In the end alex decided to push his retirement forward a good bit since he was left with little room to actually grow in this world. sure he could increase his size or even his physical strength but even then there simply was no point when he could kill everything on the planet easily. the rest of the year until the legiana crossing started alex simply focused on cultivating the ninja apes growing minds. simple things like like sign language which alex admittedly felt like an idiot for not using this whole time.
Obviously the apes picked up the pseudo language pretty easily along with the admiral who finally got his proof that the apes were sapient. "i knew it!" the man celebrated excessively for two days after that much to alex's annoyance. despite the apes becoming truly sapient they still worshiped alex like a god and surprisingly the spirit element in his body pushed him the last ten percent of the way to sublimation as a result. alex hibernated for six whole months after that as his body underwent metamorphosis changing into the final form it would ever take.
The black on his scales was entirely replaced by white while the red star mark and gem in the center of it fully turned dark blue. alex's claws , horns and tail spike also changed color to the same sapphire blue. his wings developed a five colored circular pattern in the center of each of their webbings. unlike most monsters however alex didn't grow bigger from the sublimation process but rather smaller and more dense. finally however alex developed the one thing most elder dragons were known for , the manipulation of the environment due to their presence. in alex's case plants visibly grew in his presence as if he was the best fertilizer ever.
The scholars were thrilled with being able to observe the process of a monster undergoing sublimation during this entire time. the most annoying thing for the scholars was the leafy vines that grew over alex as he hibernated making it necessary remove them often to continue their research. the harvest of the berries had skyrocketed during this time to the point huge amounts of berries were harvested and stored to ship back to the old world. incredibly the sitrus berry tree produced a single berry that was different than all the others that the admiral insisted was planted in the garden to try and create more.
This berry was the same shape as normal however it was green and slightly larger than normal. this was due to a mutation caused by the pokemon berries being grown in this world that caused this single berry to also get sublimated under alex's presence. unlike normal sublimation however the fruits followed the same principal of color as the creatures known as "shinies" in the pokemon world in terms of color. the new fruit tree produced more of the shiny sitrus's and after a quick study they were discovered to be twice as effective as the normal sort but also much sweeter.
There was a downside to the new type of sitrus berry however in that compared to the normal variety this tree produced far fewer fruits in the same time as a normal tree ,three time less in fact. meanwhile the admiral and some of the lynian researchers had been teaching the apes all about various facets of society. the guild had received the news of the newly discovered sapient race and had insisted on making a good impression. it wasn't very often that a new race of people that can be manipulated shows up after all.
Alex awoke shortly before the reports of legiana migrating came in with an annoyed expression. the reason for this expression was the vines that covered every inch of him and almost seemed to be trying to tie him down. he was rendered speechless however when the vines actually moved away from him when he thought about removing them. 'plant control? when did i get this ability?' he wondered not even noticing the prostrating apes nearby.
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I have decided to finish up the events of iceborn before i start working on the alternate version of this story. the start of the alternate version will be very similar to this one but there will be changes to keep an eye out for so you have been warned.
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My p@treon is listed under my pen name : loskro if you are having trouble finding it. patreon.com/user?u=81578854