Chapter 49: The Blood of the Dragon! (Bonus Chapter for Patron Huang Zhi)

A baby dragon.

After eating a fat fish weighing over ten pounds, it slept for a full day and night, woke up, and dropped a massive load.

This was Duncan's first alien avatar.

One could only say it was fortunate that Duncan's number-one avatar was a human; otherwise, he would have been forced to start out as a reptile.

Currently, Duncan's territory was in a period of peaceful development, and the Saxon raiders had not invaded for the time being. They were busy fighting the Picts and, incidentally, had also declared war on King Uther. Whether it was because Duncan's reputation had recently grown too loud or not, King Uther also wanted to make a resounding name for himself on the battlefield, so he led the Sarmatian knights bearing the dragon banner to counterattack the East Saxon chieftain kingdom, only to be struck in the back by an axe on the battlefield. It was unclear how severe his injuries actually were.

He certainly wasn't dead. King Uther had actually won, a minor victory, suffering only a few minor wounds of his own.

The Kingdom of Camelot had recaptured Staffordshire, only suffering a slight setback around Cheshire, but on the whole, it could be considered the recovery of lost territory. With the legendary wizard Merlin protecting him, King Uther was unlikely to drop dead suddenly. An incident like the one that befell the Duke of Tintagel was improbable for a monarch surrounded by powerful wizards.

Duncan, conversely, found himself quite leisurely for the time being. Every day consisted of drilling the troops and properly training the levied horsemen. He now had a hundred and twenty horsemen under his command, though the majority of them were light cavalry.

Throughout the entire territory, whether it was Anya, Triss, or Severus, everyone was running around in a flurry of activity.

Everyone tacitly assumed that Duncan had not received a high-level education and was not particularly skilled in domestic affairs, so they handled the specific matters themselves, even finding ways to recruit talent on their own. Triss, the Raven Queen, was responsible for maintaining the faith of the polytheistic religion and preventing security issues caused by religious conflicts. Anya focused heavily on economic production, preparing to rebuild the market district while also boosting the fishing industry.

Severus was truly formidable!

He was a druid, and as everyone knew, if a druid couldn't farm, he might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes.

Severus was responsible for coordinating the agricultural sector. Anya disliked farming, considering it work for the lower classes, so she merely sent a former farm steward to assist. In addition to handling agricultural issues, Severus had to communicate with the indigenous tribes, help them restore agricultural production, and find a plot of land for Duncan to pasture his horses, as Duncan had stated that a cavalry force would be needed in the future.

He was truly busy—busy to the point where his feet barely touched the ground, and he was rarely seen around the place.

Surprisingly, however, when Duncan encountered him again, Severus's tag had changed.

——Severus (Druid) (Avalon) (Legendary) [Two-Star Golden].

He had transformed into a hero unit.

Whether it was because Avalon in the mist had hitched a ride on Duncan's coattails, or because Celtic legends had been reviving in the mortal world during this period and widely influencing the indigenous people of Britain, Severus had risen along with the tide, and had even met the legendary Lady of the Lake.

However, there was still one person who remained unchanged: Anya. Day in and day out, she only thought about galloping wildly on horseback, and to this day she remained at the level of a two-star blank slate.

Time thus calmly entered a buffer period, and Duncan was also improving himself, studying knowledge with the librarian.

A day passed quickly.

The next day, he logged on almost right on the dot. As soon as he entered the dimensional space, he saw the baby dragon dropping another massive load.

The baby dragon only had one idle mode—Dragon Clan Ancestral Memory.

Duncan rarely let his consciousness enter the number-two avatar, because crawling felt very uncomfortable, and he had to control wings and a tail. The projection interface from a god-like perspective was much better suited for him to control the alien avatar.

——"I should find some stones to eat." (Dragon Ancestral Memory).

No two ways about it.

Continue digging through the ice cave.

This damn place was freezing, and the ice cave would freeze over again in no time, but fortunately, the baby dragon didn't care and completely ignored the cold.

"It feels like its appearance has changed a bit. The dragon scales are taking on a slightly icy blue."

