The Dragon Heir (A Monster Evolution/Progression LitRPG)

High Intelligence. One of my stats that almost felt… like a bad inside joke. By definition, high intelligence should mean razor-sharp thinking, insight bordering on genius, maybe the sort of stuff where you instantly spot patterns others miss, or recall knowledge with textbook accuracy, or speak like a philosopher who swallowed a dictionary. But none of that had ever happened to me. Well… maybe the textbook recall part, to an extent.

Despite the number being what it was, I didn't suddenly get epiphanies about the nature of the universe, nor could I calculate the trajectory of an arrow mid-flight just because my system screen said "Intelligence: High."

What it did give me, though, was something far less glamorous but arguably more dangerous: raw processing speed. High intelligence translated into overclocked cognition. I could parse. Parse faster. And the higher that stat climbed, the faster I could tear through input. With enough parsing, I could fake the performance of someone who looked like the ideal "high intelligence build" the sort who always had an answer ready, whose brain ran ten steps ahead of the conversation.

Maybe this was the hidden fault line between actual wisdom and Intelligence as a stat; the numbers didn't make me smarter in the way people imagined. At the core, I was the same. No sharper insights. No flashes of brilliance. Just speed. A whole brutal load of speed.

And speed alone, funnily enough, was enough to shock even me when I turned it inward. When I actually applied that velocity of thought to self-improvement, the results stacked up almost faster than I could recognize them.

Attempt 2782.

One hand crossed the number off the page.

Attempt 2783.

The other was already ahead, weaving mana through runes, stabilizing fuel lines of power, collapsing them with an oblivion rune the moment they destabilized.

Not even a full second before Attempt 2783 got scratched out and replaced by Attempt 2784.

A small meow cut through my focus, almost enough to break my rhythm… almost. I didn't stop, just spared the corner of my vision for the precious and floofy owlcat perched nearby.

"Mrra!" Feed me!

Of course. Alder was hungry. I blinked, noticing daylight bleeding in through the window. Damn. Morning already. I hadn't even registered him waking, though I had felt the change, the way his breathing shifted when he groggily opened his eyes and watched me grind through yet another round of rune-fueled insanity.

"Give me five minutes, Alder. We'll head out. Why not stretch your wings till then, maybe get some air?"

I named him Alder because his parts of his fur reminded me of that tree's bark, rather simple, but it stuck. He gave me a long stare, owl-eyes unblinking, then finally shrugged in that uniquely feline way before flapping toward the window. He paused at the sill, though, and tossed one last meow over his shoulder.

"Mrra?"

When's the bushy-haired man coming back?

He meant Viper. The owlcat had developed a ridiculous attachment to perching on his head, and pouted every time he left.

"He'll be around in the evening. Behave until then, and I'll even let you climb on him again."

That perked Alder right up, and with an eager chirp, he zipped off into the sky.

By the time I looked back down, attempts eighty-four through ninety had flown past, my brain running them on something like autopilot.

See, when I said "high intelligence," I wasn't exaggerating about the recall part either. My memory had always been decent, but this stat spike pushed it into another tier altogether. The runes spun across my fingers before I even consciously thought about them. Every failure added to the pile without slowing me down, with every next attempt already drafted in my head.

And what I was trying to accomplish wasn't even that complicated — not conceptually. The problem was I had no access to quantum mana spells of any sort. The only ones I had were from Xaleth's spellbook, and they followed a strict theme: incredibly powerful, but ridiculously over my current spellcasting level.

Despite all that power, my practical knowledge of spellcasting was embarrassingly barebones. I still lacked the fundamentals. Me — someone who couldn't reliably cast more than a handful of spells — was hamstrung by the gatekeeping people loved to wrap around the craft, and by having no obvious Pathway for the universe to just funnel spell insights into my head.

Lotte had tried to give me a route once; she called it the Lightning Serpent Path, and she taught me enough to survive the domain she built and to learn my very first Alignment ability when I faced that Lightning Wolf. That lesson was useful and intense, but it was the last real instruction I got from her.

Given how long people usually sit meditating and chasing enlightenment in the Pathways, I hadn't had time to devote to it properly, and I'd long since stopped expecting Lotte to hand-hold me forever.

So there was only one thing left. Trial and error.

I already owned two monstrously complex spells — seventy-rune constructions each — and I understood the exact workings of those runes down to the smallest interaction. Why not recombine what I did know into something new? Why not take runes I understood and stitch them into an effect I could predict? On paper it sounded straightforward. In practice it was repetitive and stubborn as a rock. I crossed out Attempt 2791 and wrote Attempt 2792; within the next second I was on Attempt 2793. I ran through compatible combinations at breakneck speed, but the fact remained: I was trying to invent a spell from scratch.

