A torrential downpour played out over the special bonsai in the little basin.
Beneath the water, the white flood dragon's four claws occasionally clenched and kicked involuntarily, as though signs of waking had appeared. After consuming so much Earth Vein Dragon Qi, she had nearly burst from being overstuffed. Upon gaining merit and Sealing and Affirmation, she had immediately fallen asleep to evolve. Time seemed to lose all meaning, slipping away unnoticed through her fingers.
She drifted gently upward to the surface, half-floating and half-submerged, liable to awaken at any moment.
Her upper and lower eyelids parted, revealing the nictitating membrane known as the third eyelid. It protected the eyeball and kept the eye moist. Snakes originally neither needed to blink nor possessed nictitating membranes, but who had told her to evolve into a flood dragon?
The nictitating membrane slowly slid aside, revealing vertical pupils. Just awakened, a certain white flood dragon was still a little dazed.
Her pupils slowly focused...
She first swam several laps through the pool, stretching her limbs and adapting herself. Once she was more or less ready, she slowly raised her head. Her enormous flood dragon head emerged from the water, streams of water splashing down from the gaps between bone spurs and keratinous scales beneath her jaw. Her head rose higher and higher; first her neck, then her foreclaws, abdomen, and hind legs left the water. Her four claws ran as though treading solid ground, and her flood dragon tail emerged last.
Shaking off glittering droplets, she coiled and crawled through the small cloud layer above the sinkhole, landing atop a rocky peak nearby.
Her claws pressed into the rock as she lifted her flood dragon head high, her tail hanging low against the stone. She savored the southern wilderness's scorching heat and the