Chương 194: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 194 - Polymorph

The dungeon's bath was genuinely luxurious. It was built like a shallow pool, wide enough to stretch out in, with reclined seats along the bottom for comfort. Two faucets sat on opposite walls, one for hot, one for cold. The water connected directly to an underground river, keeping it clean and constantly refreshed. It still carried the dungeon's signature aesthetic, though. Four fallen angel statues ringed the rectangular pool, each one carved with a grotesque half-weeping, half-grinning expression.

One wing per statue was broken. They were half-naked, their ribcages split open, stone hearts exposed inside hollow chests. The whole arrangement was deeply unsettling. Replace the water with blood, dim the lighting a touch more, and you'd have a perfectly usable horror film set. As the dungeon's master, Su Nian had absolute control over everything inside it. He simply commanded all four statues to turn around. Out of sight, out of mind. Anna, on the other hand, loved it here.

The moment she stepped into the bath chamber she was off, touching everything, poking every fixture, examining every carved detail with bright-eyed enthusiasm. Only once she'd personally inspected every piece of equipment did she turn to the Black Dragon with a satisfied grin and wave him into the pool.

"Brother, Anna will wash you first, then wash herself, and you are not allowed to peek!" She stood in the water with her hands planted on her hips, cheeks faintly pink, delivering this decree with great moral authority. The conviction in her voice, however, was noticeably absent. Understandably so. The Black Dragon had already seen everything there was to see. What she was defending at this point was pure girlish dignity, and they both knew it held exactly zero persuasive weight.

"Okay, no problem, definitely won't peek. But Anna, I'm almost twenty meters long now. I should probably just wash myself. It's too much to ask of you..." Su Nian sat in the water, quietly uncomfortable. The bathing frequency lately had been getting out of hand. He was a swamp-type Black Dragon. He liked moisture, that was true, but he was not a water dragon.

"Brother... you've changed." The voice that drifted to his ear was soft and faintly mournful. Su Nian turned. Anna had flown right up to him at some point, lips puffed in a pout, cheeks puffed to match, the picture of aggrieved displeasure.

"How have I changed?" He genuinely didn't know. Well, he had gotten bigger. That was something.

"You don't even try to peek at Anna bathing anymore." She turned her face to the side and let out a delicate little huff.

"Do you not think about Anna anymore? Do you not like her?" Her long, fair neck was clearly visible even in the dim light. The thin silk slip dress she wore was gauzy and waist-cinching, tracing the curve of her figure with every small movement. Her arms were soft and pink. Her feet, slender and ivory-pale, were bare, like something too fine to touch. The hot water tap had been open a while now. Steam was rising. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

It gathered into droplets and slid down Anna's neck, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone like a tiny lake. When the lake filled, it spilled over, tracing the line of her body downward, soaking into the fabric of her dress in slow, spreading patches. Through the haze, that small figure became something impossible to look away from. Gulp. Su Nian swallowed hard. His reason held, barely, and his brain eventually circled back to the actual problem. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

Hadn't Anna been the one to say no peeking? He'd agreed. And somehow agreeing meant he didn't like her anymore? A woman's heart. The ancients were right to fear it.

"So... should I peek later, then?" He ventured the question carefully. Anna's face went scarlet. She stared at him with the desperate expression of someone who genuinely wanted to crack open his skull and check whether there was anything inside besides sawdust. How could a girl just agree to being peeked at!? If he wanted to look, either come out and do it openly, or do it in secret! Having her give permission was entirely missing the point. Was Brother really this dense?

"Stupid dragon. Bad dragon. Lewd dragon. Wooden dragon." Anna dropped her gaze, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, muttering fiercely under her breath.

"Anna? Didn't catch that." Su Nian blinked at her.

"I said, " She stopped. Took a breath.

"I said Brother should come and... peek later. Fine. There. Are we done? Can we please stop talking about this, it's embarrassing enough — just look, then, just — wuwuwu — " Anna gave up entirely. She made a firm private resolution: next time, she would just say what she meant from the start. No more riddles. No more hints. No more expecting the wooden dragon to pick up on anything.

She grabbed Su Nian's arm and dragged him to the center of the pool, then flew to the edge to retrieve the toiletries the monsters had arranged in advance. She sorted through the bottles, and her hand stilled on one of them. Lanolin. With a little lamb on the label. Her eyes lit up. She clutched the bottles and jars to her chest and flew back to the Black Dragon at speed, eyes scanning up and down his massive form with an expression of eager calculation.

"What is it, Anna?" Su Nian looked at his little treasure, unable to read what was going on behind those bright eyes. He could have touched the golden thread between them and known instantly, but he never did that. It would take all the fun out of it. The occasional glimpse into her thoughts was already more than enough.

"Brother, I just had an idea~" Anna raised one finger to her lips, a mischievous smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

"Can you drop all your defenses? Anna won't hurt you." Su Nian dropped them immediately. Without a moment's hesitation. Even so, his heavy scales stayed exactly where they were. Dropping his defenses just meant relaxing his body, his armor wasn't going anywhere. Anna smiled sweetly and reached out, soft fingers trailing gently along his dragon arm. She began murmuring under her breath. A spell, quietly cast. The Black Dragon's body shuddered for a single instant, and then nothing. No change at all.

"Failed?" Anna's face fell, though only briefly. It was more or less what she'd expected. With a body this massive, Polymorph succeeding on the first try would have been the real surprise. Still, Anna was a magical genius with a dragon's heart backing her up. A failed first attempt just meant she needed a different angle. If the full-body Polymorph wouldn't land, she'd apply it to one part of him at a time, treat a section as its own complete target. Any ordinary mage would have found this impossible.

Spell construction required a clearly defined target. Splitting that target, isolating one component and casting on it alone, the mental precision and sheer power that demanded was staggering, well beyond what human mages could manage. Even elven mages would struggle, and most would never have reason to try. It was probably the kind of technique only Anna would ever think to develop, and only because she needed to give a twenty-meter dragon a bath.

She flew to Su Nian's left wing and fixed it firmly in her mind as the target. Then she cast again. Poof. White mist bloomed. Where the left wing had been, a small lamb now clung to the side of the Black Dragon's body, bleating softly. Its four stubby legs kicked at the air. It looked absolutely ridiculous.

"What, " Su Nian stared at the spot where his wing used to be. It took him a moment to confirm it hadn't disappeared. It had become a sheep. He could still feel it. When he sent the signal to flap, the lamb bobbed faithfully up and down. Polymorph: a transformation spell with an absurdly wide range of possible outcomes. A low-level cast produced something closer to a prop, still and short-lived. Anna's version was something else entirely.

Not only was the lamb alive enough to bleat, it would hold for a full thirty minutes.

"Hee hee, Brother, Anna won't have to worry about bath time anymore. Just turn everything into little lambs~" Anna spun a happy circle in the air, then floated down until she hovered in front of the Black Dragon's sharp primary spine.

"Anna... what are you, " She didn't answer. She just reached out her hand. Poof.

"Baa baa~" ➤ Next: Washing the Lambs