The History of the Arcane Lock's Evolution: User Needs Determine Product Development Direction

Influenced by many popular dragon-slaying biographies, most humans imagine dragon lairs to be largely undefended, with the evil dragons only waking when dragon-slaying warriors prepare to steal treasure or rescue princesses.

However, imagination is beautiful, but reality is harsh.

The possessiveness and paranoia dragons have over their treasures are almost unimaginable to other creatures.

Humans even lock their homes, let alone dragons, whose sense of territory is even more deeply ingrained.

To better protect their treasures, dragons prepare many defensive measures for their lairs.

The main ones include protective barriers, Alchemical Vision, and various traps. Of course, there are also many more affiliated creatures patrolling the dragon's lair's surroundings.

Protective barriers were originally an independent invention of the elves, though they preferred to call them "enchantments" or "magic enchantments" back then.

Magic enchantments were initially a byproduct discovered by an elven sage through studying the Weave. The first generation of enchantments was a network woven using magic power, extending along the Astral Plane's vascular channels that the Weave links across the multiverse.

Areas covered by magic enchantments often exhibit various magical effects depending on the weaving technique and the relevant attributes of the Weave used.

The most famous among these were the several enchantments of the ancient elven capital, Larissan: Nature's Whisper, Mundane Bulwark, and Unfallable Larissan.

It is said that elves within the capital received blessings from nature, granting a +1 ring bonus to any nature-related spell effects and a layer of earth elemental protection, rendering them immune to magic below the third ring. Then there was the most overpowered effect, Unfallable:

As long as an elf died within the capital's enchantment range, and not from instant-death soul spells or undead transformation spells, their soul would be protected by the enchantment at the moment of death. Through the Weave's crystal channel, they would be directly teleported to the Tree of Life, and then resurrected on their original bodies by Druids using Revivify.

Even if their bodies were completely destroyed, they could still undergo Druid class advancement based on their past merits and contributions, reappearing in the world through symbiosis with animal companions.

With these major enchantments, the elven capital was once impregnable. No matter how powerful the dragons, the rulers of the land at the time, were, the elves could stand their ground and fight them to a standstill.

Until an elven sage observed that dragons would fall into a state of frenzy due to a periodically arriving comet named the King-Killer Star. This sage then developed a truly wicked invention that would surely be etched in history, named:

Mad Dragon Enchantment!

In the great battle between the elves and dragons, as the Mad Dragon Enchantment enveloped more than half the continent, all dragons instantly fell into a state of irrational madness and began a bloody, unreasonable slaughter of each other.

After this battle, the dragon race was severely weakened and ultimately relinquished their position as overlords of the continent.

From then on, during their several civil wars for the crown, the elves elevated the skill of magic enchantments to new heights, transforming it from a passive defense for their major cities to directly deploying it on the battlefield.

Utilizing their prior preparations, they would then drag their enemies into the deployed enchantments for decisive battles.

The dragons, having lost everything in one fell swoop, were not fools. They retreated to their caves and began studying the enchantments of these lucky, dark-hearted Long Ears. Upon suddenly discovering that this thing was exceptionally effective for guarding their homes, these misers and tech enthusiasts became instantly addicted, unable to extricate themselves.

Some dragons even developed a mental illness called "Enchantment Obsession."

In essence, it was a typical case of severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. If they couldn't decipher an unfamiliar enchantment, they would dedicate all their main energy to it, leading to neglect of their primary duties and even affecting their own development.

It was a pity that enchantments, to some extent, were equivalent to the computer chip integrated circuit databases of Li Wei's previous life on Blue Star. The research and development costs were high, and the enormous energy consumption required to maintain large-scale server rooms could easily bankrupt some third-rate countries.

However, most dragons were pathologically stingy and unwilling to use such high energy consumption. So, what could be done?

Thus, the arcane lock in the hands of dragons had its skill tree completely skewed.

If the arcane lock in the hands of elves followed the path of a large-scale military supercomputer, then in the hands of dragons, it gradually evolved into a home PC that consumed very little energy.

To avoid wasting even a single magic stone, these stingy to the point of madness creatures actually thought of relying solely on the elemental energy radiation from their dragon bodies to power it.

Perhaps in the eyes of these misers, the energy that dissipated from their own bodies was also a waste that pained them daily. Being able to utilize it was naturally a cause for great joy.

After all, they rarely left their homes. Occasionally going out to hunt or visit for ten days to half a month was enough energy to barely sustain the operation of the arcane lock.

Furthermore, the types of arcane locks that various dragons preferred could reveal their habits.

