Chapter 2: Water Affinity

Bernardo — that is the name of the planet beneath Garos's feet.

On this planet, magical culture is highly developed, and every nation spares no effort in advancing magical technology.

The more advanced nations have even built starships with magical engines, venturing through the cosmos to other planets to harvest the resources of the universe.

"Dragons are among the top-tier creatures, but in this world they can't exactly be called invincible."

Garos blinked as he gazed at the false moon in the sky.

Within his inheritance, it was mentioned that there was once an ancient blue dragon bearing the title 【Wings of the Hurricane】, who destroyed several cities of the Nausilä Elf Empire and was hunted by Nausilä for a long time.

In the end, using a city as bait, Nausilä trapped Wings of the Hurricane within a grand magical formation.

The false moon descended, firing a beam that annihilated everything and slew Wings of the Hurricane.

"Moreover, the other races on the planet Bernardo hold a poor impression of chromatic dragons and ferrous dragons — the moment one is discovered, they immediately prepare to dispatch it."

Dragons come in many classifications.

For example, the most numerous are the chromatic dragons, the metallic dragons, the gem dragons, and then the ferrous dragons.

Chromatic dragons, being evil by nature and fond of causing trouble and destruction, are classified as evil dragons; ferrous dragons are even regarded as the 'mad dogs' among dragons, frequently killing even their own kin, let alone other races.

"I am a mixed-blood of chromatic and ferrous dragons — a red dragon and an iron dragon at that — and I'll probably be seen as an evil dragon among evil dragons, a naturally evil dragon-class villain, terrifying beyond measure, absolutely cannot be allowed to live."

He plopped down by the lakeside.

The young dragon's tail dipped into the water, swaying gently back and forth.

Moonlight fell upon Garos; he felt his tail drifting in the water, and now and then small fish came to nibble away the weeds and dust, a comforting sensation, while his mind turned in thought.

"Better to train more, and strengthen myself."

"Only when I'm strong will I have the confidence to face the dangers that may come."

This stretch of dragon-life had only just begun; Garos hoped to live as long as possible, not like his previous life — in the bloom of eighteen, struck by a stroke of outrageous luck.

"Let's set a small goal first: a hundred years of life."

"No, wait — dragons only reach adulthood at a hundred. Better hope for a thousand years of life."

Garos let his body fall backward.

The young dragon's body smashed through the water's surface, sending up countless crystalline droplets beneath the moonlight; he dove to the deepest part of the lake, bearing the heavy water pressure, not breathing.

— Dragons can actually breathe underwater too.

Garos simply wanted to train his cardiopulmonary capacity, and his affinity with the water element.

Thanks to day after day of various training, his heart and lungs were far stronger than those of an ordinary dragon; the intensity and duration of his dragon breath both surpassed those of a normal young dragon.

Besides, both iron dragons and red dragons are fire-type dragons, and they don't actually like water.

The mixed-blood Garos is the same — a proper fire-type dragon.

Attacks of the water or ice attribute would deal him double damage.

The best way to overcome fear is to face it.

In case one day he should face attacks of an attribute that countered his own, Garos had, several years ago, endured his aversion to water and begun soaking in it from time to time for desensitization and adaptation.

By now, his instinctive aversion to water had completely vanished.

Although he had never truly encountered a water-type attack and could not confirm his water-element affinity, Garos felt that at the very least he would not suffer double damage.

Suddenly.

A faint ripple in the water came from behind him.

A black shadow rushed toward him at top speed, launching an attack on Garos.

Garos keenly caught the change in the current; before the attack arrived, he twisted his body, raised his dragon claw, and slammed it forward.

Boom!

The black dragon claw and the crimson dragon claw collided, sending a ring of current rippling through the water.

The crimson dragon claw gripped Garos's claw tightly, attempting to wrestle him.

However.

Garos's strength was astonishing; the powerful muscles beneath his scales bulged and swelled, lifting his armor a little higher, and his claw pressed the crimson claw back inch by inch, forcing it to retreat.

The contest of strength was lost.

The owner of the crimson dragon claw withdrew it, fixed Garos with a pair of red dragon pupils, and said in a clear, displeased voice: "Garos, you wretched mixed-blood — I'll beat you sooner or later!"

