Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

I was back once again in the forest and immediately triggered [Genetic Dysphoria], losing control of my members as my muscles turned to goo and fell to the ground. Thankfully my pain receptors and even nerves were also goo at the moment, meaning that I didn't feel any pain from the collision with the ground. As my body turned back to normal, I remembered the past four loops I had.

After my last encounter with that elf girl and learning a bit more about [Magical Programming Language] I spent the next loop testing it out and I was now confident I could make at least a few more advanced spells. After that, the other three loops I trained my [Magicule Manipulation] which was now at level 5, and I could move my own magicules like they were my hands and legs. Truth be told, I wanted to test it against that cage again, but I wouldn't actually do it, at least for now.

First order of business from this loop was to steal food from the camp. The last two loops I managed to not get caught and I was confident in this one as well.

I climbed the closest tree next to me and opened my wings once I was in the highest branch I could climb, then I pulled one of my saved spells and casted it. It was a spell that simply pushed air in my wings, making me take off without actually having to flap my wings, which weren't ready for actual flight without having magic to do the heavy lifting because I was technically a baby still and my wings weren't yet fully developed, a fact confirmed by [Knowledge Library], but I ignored it and used a clever workaround to fly anyway.

All I had to do was achieve a high enough altitude and then just glide my way towards my target. It wastes a little bit of magic as I need to make the wind strong enough to lift me high in the air, but after that it's all set and I can go wherever.

After I was high enough in the sky, I adjusted my wings and let go of the spell, which dissipated in the environment. I had a general idea of where the camp was, I couldn't exactly know because even if I came from the air, the anti-monster field made my sense of direction turn upside down, so I had to rely completely on [Knowledge Library] to tell me the distance and direction towards the camp. Another thing I needed to do was to not be noticed by anyone in the camp. Even during the night I had to use magic to make the light coming from below me to be redirected around me because of my white scales that reflected the light that came from the illumination thingies they have instead of torches. This spell was quite costly, to be honest, and I had to iterate on it a few times before I got it right.

As I glided through the air in the dead of the night, I saw the lit opening in the forest filled with weird shapes that kept making me want to look the other way and knew it was the camp. I adjusted my heading a little and locked my muscles. If I didn't do it, the moment the field's effect took full force on me, it would literally make the world upside down to my senses and I would fall to the ground as I tried to flap my wings to correct for the sudden change… it was not a fun loop.

I kept a firm lock on my muscles and magicules. I was pulling everything I could touch with my magical senses towards myself, because I didn't want the knights noticing the magicules of a spell in effect, a fact I learned after trying to escape the camp by digging a tunnel below it, though I hadn't really learned in that loop just that they somehow noticed my digging, and then when I was experimenting with spells and checking them with [Magicule Detection] I noticed they released a few waves of magicules, as the spell itself was not 100% efficient. I was pulling those magicules waves from the light bending magic I was currently using and when the world turned upside down and every direction was meaningless without hearing any alarms, I knew I had done it.

The moment my senses were useless, I counted to five, it was the time it took for me to cross the boundary of the field and enter the camp properly. After the five seconds passed, I flaped my wings with all my might, which wasn't a lot to be honest, and somewhat landed next to the supplies tent, just like planned. I also turned off my light bending spell, as I wasn't as confident about my hold on the magicules being released by the spell.

I entered the tent sneakily and was able to steal a few slices of meat, which I carried in my mouth for the lack of a proper set of arms and hands. Don't get me wrong, my front paws were just like hands and I could use them as such, the problem is that I was still a quadrupedal creature and if I wanted to try to hold them in my paws, hands? I'll just call them hands. If I wanted to try them like a human would, I would need to walk on my hind legs, which weren't designed to do so.

I stopped. Something in one of the boxes caught my attention, it was a small bag.

Perfect. I thought and grabbed it, before stuffing it full of food. I then stealthily made my way towards the perimeter of the camp while dragging the bag which I now had strapped over my head and on my shoulder.

