45th of Season of Fire, 56th year of the 32nd imperial era

  The gargantuan creature swept the forest with its gaze, but its bloodshot eyes failed to find prey. The monster screeched in frustration, sending shivers down Newt’s spine, before it flapped its leathery wings and flew away.

  The youth heaved a breath of relief and looked around, fearing other heart demons might prowl the sweltering, calcified forest.

  “Is it gone?” a dark-red serpent hissed, gazing at the sky.

  Newt jerked in retreat and tripped, banging the back of his head against the igneous rock floor.

  The snake seemed equally startled by the intruder’s sudden movement. It mimicked Newt’s actions, including somehow falling over, hitting its head, and returning the human’s panicked stare tit for tat.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here? You can talk?” they said simultaneously, then went into contemplative silence, examining each other.

  The serpent was five feet long and merely two fingers thick, its garnet scales peppered with crimson blots, which resembled tattooed writing in a language Newt did not understand. Its brownish-yellow eyes were distinctly reptilian, its vertical pupils locked on the skeletally skinny youth before it, taking in the ghostly white skin, dark-red hair nearly the same shade as its scales, and blue eyes, wide open from fear.

  “Snake?” Newt blurted, and the snake hissed at the same time. “A scaleless inferior species! Ancestral titanoboa, smite it!”

  Ancestral titanoboa spared Newt its wrath. The young man shielded his head with his arms, just in case, frowning at being called inferior, but he remained quiet, fearing the mighty reptile.

  The awkward silence stretched for several heartbeats, until the distant pterosaur’s frustrated shriek broke it.

  “Who are you?” Unsmitten, Newt repeated his question, while the serpent snapped its head towards the predator’s cry.

  “And who are you?” the garnet serpent asked back.

  First conversation in moons, and I’m talking to a snake. Newt wanted to demand an answer, but dropped the matter. Three years in the mine had curbed the lordling’s ego. He was no longer a noble heir, but a slave.

  “I am Newstar. My parents gave me the name because the sky flashed with a bright light the night I was born, and a new star appeared in the sky. But my friends and parents used to call me Newt. Nice to meet you…?” Newt left the word hanging, implicitly asking for a name, but the snake remained oblivious of his intent.

  “You’re one strange newt, but that explains the lack of scales and the weird, flimsy crest running down your back. Are you shedding?

  The snake’s curious gaze lingered on Newt’s torn trousers for another moment, its pupils shrinking until it finally nodded as it made its mind up about the state of the world. “Nice to meet you, shedding newt. I’m Magmin serpent. Your snake-speech is admirable. Good hisses. Who taught you?”

  Newt opened his mouth, about to say he didn’t know what snake-speech was, but then he closed it and stared at nothing.

  How am I talking to a snake?

  “I wasn’t aware I could speak it,” Newt stuttered, and Magmin nodded.

  “I can tell you have not mastered it fully, your ‘s’ is forced instead of rolling, but it’sss the effort that counts.” Magmin accented the ‘s’. “Do you mind telling me what you are doing inside my realm? I have never seen a critter like you, so you should not be a heart demon, but then again, strange things can happen right before evolution.”

  “Your realm?” Newt tried to make sense of Magmin’s words, but failed.

  Evolution, realm, is this—

  “Yes, my core realm. I am trying to overcome my last remaining heart demon, so I can advance my realm perfectly and evolve according to my design. You must be very young.” Magmin’s voice turned enthusiastic. “Even though you are a lowly amphibian, you should also possess the ability to expand your core realm and evolve into higher life forms. Who knows, if you try hard, you might become a lizard and walk the path of the mighty saurians, developing wings.”

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  Magmin gazed up at the red sky with longing. “I have dreamed of flying ever since I hatched when a sharpbeak snatched two of my siblings. I yearn to look down on all others who slither and crawl. Do you dream of flying?”

  Newt stared at Magmin dumbfounded, trying to find the correct answer to the blathering snake’s question. It was trying to advance its realm, which meant its core was at the peak of the first realm. Aside from its color, the snake looked no different from random snakes Newt had seen, and he knew he could kill those with a stick. But a peak first realm beast could slay him with a slap of its tail, especially one which had evolved all the way to becoming a dragon.

  The youth was slowly confirming his suspicions, and was torn between being afraid and excited.

