Priorities

"What is that thing in your hand?"

Vermes had been completely stunned by that absurdly thick, supercharged bolt of lightning from a moment ago.

That was absolutely not a magical effect that an ordinary Lightning Bolt could produce!

Even as strong as she was, she could not guarantee that she would not be seriously injured and collapse after taking a hit like that.

Just look at the first Iron Golem lying motionless in the Swamp. It was enough to show just how astonishingly destructive that devastating flash of electricity had been.

The Red Dragon found it hard to believe that a "Human cub" of Zuo Si's age could possess so many powerful Magic Items and scrolls.

It defied common sense!

"This?"

Zuo Si patted the cylindrical, semi-transparent crystal fixed to his belt.

"It's just a small Energy Storage Device, nothing special. Its limitations are severe—it can only store electrical energy. What you just saw was roughly the total power accumulated by the Power Generation Device after working day and night for several months. But now, it's completely drained. Also, be careful. The Swamp is about to disappear."

Before he had even finished speaking, Zuo Si swiftly retreated to a safe distance.

As a Creator, the combat style best suited to him was hiding behind teammates who could fight and take hits, then providing support with various Magic Items, scrolls, and potions.

Simply put, this was a support-oriented profession, not a combat-oriented one.

So once he confirmed that he was in a relatively safe position, Zuo Si immediately took out another card.

Magic Card: Enchanted Claws

LV1 Green Card (Upgradeable)

Card Quality: Inferior

Effect: After this card takes effect, it can enhance the target's natural weapons, such as teeth and claws. This is equivalent to adding an additional enchantment level on top of their existing power. Duration: two minutes

Using this card requires paying one point of Universal Mana, or one point of green mana representing forests, life, and nature

After Enchanted Claws takes effect, this card automatically enters the Graveyard to await rebirth. Time: 12 hours

Without a doubt, it was one of the cards Zuo Si had made himself.

Its inspiration came from Fangs, a Nature Spell.

Since he happened to have a Creature Card, he could use Fangs to greatly increase its combat power.

Back then, he had spent considerable effort figuring out the principles and mechanisms behind that spell.

After many twists and turns, he had finally succeeded in making it.

After all, Card Crafting was completely different from using Mimicry to imitate a profession and gain its abilities.

He had to rely on his own mind to understand and master every detail of the magic, as well as the way its energy functioned.

In fact, it was not easy for a Planeswalker to make cards of any type or level.

This was especially true for rookies who had just become Planeswalkers. They needed to constantly acquire knowledge from different worlds, study profound and complex magical principles, and then transform them into something that belonged to themselves and their own system.

Zuo Si believed that obtaining Mind Library and Mimicry at the very beginning had not been a coincidence.

Rather, the owner of the inheritance had known that after igniting his Spark, those were the two cards the inheritor would need most.

Without Mind Library, let alone acquiring vast amounts of knowledge in a short time, even learning an entirely unfamiliar language and writing system would have been a major problem.

That was true even with spells and Magic Items such as Understand Language and Read Magic assisting him.

As for Mimicry, it allowed Zuo Si to quickly obtain a spellcasting profession suited to the current Magical world and complete his introduction to it.

He could even be regarded as a genius by those around him and be trained accordingly, gaining better resources and a better environment for survival.

Otherwise, given the sinister, cunning, and cruel personality of the Archlich—Astar—the consequences would have been disastrous if he had discovered that a target he found interesting lacked sufficient spellcasting talent.

Zuo Si felt that if he had performed even slightly worse back then, he might as well have reserved a glass jar full of embalming fluid in advance in the Necromancy Laboratory on the first underground level, for storing the organs, head, and limbs dug out after his corpse had been dismembered.

This was absolutely not an exaggeration!

In less than two years, Astar had personally dismembered and ended the lives of six apprentices who had failed their tests and been "eliminated."

Whenever Zuo Si recalled those bone-chilling days, every nerve in his body would instinctively tense.

Fortunately!

That nightmare-like life was about to end.

As the magical effect of the Swamp gradually faded, the floor of the corridor turned back into hard stone slabs.

Zuo Si immediately activated the card in his hand, aiming it at the Red Dragon.

In an instant!

