A wyrmling's first slumber can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the dragon's species and how much it has eaten. During this sleep, they instinctively begin to access the innate knowledge that comes with their awakened True Name, including the magical knowledge that makes countless wizards want to smash their staffs in frustration.
Unlike other intelligent beings who have to memorize spells, prepare components, and then, with the help of the Weave controlled by the Goddess of Magic, cram those pirated, watered-down versions of 'spells' into their pitifully few spell slots. If the Weave collapses or the Goddess messes up, they become like a gamer whose keyboard has been unplugged—staring blankly as they get a greatsword to the face or a dagger in the back.
Even for an Arcanist, an advanced class that doesn't solely rely on the Weave and spell slots (think mana-bar mages), the path is an arduous one that can make you go bald from studying. Even after going bald, a top-tier student might not be as strong as an ordinary wizard who relies on the Weave. They not only have to meditate to build spell models, learning from countless failures, but also spend a lifetime exploring the very nature of knowledge. It's a miserable profession that easily leads to a life of solitude.
Compared to these two, dragons are natural-born sorcerers, and the price they pay is far less than that of a bloodline sorcerer whose soul is constantly at risk of being harvested by demons.
But a smaller price doesn't mean no price at all. The draconic talent inheritance isn't exactly 'scientific,' but it is magical, a kind of spiritual imprint.
For some wyrmlings, this dream is like watching a low-quality, constantly skipping VR movie on a computer with a corrupted hard drive. They see fragmented scenes of an ancestor using a particular spell or ability.
If they are lucky enough to awaken the abilities of a powerful ancestor, their own unformed personalities can be heavily influenced. There's even a small chance they might inherit certain quirks or mental illnesses unique to dragons.
These include the well-known Magic Addiction and Endless Gluttony, as well as others that other races have never even heard of, like the True Name Curse, the Riddle-Lock Obsession, and Wanderlust Syndrome.
This process of observation stimulates the development of certain glands in a young dragon's body, sometimes leading to the growth of some very un-magical tissues and organs, almost like a mutation. Some are so altered they end up completely warped.
Most of these warped individuals die young for various reasons, but the few freaks who survive to adulthood invariably become the Aberrant Dragons who leave a deep mark on history:
There was a certain red dragon who awakened a nuclear fusion breath and was nicknamed the 'Walking Seed-Sower'; a certain white dragon known as the 'Wing of Frost', famous for its signature Mass Berserk Gay Charm spell; a certain black dragon who had the chance to achieve a neutron-star life form but remained obsessed with card games; and a certain green dragon who could have been the ultimate mama's boy but was determined to strike out on his own and build his own nest.
Right now, Levi was experiencing this magical moment. And because of his soul from another world, which was naturally stronger than that of a blank-slate wyrmling, he felt as if he could 'see' himself floating through a tunnel-like starry sky. Surrounding him were thousands of star-like spheres, each like a projector fast-forwarding through a documentary.
In his dream-like state, Levi glanced at these spheres. The protagonists in most of them were silver dragons like him, with the occasional mixed-blood of a different color. The common thread was that they were all experimenting with or using some kind of magical ability.
As Levi looked, various names instinctively surfaced in his mind:
Cure Wounds, Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Fog Cloud, Cloudwalking, Charm Monster, Ice Shield, Calm Emotions, Summon Monster…
A quick glance revealed hundreds, if not thousands, of different spells. For Levi, a newcomer to this fantasy world, it was like a country bumpkin entering the grandest of gardens; two eyes were simply not enough.
Unfortunately, if he wanted to learn an ability, he had to get close to its sphere…
But the question was, how?
Levi felt like he was in a lucid dream, floating in zero gravity with nothing to push off of. A feast was laid out all around him, but he could only look.
He could instinctively feel the bone-deep hunger threatening to follow him into the dream, and he knew that when it did, he would wake up.
He had no idea when he'd get another chance to enter this state. This was his only precious opportunity to increase his chances of survival.
Levi wracked his brain, trying every method he could think of. Suddenly, he remembered a scene from a movie where the heroine, thrown into space during a space station repair accident, removed her glove, broke her own frozen arm off, and threw it in the opposite direction to gain momentum and get back to the station…
Inspired, he looked down at his own claws with grim determination, only to find… nothing…
He couldn't even see his own body, as if he were invisible.
"??!"
Time trickled away in this awkward and anxious state. Just as the distant feeling of hunger began to creep in again, he suddenly felt a bit of indigestion, like he needed to… pass gas…
pfft.
Embarrassed by his own fart, Levi was suddenly shocked to find that his perspective had shifted forward, just a tiny bit!
It wasn't a hallucination!
He had become like that badass astronaut, gaining a precious bit of initial momentum! He began to drift slowly towards the spheres of light he so desperately wanted!
But it was too slow!
Levi could feel that the small amount of food he'd eaten wouldn't sustain the dream for much longer. He forced himself to recall the feeling of brewing that wind in his belly…
Pfft!
