At the same time as Nisha entered her room, her thoughts scattered around and randomly brought up an image of her three dragon siblings and the last time she saw them.
The elf wondered how they were doing currently, and how much they had grown since the dragon siblings last met.
Although her own cultivation regressed once and only recently showed signs of overcoming the first great divide again, the other three dragons were not affected by such setbacks.
By all rights, they should at least have reached the fourth aura rank, while the fifth was more likely.
Sitting on her bed, the elf closed her eyes and sank into a state of meditation.
According to her intuition, Nisha was getting closer and closer to a natural breakthrough where her aura and mana overflowed by itself and went through a perfect ascension.
There was only a single chain left on the door in the empty space the girl visualized during her meditation, but that last obstacle was wrapped firmly around the path forward, not giving in the least even when the dragon strained her mind against it with full force.
Since forcing things would spoil them, rather than solve the conundrum, the young elf might as well take her time and sort out her own powers first while searching for a method to advance.
At the same time as Nisha fell into deep meditation, the subjects of her thoughts in the far south east of the capital were in the middle of their daily activities.
Where once a narrow cave laid half concealed on the gentle slope of a small hill, the majority of the slope had been replaced by a great sphere of wood, metal and earth.
A multitude of [Grey Dwarves] were busily climbing inside and outside of the dome, reinforcing the structure by joining the materials with their crafting abilities. Nearly all of their race had a talent for working with stone, and due to copious amounts of practice, their handiwork should have counted as half a skill from the effects alone.
Inside the ball shaped hall, which was half set into the hillslope, the outer circle was wrought from stone and paved with polished tiles, whereas the middle portion had a bowl shaped depression taking most of the available space.
Carved into four directions, four plates secured the boundary - three of them lit up with the typical glimmer of aura and mana channeled into an object.
At the bottom of the hollow, a spiral ramp led deeper into the dark recesses of the earth’s underground, hiding nameless terror and countless creatures shuffling through lightless tunnels.
Right now, Little Terra used the ramp to return from a successful campaign against the underground dwellers once again.
A long time ago, at this very spot the earth wyrm had once used her body to crush a horde of invading spiders to death in a close fight.
Ever since, hungry pests climbed out of the underground passage, hungry for the bountiful aura and mana of the surface world and those living on it.
At least one of the dragon siblings had to clear out the first few tunnel sections every time the sun rose, or the invading insects and rodents would spill out directly into the [Dragon’s Den].
Little Terra showed them no mercy and cleansed the area leading to the surface until all light faded and the dragon had to rely on night vision to remember the explored sections of the tunnel network.
While the foremost portion was relatively straight forward in a single path leading to the surface, the branching paths and passages soon fanned out and created a natural maze.
The earth wyrm crushed all daring explorers before returning in victory, crushed insect limbs and unrecognizable flesh remains all splattered over her natural armor.
Considering that the aforementioned armor had mostly consisted of rock and clumps of soil before, it now boasted outstanding defense as it transformed and upgraded in quality - the rocks condensed into solid layers with chunks of metal inlaid directly into the armor, making it useful for offense and defense at the same time.
Once the dragon climbed into the bowl and left the ramp, the three out of the four stone plates gained radiance and spilled their light into the bowl, illuminating a great amount of faint mist trapped inside.
The monster meat and other remains suddenly got stuck in the air and were yanked off the scales, swiftly melting into colourful light once they entered the fog - ultimately joining the mist and increasing the amount of it trapped in the bowl.
Little Terra - who was no longer quite as little - shook her scales left and right, the sensation of the muck slipping off her body was as unpleasant as ever.
Nevertheless, it was a necessary element of the arrangement inside the stone structure.
Along the edge of the bowl ring, the four stone plates each had a character written in dragon script inscribed on them.
Out of the four plates, the dragon had fashioned one of them herself, while two of the others were penned by her siblings.
Only the eldest among them was absent, leaving one of the stones empty.
Nevertheless, the entire building fulfilled its purpose as it had been told to the rulers of the [Dragon’s Den] by the Fairy Queen.
Combining the power inherent in the Dragon Script and a common array setup, the entire structure turned into a natural array that steadily accumulated power.
In order, the first slate was blank, but the character for it was already decided. Little Flame was the only one among the siblings with an element outside the four elements of nature, and they picked the [Repel] sign, which would eventually be empowered by Darkness aura and mana.
Second was her own script, a large [Reinforce] painted on the stone until it was dripping with earth energy. She had picked ground as the outer meaning and focus as the inner meaning, giving the spherical stone building strong protection against attacks and solidifying the surroundings until they were harder than stone, leaving the tunnel leading to the building as the only path from the depths of the earth.
Third was a bluish glimmer, snaking around the area in thin streams. Little Stream had a stroke of insight and penned the character [Restrict] with currents as the outer word and binding as the inner portion, giving birth to a special enchantment that bound down any intruder not recognized by the array and hampered their movement with ambient water aura as chains and blocked their senses with water mana.
Finally, the fourth character was contributed by Little Breeze, who had a different idea in mind yet ended up contributing the core portion of the natural array.
