Chapter 380 Efforts On The Both Sides

One year later:

POV Vesuvius:

Bare stone islands floated in the sea of time, easily piercing through the currents as they orbited the giant black dragon. Small spools of magma bubbled on the islands and glowed in the orange, fiery light. A haze of clouds surrounded them and the dragon, slowly spinning as they mixed and intertwined with the streams of time.

The dragon's golden eyes shone brighter and brighter as the invisible energy surged from the islands of stone and lava, tricking into the dragon's body.

'Soon, I will have enough energy to fuel my growth, and then...' Vesuvius could hardly contain his excitement as what used to be a giant dead trap slowly turned into his cocoon and incubator that would fuel his upcoming rapid growth.

A complex magic circuit floated in the sea of the dragon's consciousness while his mind focused on analyzing it.

'This is the base component of most of the space-element spells.' Studying all the convoluted and complex space spells took him a while. However, the part of his brain solely evolved to operate magic, analyzed it, and searched for patterns.

'This took so long. Now I can finally understand why it can take decades for mages to develop a new high-tier spell.' It was different than anything the dragon ever did. He wasn't just splicing spells together or creating some small low-tier spell.

Instead, he tried to understand one magic school to develop another one. It was like learning pyromancy to develop cryomancy. It was an extremely run-around way, but also the only one he could use.

'Space and time. They are elements that are extremely complex to work with. The same way as they were complex to work with in physics. On the other hand, fire, water, and wind are much simpler concepts with easier-to-understand principles.'

Right before his eyes was the culmination of the most fundamental core of all the space magic that was fully isolated, derived, and generalized from the space spells.

'Space bending magic array. It can bend space.' On itself, it was hardly useful, but when controlled through additional spell components, it could be used for teleportation, opening portal, deflecting by warping space, and even more.

'Now I just have to figure out how to repurpose it to bend time instead of space.'

His eyes carefully moved between the magic runes in the array, checking them one by one.

'How are you even bending space? Figuring this up should be the first step.' He had some knowledge of physics from Earth, but it wasn't anything deep. He could barely remember something about dimensions and gravity-warping spacetime.

'No, it doesn't feel like it is using gravity to do that. That would have to create some physical reaction when casting, but there was none. So it likely means it bends the space directly through some magic means.'

Suddenly he shook his head as his eyes fell upon a magic rune, 'I am doing it wrong. This array is already optimized and empowered by additional sub-components. Instead of working with it in this form, I should strip away all the unnecessary parts.'

With excitement, his mind once again moved between all the symbols. This time he knew where to start, 'Experimenting is the way. I will one by one try to eliminate parts from it to see how it will affect the spell.' his excitement and eagerness grew even stronger, and his heart pounded as he moved closer to his freedom, 'Yes, that's it! That should eventually reveal the critical part I am looking for.'

POV ???:

Flickering flames of a candle illuminated a cramped and dusty room. There were no windows, only moldy stone walls and an old rotting staircase leading up.

Three hooded figures stood in its center, their hushed voices quietly fading into darkness.

A raspy male voice whispered, belonging to the tallest figure, "It was more than a year since they were spotted last time."

"Maybe it died in the dungeon…." The second figure joined in, her voice brimming with excitement and hope.

"No, I wouldn't risk it if I were you. It is a dragon. What if is it just taking a long nap?"

"But if it truly perished…." A huge grin formed on the woman's face, obscured by the shadows, the dim light of the candle not enough to reveal any details, "It would be our opportunity to free this country and get back what once belonged to us!"

Suddenly the tall man shouted and stepped closer to her, "No, shut up, you idiot! Think, dragons are not mortals. One year is nothing to them."

A third voice joined in, filled with nothing but sorrow, "We have nothing... even with the dragon potentially gone, we are too weak to rise."

"You are both wrong. We are not alone in this. The dragon has plenty of enemies and even more potential ones eyes its treasures and land."

"Who? Vampires? Without their lord, they vanished back into the shadows. Elemental churches? They have their hands full of demons right now."

'As always they just keep looking backward. Instead of searching for new allies, they are just trying to rely on the old ones.'

"No, not only them. I talking about immortals! Let's invite them here and rally them with promises of land! They were always these moral lunatics fighting against oppression..."

Before she could finish her words, a large hand gripped her shoulder as the tall hooded man stepped closer and leaned over her as if trying to intimidate her. However, she didn't even flinch as she didn't believe her friend would hurt her.

'We might have different opinions, but we are still old friends.'

He released his grip, "I am sorry. I just don't want us to die. Once we do that, we will trade one occupant for another. Be patient, and everything will work out." he stepped back and waved at the second man, "Let's go Boratek!"

The two hooded men turned back, and their backs quickly vanished into the basement's darkness.

'Phh, cowards. They are way too cautious. At this rate, we will not liberate our country until our deaths. Even if the dragon really only sleeps, we should at least use it to stir some trouble! We are still nobles even though they took away our titles.'

The hooded woman clenched her fists, her eyes burning with a resolution, 'You have taken my title from me and I will take it back.'