20demayo Page 3
Page 3
I've seen plenty of baby dragons, but I've never seen anything like you. Your first reaction to seeing a living creature lunge at you was to dodge. Don't normal baby dragons pounce on their prey?
The purpose of the first hunting lesson was to let you realize your physical strength compared to the prey and boost your confidence.
"Yeah, you seemed to be hiding in the lava when I came in. What a cowardly dragon..."
Casalos opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a single word for a long time.
Miss Fiona, the tungsten dragon, ignored the dumbfounded Casalos and continued casting her spell, forcing the hiding Infernal Scorpion to unwillingly crawl out and face its inevitable fate.
The giant scorpion, over three meters long and covered in horny armor, screamed and charged like a miniature war machine.
Unfortunately, the target it was charging at was at least twice its size, and its body was covered with thick, steel-like scales. This was a deadly charge...
Fiona had made her point so clearly that Casalos no longer needed to foolishly ponder any tactics. He landed, then leaped and pounced, his two claws like hydraulic clamps pressing down on the scorpion's two large pincers. His thick chest plate pressed down on the scorpion's cephalothorax like a thousand-pound weight, and the immense force and weight difference rendered it almost immobile.
Then, it popped its head out and easily dealt with the most threatening Poison Sting with a diagonal bite. Then it followed up with a burst of spark-like dragon breath. The aroma of the thick fat and protein of the infernal creature reacting under high temperature wafted out, arousing Casaloz's appetite, which did not feel hungry.
Using dragon breath to process prey is the most common and widespread "cooking" method for dragons. Except for certain special dragon species or individuals, all dragons like to do this, and Casaloz, who has inherited a unique sensory heritage, is no exception.
"They really weren't sent back to another world, that's strange..."
"Sent back to another world? The mechanism where summoned creatures are recalled from the original other world when they die."
In fact, that kind of situation usually only occurs with high-level otherworldly summons.
Whether it's purgatory or the heavens, who would waste magic power to recall these rampant reptiles, and then have to rebuild and repair their bodies, correct their memories and behaviors afterward? Wouldn't they be incredibly bored?
"I see."
Indeed, there are differences between the rules of the real world and those of board games.
With a perfunctory remark, Casalos began to enjoy its first truly meaningful "meal" in this world—completely oblivious to the fear of poisonous insects and the aversion to strange food that it should have had when it was human, none of these emotions surfaced at this moment.
Physiologically, it has become a complete dragon, and its transformation in spirit is perhaps even more profound.
The crispy shell was full of caramelized aroma, the tender and juicy meat soaked in fat had a hint of sweetness and saltiness, plus the well-developed reproductive glands of arthropods, the liver and pancreas, that is, the unique aroma of "yellow", and the stimulating spiciness of the negative energy of purgatory, which made Casalos feel the delicious experience unique to dragons.
After swallowing a medium-sized Hellfire Scorpion, the fledgling dragon, having eaten and drunk its fill, began to droop its eyelids as if weighed down by a thousand-pound weight.
Forcing himself to observe the environment, Casalos found the lava river's scorching heat filling the dragon's nest. The tungsten dragon lay leisurely to the side, its wings, forelimbs, and mouth all rummaging through something. The entire environment exuded safety and warmth, and Casalos immediately fell asleep.
"Hey, why are you asleep already? You haven't even marked out your territory in the nest yet. Oh well, there's still time..."
Miss Tungsten Dragon stood up from the ground, stretched out her long neck to snatch Casalos by the scruff of her neck, strolled to the side of the lava river, rummaged over a small pile of iron ore to build a small nest, put it down, and then dug a small channel to let the lava flow into the nest, covering the baby dragon's chin.
The fire elemental power contained in the lava river surged like a tide upon contact with the sleeping dragon's body, then gathered into a vortex and flowed into the dragon's body.
"Wow, amazing! No wonder you're called the Iron Dragon, the leader race of our Iron Dragons!"
Within the vortex formed by the fire element, Casalos's breathing became even, as if he were sleeping more comfortably and deeply...
"What happened again!"
In his memory, he seemed to be Casalos, who had just fallen asleep, but he found himself inexplicably in a vast, empty hall with no end in sight.
Its reflection was mirrored on the perfectly polished obsidian floor, allowing it to confirm that it was still the newly hatched iron dragon. This time, it could see what its face looked like.
The baby dragon's disproportionately large, chibi-style head is quite striking. Large, metallic-looking, grayish scales cover its flat skull, making the seams between the scales almost invisible, giving it the appearance of a single, cast metal object.
Unlike most dragon species, its nose is positioned very far back, almost at the end of its snout, close to the sharp edge of its brow.
Its snout, like its head, is relatively flat, with sharp, serrated edges.
...An entrenching tool!
After thinking for a long time, Casalos added this description to his face.
