. His body vanished only to reappear straight into the flock of angels.
His claws glinted before cutting through their bodies without any resistance, even the space itself separating, tearing their bodies apart.
The lightning, fire, and more attacks exploded out of miniature cracks in the space, devasting the angels from all directions, their mutilated bodies raining down in droves.
‘The power of this choice is unquestionable. It would boost everything, my defense, my offense, my utility, and even my mobility. And not by a little bit but massively.’
The space element was powerful, one of the highest-tier elements in existence. It was stupidly hard to defend against and extremely versatile.
His eyes snapped open from the sheer possibilities that it would offer.
‘Maybe it could even give me the power to cross the gap between worlds. What if I used my breath to burn away the space around my kingdom? Wouldn’t that work as perfect isolation and defense?’
He would grab it without even thinking if it wasn’t for the warning. Yet, it loomed over it like the sword of Damocles.
‘Should I risk it and go for it?’ He felt terror, the atmosphere around him turning heavy. He hated how vague it was. It could be just a small inconvenience that he would overcome. On the other hand, it could also be something that would cost him his life.
‘What if it will be something like getting zapped by a god of space?’ He had never heard about such a god, but that didn’t mean they didn’t exist, ‘Even most humans never heard of the dragon god.’
No matter how strong it would make him, he was sure jumping head-on into unknown trouble would be a bad idea.
If he knew what he was getting into, he would at least consider it, but the terror of the unknown was too dissuading.
‘Damn, I already have more enemies than what is healthy. Yes, for now, I will not enter this potential death trap.’ The dragon felt pain about missing a huge boost into his power, but he refused to throw his life away after all the trouble he overcame to get as far as he was.
His choice was cemented even more as he saw the light at the end of the tunnel, ‘There is a large chance that I will again see this option in the future as I will still fulfill the prerequisites of being a dragon lord and have space magic. My dragon lord title makes it even more likely as it locks my options just to lordly apocalypse dragon variants.’
There was also the first line of the introduction. The line he would consider to be nothing more than a flavor when he was still just a player.
But now he felt like it contained a piece of important information.
‘It says that the dragon from the flavor text used their knowledge of space magic to transform their body and soul. So maybe I can get that power even without the system, using the slower, manual way like normal NPCs.’
He reinforced his resolve and internally swore that he would learn more about it before his next evolution, ‘I have knowledgable and ancient allies. I should question them about that threat. Maybe they know something that I don’t.’𝑜𝔳𝐋xt.𝑐𝑀
He breathed out in relief, sending bubbles rising up the magma lake as he finally made his choice.
‘I will grab the divine option to build a strong foundation for my divine energy. Then I should go with the battle lord. The warlord one is simply not my style and building an army powerful enough to make it worth would be a slow process, and I need more power immediately.’
With a heavy heart, the dragon confirmed his choice.