Dragon Bloodline! (Extra for Ally Huang Zhi)

Dragon Bloodline! (Bonus Chapter for Alliance Leader Huang Zhi)

A dragon whelp.

It ate a fat fish weighing over ten pounds, slept for an entire day and night, then woke up and took a massive dump.

This was Duncan's first nonhuman form.

Fortunately, Duncan's Human Form No. 1 was human. Otherwise, he would have started out as a reptile.

Duncan's territory was currently in a period of peaceful development, and the Saxon Pirates had not invaded for the time being. They were busy fighting the Picts and had also declared war on King Uther. Perhaps Duncan's recent reputation had become too prominent, and King Uther wanted to make a name for himself on the battlefield as well. He led the Sarmatian Knights beneath the Dragon Banner in a counterattack against the Kingdom of East Saxon, only to be struck by an axe on the battlefield. No one knew how serious his injury was.

He definitely was not dead. King Uther had actually won—a minor victory, though he had suffered a slight injury himself.

The Kingdom of Camelot had retaken Staffordshire, though it suffered a minor setback in Cheshire. Overall, it could be considered a recovery of lost territory. With the legendary Wizard Merlin protecting him, King Uther was unlikely to die suddenly. What happened to Duke of Tintagel was unlikely to happen to a monarch with a powerful wizard at his side.

Duncan was rather free for the time being. Every day, he trained troops and properly drilled the recruited riders. He now had one hundred and twenty riders under his command, though most were light cavalry.

Everyone in the territory—Anya, Triss, and Severus alike—was run ragged.

They all assumed that Duncan had not received much education and was not particularly skilled at administration, so they handled the practical affairs themselves and even tried to recruit talent on their own. Raven Queen Triss was responsible for maintaining the faith of polytheism and preventing faith conflicts from causing public security issues. Anya focused on economic production, preparing to rebuild the market district while also improving the fishing industry.

Severus was the impressive one!

He was a Druid. As everyone knew, if Druids could not farm, they might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes.

Severus oversaw agriculture as a whole. Anya disliked farming, believing it was work for the lower classes, so she sent the former farm steward to help him. Besides handling agricultural matters, Severus also had to communicate with the native tribes, help them restore agricultural production, and find Duncan a plot of land for raising horses, because Duncan had said he would need a cavalry force in the future.

He was genuinely busy—so busy his feet barely touched the ground, and people rarely saw him throughout the day.

Yet surprisingly, when Duncan encountered him again, Severus's designation had changed.

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

He had become a hero unit.

Perhaps because Avalon in the Mist had latched onto Duncan, Celtic legends had been reviving in the mortal world lately and broadly influencing Britain's native inhabitants. As a result, Severus had risen with the tide and had even met the legendary Lady of the Lake.

However, one person had not changed at all: Anya. She spent every day thinking about galloping on horseback and was still only at the level of a Two-Star Blank.

Time peacefully entered a lull, while Duncan also worked on improving himself, studying under the Librarian.

A day quickly passed.

The next day, he logged in almost exactly on time. The moment he entered Dimensional Space, he saw the dragon whelp take a massive dump.

The dragon whelp had only one managed mode—Draconic Memory Inheritance.

Duncan rarely transferred his consciousness into No. 2 Human Form, because crawling was uncomfortable, and he also had to control the wings and tail. The projection interface under God's Eye View suited him better for controlling nonhuman forms.

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

Nothing else to say.

He continued digging open the ice hole.

This damn place was freezing. The ice hole would freeze over again before long, but fortunately, the dragon whelp did not care at all and completely ignored the cold.

"It looks like it changed a little. The Dragon Scales have turned somewhat ice-blue."

Yesterday, the dragon whelp had been translucent white. Today, it was closer to a faint ice-blue, though it still mostly resembled a White Dragon. Its body was probably not fully developed yet. Young animals were generally rather cute, and the dragon whelp did not look all that ferocious. It weighed just over thirty pounds, about the size of a small dog. It had probably gained several pounds after eating.