Its horns, central ridge, and external ears fuse to form a similarly flattened five-pronged shield structure, effectively concealing the relatively vulnerable junction between the back of the head and the neck. The mandibular angles are two pairs, one large and one small, with triangular cross-sections that extend backward, curving slightly inward.
The spine at the back of the neck is a row of shark-like dorsal fin-shaped spinous plates, while each side has three rows of sharp, curved spines.
The overall design blends harmoniously with the entrenching tool-like face.
In addition, it has two pairs of small spikes on its forehead and chin, which look like the antennas of a Gundam. Combined with the shiny metallic appearance of the Iron Dragon, it doesn't seem out of place in some robot worlds. There are quite a few subspecies of metal dragons with similar features.
Putting aside other things, the Silver Dragon among the Metal Dragons, and the Chrome Dragon, another member of the Atherosthus family, are actually quite similar to the robot dragons.
7. Unlock the cheat code
Driven by his narcissistic nature, Casalos, having thoroughly enjoyed admiring his own complete form, finally turned his attention back to his surroundings.
After taking a good look around, it realized that the aura of the main hall gave it a familiar feeling, just like... just like the dark energy within its body.
"It's a cheat code!"
Now it was no longer sleepy. Recalling the feeling of being placed in the lava while half asleep, it found the reason why the power-up that had been out of energy suddenly took effect: "So this thing can receive external energy supply... Before, when I hid in the lava, it didn't react at all. Does it need to be asleep before it can receive external energy?"
"I really have to thank you, Fiona Milon... Sister, which dragon doesn't bury itself tightly and protect itself when it sleeps? If you hadn't been there to make me feel safe, I would have fallen asleep immediately. If you hadn't put me in the lava to make me more comfortable, I might never have discovered this secret in my entire life."
Now that Casalos has truly activated his cheat ability, he understands why this thing presents information in such an abstract, sensory way: it's directly related to the legacy of the Aetheron, passively referencing the large-scale information reception methods the user has recently encountered. Casalos received the Aetheron's unique sensory inheritance when he hatched, and the cheat ability learned it, using it as a template to establish a communication channel with Casalos, its possessor.
This method of information exchange allowed Casalos to use all the functions with instinctive ease upon first contact, without needing to study or explore.
The corresponding downside is that it doesn't display any text, images, special effects, or any other intuitive information.
The "hall" where it was located and its own reflection were the most direct information it presented to Casalos.
"I prefer to allocate skill points to the talent tree... Oh well, the result is the same anyway, nothing's perfect... uh?"
As Casalos's thoughts surfaced, the "talent tree" and "skill book" panel it had just imagined actually appeared before its eyes. Its UI looked exactly like an old MMORPG game that had just popped into its head, except that talents had become advanced class specializations for dragons, and skills had become feats.
"So this is something I can modify at will?"
Casaroz scratched his head shield with his wing hooks, the metallic nails scraping against the scales with a swishing sound. He secretly recalled the game interfaces he had played and seen in his previous life, trying to replace the ones that had suddenly appeared.
Sure enough, the professional expertise and specializations that emerged changed as it had hoped.
One moment it transforms into a unique pixel art style, the next into an out-of-place Chinese style, then into a cyberpunk-inspired sci-fi style, and then back to the inherent dark style of traditional Western fantasy...
"That's right, this is the kind of personalized cheat code that suits my noble Iron Dragon status."
Casalos only stopped when he had pieced together a roughly satisfactory stitched panel, lighting the entrenching tool-like faucet:
"Now that the interface style is determined, shouldn't we also take good care of what to display?"
First, there's the universal 'currency' for the cheat system: True Dragon Essence? What a tacky name! Since it's about a dragon, the currency should naturally be called Gold Coin, and the icon should be a Gold Coin too! It should also have sound effects, and ideally, it should be something you can actually hold and touch. But it doesn't matter if you can't take it out; it's my treasure trove inside!
Then there are the various advanced 'purchase' prices and internal unlocking requirements.
Wow, Bloodscale Frenzy costs 6000 gold, and Elemental Master costs 8000? That's so expensive. Luckily, Carved Skin Dragon only costs 2000.
How were these numbers calculated? They're all advanced professions, so why is there such a big difference... Hmm, it turns out it's a matter of prerequisites. The prerequisites for advancing to the Carved Skin Dragon are lower than the other two. As an Iron Dragon, I'm already in the Order faction and have already met one of them. The remaining requirements for Willpower and Innate Armor are not much different. Only the Iron Will feat requires more essence to make up for it.
Wait, should I buy the Iron Will feat first? I should have a natural feat now, what is it? Tsk, I should have worked on the attribute panel first... Oh, I haven't even named my cheat yet, it's already called Dragon's Treasury, such a pleasing and delightful name for dragons..."
Inside the boundless hall, Long Yu muttered to himself as panels made of light and shadow appeared and disappeared, illuminating the darkness.
