The half-open palace was built entirely of stone, large enough to accommodate the Rock Crystal Dragon's hundred-meter-tall body as it twisted about freely and slept soundly in the most restless position possible.
Only stone reinforced by the power of earth could support such a bare, enormous palace.
With any other material,
it would have collapsed under its own weight before construction was even halfway done.
This palace had been built after its transformation. At first, it still slept in a cave. With the power of earth reinforcing it, no matter how large or deep it dug, the cave would never collapse.
But all of a sudden,
it could no longer get comfortable no matter how it slept.
Its dragon life suddenly gained ambition.
It stared into the depths of the cave, and something it had never possessed before appeared in its gaze: intelligence. Like someone who had muddled through life, looking back on the dull first half of it and suddenly awakening.
No, I shouldn't sleep in a hole anymore!
As for why, it did not know. It simply felt that it could no longer sleep in a hole. It needed to have aspirations.
It picked a random patch of land in the middle of the desert and started working with howls.
It looked exactly like a child building a sandcastle on the beach.
After some thought, it kneaded a huge ball of earth, placed it atop a stone pillar over a hundred meters tall, then made another one. Just like that, the columns were complete.
Its craftsmanship was just a little poor.
It did not know what use two pillars had. It had merely seen them at places where humans lived, so it made some too.
Then it kept building.
It built the palace for one day.
Then it