When the first ray of morning sun pierces the sky, the golden-red morning light splashes freely on the vast land still slightly cool with night dew.
At this dawn, Garos ended the training that lasted all night.
He slowly withdrew his posture, his chest rising and falling like a huge bellows, and then he exhaled a long, deep breath of burning heat that lingered for a long time.
Then, he turned his head and threw it at the young man Gold Dragon on the other side.
After experiencing the short respite before, Alberto was gritting his teeth at this moment, enduring the soreness like muscle tearing and extreme mental exhaustion. He once again imitated Garos's previous posture that was full of power but Flowing Water Dragon Realm, and started a new round of exercise.
His movements were a little slow and clumsy, but he had no intention of stopping.
The competitive spirit is so strong? It is simply self-torture.
Red Iron Dragon's eyes lingered on the movements of young Gold Dragon for a moment, and a trace of surprise and amusement flashed through his heart.
He pondered for a moment and said, "That's enough, Alberto, I understand your competitive spirit of not wanting to be inferior to others."
"But even the sharpest blade needs to be refurbished and maintained. Give yourself some breathing space to allow your tired body and tense spirit to recover. This in itself is harmless and can even make subsequent sharpening more efficient."
Hearing this, young Gold Dragon Alberto's eyelids twitched violently.
Doesn't he want to rest?
He can't!
Alberto's golden tail twitched feebly, and he directly ignored Garos's advice and continued the high-intensity exercise that nearly squeezed his physical and mental limits.
Looking at that posture, it seems that he will never give up until he is completely paralyzed to the ground again.
Garos stood silently, taking in Alberto's abnormal reaction.
After a few seconds of silence, he slowly spoke and said, "Alberto, you seem to have made a rather strange oath for yourself?"
These words are like pebbles thrown into a deep pool, breaking the strong dam Alberto was holding up.
The depression and heavy burden that he had suppressed for a long time and had nowhere to talk surged out like a torrent that burst a dam, and his strong desire to talk almost made him unable to control himself.
While pressing his head against the ground, he rolled his heavy body awkwardly, imitating Garos's neck-training movements.
The other side explained intermittently in a numb and tired voice:
"Yes...Garos... I was blinded by passion for a moment and made an... strict oath... and... the consequences of breaking the oath are heavy."
"Oh?"
Garos's tone of voice rose slightly, showing a little curiosity, and his eyes shone with interest.
"What exactly is the oath?"
Saying it makes me happy... The second half of the sentence, Garos just muttered silently in his heart.
According to the rich records in ancient inherited memories, there are countless examples of those Sacred Dragon who impulsively made bizarre oaths and then fell deeply into them and became distressed.
Alberto The current look of embarrassment and asking for trouble is an example right before our eyes.
Garos's curiosity was aroused, and he wanted to know what kind of oath could force a proud Gold Dragon to this point.
"Alas..."
Alberto let out a long and heavy sigh, full of regret and helplessness.
He raised his eyelids, his golden pupils filled with complex emotions, and glanced at Red Iron Dragon beside him again and again. His lips moved, and the words came to his throat and he swallowed them forcefully.
He was about to speak but stopped, and he stopped talking but was still wanting to speak. It seemed that a fierce battle between heaven and man was going on in his heart.
After struggling and suffering like this for seven or eight seconds.
In the end, under the silent gaze of Garos's encouraging eyes, Alberto finally removed the last bit of psychological defense.
"That's it..."
He began to talk, his voice broken by the difficult exercise movements.
Soon, listening to Alberto's words, a glimmer of understanding flashed in Garos's eyes, and then he suddenly understood.
"That's it."
He nodded slightly, with a hint of surprise and interest in his tone. "The content of this oath is actually related to me."
It turns out that after encountering Garos and being defeated by him at a higher level, Alberto really couldn't accept the reality that he was defeated by a Young Adult Dragon.
Driven by a strong sense of frustration and self-esteem, he became hot-headed and vowed to defeat Garos.
While this oath is in effect, that is, before defeating Garos, he must completely give up all entertainment and leisure, and devote himself wholeheartedly and unreservedly to the training of his own strength and the tempering of his will.
