The pair of siblings changed back to their human forms and headed to the inn with Signy. They were both mentally and physically exhausted.
"What's the danger if the dragon takes over his body?"
"Hard to say what exactly he will do. He might attack indiscriminately or target specific people, he might also just act normal or even do nothing. The danger lies not in a takeover, that's only temporary. The real danger is the voice. It poisons the mind and makes you do the dragons bidding."
"Any advice on how to avoid that?"
"Well, there's many ways. Ignoring the voice does the job. Also, the connection between the soul and mind goes both ways, it's possible to talk back."
"Thanks, I'll tell them."
Völsung gave me my compensation and also returned to the inn. I felt a little giddy seeing that I received four more beast species and even a savage beast.
Now the only thing I would need to evolve was time. But for that I had a plan.
'System, can I grow infant beasts? And will it still count as growing them?'
'How would that work out with the verdant serpent?'
That was acceptable for me. I couldn't control an adult anyway so time was my priority. I estimated that the vampiric viper's blueprint would need another eight days until completion. That gave me plenty of time to master tri-wielding.
The royals left the next day and I spent the next month getting all the beast's blueprints. With every blueprint my deduction speed increased, it would now take only half the time to run the deduction on a beast.
In the mean time I had also fully mastered dual-wielding. It appeared that higher deduction skills helped with simultaneously completing multiple tasks. I had started to attempt tri-wielding and it wasn't that bad. If I could further raise my deduction skill and put in a decent amount of effort I would succeed in no time.
Now it was time to start my greatest deduction yet! The verdant serpent's blueprint would allow me to achieve the next stage of evolution.
Two months! That was how long it took me to crack that formula and receive the complete blueprint! Thank the goddess I had increased my deduction skill before this and not directly made the attempt.
I could now grow an infant verdant serpent. But for now I wouldn't. During my two month deduction period Sven had returned with a beast's corpse. Well, three to be honest.
The shadow horse that Sven hunted had been very powerful and managed to take down two tempest wolves before it was defeated.
I had decided to get its blueprint first to increase my deduction just a little more. Sven had happily received his 50 iron ingots and left.
This time the deduction of the shadow horses blueprint merely took one day. Now, I was as prepared as I could.
Growing the infant verdant serpent took another day. But what was one day compared to how long I had already been here?
How long had I been here? Four years?...
I couldn't remember.
Splash!
The gelatinous egg hit the ground and splattered. The little noodle that wiggled out of the remains of its egg was, as expected, green. It might not look dangerous but the reason this thing was a savage beast when it matured was a combination of both physical tyranny and potent poison.
This little thing might not have developed its tyrannical physique yet but the poison could still kill a beast.
Now as for tri-wielding, I had mastered it.
Now as to how I would evolve. Simple, I have grown three different things so far. Now I would have to grow all three things together.
And since I didn't want to blow up from three different formulas running not so simultaneously, I needed to be able to control three different currents of magic without letting them clash.