  As silent seconds dragged on, Magmin’s eagerness turned into disappointment. “Of course you don’t dream of flying. Your kind lives in dark caves, in shallow ponds, you would dream of larger puddles or deeper caverns, not—”

  “Actually, I have often dreamed of flying,” Newt said, and Magmin perked up, staring at him with bright eyes.

  “You did? I am not the only one? My jealous siblings ridiculed me for wanting to evolve wings. They said I should develop poisonous skin, venomous fangs, or increase my body so I could crush my prey. But I think wings would open the world to me.”

  Newt nodded, then hesitated for a moment before asking the obvious question.

  “How does that work, evolution, I mean?”

  “Ah, you do not know how to evolve? Makes sense, makes sense, amphibian brains would have trouble understanding higher concepts unrelated to eating, sleeping, and mating.”

  Newt barely resisted the urge to speak, mostly because he was overwhelmed by the numerous protests simultaneously fighting for their right to be heard.

  He wanted to say he understood more than just eating and sleeping. He knew elemental theory, astronomy, how to sculpt and expand his realm. His tutor had been drilling him on arcane subjects ever since he had turned six years old, but through sheer force of will, Newt kept his mouth shut and listened to the snake ramble.

  “Now, young newt, some of us have a second heart, one which lets us take in this world’s warmth. Others have a third eye, which lets them see the world’s truth. Every moment of our lives, our second heart or third eye draws energy from the world, expanding an intangible realm within ourselves. When we sleep or bask in the sun, we use the time of our body’s inactivity to shape and structure this ever-growing realm. The better we organize it, the more energy we can draw, the more we increase the speed with which we grow. Are you following?”

  Newt nodded, and Magmin gave him a smug look. “How old do you think I am? Come, guess.”

  Newt stared at the snake, no idea what to say, but Magmin opened its mouth, excitedly waiting for an answer.

  “Fifty years,” Newt said, and the serpent hissed in laughter.

  “Oh, newt, you know nothing about higher life forms like reptiles. Snakes, myself included, need at least one evolution to extend our longevity to fifty years. I am in my prime, at the peak of my strength, twelve years old, and I am already at the threshold of evolving. I am a genius; you may bask in my infinite wisdom.”

  Newt was not impressed. The snake was just a kid.

  “Twelve years old?” he asked, and Magmin nodded, deaf to the tone with which Newt said the words.

  “I am legendary, am I not?”

  “Yes, you are,” Newt said flatly, “and you were explaining how evolution works.”

  “Right,” Magmin said eagerly, sounding pleased. “We take in energy, expand our core realm, and then give it structure so that it draws even more energy from outside our bodies.”

  “You already said that,” Newt interrupted, much to Magmin’s displeasure.

  “I need to build up the explanation so your underdeveloped brain can follow. Now, where was I? Right, I don’t know about your species; you are a newt, I guess you should rely on water energy, since that is where you live, maybe earth.”

  Magmin raised its head smugly. “I am a magmin serpent. We live near volcanoes, and thrive in heat and rocks, so I draw my energy from them. The few of my kind born with a core have a realm resembling the volcano we live on, but I thought it was boring, unoriginal, and underperforming to just expand a single volcano over and over as I advanced my realm. I was certain I could draw heat from outside in a better way than relying on a single volcano. And so I invented these,” Magmin pointed at the scalding tree with the tip of its tail.

  “World is full of trees drawing water from the ground, and I thought to myself, why limit yourself. If the ground has heat instead of water, they could draw heat, right?”

  Newt nodded in confusion, struggling to follow Magmin’s logic.

  “Well, wrong!” Magmin hissed with way too much enthusiasm as it slapped its tail against the rocky ground. “If you use the trees from outside, they burst into flames, crumble to ashes, and then your head hurts for hours.”

  Magmin flashed Newt with a fanged grin before continuing. “But if you change the flammable thing called a tree, and infuse it with more earth energy, it transforms into wonderful, comfortable rock, and draws the energy quite nicely. Unfortunately, most of it is now earth energy, which defeats its purpose in part, but energy is energy, and I shouldn’t complain.”

  The snake whispered the last sentence, then pointed towards the manarium with the tip of its tail.

  “And behold! Energy keeps flowing.” The gem accommodated the demonstration, falling off the branch, and rolling down the hill. “They go down, down, all the way until they strike the barrier and expand my realm bit by bit.”

  Newt swallowed.

  This snake actually is clever.