What's more serious is that the oath stipulates that once he breaks this oath, he will be reincarnated as the lowest White Dragon in his next life.
"You can see that."
Garos's voice sounded very considerate, and said, "This oath has now troubled you so much that you are suffering unspeakably."
His voice paused and he suggested. "How about this? You challenge me now and I will add some water to the battle so that you can win. In this way, won't the conditions of your oath be met? Maybe I can help you end this oath."
However, Gold Dragon shook his head, his movements seemed a little slow due to fatigue.
He gasped and said, "No, there is a key sentence in the oath I made - until I become stronger than you, undisputedly stronger."
"Undisputed--"
He emphasized these four words and said, "--This means that the so-called victory achieved by relying on the opponent's mercy, charity, letting go, or any lucky way is invalid and is a blasphemy against the oath."
"For it to count, I must completely defeat you with my absolute strength in a head-on confrontation that is upright and above board, without any external interference or favoritism."
Then you probably have no chance.
Garos assessed calmly in his heart.
The essence of his Adaptive Evolution talent is a long ladder leading to ultimate power. Theoretically, the later the stage, the accumulated advantages will increase exponentially, eventually forming an insurmountable gap.
Now, as a teenager, even Alberto cannot defeat him.
So as time goes by, when Garos breaks through the shackles of life again and again, and completes Adaptive Evolution again and again, the gap between the two sides will only become wider and wider, and victory will become more and more out of reach for Alberto.
But for now, Garos feels that Gold Dragon's self-imposed behavior seems to be a bit excessive. So what is the specific wording of the oath that can bind him so tightly?
Driven by strong curiosity, Garos asked Gold Dragon to repeat the oath to him exactly.
Now that the matter has come to this, Alberto also understands that there is no point in concealing it, but it makes him even more embarrassed.
With the calmness of a broken pot, he no longer hesitated and calmly told Garos the content of the oath that bound him word for word.
[Before completely transcending--Red Iron Dragon Garos·Ignas.
Refuse all entertainment and leisure, no longer allow yourself any meaningless rest and laziness, and work hard day and night to sharpen your claws, temper your scales, and temper your will and strength.
Until it becomes more powerful than Garos, undisputedly powerful.]
Alberto's voice was full of melancholy. "The oath I made was too harsh. Apart from defeating you, I almost cut off all my retreat options."
Red Iron Dragon did not respond immediately.
His huge head was slightly lowered, thinking in his heart.
In his eyes, Alberto's oath seemed to push him into a dead end, but it was actually full of loopholes and was far from being as flawless as he imagined.
First of all, the core punishment for breaking the oath - reincarnation as White Dragon? This is simply a big joke.
With Platinum Dragon God Bahamut's partial care and expectations for the Gold Dragon Clan, how could He sit back and watch his most favored son, who symbolizes justice and order, fall into the evil camp just because of an impulsive oath, and he is also the lowest and most ignorant White Dragon?
This kind of penalty clause, in Garos's view:
Its binding force is infinitely close to zero. It is more due to Alberto's own strong and distorted self-esteem and untarnished pride. He is just scaring himself.
As for what Alberto thinks is strict, Garos thinks it is also full of loopholes that can be exploited.
[Reject all entertainment and do not allow meaningless rest and laziness]
--What is entertainment?
If a certain activity can objectively significantly improve combat skills, tactical literacy, and on-the-spot reaction capabilities, and at the same time subjectively relax and entertain tense nerves, can it still be simply defined as entertainment?
--What is meaningless?
Planned rest can greatly restore physical strength, repair hidden injuries, improve the efficiency and quality of subsequent training, and accumulate strength for higher-intensity training. How can this be crudely classified as meaningless?
And the requirement for complete transcendence.
Does this only refer to physical strength and fighting skills?
Shouldn't wisdom, strategy, depth of understanding of the world, and even charm be included? The original intention of the oath should be comprehensive transcendence.
Therefore, the behavior of reading knowledge classics (increasing wisdom), socializing with powerful beings (understanding the world, increasing influence), appreciating art (edifying the mind, improving charm), and even basking in the sun to maintain dragon scales (increasing charm) are not meaningless and are completely in line with the major premise of the oath.