"Does it eat rocks to replenish trace elements?"

"What an appetite."

Duncan controlled the dragon whelp to dig open the ice hole and dive underwater. Its Stamina Bar increased by one segment, roughly one-third full. Dragons grew at an astonishing rate; both its Stamina Bar and Health Bar had already surpassed those of an ordinary adult man.

—Not this one.

—Not this one either.

—This one. Eat it.

At the bottom of the lake, the dragon whelp sniffed every pebble it found. It could breathe underwater, and the memories of its Dragon Heritage told it whether it could eat the stone. In the end, it ate a small azure stone and another small yellowish-brown stone.

—That should be enough.

—Time to catch fish.

The dragon whelp nearly choked to death on the stones, forcibly swallowing them down before happily catching fish. As it approached the surface, it bumped into a thick layer of ice.

—Don't go up. It's dangerous up there. The dragon whelp is too weak.

Duncan controlled No. 2 Human Form and let it feast on fish. He discovered that as its Stamina Bar increased, the dragon whelp's active time also increased.

—You should hibernate now and wait until you grow further.

A prompt from the Draconic Memory Inheritance appeared.

But Duncan checked and saw that the dragon whelp still had plenty left in its Stamina Bar, so he prepared to observe the surrounding area.

—You should not be going out to adventure right now.

—Oh, another curious little one who loves adventure.

—Then good luck!

Three prompts from the Dragon Heritage Memory appeared in quick succession, as though it were somewhat anxious, before disappearing completely.

It seemed some dragons were not all that obedient to the memories of Dragon Heritage.

Little claws dug, dug, dug!

A young dragon head poked out through the ice, having bored a hole, and curiously surveyed its surroundings.

A world of ice and snow.

Everything lay shrouded beneath frost, as though this were an Ice Age from prehistoric times!

Duncan could finally open the Strategic Map.

A vast frozen lake lay before him, its ice nearly a meter thick. Snow-covered mountains rose in the distance, towering into the clouds and stretching beyond sight.

A waterfall had frozen solid, its cascading flow suspended in place, with icicles nearly a hundred meters long hanging down both sides.

The world was a boundless expanse of white.

After raising the God's Eye View, he could see a primeval forest beneath the harsh winter. The trees were exceptionally tall—even those on the outskirts stood dozens of meters high. Each was a towering ancient tree, likely over a century old.

"It really is a barbaric age!"

The ice trembled faintly.

The distance was considerable.

Duncan switched perspectives, his pupils narrowing as he spotted a group of giants approaching from the waterfall.

--Frost River Giant King![Golden Skull Mark][Hostile].

--Prehistoric Mammoth[Three-Star Blank].

--Frost Giant Migrant Tribe[Three-Star Golden][Legendary Unit][Hostile].

Hiss!

Was it this intense right from the start?

The Dragon Whelp's head instantly shrank back. The world above the ice was far too terrifying!

--They're giants. You'd better be careful.

Duncan did not dare act rashly. The giant migrant tribe had dozens of members and several Prehistoric Mammoths with them. Any one of them could crush him to death. Ordinary giants stood four or five meters tall, male warriors exceeded five meters, and the Giant King was nearly seven meters tall. Just looking at him from afar made the pressure explode.

Damn it.

Being a dragon wasn't easy either.

Duncan dove back to the bottom of the lake and tracked his target with God's Eye View. Before long, he found a unit marked as hostile.

--Prehistoric Piranha (One-Star).

Blank One-Star.

He could fight it!

Duncan looked at the Dragon Whelp's sharp claws and fangs and figured they could give it a try. It was a dragon, after all—surely it could not lose to a mere piranha.

But once he truly drew close, the pressure was no small matter.

This fish actually weighed nearly fifty kilograms!

It quickly noticed the Dragon Whelp's presence. At first sight, it startled, as the outline of a terror engraved into its genetic instincts emerged before it, and it instinctively wanted to flee.