PFFT-PFFT-PFFT-PFFT-PFFT!
For a moment, the spiritual space seemed to take on a certain… appetizing aroma…
Like a river bursting its banks, Levi propelled himself deeper into the tunnel with his accumulated momentum! It was exhilarating.
The clearly more powerful abilities were all far away, well beyond his current reach. He could only try to pick the best of the bunch nearby.
I have to find a strong ability before time runs out!
Like a child in a field of flowers, always searching for the biggest and most beautiful one, Levi's gaze scanned past sphere after sphere. Suddenly, his eyes locked onto one that was noticeably dimmer than the others, which he was rapidly approaching.
It caught his attention because it was different. Compared to the other distorted, fragmented images, this one was remarkably clear and smooth, like the difference between a 360p video and a 1080p premium stream!
Just one glance at you in the crowd of spheres…
It had a mischievous, lively feel to it.
But what intrigued him more was that the scene inside seemed to be a war!
"This is the one! Let's go!"
As Levi plunged into the sphere, his consciousness seemed to fall into an even deeper sleep, and everything went black…
An unknown amount of time passed…
He felt like he was waking up from a bad hangover.
"Ugh… Fluffy, stop licking… let me sleep a little longer…"
But then his waking mind kindly reminded him that Fluffy couldn't possibly have a tongue this big…
Already traumatized from being licked by the kobolds, Levi was instantly shocked awake…
But the moment he opened his eyes, a foul-smelling liquid poured into his mouth, nearly choking him to death.
A string of curses almost escaped his lips, but he found he couldn't speak, nor could he control this body. It was then he realized he must have entered the spiritual imprint of an inheritance dream.
Even so, the sight before him nearly caused his brain to crash.
If this were a tabletop RPG, Levi's Sanity score would have plummeted straight to the bottom, and he'd probably gain a debuff like 'Violent' or 'Necrophilia'.
Before him was an indescribable, bizarre creature. It was irregular and twisted, as if countless creatures had been mashed together and wrung out, then had a number of mouths that would give a trypophobe an instant panic attack grafted onto it. That was probably the best way to describe what he was seeing.
Right now, the monster's countless tentacles were wrapped around what was once a majestic, sacred snow-capped peak. And what was presented before him was one of its many gaping maws, making no effort to hide its desire to eat him…
Yes… it wants to eat the owner of this body.
Maybe that first lick was just a taste test…
Seeing the foul tongue lunge forward again, this body instinctively recoiled. But as it took a step back, it lost its balance and fell flat on its back… Before it could regain its footing, it began to roll down the steep slope of the snowy mountain…
Ugh… it feels like being inside a washing machine.
Then, with a thwip, amidst a spray of snow, Levi's consciousness, along with the owner of this body, flew off the steep cliff… falling towards the dazzling, starlit depths of space…
In a dizzying spin, for a fleeting moment, Levi caught a glimpse of the dream's owner in the millennial ice of the cliff face…
It was an egg, gleaming with a silver light like a cluster of brilliant stars…
More precisely, it was an egg with a round lizard-like head sticking out of it… a piece of the shell she had just broken through was still stuck to her head, held on by either amniotic fluid or monster saliva… but the shell was quickly torn away by the intense centrifugal force…
The feeling of losing the only potato chip in your hand when you're starving even overshadowed the thought of, 'Holy crap, this is a female silver dragon!'
Don't ask him how he knew. It was as if becoming a silver dragon gave him the ability to instantly tell the gender of other dragons. He could even distinguish their beauty based on their scales, facial contours, and horns… not much different from how he, as a human, could judge the attractiveness of the opposite sex…
What was strange, however, was that not only could he appreciate the beauty of various dragons, but now, recalling the faces of some of the kobolds around the cooking pot, some of them seemed almost… good-looking…
"What the hell! What kind of weird thoughts am I having?!"
Just as Levi reined in his runaway thoughts, he witnessed a magnificent scene:
A floating mountain in a sea of stars. Countless winged… dragons? They were fighting back against the unnatural monster, but to no avail.
And in the deeper reaches of the battlefield, countless bubble-like points of light were bursting one by one. Suddenly, an explosion of light seemed to illuminate the entire cosmos, and an invisible wave of energy swept across the multiverse.
In that moment… stars fell like rain…
On this spectacular and tragic battlefield, the fall of the dragon egg from Levi's perspective was as insignificant as a speck of dust.
But at the moment it fell, a brilliant and powerful silver dragon on the battlefield looked back abruptly, seeming to let out a cry of grief:
"SYLVIE!!!"
Hmm? Is that this little dragon lady's name? Sounds nice…
But this egg is probably going to shatter, right?
No, wait…
If she died here, how was her talent imprint passed down?
Just as the egg seemed to pass through some kind of thin membrane, breaking through an atmosphere and plummeting towards the material plane, about to be frozen solid, a faint silver halo slowly materialized around the shell!