Casalos wasn't wasting time. From that abstract information, it knew that the time it experienced inside the Dragon Vault was disproportionate to reality. Each time it entered, it would exit after experiencing a "dungeon," while real time wouldn't pass for long—it might just be a fleeting moment.
In other words, after completing the dungeon, it still needs to go into a deep sleep in reality, and the enhancements it "purchased and exchanged" in its spiritual state will also be fed back to its physical body during this sleep. Sleep, whether it is a sleep spanning different ages or a short sleep, is a necessary procedure for the dragon to develop and advance quickly.
This is one of the fundamental reasons why the cheat code needs to be in a state of dormancy to be triggered.
By creating a comprehensive and suitable data dashboard, Casalos can more intuitively feel, experience, and "see" its own changes and growth, thereby motivating its initiative and serving as a driving force.
Thanks to his sensory-based abstract inheritance, Casalos knew very well that the Dragon Vault dungeon was anything but easy. Nothing comes without a price; the enhancements of the Dragon Vault allowed dragons to ignore various advancement prerequisites and remove negative effects, naturally placing far greater pressure on their minds and bodies than normal.
Given the dragon's inertia, it didn't know whether it would completely waste this cheat code after actually trying it once, just staying in the greenhouse shelter of the Atheros.
Dragons possess many wicked traits. The saying, "If you can become powerful just by sleeping, who would bother to work hard?" perfectly encapsulates this. Casaroz, with over twenty years of human experience, doesn't believe his will can be that strong…
"It's done!"
Casalos held its tail high, folded its wings to its sides, and looked up at its accomplishment with great satisfaction.
Inside the "Character" panel, a lifelike holographic image of a baby iron dragon is randomly looping through four animations: biting, clawing, winging, and spitting. Unfortunately, its current chibi-style size prevents it from using its tail attack, otherwise the visual effect would be even richer.
Above the holographic image, its current ability values in various aspects are listed according to a certain standard. If you focus your attention on it, some of the entries have quirky annotations that it added itself, which would normally be hidden.
8.Enter
Name: Casalos, Race: Iron Dragon, Age: Hatchling, Hit Dice: 8 (The Hit Dice represent your true level. Before hatching, you were well-nurtured by your mother dragon and infused with ample dragon magic, making you one level higher than other Iron Dragon hatchlings. Look at those unfortunate rainbow dragons that hatch on the verge of dropping levels, especially your nemesis, the red dragons; they'd fight tooth and nail for them. Be truly grateful!)
Challenge Level: 5 (A strength reference created by the adventurers of Faerûn based on their limited experience; it's actually a pretty useless number. Anyone who takes this number seriously when encountering enemies will surely suffer a terrible fate. Since your creature level has increased by 1, the challenge level has also increased by 1.)
Health Points: 92 (8d12+20. Thanks to Miss Tungsten Dragon's personal feeding and the summoning of prey filled with negative energy, you received ample essential and non-essential nutrients after hatching. The dice rolled well above the expected value, and your health points are almost catching up with those of a baby red dragon. Unfortunately, reality isn't a game, and this number serves no other purpose than letting you know you're a bit chubby.)
Strength: 20 (You are incredibly strong. Azelfs are the strongest non-legendary dragon subspecies, bar none. However, due to the reasons mentioned above, you are 1 point stronger than the average Azelf of the same age, with an actual effect of about 33%... But is that useful? You don't think any fool would try to wrestle with a dragon, do you?)
Agility: 10 (Forget it, you're not a Sapphire Dragon, nor an Obsidian Dragon, Amethyst Dragon, Chrome Dragon, Mercury Dragon, or Sand Dragon. Your Agility will always be 10. Think about it another way: as a powerful dragon whose size will only increase, the fact that your Agility isn't penalized by your size is undoubtedly a huge advantage, isn't it?)
Constitution: 16 (Same as Hit Dice and Strength, remember to be grateful.)
Intelligence: 14 (Does good nutrition increase intelligence? Maybe it does, but I haven't noticed.)
Perception: 15 (same as above)
Charm: 14 (same as above)
Attack/Defense (What benchmark will we use to quantify this? Let's talk about that once we find a benchmark.)
Breath: Scorching Electric Sparks (Deals half electric and half fire damage; even red dragons fear it, very good and powerful.); Hypnotic Gas (Those with weak wills will be hypnotized by the magical mist you exhale. Tsk, sounds a bit like bad breath.)
Spellcasting level/magic resistance/dragon's might... (None of these yet, keep working on it!)
Expertise:
Side Turn (This allows you to quickly change your flight direction for a short time, slightly improving your poor flight maneuverability. Surprisingly, the dragon magic accumulated within you after hatching will accelerate the solidification of your first adapted skills into feats requiring achievement training. So, there are some benefits to aimlessly flying around in the narrow confines of your lair.)
