"Hoo--ho--!!"
The sound of breathing, heavy and hot, like a blast of wind, continued to sound.
Centered on Red Iron Dragon's body, the surrounding area was almost completely turned into scorched earth.
The trees that were originally tall and tall were first ignited instantly and turned into violently burning torches, and then were completely carbonized and collapsed into ashes by the extreme high temperature within a few seconds.
The ground could not withstand the terrifying heat, and large areas melted and collapsed, eventually solidifying into glass-like crystals.
Garos is in the Red Lotus state at the moment.
His dragon scales, which are stronger than fine steel, are cracking and shattering inch by inch at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if they will completely disintegrate at any time.
Garos is trying to adapt to the burden Red Lotus Form brings.
His goal is to extend the duration of this explosive state, hoping that one day, he can fully adapt to it like mastering Exhilarated State, turning it into a permanent state that can be turned on anytime, anywhere, at will, without too many side effects on himself.
This is by no means a simple matter.
The essence of Red Lotus Form is the wonderful and dangerous reaction between the heat energy in his body and Bloodburst.
When using this state, Garos and Dragon Blood can be said to burn directly in the blood vessels.
If he hadn't been born with extremely high flame resistance, and had improved it to an incredible level through countless tempers, this state would have been a completely suicidal behavior for him. Its danger and degree of damage to the body were far greater than Exhilarated State and Bloodburst State.
However, Garos is extremely convinced:
As long as he uses it often enough, as long as he continues to challenge and adapt, with his special talent, he will eventually be able to achieve his goal, but sooner or later.
Moreover, during this process, Garos was keenly aware of some deeper changes.
Garos can clearly feel that there are some Adaptive Evolution signs happening in his blood between the extreme burning and calming cycles.
There are often many uncertainties in the specific direction of his Adaptive Evolution, but through successful evolutionary experiences in the past, Garos has also summarized some vague experience and intuition, and can roughly perceive the parts of the body that are being strengthened first.
"The last evolution centered on the heart and Dragon Jade, but it also simultaneously strengthened my other internal organs, especially the basic blood vessel network, which has become denser and stronger than ever before, far exceeding the normal physiological structure of Dragonkin."
"Judging from my current feelings, the focus of my next evolution is most likely related to this boiling and burning blood."
Garos, while bearing the tearing sensation caused by Red Lotus Form, thought calmly and came to this conclusion.
"After Dragon Blood Evolution, I don't know what new effects it can bring."
He couldn't predict the specific changes, but he was full of burning expectations for it.
The only thing that made him feel a little pity was that in his current instinctive perception, it seemed that only by turning on the extreme state of Red Lotus Form could the evolution of Dragon Blood be effectively stimulated and promoted.
Red Lotus Form itself cannot be maintained for a long time. Every time after such extreme exercise, the body needs a long time to repair the damage and restore strength.
This means that the evolution of Dragon Blood is destined to not be achieved overnight in a short period of time.
However, this is not an unacceptable problem.
In the face of the long time scale, Garos has plenty of patience.
He is willing to wait, and he is willing to pay the price of countless pains and pleasures.
After a long time.
With an extraordinarily long breath, Red Iron Dragon's fierce and domineering aura quickly fell back, and the alluring textures like Red Lotus's karmic fire quickly dimmed and disappeared, revealing the dragon scales underneath that were covered with cracks like spider webs and seemed to break at the touch of a touch.
"Every time I turn on Red Lotus Form, my scales will be severely broken, my flesh and blood will be torn, and my body will fall into weakness and trauma, but this in itself is also a test of the limits of my physical body."
"Now coupled with the blessings of the kindhearted Lich, the effect is even more amazing."
Red Iron Dragon felt the severe pain and weakness inside and outside his body. Not only did he not show any signs of pain, but he revealed a smile with a bit of pleasure and enjoyment.
For him, this superimposed pain is the best catalyst for sharpening his will and accelerating his evolution.
After finishing this exercise, he flapped his wings and returned to his lair at Conifer Valley.
After the Molten Iron Tribe made a comeback and returned to Ser Wilderness, Garos still chose this place as his daily habitat because of Conifer Valley's moderate geographical location and the lack of open spaces around it suitable for him to perform various extreme exercises.
He is based here, and if there is a major crisis at various sentry posts in the territory, he can rush to provide support in a very short time.
He rarely personally intervenes and handles the tedious affairs of the territory, and devotes most of his time and energy to training and strengthening himself. However, all major crises related to the survival of the tribe and powerful enemies that are difficult to resist are ultimately resolved by him personally.
He is the irreplaceable highest pillar to the Molten Iron Tribe, and to the dragons, he is also a presence like a sea-fixing needle.
As long as they think of such a powerful Lord of Crimson Wings standing behind them, the thousands of subordinates and dragons under his command will feel extremely at ease and confident.
As for his other blood relatives.
Currently located within the territory of the Lothern Kingdom, we will not discuss the special situation of Gordon for the time being.
Iron Dragon Sorog is mainly stationed at the pass of Scale-Earth Rift Road, guarding a strategic passage in the territory.
Since Molten Iron Tribe attracted several other Young Adult Dragon to join, the burden on Sorog has been relieved a lot.
The focus of his daily tasks gradually shifted from doing things personally to overall planning.
He will issue clear instructions and mission goals to other Young Adult Dragon, and they will implement them in detail. This gives Sorog itself more valuable time to conduct in-depth thinking and analysis, and can control the development direction of the territory and the dynamics of the family more macroscopically and accurately.
