This reminds me of kind of how I wanted the dragons in the story I'm writing to be. They are beings whose consciousness resides in a crystalline 'Heart' and each of them creates their own form based on how they want to appear. They are immortal so long as their Heart is not destroyed ans so most of them spend their lives exploring the world, mastering sciences, the arts of magic and the interactions between them.

Humans think that the dragons are just vastly powerful but in truth their power comes from their understanding of the universe and their careful application of magic to that, as opposed to human mages, who effectively throw power at it and pray.