A green light enveloped the dragon's claws and teeth, forming a stable magical aura that was difficult to notice.

"This is..."

Vermes sensed the change and wore a deeply puzzled expression.

"This is Enhancement Magic! Your claws and teeth can now tear through the hard shells of those Iron Golems. Go! Take them out!" Zuo Si gave the order directly.

An adult Red Dragon's teeth and claws could already be regarded as natural magical weapons.

With the spell's enhancement effect added on top, dealing with this group of severely damaged Iron Golems should not have been much of a problem in theory.

Perhaps Enchanted Claws had given the Red Dragon tremendous confidence.

Or perhaps those heavily damaged Iron Golems, who were already staggering even as they moved, simply did not look threatening anymore.

In any case, Vermes charged in without fear.

She first opened her jaws and bit down on the head of the nearest golem, then flung it around like a rag doll.

In the blink of an eye, the golem's head separated from its body with a crack.

When its heavy steel body crashed down, it not only shattered the stone slabs but also left a small crater in the ground.

At the same time, the Red Dragon's tail did not remain idle.

With a turn and a sweeping tail strike, she knocked down a whole group of golems that had already been having trouble maintaining their balance.

Then she pounced on them, wildly tearing at the wounded and damaged parts of the Iron Golems' bodies with her claws and teeth.

Although some golems struggled to counterattack and even opened their mouths to spew poisonous Death Cloud,

they could barely inflict effective damage against the Red Dragon's sturdy scales and powerful magic resistance.

At most, they left several relatively deep scratches on the hardest scales along her back and caused minor internal injuries.

After all, these Iron Golems had neither intelligence nor the ability to think. They did not understand retreat and merely carried out their master's commands mechanically.

The pain caused by inhaling the toxic cloud made Vermes recall the nightmare-like events from not long ago, and she immediately fell into unparalleled madness and fury.

It was as if Zuo Si's face had appeared above every one of the golems' heads.

"Roar!!!!!!!!"

With a deafening roar, she completely abandoned defense and tactics, charging around like a madwoman.

Through relentless head-on melee combat, she quickly tore the seven severely damaged Iron Golems into pieces.

Metal arms, legs, torsos, and heads were scattered everywhere.

No wonder people said that Red Dragon eggs had the lowest survival rate among all True Dragons on the Faerun Continent.

Only the white dragons, the disgrace to True Dragons, could compare.

Those who survived to adulthood were even fewer and farther between.

Most of them died in conflicts with other dragons during their adolescent years.

This tendency to fly into a rage and fight to the death without retreating whenever they were injured or emotionally agitated was truly hard to evaluate.

Watching dragon blood flow from Vermes's mouth and nostrils before dripping onto the ground, Zuo Si could not help shaking his head lightly. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he recovered a considerable amount of Universal Mana from the destroyed Iron Golems.

He also poured all the excess into raising his Planeswalker level.

He understood very clearly that being a Planeswalker was the core of his strength.

The profession levels gained through Mimicry were merely a means of accumulating Magical Knowledge and continuously increasing the types and number of cards he could make.

He had to distinguish between what was primary and what was secondary.

"Huff—huff—huff—"

Amid heavy panting, the Red Dragon slowly recovered from that state of lost reason.

But she did not dare vent the negative emotions in her heart on Zuo Si. Thus, she carefully avoided eye contact and asked without turning her head, "We've cleared the guards in the passage. Can we go through and enter the room on the other side of the door now?"

Zuo Si nodded lightly. "Mm! We should be able to. But you need to carry me over, in case there are spikes and magical traps hidden in the ground or inside the walls."

"Climb up by stepping on my tail."

Vermes straightened the long tail behind her.

Although she felt that being ridden by a Human cub was humiliating and could even be called an insult,

if another dragon saw it, she would definitely be mocked without mercy.

She Might Cause herself to become the "disgrace to Red Dragons."

But in order to stay alive, she still decisively chose to swallow her pride.

She even tried to use the phrase "an equal alliance" to persuade and Deceiving Yourself.

It could not be helped. Red Dragons were the proudest and most arrogant of all True Dragons.

It seemed that truly taming this fellow would require some time and effort to train her properly...