Magma Dragon's Heir

45th of Season of Fire, Year 156 AL

After Lady Monsoon healed him, Newt followed Magminion to present himself to the dragon exalt. He had let Magminion win, hiding his danger sense from the dragon while at the same time showing that even newly ascended to the “ninth” realm, he could still hold his own.

He had discussed the tactic with Magmin at length. Revealing too much strength would force Magminion to report him, fearing his mother would kill him should he keep Newt’s power a secret; revealing too little would mean the dragon would dismiss him. He had to walk the fine line where he could show that he was able to inflict some level of injury while displaying sufficiently impressive, but not too terrifying, resilience.

The saurian logic, while still alien, was something Newt could understand, exploit, and make plans around.

Magmin assured him that he was sending the right cues to his grandson, and that Magminion should act in their shared interest. It was a gamble and Newt’s safest bet at the same time.

The sun was setting when they arrived at the volcano; the dragon exalt’s mana clearly visible to Newt as she focused on him. Not a fine mesh most others used but a solid ocean of mana emanating from her.

She has a smaller range of perception than human exalts. Newt committed the conclusion to memory, but there was nothing to do about it.

“You have grown,” she said. “I wish to see my sire.”

She didn’t even wait for Magminion to leave, nor mince words. Her intention was clear to see, but at least she didn’t open up her realm and draw Newt inside immediately.

Magminion left, and the dragon exalt drew Newt into her realm. There, her form covered the heavens. With but a thought from her, the world moved around Newt like a tornado and drew Magmin outside.

Burns covered the slumbering dragon’s massive body, but his aura had slightly changed, gaining some of the immortal charm Newt’s realm exuded. Despite not being a saurian, Newt could sense the dragon exalt’s hunger, but she regained control of herself almost immediately.

“Why is my father in such a horrible state?”

“The heavenly punishment of my breakthrough burned him quite badly. He told me he would need to enter deep sleep for a decade to recover.” While Newt was fairly certain the dragon exalt couldn’t tell whether he was lying to her or not, he chose to share an incomplete truth just in case.

“And why is his realm unchanged after all these years?”

“It’s unwise to have someone living inside your realm more powerful than you are. I will let him into the ninth realm only after I’m close to the peak of my realm. The same as it had been before.”

The dragon exalt was silent for a tense moment.

“That does seem wise,” she admitted, but didn’t like it. She was in a hurry, hungry, but seeing Magmin’s state should’ve made her even more confident. If Magmin would end up hurt after Newt’s advancement into the next realm, that would make him an even easier target when the time came.

“You may leave,” she said finally after closing her realm. She had estimated Newt’s power, as well as Magmin’s.

Newt hoped she would find them suitably tempting and helpless.

Despite being dismissed, Newt didn’t leave.

“I wanted to inform you that I will be leaving for my kind’s lands in the future. I will be gone for several years, searching for more allies I might bring here—”

“You will not.” The dragon exalt said without leaving room for discussion, severing Newt’s plan at its root.

“But I need to know our enemy, and if I find some allies, I need to bring them to me to strengthen my forces.” He tried to sound reasonable, but the dragon exalt would have none of it.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“You may scout all you want,” she said with a snort that shook the surrounding jungle, “but there is an upper limit to the number of exalts I’m willing to tolerate so close to my home, and your kind is rapidly approaching it. If you want more space for your kind, you may approach another exalt of my kind and discuss terms with them. That is, if they don’t devour you on sight.”

An ominous silence followed, and while Newt remained visibly displeased about the situation, inside he was relieved. The dragon exalt hadn’t seen through his plan; she just didn’t want the humans to reach a critical mass that could threaten her.

“Fine,” he hissed as gravely as he could manage. “I understand.”

He didn’t antagonize her by taunting or mentioning sensitive words such as caution and fear. Instead, he nodded and left, Magminion soon coming to pick him up.

Well, that went better than expected.