Written with erosion as the inner meaning and vortex as the outer border, the wind dragon originally planned to add a terrifying offensive attack to the natural array, but the outcome was far from the intent.
Rather than grinding down invaders into dust and scattering their ashes into the wind, the symbol of [Refine] ended up being the power supply core of the entire building.
Every bit of foreign flesh and blood got broken down by it and dispersed into pure energy, which manifested as mist and colourful lights in the bowl.
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Coupled with the frequent excursions of the three dragons into the underground tunnels, it was nigh impossible for the underground creatures to break through the defense erected by the [Dragon’s Den].
Alarmed at the emergence of the dragon, the [Grey Dwarves] scurried inside the building and hastily cleared a path for their ruler to pass through.
Most of them only grew around the second and third aura rank, making them capable of defending themselves but not a real threat in any way.
They mostly relied on other more powerful individuals for protection in exchange for their servitude.
Because of their talent in shaping stone and building structures, the [Grey Dwarves] were mostly welcomed by different beasts who enjoyed having more than a hole in the ground as their lair.
In the [Dragon’s Den], the little man shaped monsters were living a good life compared to others of their species and they frantically worked on new projects every time a part of the compound was finished, constantly trying to perfect their work.
Towards their masters, the three dragon siblings, they only held deep admiration and awe that ran blood deep from witnessing their power.
Little Terra paid them little mind, as the [Grey Dwarves] were generally working out of sight and proved to be quite useful in building the dragon’s domain.
Since they ate little due to their body size and knew their station, the earth dragon would personally not mind if even more of them lived in their sphere of influence.
Despite being gifted at earth manipulation and earth spells, the dragon found it difficult to achieve the same finesse with the small details the critters managed to finesse.
Striding out of the entrance was not troublesome, all constructions inside the den were in line with the size of the dragons, although some of them had to have been reconstructed as the three siblings grew in size.
The seal on the underground passage was on the outer reaches of the [Dragon’s Den], a necessity to guard against the invaders from below.
Due to the temperate climate in Leandar on the west coast of the continent, most of the domain consisted of forests, rolling hills and mountain streams dug up from water veins below the forest floor.
Through the careful landscaping efforts of the inhabitants, the area had small ponds, flower beds and carefully hollowed out ridges where the different inhabitants dwelled.
Little Terra was immensely satisfied with the joint efforts of their subordinates over the past few turns.
The glory of their den represented the glory of the dragons, so it was worth the effort to protect their subjects and their creations.
Next to the spherical stone cavern, a wide berth of land had been cleared by tearing down all shrubbery and trees, in case the defense formation ever got breached.
The only exception was a copse of trees densely wired with fine white threads, standing out from the forest as well.
Even Little Terra disliked going over there, albeit the threads were not the reason.
As long as she charged into the weald, the iron in her natural protection would shear through them with ease, but the inhabitants were the problems.
One night, a [Shadow Moon Weaver] appeared out of the blue and settled in the crown of a tree in the forest section.
The dragon siblings were wary of the intruder, but the beast kept to itself and built a nest of its own.
Unwilling to provoke a conflict, the three dragons allowed the spider to stay and keep out of each other's business, until one day the first wave of [Hidden Weaver Spiderlings] swarmed out of the weald.
Thankfully, the mother spider acknowledged the authority of the [Dragon’s Den] and subordinated itself, providing defense and captured prey as tribute.
Aside from the [Shadow Moon Weaver], the den also accepted other residents.
Closer to the core of their sphere of influence, the busy work of the [Grey Dwarves] provided hollowed out ridges for the more powerful tenants.
One such beast was a powerful brown bear, the [Fury Spine Bear], a sixth rank beast and her cub.
With such a cultivation, the mother bear was already a close match for a single dragon, although it similarly accepted the rule of the dragons.
It mostly sought a place of refuge for its cub, which had an even greater bloodline than its mother.
Once it grew up, the innocent bundle of fur rolling around in the grass would one day grow into a mighty [Broken Summit Tyrant], guaranteed to reach the seventh rank at least and making it past the second great divide in cultivation.
Its characteristics were expressed well in the name, wherever a superior beast such as the bear cub dwelled, the mountain peaks around would be broken and smashed apart whenever it got angry, showcasing the great strength of the bear.
For now, it was an unwilling playmate for Little Stream, who often drenched it with a splash of water once she swam through a nearby forest brook.
It could only unwillingly roar with its cute voice and charge after the dragon who liked to hide under the water, more often getting dragged into the flow than not.
Fortunately, the dragons did not view the seventh rank as an impossible barrier, or they might have tried to eliminate the cub and its mother before the young one had the chance to grow into its full potential.
Little Terra fought in the dark corridors beneath the earth the most and was duly rewarded for her effort. She had reached the middle of the sixth aura rank with her mana not lagging much behind.
Little Stream cared more for landscaping and administering the den, putting her at the high fifth rank of cultivation. Nevertheless, the water dragon had less combat experience and might not fight as well as her sister.
Little Breeze played around the most and often ran off with the two harpy sisters by his side, making the only male among the four dragons the weakest, at the early fifth stage.
Perhaps he would not even manage that much, without the two elder dragon sisters sharing their prey with him, forcefully advancing his power.