Chapter 72: Martial Dragon, Dragon Qi

After ending the hunt, Garos found another barren mountain, ramming the mountain and the ground, striking again and again until he was thoroughly satisfied.

At the very beginning, Garos trained to become stronger, to make survival more secure, forcing himself to endure pain during training, but now he has long grown accustomed to the pain; if he does not train one day, he always feels something is missing, and it has already become part of his daily routine.

As twilight deepened and turned into night, Garos returned to the Conifer Valley.

Upon returning, he vaguely sensed a grim and killing atmosphere.

He circled in the sky without landing directly, lowering his gaze to watch the giant dragon and the ant army locked in a fierce, indecisive battle.

The Fairy Dragon and the Red Dragon, both dragons with serious and heavy and solemn expressions, did not notice Garos's arrival at all, still immersed in their own fantasy world.

Samantha was in a solemn squatting posture, looking down at the ground, looking down upon an ant hill, with a ball of raging fire clenched in her mouth.

The Fairy Dragon Long Weila circled above her head.

She sprinkled brilliant magical dust, making the ordinary black ants appear as if they were warriors clad in armor.

"Humble ant race!"

Samantha's roar carried anger; she lowered her voice to make it sound as deep as an adult dragon: "How dare you build a fortress on the territory of the Red Dragon Queen!"

She spat out threads of raging fire, burning a smoking small pit three centimeters from the ant hill entrance as a deterrent strike.

"Duel! King of the Giant Ants!"

Samantha carefully picked up the 'Ant King' and placed it beneath her.

This was a soldier ant with particularly long antennae and a larger body size.

It fled in panic, wanting to escape, but was trapped in the middle of the gullies she had carved, running around in circles in a frenzy.

The Fairy Dragon Long Weila used illusion magic to make the Ant King emit light that sometimes expanded and sometimes contracted, making him look more powerful, while Samantha teased the Ant King repeatedly with her claws; after a bout of 'fierce battle', she stabbed him to death with one claw.

"It is over, the great Red Dragon Queen has won victory once again!"

Samantha lifted her chin, looking down with arrogant disdain.

And when she announced victory, the Fairy Dragon herded a cricket into the battlefield:

"Careful! The true mastermind is the Dark High Priest of the Insect Race!"

"The traitorous Giant Ant Prince who secretly conveyed the fortress news is actually a puppet controlled by the High Priest! Everything is the High Priest's conspiracy!"

Samantha froze for two seconds, then reacted swiftly to continue the act, spitting a few sparks from her nostrils.

"What? All of this is a conspiracy?! High Priest! What do you intend to do!"

The Fairy Dragon switched to a cackling laugh, providing the voice for the mastermind: "Cackle, cackle, cackle, of course it is to provoke a war between you and the Destroyer of the Giant Ant King; now that you are exhausted, it is the time for me to harvest the fruits of victory."

The Red Dragon Queen was furious.

"Very well, you have successfully provoked my anger, so, are you ready to welcome death?!"

She roared.

At the same time, Garos silently watched the scene below.

Samantha's Queen fantasy seemed even more severe, and the Fairy Dragon Long Weila was the same; she actually started playing along with her, and the plot was quite rich, with twists and turns.

"You two, what are you doing?"

He landed, interrupting the two dragons' role-playing game.

"My dear brother, I am... uh... training Long Weila's tactical command abilities."

Samantha stammered.

"Yes, yes."

The Fairy Dragon Long Weila nodded in agreement.

Well, these two dragons have gotten into it together; maybe I should play along for a while?

Garos shook his head, thinking this game was too childish, unsuited to his dragon persona, and would lower his dignity; he decided against it.

However, I can play by myself during my free time, as long as they don't know.

He thought to himself.

Garos did not pry further, pretended to agree with the two dragons' explanation, and then flew toward the cave where the Cliff Snake Dragon corpse lay.

One large and one small, the Red Dragon and the Fairy Dragon looked at each other, then shifted their gaze back to the ant nest.