"Oaths, after all, originate from the power of the heart, emanate from the heart and are bound by the will."
Garos's eyes fell on Gold Dragon, thinking calmly in his heart.
"Strictly speaking, the final interpretation of the boundaries between entertainment and meaning is actually firmly in the mind of the swearer Alberto."
As long as Alberto can truly convince himself from the bottom of his heart that some degree of rest and some purposeful entertainment are also an indispensable part of his exercise plan.
In fact, he can cleverly circumvent the constraints of the oath.
Of course, the kind of pure, aimless sleep or daze just to kill time will definitely not work.
This is self-deception, and even the person who took the oath cannot convince himself.
The key is that Alberto needs to find those logical and self-consistent reasonable explanations and behavior patterns that he can truly recognize in his heart and cannot generate the slightest self-doubt.
"Then, here's the problem."
Garos stretched out his paws covered with hard scales and gently rubbed his hard-lined jaw, weighing it in his mind.
"Should I wake up this Gold Dragon, who has obviously got into trouble, and help him analyze the backdoor of these oaths, and help him get out of this dire predicament?"
At this moment, Gold Dragon let out a dull gasp again. His huge body finally couldn't support it anymore and collapsed to the ground. He was so tired that he couldn't even move the tip of his tail.
"Alberto."
Garos looked at his appearance, calmly stated the facts, and said:
"Wanting to completely resolve the dilemma caused by your oath by defeating me head-on is an almost impossible task, and its difficulty is probably a hundred times higher than you imagine."
However, the exhausted Gold Dragon obviously didn't think so.
He reluctantly raised his heavy head, gasped, and said, "No, I still have a chance. When I complete Young Adult Stage's deep sleep and usher in the essential leap and transformation of life, then I will have a great chance of defeating you head-on!"
Alberto bets his hopes on his next most critical transformation node - Young Adult Stage's deep sleep.
He firmly believes that as long as he can enter and complete this slumber earlier than Garos, and obtain the jump of Life Level, he can use Life Level's absolute advantage to turn things around and defeat Garos.
Garos doesn't agree with this in his heart.
Alberto is now about sixty years old, and Young Adult Stage's deep sleep, according to Dragonkin's normal growth pattern, usually does not begin until he is about eighty years old.
Even if he exercises hard and can advance his sleep period, he will never reach the age of seventy earlier.
And Garos himself will inevitably begin his teenage slumber soon and enter Young Adult Stage.
By then, when Alberto wakes up from Young Adult Stage's slumber, Life Level of Garos is likely to have been promoted.
Not only will the gap between the two not be narrowed as Alberto imagined, but it will most likely become even more out of reach due to the continued effect of Garos's talent.
"Since you believe so strongly."
Red Iron Dragon The corners of his mouth raised slightly, and he had already made a decision in his heart. "Then I'll wait and see."
He suppressed his original idea of telling Alberto how to exploit the oath loopholes.
Since Alberto has his own ideas, Garos decided to respect his choice and let him use his own way to hit the wall he identified.
Although Gold Dragon's training intensity is indeed a bit ridiculously high, considering Gold Dragon's strong physical fitness, it is not completely unbearable.
At most, it's just that without normal leisure time, life is extremely painful.
Besides...Garos is thinking about it in his mind.
If he encounters any formidable and powerful enemy in the dangerous wilderness in the future, he can just use this upright and powerful Gold Dragon to act as a reliable shield.
Alberto The stronger you become now, the better it will be useful later.
He seems to be able to endure hardship, so give him more hardship.
"Right."
Taking advantage of a rare moment of rest, Alberto took a breather, remembered something, and asked, "On the way to this Borderlands, I noticed that your family members were intensively preparing for war. Are you preparing to go deep into the wilderness?"
Garos nodded slowly, looking at the undulating mountains in the distance with his black eyes.
He said solemnly, "Yes, I plan to establish a foothold on the edge of the wilderness first."
"Then you have to be careful." Gold Dragon reminded in a serious tone.