Yesterday, the baby dragon's body was a translucent white, but today it was close to a pale icy blue, though the majority of it still retained the appearance of a white dragon, which should be due to its body not being fully developed yet. Animal babies are relatively cute, and the baby dragon didn't look all that ferocious either. It weighed a little over thirty pounds, about the size of a puppy, and had probably gained several pounds after eating.

"Eating stones? To supplement trace elements?"

"What a great appetite."

Duncan controlled the baby dragon to dig through the ice cave and dive to the bottom of the water. Its stamina bar increased by a section—about a third. The growth rate of a dragon was astonishing; this stamina bar and health bar already surpassed those of an ordinary adult male.

——Not this one.

——Nor this one.

——It's this one, eat it.

At the bottom of the lake, every time it found a pebble, the baby dragon would sniff it. It was capable of breathing underwater, and the ancestral memories of the dragon clan would tell it whether it was edible. In the end, it ate a small, azure-blue pebble on the surface, and then a small, yellowish-brown pebble.

——Good enough.

——Time to catch fish.

The baby dragon choked on the stones for a bit, forced them down, and then happily began fishing. As it approached the surface of the water, it touched the thick layer of ice.

——Don't go up, it's very dangerous up there, the baby dragon is too weak.

Duncan controlled the number-two avatar to eat its fill of fish and discovered that as the stamina bar increased, the baby dragon's active time had also increased.

——You should hibernate now and wait to grow further.

The dragon clan's ancestral memory prompts surfaced.

However, Duncan checked and found that the baby dragon still had plenty of stamina left, so he decided to observe the surrounding situation.

——You shouldn't go out on an adventure right now.

——Oh, another little fellow full of curiosity and fond of adventure.

——Well then, good luck!

The dragon clan's ancestral memory popped up three consecutive prompts, seeming somewhat anxious, and then completely disappeared.

It seemed that not all dragons were so obedient to their ancestral memories.

Scratch, scratch, scratch with little claws!

A tender dragon head poked out of the ice, making a hole and curiously observing its surroundings.

A world of ice and snow.

Everything was shrouded under frost, reminiscent of an ancient ice age!

Duncan was finally able to open the strategic map.

A huge frozen lake, with the ice layer on the surface nearly a meter thick. In the distance, snow-capped mountains could be seen towering into the clouds, stretching as far as the eye could see without end.

Waterfalls were frozen solid, plunging straight down with icicles nearly a hundred meters long on either side.

The heaven and earth were a vast expanse of white.

After elevating the god-like perspective, one could see the primeval forests under the bitter winter. The trees were exceptionally tall, with those on the outer edges standing several tens of meters high—towering ancient trees whose ages were likely in the hundreds of years.

"This really is a prehistoric era!"

The ice surface trembled slightly.

It was a long distance away.

Duncan switched his perspective, his pupils contracting slightly as he saw a group of giants walking from the direction of the waterfall.

——King of the Frost River Giants! [Golden Skull Mark] [Hostile].

——Prehistoric Woolly Mammoth [Three-Star Blank].

——Migrating Tribe of Frost Giants [Three-Star Golden] [Legendary Unit] [Hostile].

Hiss!

Coming out the gate swinging this hard?

The baby dragon's head instantly shrank back. The world on the ice surface was far too terrifying!

——It's giants, you'd better be careful.

Duncan didn't dare to act rashly. The migrating giant tribe had several dozen members and brought along several woolly mammoths; any single one of them could crush him to death. Ordinary giants were four to five meters tall, male warriors could reach over five meters, and the giant king stood close to seven meters tall, radiating an overwhelming sense of pressure just from a glance.

Damn it.

Being a dragon in this world wasn't easy either.

Duncan dived back to the bottom of the lake and used the god-like perspective to track targets, soon discovering a hostile-marked unit.

——Prehistoric Piranha (One-Star).

One-star blank.

beatable!

Duncan looked at the baby dragon's sharp claws and teeth and felt that it could put up a fight. It was a dragon, after all; surely it couldn't even beat a piranha.

Yet, once he got close, the pressure wasn't small either.

This fish actually weighed nearly a hundred pounds!

It quickly discovered the baby dragon's tracks. Upon meeting, it was startled, seeing the outline of fear engraved within its genetic instincts surface, and subconsciously wanted to flee.