I watched as the two knights patrolling the region I was in got further away, and I knew it was going to take around two minutes before the next patrol passed through here, which allowed me to run unimpeded the remainder of the way, leaving the camp behind with a bag full of food.

I walked for a good thirty minutes before entering a small opening in one of the trees. I thanked those knights for dispersing the more powerful creatures of the forest from here, allowing me to run and walk without much trouble. Then I opened the bag, took a piece of meat and cast my signature air fryer spell on it, cooking it before eating… I should have stolen a plate and utensils as well, well, the next loop I would.

After eating everything, I pulled open my [Magical Programming Language] and made the last adjustment on a simple spell I was trying to do.

waterclock = {

connect UserMind;

receive MagiculeCharge;

wait Duration(20min);

WaterSource = absorb Water(1l) from Environment;

create Sphere(WaterSource);

};

I wanted to know if I could set a delay on the spell before it made any actions, and this one was simple enough. I casted it above my head and then I closed my eyes to take a small nap inside the tree I was in.

I was suddenly awakened by a splash of water on my face after, probably, twenty minutes. It was a very crude way to wake up, but I didn't want to waste much time sleeping my meal off, and I still wanted to do stuff on this loop, not just laze around until the explosion.

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I then sat on the opening inside the tree and started to think out loud.

"The explosion will happen no matter what in the middle of the morning. If I go near it, my presence will make it happen faster, even though the last time I was there I was the cause of the explosion by using [Appraisal] on the boronita without actually knowing what I was doing" I said. "[Knowledge Library] told me the ore is highly unstable and any magicule can disrupt it. Then there's also that cave full of elemental crystals that get a chain reaction of explosion because of temporal energy from my presence alone. But the cave where the boronita is was full of temporal energy as well, why did it take that long to explode if any disruption can cause it?"

Something wasn't adding up but I didn't know what. I honestly didn't even know where the boronita actually was, the only times I encountered it was after the explosion created a tunnel to it. But even if I managed to get there, then what? What could I possibly do to avoid the explosion?

"Argh!" I shouted and casted a fireball and shot it towards the ground a dozen meters away from where I was in frustration. Really, what could I do? I barely had knowledge of magic, much less of how to stop a magical nuclear explosion.

I sighed. Getting angry and frustrated would not resolve this problem, even though I wanted to just start throwing fireballs and lightning at everything.

I had infinite tries to escape the loop, but not knowing what to do I was stuck. Oh, wait. If the problem was me not knowing enough about magic, then I could easily remedy that.

"Tell me about magic" I said to my skill, honestly expecting it to answer me.

[Information not available]

…I should've expected that, honestly.

Back at square one, then… or not. Does the young noble in the camp have any magical books?

[Henry Darnas, the youngest child of Duke Darnas, as a part of the agreement for the camp in the Darnas forest for the capture of a Lunaspectra Wolf has brought a small collection of books on various subjects to study before returning home and receiving an exam to prove he has been studying during the expedition and not wasting the time and money of Duke Darnas to create the expedition and would result in nothing]

Okay… That was a little more information that I wanted to know, honestly. But at least it answered my question. I would simply have to invade the camp again and this time enter the probably most secure tent of the entire place.

Thud

The sound of my face hitting the wooden trunk of the tree echoed through the small opening I was in.

I mean, I could try to do it, but it would probably end up with myself in another cage yet again…

"You know what? I'll try it next loop. I want to check the crystal cave again, see if I can do anything about the temporal energy there" I said to myself as I left the opening in the tree and walked towards the entrance to the crystal cave.

Inside the cave was filled with dozens upon dozens of different colored crystals, each one filled to the brim with elemental energy of its respective color, and alongside it the cave was filled with a green mist, temporal energy leaking into reality. I looked at the lake inside the cave.

The lake was around 20 meters in diameter and was sprouting water like a fountain. I could also see coming with the water was the temporal energy filling the place and that was going to cause a chain reaction soon enough if I didn't do anything.

