Arthur pressed magic into the runes carved on the back of his left hand.
Light burst forth—and a large dragon egg materialized before him.
Its shell was deep crimson, patterned with shimmering golden flecks.
One glance was enough for Arthur to recognize the species:
A Chinese Fireball Dragon.
Also known as the Liondragon, an adult Fireball Dragon typically reached about twenty-five feet—around seven and a half meters—and was the only true fire dragon native to the East. Smooth scarlet scales, a lionlike nose, a golden mane of sharp fringe around the snout, and bulging eyes made them unmistakable.
When enraged, they spat explosive mushroom-shaped fireballs—hence the name.
Female Fireballs were even larger than males, and Fireball eggs had long been coveted in the Eastern cultivation world for their medicinal value. A Chinese wizard named Kong-Bo, famed in chocolate frog lore as a fire-dragon scholar, had discovered this centuries ago.
Despite their ferocity, Fireballs tolerated their own kind far better than most dragons, and occasionally even shared territory with others.
Their favorite meals included pigs… and humans.
Arthur nodded in satisfaction.
A good species. But not big enough.
Seven meters was nothing compared to what he had in mind.
He intended to reshape this dragon—to elevate it far beyond the limits of its bloodline.
Carrying the egg, Arthur stepped out of the workshop—only to narrowly dodge a sudden blaze of fire erupting down the path. Flames roared for a moment before fading, leaving behind a long, scorched trench.
Arthur sighed.
Fire Peppers.
Clearly, Hermione and Ranni had chosen chili peppers as their next mutation experiment.
The girls spotted him holding a dragon egg.
Hermione hurried over, eyes filled with disbelief.
"Cousin Arthur, you're raising a dragon? And a Fireball Dragon, too?
I thought you hated these dragons back in first year!"
She hadn't forgotten their conversation when Hagrid tried to raise Norbert(a). Arthur had dismissed wizarding dragons as unimpressive—too small, too weak, far too easily subdued by trained wizards.
And now here he was… cuddling an egg.
Arthur straightened his back proudly.
"I despise underwhelming dragons.
My dragon will be different—unique."
Ranni, remembering Gransax's colossal corpse Arthur hauled out of Leyndell days earlier, had a very good idea what he meant.
With a thought, Arthur rearranged the Zen Garden's empty plots into one enormous open field.
A sweep of his arm—and Gransax's titanic corpse thundered into existence.
Even lying flat, the dragon nearly exceeded the garden's height limits. Only the garden's repeated expansions made this possible.
Hermione froze.
Her eyes nearly fell out of her skull.
She had never seen a dragon this size.
Even crawling, it dwarfed entire castles. A normal dragon could hide inside a single finger segment.
Arthur spent several minutes preparing the corpse before Hermione finally snapped out of her trance.
"Arthur—where did you get a dragon this big?!
There's nothing this size in magical history! Is it from mythology? Nidhogg? Fafnir?"
Her guess wasn't unreasonable. Since following Arthur, she'd experienced enough wonders to doubt everything she'd once assumed.
Arthur flicked her forehead.
"Please. If I knew where to find Leviathan, I'd go take a look."
Then, more vaguely:
"It came from the same place my plants and runes do."
Hermione immediately understood: He doesn't want to say more.
She respected that and dropped the question.
"So what are you doing now?"
"Preparing to extract its bloodline essence," Arthur explained while sketching a massive array around the corpse. "Once the essence condenses, I'll let my egg absorb it. That should increase my dragon's growth ceiling.
Who knows—maybe one day she'll reach Gransax's size."
Or surpass it, Arthur added inwardly.
After all, this Fireball Dragon could still undergo a second evolution—once he acquired the power of Placidusax, the Dragonlord, ancient King of the Elden Age.
When the array was complete, he activated it.
Scarlet wisps lifted from Gransax's flesh, weaving together above the array into a slowly condensing sphere of bloodlike light.
"Come on—let's eat."
Arthur brushed off his hands and led the girls away.
Hermione glanced back.
"You're just… leaving it?"
"This thing is going to take ages to refine.
Might as well speed up the time flow and grab lunch."
She quickly followed.
She had no intention of waiting alone while Arthur's 'quick meal' took several days.
After lunch, the extraction was still ongoing.
Even at accelerated time, it took another hour.
By the time the array dimmed, Arthur calculated that—without time dilation—it had refined an entire week's worth of essence.
He guided the condensed bloodline—nearly two meters across—into a prepared pool.
Then he dropped the Fireball Dragon egg inside and drew additional runes around the basin.
Summoned dragons needed to remain near their summoner or inside the summoning space to properly incubate, so Arthur simply designated the entire Zen Garden as the egg's summoning domain.
Once he confirmed the egg was steadily absorbing the essence, he left it alone and collected Gransax's bones and scales—each piece large enough to forge artifacts or armor of extraordinary quality.
The next day, Arthur entered the Zen Garden to find the essence pool empty.
Cracks ran across the dragon egg's surface.
It was hatching.
He hadn't expected it to be so fast—only one night of accelerated time.
But then he remembered: the "Dragon Egg" rune fixed all dragon incubation periods to exactly one month.
Of course.
The egg split with a crisp crack.
A small red head poked out—scales bright crimson, belly lighter, eyes gleaming with intelligence.
As soon as it saw Arthur, it chirped and burst out of the shell, leaping into his arms.
Arthur examined her.
Unlike normal Chinese Fireballs, her forelimbs and wings were separate—not fused like a pterosaur's limbs.
Two pairs of wings sprouted from her back, clearly inheritance from Gransax.
The usual line of hard spikes running down a Fireball's spine had been replaced with soft, flowing golden mane.
And atop her head grew a small pair of horns.
She wasn't bulky like Western dragons—more sleek, elegant, reminiscent of an Eastern yinglong.
Arthur gently stroked her mane and horns.
"I'll call you… Ifrit."
"Thank you… Master."
A tiny, soft voice—clear as a child's.
Arthur blinked.
"You're female? And… you can talk?"
No telepathic impressions—actual, spoken language.
She nodded shyly.
"Yes. I… have inheritance."
"What else is in your inheritance?"
Ifrit stretched out a claw.
Red lightning crackled across her scales.
Arthur's eyes widened.
Gransax's power.
The ancient red lightning he thought lost had survived deep in the blood, and the refinement brought it forth.
The lightning flickered out; Ifrit wobbled slightly, then rubbed her stomach.
"Master… hungry."
Arthur summoned her eggshell pieces and fed them to her one by one.
But she only licked her lips afterward.
"Still hungry…"
He sighed and produced a mountain of meat.
She dove into it joyously.
One curious thing happened: whenever she reached a piece that had been roasted, her eyes sparkled with delight.
She tried to mimic roasting with dragonfire—
And incinerated the entire pile into charcoal.
She turned to Arthur with the most pitiful expression a dragon could muster.
Arthur couldn't help but laugh.
He summoned another enormous dish of fully cooked meat.
"Thank you, Master!"
She chirped, then happily buried her head into the food.
Leaving her to eat, Arthur turned and stepped back into his alchemy workshop.
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