Then, it realized that this dragon seemed a bit small.

It could win.

The advantage is with me this time!

The prehistoric piranha opened its blood-ripping maw and lunged forward in a surge.

——Watch out! Use the underwater roll.

The prompt from the dragon clan's ancestral memory surfaced once more.

Roll.

Duncan manipulated the baby dragon to dodge instantly. The baby dragon instinctively rolled in the water with a graceful posture, the explosive power of its dragon wings allowing it to easily evade the attack, much like a fighter jet executing a barrel roll underwater.

In a split second, the claw-strike mark appeared, and Duncan's consciousness followed.

Swish!

Blood spurted, and the prehistoric piranha's scales were easily sliced open, as if they were made of paper.

Superiority was immediately established.

The prehistoric piranha instinctively felt fear, but still opened its mouth, spitting out a blast of cold breath that caused a small circle of the current to freeze into ice shards.

——Wind of Magic detected!

——Ineffective!

The baby dragon's figure surged forward at high speed. Its dragon wings were able to accelerate its swimming even underwater, unleashing considerable explosive force. In an instant, it shot out like a sharp arrow, breaking through the zone of ice shards. Those freezing auras couldn't harm it at all; it was the true master wielding the power of frost in this era!

Bite.

Headshot.

One-hit kill!

As if following the instinct of an ancient dragon hunting, the piranha, which was more than twice its size, was instantly slain.

A breath of cold energy was absorbed by the baby dragon's heart.

——Dragon Roar: Frost [Activated].

The baby dragon dragged the massive piranha back to the ice cave. It couldn't move this big guy, so it could only tear off a bit to eat right beneath the ice cave.

——Well done, little fellow.

——Looks like another belligerent exotic dragon.

——Then.

——Enter the next stage of Dragon Awakening.

The dragon clan's ancestral memory began to continuously pop up prompts. In the next second, a faint, naked-eye-invisible shimmer emerged within the baby dragon's body, as if a genetic lock had been unlocked. On the second day of hatching, during its nestling stage, an invisible wind of magic surged along its limbs and bones, and a fleeting sheen appeared across its pale blue dragon scales.

"Unlocking Dragon Clan Innate Talent!"

"Releasing Genetic Lock!"

"Stage One, Dragon Bloodline [Magic Surge]!"

Inside the ice cave, the baby dragon ate its fill.

As it gradually drifted into hibernation, invisible winds of magic surged into its body with every breath, gradually forming a chilling breeze before it with its exhalations.

——"Dragon Bloodline (Stage One) [Special Ability]: The formidable innate talent inherent to dragons has begun to awaken. Dragons are the embodiment of magic; wielding magic is as simple as breathing for them. Unlocks basic Draconic speech and dragon roars, further mutating into a magical life form. Physical attributes slowly improve over time, unlocking the next stage of dragon ancestral memory, strengthening comprehensive resistance, slightly increasing innate resistance to supernatural forces, and slightly raising the mana cap."

Hiss!

Dragons really were a cheat-code race.

Within the dimensional space.

Duncan suddenly felt his heart stir and tested the capability of the god-like perspective.

——"Inscribe [Dragon Bloodline] (One-Star)?!"

——"Inscribing requires 5 points of Lore. Once inscribed, the bloodline ability will be imported into the dimensional space and can be loaded onto other avatars." (Note: Partial ability conversion; dragon scale enhancements will be converted into innate skin enhancements for human and humanoid forms, inheriting a small portion of the baby dragon stage's scale characteristics for life forms possessing scales.)

It really was possible!

Doesn't that mean the abilities of the number-one avatar could be inscribed and loaded onto the number-two avatar, and the special abilities mastered by the dragon could likewise be applied back to the number-one avatar?

Why did it cost so much Lore?

Master-level combat skills only required one point of Lore, yet inscribing the most basic Dragon Bloodline actually required five points.

Duncan checked the currency of the dimensional space—Lore: 3/7.

Where else were there enemies with Lore?

Quickly.

I'm in a rush now, a huge rush!

………………

Out of stock on drafts again.

Continuing to write tomorrow's. A minimum of two chapters; if there are stockpiled drafts, I'll release extra. Sob sob, my stockpiled chapters.