Then it realized that this dragon seemed rather small.

It could fight.

This advantage was mine!

The Prehistoric Piranha opened its blood-filled maw and charged in one swift rush.

--Careful! Use underwater Roll.

A prompt from the Dragon Heritage memories appeared once again.

Roll.

Duncan controlled the Dragon Whelp to evade instantly. With an elegant motion, it instinctively rolled through the water. The force bursting from its Dragon Wings let it easily dodge the attack, like a fighter jet spinning underwater.

In an instant, a claw-strike marker appeared, and Duncan's thoughts followed it.

Pshhk!

Blood spurted out. The Prehistoric Piranha's scales were effortlessly ripped apart, as though they were made of paper.

The difference in strength was clear.

The Prehistoric Piranha instinctively felt fear, but it still opened its mouth and sprayed out a cold breath, freezing a small area of water into icy slush.

"Wind of Magic detected!"

"Invalid!"

The Dragon Whelp surged forward at high speed. Its Dragon Wings could actually accelerate its swimming underwater, unleashing formidable explosive force. It shot out like an arrow, breaking through the icy slush. That frigid breath could not harm it in the slightest—it was the true master of frost in this age!

Bite.

Headshot.

One-hit kill!

As though driven by the instinct of ancient dragons hunting, the piranha, more than twice its size, was killed instantly.

A frigid aura was absorbed by the Dragon Whelp's heart.

--Dragon Shout: Frost [Activated].

The Dragon Whelp dragged the enormous piranha back to the ice cave. It could not move the huge thing, so it could only gnaw at part of it beneath the cave.

--Good job, little one.

--Looks like this is another warlike variant dragon.

--Then...

--Enter the next stage of dragon awakening.

Prompts from the Dragon Heritage memories began surfacing continuously. The next second, a faint, invisible glow emerged within the Dragon Whelp's body, as though a genetic lock had been opened. At the Dragon Hatchling stage, on only the second day after hatching, the invisible Wind of Magic surged through its limbs and bones, and a gleam of light flowed across its pale ice-blue Dragon Scales.

"Activate the Dragon Heritage talent!"

"Release the genetic lock!"

"First stage, Dragon Bloodline [Magic Surge]!"

Inside the ice cave, the Dragon Whelp ate its fill.

As it gradually entered Hibernation, the invisible Wind of Magic flowed into its body with every breath, slowly forming a frosty wind before it with every exhalation.

--"Dragon Bloodline (Stage One) [Special Ability]: The powerful innate talent of dragons has begun to awaken. Dragons are embodiments of magic; manipulating magic is as simple as breathing to them. Unlocks basic Dragon Tongue Dragon Shouts, further transforms the body into a magical life-form, slowly improves physical attributes over time, unlocks the next stage of Dragon Heritage memories, strengthens overall resistance, slightly increases innate resistance to supernatural powers, and slightly raises the maximum mana limit."

Hiss!

Dragons truly were a cheat-class race.

Within the Dimensional Space.

Duncan suddenly had an idea and tried using God's Eye View.

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

--"Engraving requires 5 Legendary Points. Once engraved, the bloodline ability will be imported into the Dimensional Space and can be loaded into other Human Forms." (Note: Some abilities will be converted. Dragon scale armor enhancements are converted into innate skin enhancements for human and humanoid forms. Life-forms with scales inherit a small portion of the Dragon Whelp-stage Dragon Scale traits.)

So it really was possible!

Did that not mean Human Form No. 1's abilities could be engraved and loaded into No. 2 Human Form, while the dragon's special abilities could also be used to strike back at Human Form No. 1?

Why did it consume so many Legendary Points?

Master-level combat skills only required one Legendary Point, yet engraving the most basic Dragon Bloodline cost five.

Duncan looked at the currency in the Dimensional Space--Legendary Points: 3/7.

Where else could he find enemies with Legendary Points?

Quick.

I was in a hurry, a very big hurry!