It would have sounded insane at one point. Now it sounded like method. It worked enough that I'd already succeeded twice and got some really powerful Quantum spells. This was the third attempt.

"Hopefully this time you won't collapse the wall and the barrier outside by accident," a voice said behind me.

"Well, my room wasn't as reinforced as you once had me believe, Master Vasilisa," I replied.

She stood there, hawk-eyed and precise, and lately she'd been walking without that sharp tapping that used to announce her gait like a threat. Her steps no longer sounded like the prelude to being cut to ribbons by her words, but she still couldn't fool my senses.

"I took your feedback and reinforced the room with alchemical shields far stronger than the last time," she said.

"I checked them. Solid work. Those shields your design?"

"Yes. What you're doing is something I once did myself. When one runs out of stored knowledge to consume, they revert to the primal method: discovery. Only those who do it reliably are usually the ones who end up notable."

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"Notable isn't exactly how I'd describe myself," I muttered as I crossed out Attempt 2807 and began 2808, "I'm certain someone, somewhere, has already written this down. I just don't have access to that knowledge, so it's less discovery and more me repeatedly bashing my head against the wall until the answer spells itself out."

Vasilisa offered a faint, knowing smile. "In my experience, that is the precise definition of discovery."

I paused for a fraction of a second, then smiled back and resumed my work. "Is something the matter? It's still early. I thought you'd be… resting."

"As it happens, yes. I come with what I believe you will find to be rather good news."

That made my ears perk up. The last few times she'd brought me "news," it had always landed somewhere between unconcerning and outright boring. The Pact was hunting me? Please, old news. Rumors that I'd barely escaped an ambush by their Bloodhounds? A spun tale with the Pact's desperate attempt to paint me as a villain, twisting the fact I'd sparingly left their precious hounds alive into something more sinister. Annoying, but hardly surprising. My reputation has been tarnished for less, and frankly, I've graduated to not giving a single fuck.

The Flameclaw Sect siding with the Pact, though, that one had surprised me. Vasilisa explained it wasn't some public alliance but a shadowy, deliberate collusion. Apparently, my presence carried more weight than I realized. She'd seen the signs in Varkaigrad, where she'd been doing business long enough to notice undercurrents even Lysska hadn't caught right away. Me? Well, I never would've spotted it. But facts were facts: Flameclaw now counted me as an enemy too.

I had theories. Maybe the whole "I look exactly like Princess Vernia" situation wasn't just a weird coincidence. Not that I ever believed it was. Maybe that resemblance mattered more than I'd originally thought.

At least the Bloodhounds had "left" for some supposedly urgent mission south in Vraal'Kor. Good for them. As of now, only one Pact member was still on my trail. Their leader — a gold core. Out of the three, two had dropped off the radar, leaving him alone in the hunt. Too bad for him I was very good at hiding. Sneaky dragon privileges. Hehe.

Besides, laying low suited me fine. I'd already planned to take a break, sharpen my edges, and properly refine the Pathway I'd been tinkering with. Tentative name: Dragon of Very Epic and Refined Violence. Wish it were a real Pathway. Then again, how Pathways even came into existence was one of those questions that only ever led down a futile rabbit hole. I'd asked myself before, and I wasn't wasting the brain cycles again.

"So, what's the news?" I asked, eyes still glued to my work, but with enough bandwidth left to hold a proper conversation.

"The Spirit Hunt Festival's preparations are finally underway."

"Already? Damn. Days really do blur when you spend them crammed in a small room running experiments."

"Indeed," Vasilisa confirmed. "And I want you to participate."

That sudden invitation made me pause my work entirely. "But… wasn't lying low the whole point? Entering that tournament would be the same as putting up a flare that says 'I'm here.'"

Vasilisa looked at me with an expression of profound disappointment, as if I'd failed a test I didn't know I was taking. She remained silent.

"What?" I continued, feeling the need to justify my confusion. "I'm clearly missing a critical piece of information here. I've been a little busy, and 'researching the Spirit Festival's fine print' wasn't exactly on my to-do list."

Without a word, she moved past me and sat gracefully on my currently empty bed. I was stationed by the new workshop I'd assembled. It was a significant upgrade from the basic setup Vasilisa had first provided. This room was roomy enough that my failures didn't feel like they were colliding with the walls, and the apparatuses were of a much higher caliber.

Finally, she spoke. "The Spirit Hunt is a tournament at its core; the festival is merely the public celebration wrapped around it. But it is not some simple gladiatorial contest sponsored by rich nobles for their amusement. While the mortal masses are entertained, instead we perform to entertain the sacred Ancestors who dwell within the Astral Plane."