The danger of the Dark Cricket High Priest is imminent; the battle is not over! The Red Dragon Queen must crush the sinister conspiracy targeting her!

After Garos left, the two dragons happily played again.

Inside the cave where moonlight could not reach.

The pitch-black environment did not affect Garos; dragons generally possess dark vision.

He walked up to the corpse of the Cliff Snake Dragon.

About seven days had passed; in the sultry environment of the Aisel Wilderness, the corpse of an ordinary creature, without special preservation methods, would already be rotting and stinking by now.

But the Cliff Snake Dragon's corpse had changed very little, looking exactly as it did at the moment of death.

It was a Fire Dragon, and dragon corpses themselves can remain unrotted for a long time.

Garos stepped forward, extended his claw, pried open the Cliff Snake Dragon's scales, fixed his gaze, and carefully observed the structure beneath.

Some honeycomb-like fine pores.

Reflected in his vision.

As expected, the Cliff Snake Dragon used these fine pores to erupt high-temperature steam for a burst of power enhancement.

This was not a magical means.

This Cliff Snake Dragon was only a young dragon and had not mastered magic.

Magic is not powerful in the early stages; learning magic requires high investment of time and energy, and is far inferior to a dragon's own claws and fangs; dragons generally only gradually begin to contact magic after reaching their youth stage, past fifty years of age, when physical growth slows down and elemental affinity becomes higher.

Additionally, since dragons are born sorcerers, not all dragons are willing to learn magic.

In the Dragon Legacy, the career paths are not limited to just spellcasters.

Garos had seriously thought about what path he should take; as of now, he wanted to become a Martial Dragon with a sorcerer as a side job.

A Sorcerer is a born profession.

It allows Garos to master skills similar to spells without spending much time, enriching his methods.

And the Combat Dragon is actually a branch of the Dragon Monks.

Combat Dragons do not need to strictly follow the monk precepts; they mainly grow through harsh training and combat, tempering themselves in repeated pain and injury.

This suits Garos perfectly; it is a profession tailor-made for him.

Normal monks can wield an alternative energy known as 'Qi'.

Its essence is a special energy formed by the mixture of life energy and magical energy flowing within living beings.

Through the mastery and control of Qi, and cultivation accumulated over days and years, monks can use Qi to enhance their own speed, strikes, and reactions, strengthen various bodily functions, and at the same time create effects like magic.

The Qi of the Combat Dragon is named Dragon Qi.

The effects of Dragon Qi are similar to normal Qi, but due to the racial bonus of the Dragon kind, Dragon Qi is denser and more immense; Combat Dragons who master Dragon Qi possess few flashy skills, yet they have extraordinary combat power.

However.

Given Garos's current age, and the current intensity of his life energy and magical energy, it is not yet enough to awaken Dragon Qi; he has not reached the standard to become a Combat Dragon.

His daily training can shorten this time.

It is just that Garos cannot determine exactly when he will be able to become one.

But in any case, whether he becomes a Combat Dragon or walks far on the path of the Sorcerer, Adaptation Evolution remains Garos's most relied-upon, innate talent.

This can fundamentally change him and enhance his potential.

Garos extended his claw and stroked the fine pores beneath the snake-dragon scales.

"If I can evolve some jet vents on my dragon wings, and use magical energy, or better yet, Dragon Qi, as fuel, my speed will receive an explosive boost, compensating for the lack of burst power."

He thought.

But how can he make the Adaptation Evolution, whose results are hard to determine, conform to his wishes?

This is a problem.

Thinking of this, Garos, without a second thought, licked a mouthful of fairy scale powder.

This made his mind clear, highly active, and start running rapidly.

One by one, ideas emerged from his mind, only to be rejected and discarded one by one by him due to lack of conditions or being unrealistic.

And as time gradually passed, through a rapid thinking session like a brainstorm, just as the effect of the fairy scale powder was about to end, Garos finally thought of the simplest method to implement, and also the one with a higher probability.

(End of this chapter)