The next couple of days were fairly interesting for Alex as he had been actively hunting the variants of different monsters that were starting to show up. Things like the fulgur anjanath , nightshade poalumu , viper tobi kadachi and even the coral pukei pukei. Honestly speaking these monsters were merely elemental makeover versions of the normal species in Alex's opinion. For example the fulgur anjanath looked the same as the normal version expect instead of pink and black it was electric blue and dark blue with stripes. Unlike the normal version the fulgur anjanath had thunder powers instead of fire ones which made absolutely no sense to Alex.-
The subspecies mostly lived in the hoarfrost region which was populated by monsters that usually had a severe allergy to fire energy and yet the subspecies had ditched it for thunder instead for some reason. The coral pukei pukei was even worse as it had downgraded from a poisonous monster to a pure water elemental monster with so many colors it couldn't hide even if it wanted to. The only monster that actually seemed to get a real upgrade on this list was the nightshade poalumu that was now heavily invested into putting things to sleep.-
It also helped that the monster had also changed appearance to a silky black with false eye patterns on it's neck making it look bigger than it actually was when it inflated. Alex was most happy about the massive surge in levels his [tranquilizing poison] trait had from eating the thing though. The trait had gone from barely effecting high rank monsters to straight up putting them to sleep after the upgrade which made sense considering that the nightshade poalumu was a master rank monster at minimum.-
Alex woke up one day due to a quake in the earth along with what sounded like singing which left him in a bad mood. 'I was hoping that the explosion that xeno jiiva caused would have taken care of this trouble maker.' he thought before sighing and deciding to speed up the story a bit and go straight for velkhana since he knew where it was likely to be. Taking off into the air Alex flew north passing over the frozen caves and snowy mountainous areas. Soon he reached the dense ice and crystalline area that Velkhana tended to go to when retreating during the game.-
'A blizzard huh? I looks like she's home so why don't I go and say hello?' Alex thought after seeing the weather that was centralized around a certain spot. The localized blizzard didn't vanish when he unleashed his Tenshou but rather seemed to fuse into the hurricane turning it even more dangerous somehow. Velkhana clearly felt this disturbance as the blizzard intensified to to show it's displeasure at his appearance in it's territory. Alex calmly just stayed in the sky without any intention to retreat however despite this clear warning. This very much seemed to get on velkhana's nerves as it roared angrily and Alex picked up the barely audible flap of wings with his acute hearing.-
It only took velkhana a few minutes to locate Alex in the maelstrom of wind , sleet and lightning that ravaged the sky. Alex could only chuckle when the elder seemed to lose a lot of it's arrogance upon seeing him. He couldn't blame it really as not only was he bigger than it but he was also noticeably more powerful in both appearance and energy density. Had the frozen elder attacked him recklessly Alex would have been rather upset at how stupid it was.-
"ROOAAR!" Velkhana roared once again though this time less arrogantly and more simply trying to get him to leave without a fight. Contrary to what most would assume even territorial and prideful beings like elder dragons try to avoid fighting between them if they can. The reason for this is that no matter how you slice it they will definitely get seriously injured during any true confrontation leaving them vulnerable. Alex had fast regeneration however and as a result gave zero fucks about getting hurt in a fight and it showed when he belched a thick gout of flames at the frozen elder in response to it's roar.