Magmin didn’t respond; the dragon was truly injured and in torpor, recovering from the heavy burns that were shifting his nature to closer match Newt’s. It was an odd thought. As much as Magmin had initially influenced Newt, Newt had influenced the long-dead dragon even more.

The volcano and Magmin Pines, while seeming so revolutionary back when Newt had started his journey, now seemed irrelevant. The most important thing he had learned from Magmin were the runes which he had realized he could use in more intricate patterns to sculpt his realm, and Magmin’s techniques, which Newt had unified and improved into Magma Skin, but after so many celestial baptisms, it was hardly magma anymore.

“So,” Magminion said, “you’re planning on going to the stolen lands. Would you prefer me to accompany you openly, or would you prefer having a hard-to-notice spy following you around?”

“I prefer open deals,” Newt said without even considering it. “But are you certain you can follow me deep into our territory without risking your life?”

Despite still flying, Magminion bent his neck so it could reach his claw and regarded Newt with one massive eye.

“Do you truly believe that letting you wander your lands alone is less dangerous for me than following you there?”

Newt chuckled. “I see your point. You’d be finished if anything happened to me, but let me ask you, do you think my lands are more dangerous for me than this place?”

Unlike Newt, Magminion didn’t chuckle. He just straightened his neck and continued flying in silence.

Magminion following Newt was a suboptimal outcome, but not unexpected. That was fine. Newt would follow Dandelion’s advice and remain unremarkable, not for two hundred years, but four or five, slowly sculpting his realm and expanding it naturally and through his baptisms.

By going on expeditions once every fifty to sixty years or so and remaining on them for a year or three, he hoped the dragon exalt would find wasting Magminion’s time would become unacceptable. After all, she had all those ninth realm dragons with her for a reason, and if one of them suddenly vanished for years at a time while bringing no benefits, she shouldn’t be stupid enough to keep sending him away.

“We’re leaving in ten years, if that’s fine with you,” Newt said. “I have a few things to do during that time, but after that, we can go.”

Magminion made a disinterested hiss, which Newt had come to associate with a shrug, and they continued flying.

“By the way,” Newt said an hour later, “do you mind if I bring my wife with us?”

“I don’t care, but I have a question about your younglings.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’re familiar with how we multiply, but while we can have mates, we tend to lay eggs alone…” Magminion offered a short explanation, which matched what Newt had learned from Magmin, before asking his big question. “Your high realm awakened don’t seem to have the ability to guarantee the awakening of their spawn, and you don’t even get to pick their starting realm, since you seem disappointed when they fail to awaken. Why is that?”

Newt chuckled.

“My kind has been asking themselves that same question since we started awakening. We don’t know. I have a counter-question, though, if you don’t mind answering it?”

Magminion hissed for Newt to ask, and like Magminion, Newt offered insight into the human condition before asking about saurians.

“So, my kind has these hard limits in the maximum realm they can attain, crossing from the fifth to the sixth being especially cruel, and we don’t know why that is. Now, a part is what I’ve seen in my younger brother. He should have reached the sixth eventually, after struggling enough and devoting enough time and effort to it, but he just gave up and focused on something else. Do you have something similar? What limits your kind’s growth?”

“A multitude of things. But ultimately, weakness is what culls them. If you are weak, the strong will devour you. We don’t really have anyone who just stops and remains where they are unless it’s the apex. If you don’t evolve and enough time passes, someone will devour you. Perhaps we do have the same problem as you, but we don’t notice it because the weak don’t have enough resources and get sidelined before either getting eaten or getting sent to the stolen lands, where they are packed so densely they devour each other until only the strongest remain to return to the jungle.”

Newt nodded. It was brutal, but it was the saurian way. Then again, cultists were more or less the same. They slew anyone too weak to defend themselves, and not for the first time, Newt wondered what was happening in the Eternal Light Empire.

I guess I’ll find out soon enough, he thought and continued chatting with Magminion.