I nodded, taking in the history lesson, but still failed to connect it to my problem.

"It's all facilitated by an ancient Beastkin artifact," she continued, "one that never lost its power even when others faded and lost their connections to the Spirit Plane. It's called the Colosseum. Each year, it awakens for a single week before returning to dormancy. This artifact is the bedrock of our connection to the Ancestors."

Interesting, but still not seeing the benefit for me. Was it about the prize? I knew the grand reward was a blessing to strengthen one's bloodline, leading to more potent magic and faster breakthroughs, if you could win the whole thing. Lesser boons were granted to those who merely caught the Ancestors' fancy. But I'd never heard of anyone actually completing it. The last recorded victor was Lord Veyan, the current Sablethorn Patriarch, who used the blessing to become the youngest Gold Core in living memory.

And then there was me: a pureblood dragon. How would these "Ancestors" even perceive me? Would they see through my disguise? Would it be dangerous? And if I won — actually won, not scraped by like most contestants — what then? Was the payoff worth broadcasting my presence while I was supposed to be laying low?

"The point I am making," Vasilisa said, "concerns the tournament's fundamental mechanics. Once you are accepted as a participant in the Spirit Hunt, you are granted protection for the artifact's entire active period. No one, not even a Gold Core, can harm you without incurring the immediate and absolute wrath of the Colosseum itself."

Now… that was a piece of information I had been missing entirely. The strategic value suddenly became crystal clear.

"That… does sound enticing," I conceded, my fingers never stilling as I wove the next runic sequence. "But the protection only lasts for the week the Hunt is active, correct? That's not exactly a long-term solution."

"Which is why the second part of this is the true gamble," Vasilisa replied, her hawk-like eyes narrowing. "The only way to truly clear the false accusations against you is to not just participate, but to excel. To earn the boons of the Ancestors themselves. Their judgment is absolute. They will never bless someone who harbors malice toward the innocent of Varkaigrad." She leaned forward slightly. "There was a member of the Vor'Akh who participated once. He was technically a winner, outperforming all others, but he received no boon. Instead, the Ancestors smote him on the spot for his twisted ideologies. Vor'Akhs now declares the artifact blasphemous, and every year they attempt to wreak havoc during the festival. Since they cannot harm the participants, they target the weak and the innocent."

My rune-weaving slowed as my mind fully engaged with her words. The pieces were clicking into place.

"What I am saying is," Vasilisa concluded, "the public knows what happens when a true villain enters the festival. They are struck down. So, if you were to not only participate but receive the Ancestors' blessing? There would be no more potent way to clear your name and spit in the faces of those who framed you."

Put that way, it made a brutal kind of sense. It was certainly more elegant than my fallback plan: waiting until my next evolution, reaching near-Gold Core strength, and then hunting my enemies down one by one to decorate their households with their own intestines. This was… tidier.

After a few more seconds of mentally weighing the pros and cons, my decision was made. But a practical hurdle remained.

"How do I even enter?"

"That," she said, standing up, "is a challenge you must solve yourself. Typically, one must be recognized by a noble household or receive a recommendation proving their capability. The entrant must be under thirty years of age and not possess a core above the Red stage. The Five Claws Council oversees the selections. If you meet the criteria and gain approval, you must drop your blood into the Dragonfire. It's a torch-like artifact that ignites when the Colosseum awakens. It decides which applicants will compete, usually accepting about ninety-five percent."

"Let me guess," I said, finally stopping my work to look at her. "Getting to the Dragonfire is the main obstacle."

"Precisely. It is currently housed in the main Council building. It activates tonight. You must add your blood to it before it is moved and placed under the direct scrutiny of Gold Cores. Once you are chosen, you are untouchable. However," she added with a knowing look, "to accomplish this, you will likely require assistance from your… new friends. I am certain they are capable."

I nodded. The first meeting between Vasilisa and Lysska had been tense, but a begrudging respect had formed. This was exactly the kind of problem Lysska's talents could solve.

"Anyway," Vasilisa said, moving toward the door, "the materials you requested have arrived. I have no idea what you intend to do with them, and I won't pry. You may collect them from the basement."

Ooh, it's finally here!

Vasilisa left with a lingering glance at the scattered, half-finished pages of rune attempts sprawled across my notebook. Once the door shut behind her, I let out a breath. Alone at last.

Before bothering Lysska about the Dragonfire, I decided to review my progress. Delegation was one of my many hidden talents, and she could handle tracking down the artifact. Meanwhile, I could focus on completing my third Quantum Spell.

For now — System! Drag your sorry arse out here and face me!