I jumped at the lake, the water was cold against my scales and temporal energy flowed around me but some of it broke off and entered my body like a piece of cosmic dust being captured by a gravity well.

I swam as close as I could to where the water and temporal energy was sprouting from the lake like a fountain and pulled the spell I had been creating in my way here. It was experimental, but if it worked as I hoped it would, it should pull the temporal energy and magicules from the environment and into itself, powering itself from the magicules and storing the temporal energy… Yes, I knew that I was basically creating a positive feedback loop that would probably explode in my face, but who cares?

I casted it and watched as the magical circle formed and started to draw in the ambient magicules and temporal energy in a vortex-like pattern. It started off weak, but as it absorbed more and more magicules, the pull was getting stronger, dragging in more magicules and more temporal energy. Yep, positive feedback loop at its finest.

I was about to dip, but something in the middle of the spell caught my eye. I looked closely and saw a small green crystal take form. It wasn't like the crystals in the cave, those were a specific crystal filled with elemental forces, the thing in front of me was a crystal made out of pure temporal energy. It was the size of a grain of rice, but it outshined every single other crystal in the cave, and as more and more magicules and temporal energy was dragged in, the more its size increased.

It was both fascinating and mesmerizing, honestly. I watched it grow more and more as the temporal energy was dragged from the cave and into it. By that time, I could feel the drag even on my own magicules, and that's when I noticed that the entire cave was clean of temporal energy. All of that was concentrated on a single crystal the size of my head, right in front of me, but the spell didn't stop pulling, I hadn't made a way to stop it, and only now I saw the big red flag on my own plan.

The drag was strong enough on my own magicules that it was actually pulling me closer to it. I began swimming away from it, but when I saw that the crystals in the cave were starting to leak their own elemental energies, dragged out of them because of my spell. I knew I wouldn't have time to run away.

I took a deep breath and dived under the water. I swan deeper and deeper under the lake in the hopes the water would absorb some of the impact of the explosion I was sure was about to happen. I was intelligent enough to create a drag from magicules and temporal energy separately, and only store the temporal energy, but what I didn't account for was that the elemental crystals were charged with magicules with different elements.

Right now, above me was my out of control spell dragging every magicule it could towards itself to power itself, but by about now, most of those magicules were filled with different elemental aspects that I was sure would not like to occupy the same space on the spell.

I watched the spell from the lakebed. It was a few seconds now that nothing happened. Maybe it wouldn't explode like I thought it would?

The moment I thought that, I saw a bright flash of light and then the entire lake was pushed out from the explosive force. I was lucky that I was already on the bottom of the lake, else the pressure wave would make me hit the bottom at full force, and even now the pressure alone was enough to take my breath from me. It was luck that there was no more water around me that I managed to breath again, but at that moment my entire vision was covered in temporal energy.

I was thrown around so hard I had no idea of where I was anymore. The feeling of gravity didn't exist in the whirlwind of temporal energy throwing me around like a pinball machine. I was completely lost and everything was spinning, even more than it actually was.

I then hit something hard that I couldn't see. Everything around me was a tempest of temporal energy. I began seeing a shape form just beyond the curtain of temporal energy. For a moment I thought it might be the God of Time, but the shapes didn't match with him.

"I remember this" A distorted voice came from the shape. "The next part is going to hurt. I'm sorry"

As the figure said that, I was yanked from where I was and thrown around again, but this time I was being hit with something hard, over and over again, or better, I was hitting something hard. I hit my legs, my back, my wings, my nose, my head, everything I could have hit I had hit.

I was then violently thrown against something hard, and hit my back. I couldn't move, everything hurt. I couldn't even open my eyes

I coughed up, a hot liquid coming out of my mouth as I did so and then I opened my eyes and saw blood on a smooth stone, which became white as soon as it touched it… dammit.

Everything went white.