The hatchling Samantha, Garos's own dragon-sister — a pure-blooded red dragon.

Among dragons, mixed-bloods are rare, because draconic bloodlines are domineering and difficult to merge.

For example, when a red dragon and an iron dragon bear offspring, the overwhelming probability is that the child will be a pure-blooded red dragon or a pure-blooded iron dragon — the offspring inherits the bloodline of one parent or the other; a mixed-blood dragon like Garos, who can merge the blood of red and iron, is very few in number.

Smack!

Garos swatted the red hatchling on the head with one claw.

"When addressing a dragon stronger than yourself, mind your tone and your words."

That swat knocked the red hatchling's head sharply to one side — the whole dragon nearly got sent tumbling; it was no light blow.

Between dragons, especially evil dragons, it is usually strength that speaks; only strength can earn the respect of other evil dragons, and Garos had grown accustomed to this evil-dragon way of communicating.

The red dragon sister hatched a year after Garos.

At the time, Garos had looked at his dragon sister — plump and round, cute and honest in appearance, utterly endearing — and so he tore off a piece of meat from the food he was eating and gave it to her.

As a result.

She took Garos for weak, got insufferably cocky, her evil-dragon nature flared up, and she ordered Garos to hand over all his food; another iron dragon brother, hatched at the same time, also thought Garos was weak, and together with the red dragon sister they colluded to extort Garos's food.

After being refused by Garos, the two actually went for their claws directly, trying to snatch away all of Garos's food.

Garos then pinned them to the ground and beat them soundly; only after knocking out a few of their teeth did they finally behave.

As a mixed-blood dragon, Garos was innately sturdier than an ordinary red dragon or iron dragon, let alone that he was also a year older.

At the same time.

The red dragon sister, who had taken a swipe, bared her teeth and wanted to retaliate, but when she saw the fierce glint flashing in Garos's eyes, she sensibly held herself back.

Red dragons worship violence and like to solve problems with violence.

But when their violence is weaker than the opponent's, they will temporarily endure, waiting until they surpass them to take vicious revenge.

Moreover, she had taken quite a few beatings from Garos over the years and knew this dragon brother of hers would not hold back.

"My beloved brother."

The red dragon sister softened her stance and said: "Mother wants you to go to the dragon's nest."

After stating her purpose for coming to find Garos, she muttered under her breath: "Spending all day soaking in the water, you're really weird, forcing me to go into the water too."

The red dragon sister was thoroughly uncomfortable in the water, her dragon face full of disgust.

She twisted her tail and waist, swiftly floating upward, leaving the lake a step ahead of Garos.

Garos unhurriedly beat his wings in the water, then burst out of the surface, soaring through the air, overtaking the red dragon sister and flying toward the dragon's nest.

The dragon's nest — it was located on the cliff face on the east side of the sinkhole.

From the outside, it looked like a crude and rough mountain cave.

Moonlight couldn't reach inside the dragon's nest, but the stone walls inside were plated with a peculiar metal, with some spots emitting a bright glow, so it wasn't dark inside.

Garos folded his wings, stepped with alternating limbs, and walked across the metallized floor, heading deeper inside.

And the deeper he went, the more metal there was all around.

Clusters of metal bloomed like flowers on the stone walls, and some angular metal pillars jutted up from the ground.

Finally, when Garos reached the deepest part of the cave, his vision suddenly opened up, and he arrived at a massive 'hollow.'

This core of the dragon's nest was not a rough cavern in the traditional sense.

The surrounding ground and stone walls were all covered with a layer of soft yet tough metal, its texture similar to mercury, but its surface shimmering with rust-colored ripples.

In the due north stood a thirty-meter-tall stepped metal platform, at the top of which was Iron Dragon Mother's exclusive Wang Zuo.

— It was forged from countless swords and halberds, the weapons of the vanquished now solidified into steps, each tier inscribed with draconic runes.

Garos looked up.

On the Wang Zuo sat a colossal creature twenty meters in length, whose every breath stirred gusts like howling gales — a true dragon.

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(End of this chapter)