Circling (You're letting yourself fly around aimlessly; you've used up two precious feat slots for flying, but it seems not so bad?).
Leap Attack (Since your level has increased by 1, your Dragon Magic has reached the threshold for the new stage, thus gaining an extra feat slot. Unfortunately, you still get a flight-related feat. If you had just attacked when the Tungsten Dragon summoned the Infernal Scorpion, perhaps this feat would have been the most indispensable powerful attack to unleash the Iron Dragon's strength? You'll have to wait until your teenage years to have enough Dragon Magic to train the next feat. So you can continue to fly and jump around aimlessly.)
special power:
Fire-type subspecies (Dragons are not purely flesh and blood creatures; more than half of your body is composed of "magic." As a fire-type subspecies, you are immune to fire. Note: This does not mean you are truly immune to all fire! Correspondingly, you also have a cold vulnerability debuff. Yes, you read that right, you are afraid of the cold!).
Alternate Form (As a race that once dominated the world, they possess the innate ability to transform themselves into the appearance of any medium-sized or smaller animal or humanoid creature. However, you seem to subconsciously reject this ability.)
Casalos's attribute panel entries and numerical benchmarks were basically based on D&D cards, with only a few adjustments made to better suit his own situation. He removed some inexplicable skills—D&D rules skills are not like those in computer or other platform games where you can actively/passively use resources to produce specific effects, but rather regular abilities that are passively acquired through life experiences such as learning, such as jumping, swimming, etc. There is no need to list these things.
The specific values in the attributes are the results of precise measurement by the cheat engine according to the benchmark, allowing Casalos to have a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of himself.
In addition, it links the currently selectable attributes, feats, spells, etc. with advanced classes, creating a complex and exclusive "talent tree" - the prerequisites for advancement, apart from restrictions such as faction that can only be removed by cheat codes, are nothing more than specific attributes, skills, feats, etc.
After digitizing the information panel, Casalos has determined that the total price of purchasing the required attributes, skills, and specializations for advancement before upgrading is no different from directly purchasing the advancement enhancement.
A talent tree allows a more intuitive view of its available advancement and enhancement paths, enabling effective planning.
The panel may be able to expand to include more functions, but Casalozs is in no hurry to do so now. After all, the settings are completely flexible, and in future use, it will have ample time and opportunities to discover, adjust, improve, add, or delete entries, gradually perfecting it to perfection.
Now, it's time for it to begin its first experience.
Looking at the "OK" and "Wait a minute, I'm not ready yet" buttons that popped up in the dialog box he had created, Casalos thought for a moment to make sure that nothing was missing, and then clicked the "OK" option.
The boundless hall collapsed with a deafening roar, and the translucent obsidian floor transformed into a massive vortex that distorted even the light.
Casalos was momentarily dazed. When he came to his senses, he found himself at the entrance of a natural mine. The deep tunnels plunged into the mountainside at a steep 30-degree angle, swallowing up the dragon's innate dark vision.
It was raining, there was no sun, only a bright red full moon hanging high, and the rainwater gathered into streams, rushing into the tunnel with a gurgling sound.
In the darkness, a rustling sound came from inside the cave, occasionally accompanied by a few indistinct whispers.
"I hate rainy days, it's a bad omen."
Muttering to himself, Casalos folded its wings, lowered its body, and slid into the tunnel: This terrible terrain has rendered its three current specializations useless from the start.
9. The True First Battle
The only thing Casalos can be thankful for about the mine's terrain is that the Iron Dragon still has the ability to burrow.
Digging isn't digging a hole—every dragon can dig a hole. Digging is a superpower based on dragon magic, similar to a permanent, weaker version of turning fossils into mud. When activated, it softens the soil around the dragon, allowing it to move as if it were in mud. If the soil in the mine isn't too dense, Casalos can reach two-thirds the speed of running on the ground while digging in the ground.
It's a magical way of moving, but unfortunately Casalos doesn't have abilities like tremor perception, so it's easy for it to bump into rocks when digging. However, it's enough to make the hatchlings' tactical arrangements much more flexible.
Casalos almost slipped and fell flat on his back as soon as his first claw stepped into the pit.
The tunnels, weathered by countless years and rains, are now covered in travertine and moss, as if imbued with a magic of slipperiness. Their steep incline means anyone caught off guard could easily slip and fall hard.
Fortunately, dragons are quadrupedal creatures, and in addition to their limbs, they also have long necks, long tails, and flexible and powerful wings with wing hooks.
Lowering its head and using its entrenching shovel-like face as a plowshare for braking, with its tail pressed tightly against the ground, its limbs tilted outwards, and its large wings extended diagonally upwards, using its wing pads and wing hooks to brace against the cave wall, Casaloz managed to stabilize itself in the tunnel and slowly slide diagonally deeper into the cave.