For example, gold dragons liked to use illusionary barriers. Travelers who accidentally stumbled into them would often believe they had experienced a fantastical dream and wouldn't realize they had actually entered a dragon's lair.

Li Wei's kin, silver dragons, preferred to use winter barriers. Silver dragon lairs were often situated on steep, treacherous peaks. Under the winter barrier, the biting cold blizzards were enough to deter most intelligent creatures.

In contrast, the chromatic dragons, those scheming fellows, were much more malicious. Red dragons most enjoyed using inferno barriers to turn the entire volcanic area into a hellscape of exposed lava. If a dragon-slaying warrior accidentally stepped on a trigger node of the arcane lock, a burst of scorching lava steam would often erupt from beneath their feet. The heat was enough to cook an unprotected creature into a thoroughly cooked boiled chicken.

Black dragons, on the other hand, favored lightless barriers. Those who entered the barrier would be plunged into complete darkness, where even a torch was useless. The existence of light was forbidden within this barrier. Trapped individuals would often have their heads bitten off by the black dragon before they could find a way to regain light.

As for what Li Wei possessed, it wasn't an arcane lock at all, but a lower-tier alchemical vision—the True Sight Eye.

There was no choice. Dragons were poor and short-sighted. Even Black Dragon Kangerweian, who had diligently managed the Underdark for decades and plundered all his weaker neighbors, couldn't afford even the cheapest protective barrier. Moreover, even if most dragons had the money, they would be reluctant to spend vast fortunes to acquire one. They preferred to learn knowledge about arcane locks from their ancestors through innate inheritance and then develop their own protective barriers through independent research.

In fact, Kangerweian was too young to have awakened such knowledge. He had even snatched this True Sight Eye from another dragon. Otherwise, even with the lowest-level protective barrier, his lair wouldn't have been plundered by a pack of gnolls.

It was a pity that even this True Sight Eye had fallen into Li Wei's hands.

Its function, as the name suggested, was to monitor everything within a ten-mile radius of the entire lair from all directions.

With it, it was like having 360-degree surveillance around the house. Li Wei could monitor everything without leaving his lair.

It could even set up an alarm function. Once a being with an excessively high magic energy level approached rapidly, it could alert Li Wei to prepare.

As soon as Li Wei linked the item to his consciousness, he "saw" Huozi, covered in blood, being led by a few slimes as he rapidly approached the lair.

"The effect is quite good."

Li Wei withdrew from the monitoring mode. With a slight movement of his will, the scales on his body gradually turned crimson. His originally well-proportioned and slender dragon body swelled with powerful muscle lines.

As soon as he transformed into his red dragon form, a small elemental fire tide erupted from his body, spreading outwards. The frost that had just condensed on the rock walls was instantly evaporated. For a moment, the entire lair was shrouded in steam, resembling a fairyland.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Huozi, with whom he had signed a servant contract. It was that Li Wei knew even servant contracts weren't foolproof. The devils of Barto Hell were most skilled at exploiting loopholes in contracts.

Huozi might be able to withstand torture and interrogation, but he couldn't lie to his own soul, so Li Wei had to guard against it.

After a while, Huozi arrived at the lair, led by a few hopping slimes. Upon seeing Li Wei's massive and majestic True Dragon Body, he couldn't help but be slightly dazed again.

Even though it wasn't the first time he had seen it, this body filled with power still filled him with immense awe.

Huozi knelt on one knee and reported:

"Master, the First Layer Mine has been cleared. Over a hundred of my kin, Gnolls, sustained minor injuries, with one severely wounded. No one has died. Preliminary estimates show we harvested over 7,600 Cavens Rat corpses and captured over 2,300 live ones, including over 1,800 males and only over 500 females. They have been preliminarily penned according to your wishes, but we lack tools, and these Cavens Rats are constantly trying to escape.

"Furthermore, perhaps because our victory was so significant, those refugees who were previously observing are now strongly requesting to join the mining operations in the West Mining Area. Should we accept them all, or screen some?

"One more thing, the Guild Leader of the Golden Miner Brotherhood, Tiger, requests an audience with you."

Ah~ This book will start its first recommendation this afternoon at 2 PM, which is the legendary trial recommendation. Only those who rank in the top few in the PK competition can advance to the next round of recommendations. Most new books die off after failing in this series of advancement stages. Therefore, Old Seven earnestly implores all friends who like this book to give their support during these recommendation periods. Collections, follow-ups, and recommendation tickets are the most important metrics during the recommendation period! I beg of you!! (,,ω,,')