Translator: AnubisTL
"Slacking off and sleeping again? Time to get up and mine!"
Garos landed before the two hatchlings and gently tapped their heads with his tail to wake them.
They yawned.
The two hatchlings felt they hadn't slept enough.
"Dear brother Garos, could we rest a little longer?" they asked in soft voices.
When brute force fails, even evil dragons resort to playing the family card.
"No," Garos replied coldly. He had given them a chance to be good dragon brothers, but they had chosen to provoke him instead.
They had made their own bed.
If they wanted a cold-hearted dragon brother, fine. Garos would give them exactly that.
Hmph!
The red dragon sister snorted and reluctantly turned toward the mine shaft.
As for the iron dragon brother...
After hearing Garos's refusal, his mouth still crooked, his expression arrogant and disdainful.
He was practically begging for a beating.
If Garos didn't know his mouth was crooked from a previous injury—a result of being slammed against something that hadn't fully healed—he would have struck him already.
Under Garos's gaze, the iron dragon brother flinched slightly. Maintaining his crooked-jawed dragon posture, drool dripping from his lips, he shambled after the red dragon sister into the mine shaft.
Garos glanced up at the fiery, cloud-like sunset.
He withdrew his gaze and looked down at his right arm.
On the bracer of his forearm, there was a small, rock-like patch of grayish-white—a wound left by the Petrification Ray, where both dragon scales and flesh had been turned to stone.
Crack! Crack!
Garos chipped away the petrified dragon scales and flesh, leaving a small pit on his forearm.
Though the sensation was faint, Garos could still feel that the flesh here was abnormal, undergoing a peculiar transformation.
Once new flesh and dragon scales grew back, any future impact from the Petrification Ray would be inevitably weakened.
Complete immunity would require extensive, repeated adaptation, a condition Garos couldn't meet at the moment.
The wound was minor and harmless, posing no hindrance to Garos's movements. Bathed in the fiery glow of the sunset, he began experimenting with new training methods.
Whoosh!
He exhaled slowly.
The young dragon flapped his wings, flipped through the air, and finally supported his entire body on one forelimb, maintaining the handstand-like pose as he rose and fell rhythmically.
After a while, he bent his tail and braced it against the ground, using its powerful muscles to support his body and train his tail musculature.
Or he would tilt his head back, resting it on the ground and rotating his body around his neck like a pivot.
These specialized exercises, none of which were found in the dragon heritage, were all demonstrated by Garos.
He was engaged in strength training.
Beyond that, he also trained his speed.
After some time, Garos leaped into the air, soaring straight toward the heavens. He flew into the starry night sky, where twin moons hung suspended, took a deep breath, and extended his dragon wings to their full extent. Then, he began flapping them furiously.
However.
Despite the young dragon's violent wing beats, his body didn't rise. Instead, it inexplicably began to descend slowly.
Dragon flight is actually a magical effect.
Given a giant dragon's weight and body proportions, it would be difficult for their wings alone to support their bodies in the air like birds.
In truth, when dragons fly, the magical energy in their blood circulates to their wings, creating a levitation effect similar to a Levitation spell. Combined with quasi-spell skills and wing power, this allows them to soar through the sky.
When other intelligent races confront dragons, they always employ sky-blocking spells.
The principle behind these spells is to nullify the levitation effect.
Garos didn't want to be forced to land and be mobbed if his enemies ever used a sky-blocking spell against him in a future conflict.
He hoped to achieve flight solely through physical strength, soaring through the heavens.
If he could do this, he would have one less weakness and a better chance of achieving his goal of living for a thousand years.
By suppressing his magical energy, he had lost the levitation effect.
Garos' massive dragon body plummeted through the air.
His wings strained taut, each beat whipping up violent gusts of wind, yet they couldn't lift him. They only slowed his descent, allowing him to glide precariously.
This arduous method placed immense strain on his dragon wings.
Under the overwhelming load, a tearing pain shot through them.
The membrane at the base of his wings, where they connected to his torso, felt as if steel chisels were stabbing it with every flap.
In the darkness, his desperate wingbeats went unobserved and unencouraged. The young dragon gritted his teeth, enduring the agony in silence. He continued to flap his wings repeatedly, seeking adaptation and evolution amidst the tearing pain.
Time slowly passed.
Until the twin moons sank below the horizon and the first rays of sunlight pierced the clouds.
Garos finally completed his training regimen, so exhausted that even his dragonkind's resilient body was utterly drained.
Aches pulsed through his entire frame, especially in his wings, which felt almost numb, as if they had been torn away.
The young dragon's breathing was labored, like a bellows.
Yet amidst the pain and exhaustion, his eyes shone with clarity.
Because alongside the soreness, a faint tingling sensation coursed through his body.
This was the sign of adaptation and evolution. Each time he pushed himself to exhaustion, Garos' body grew tougher and stronger, allowing him to persevere longer and fly faster next time.
One day, he would truly soar through the sky on his own wings, and even the magic-nullifying Heavenly Pit Domain wouldn't be able to contain him.
As Garos prepared to rest,
The red dragon sister and iron dragon brother emerged from the mine, covered in dust. They saw Garos in a weakened state.
Exchanging a glance, the two hatchlings approached Garos with malicious intent, step by step.
"My dear brother Garos, you seem quite exhausted," the red dragon sister asked. Her words were laced with feigned concern, but they dripped with malice.
"Grr, we'll definitely beat you this time," the iron dragon brother sneered, his mouth twisting into a villainous grin as he slowly advanced.
"Skin itching for a beating?"
Garos stood impassively, his much larger frame looming over them. His calm gaze swept over the two hatchlings.
At his glance, the hatchlings froze, their expressions shifting from arrogance to uncertainty.
Despite Garos's apparent weakness, his imposing presence and long-established authority kept them from acting rashly.
"Now that I think about it, it's been a while since I last taught you a lesson."
Garos took a step forward, his eyes blazing with ferocity.
The hatchlings instinctively recoiled, their earlier bravado vanishing like smoke.
"Just kidding, just kidding..."
"Dear brother, please don't misunderstand."
The two hatchlings immediately backed down, scrambling away from Garos.
Garos snorted lightly, but this time, he magnanimously let it slide.
In truth, he wouldn't have been able to pursue them even if he wanted to.
His recent expeditions outside the Heavenly Pit Domain had made him acutely aware of the wilderness's many dangers. In his agitated state, he had overexerted himself during training, draining nearly every last bit of his stamina. Now, his body was weak, and he feared he might be beaten if he tried to fight.
Yet he maintained his imposing demeanor, his usual aura of dominance keeping the two hatchlings in check.
They had lost their only chance to retaliate by beating up Garos.
Next time, I need to be more careful with my training and conserve some stamina just in case, he thought.
He then casually lay down in one of the large pits he had blasted open, not minding the open air. Resting his tail as a pillow and folding his wings over his body, he settled into a coiled rest.
In the days that followed, Garos settled into a routine that was both disciplined and eventful.
Beyond his daily training and pushing the hatchlings to dig for ore, he periodically left the Heavenly Pit Domain to battle ferocious and demonic beasts in the surrounding wilderness, honing his combat skills and searching for a suitable habitat for future independent survival.
And so,
A year passed in the blink of an eye.
(End of the Chapter)
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