Red Dragon Samantha is also showing her talents.
She fell in love with the territory formerly occupied by Ogre, a dangerous place known as Shatterbone Hills.
After that, she led a group of Alchemist and Golem to carry out drastic transformation of Shatterbone Hills. The goal was to build this land, which was originally full of wild atmosphere, into a small but fully functional alchemy industrial zone.
Although the current scale is far from comparable to that of Black Iron Plain, a place with a deeper foundation, some basic alchemy products can already be produced locally, without the need to spend time and manpower transporting them from distant Black Iron Plain.
After circling for several times over Conifer Valley, Garos slowly slowed down, converged its wings, and landed inside the valley.
"Puff~Puff~"
As soon as he settled down, a group of colorful, different-shaped monsters that looked like giant jelly jumped over to him.
These are Slime.
They are one of the most common monsters in Adventurer's Beginner Guide, usually at the bottom of the food chain.
When Garos returned to Conifer Valley before, he found that this place was already densely occupied by Slime groups with various attributes.
Then, he simply released his Dragon Might and effortlessly gained the fanatical support of these Slime people.
Low-level monsters cannot resist the natural pressure of a real dragon.
Puff... Puff... A group of Slime began to try to slowly climb up Garos's huge body covered with cracks and ashes.
They have elastic, soft and moist bodies, and are surprisingly useful in cleaning off broken scales, scraping dust accumulated in the gaps between scales, and coagulating blood.
Garos simply regards these little things as free scale cleaners.
As for the reward, it is naturally the large amount of broken scales that naturally fall off his body after every high-intensity exercise, and the Dragon Blood that oozes from the cracks, which contains powerful energy for low-level monsters.
But the reward of Garos is not so easy to get.
As time goes by.
As Slime worked diligently on his scales, tiny blood-like textures gradually appeared on his body surface.
From time to time, one of them couldn't bear the energy contained in Dragon Blood, and suddenly trembled violently, and then exploded into a puddle of colorful jelly-like material with a muffled bang, which was then swarmed by the surrounding colleagues who couldn't wait and ate them up.
The vast majority of Slime cannot withstand the erosion of the blood of True Dragon.
But there are also a few individuals who are extremely talented or extremely lucky. Although their bodies are shaking constantly and the blood on their surfaces is getting denser and denser, they still stubbornly do not burst.
Their breath gradually changed during this process, and an extremely weak breath of Dragonkin slowly appeared.
Soon after.
The scales all over Garos were cleaned and polished by these little guys, and the entire dragon seemed to have been completely renovated.
The Slime people around them also left with satisfaction, looking for a quiet corner to digest and absorb those precious broken scales and Dragon Blood energy.
Given time, there may be a good Kin Leader among these Slimes.
At the same time.
A black shadow circled for half a circle over the valley, then converged its wings, swooped down, and landed in the open space in front of Garos.
"Good day, leader Garos."
Black Dragon Seraphina lowered her head covered with rugged bone armor, lowered her body slightly, and expressed respect to Red Iron Dragon, who was far bigger and stronger than her in front of her.
Her voice is low and slightly hoarse, with a cold texture unique to Black Dragon.
Garos carefully looked at the fellows in front of him.
His eyes first fell on her thick horny head, which was covered with a layer of bulging outwards, shaped like a terrifying skull mask, and then his eyes swept over her jagged bones, sharp dragon scales, and her unusually lean body.
In addition to the different overall personalities, Chromatic Dragon also gives people a completely different intuitive impression in terms of appearance.
The red dragon is domineering, Blue Dragon is majestic and solemn, Green Dragon is elegant and cunning, White Dragon is as stupid as an animal... and Black Dragon often gives people an instinctive sense of gloom and terror, and Black Dragon is naturally close to Negative Energy and is keen on dealing with death and the undead.
"Seraphina, there is a task for you to do."
Garos briefly and comprehensively described the situation of Lich's lair, and then said, "Go to that underground cave, subdue the remaining undead souls that have lost control, and take over the overall management and transformation of that Undead Lair."
"If you encounter trouble that is difficult to solve by yourself during the process, you can directly seek help from Flower Lord Xia'er."
After hearing the leader's instructions.
Black Dragon was obviously stunned for a moment, as if she could not digest the sudden good news. Then, she quickly shook the tip of her tail with a very small amplitude.
"Follow your orders! Seraphina assures you that the task will be completed perfectly!"
She tried hard to control her excitement, but her usually deep and hoarse voice involuntarily became much clearer and louder at this moment, revealing her inner excitement and joy.
For a Black Dragon, being able to take charge of a ready-made high-end Undead Lair that has been managed by a powerful Lich is no less significant than discovering a new Black Oilfield for a Garos.
Her happiness can be imagined.
Garos nodded slightly and continued to ask, "Dragonforged Transformation Ritual, how is the recent research progress?"
Black Dragon calmed down his excitement, and then answered cautiously:
"After repeated research, deductions and calculations, Ludwig and I agreed that it is most prudent and safe to break down the complete Dragon Vein Conversion process into twenty step-by-step independent transformation rituals."
"Currently, as the first step in laying the foundation, [Dragon Scale Transformation Ritual], the technology is gradually becoming mature."
"The main effect of Dragon Scale Transformation Ritual is to give the transformed person a trace but pure Dragonkin bloodline characteristic, as well as to gain strong external scale defense capabilities."
Garos pondered for a moment and asked:
"How effective can this ritual be in extending the life of the recipient?"
Black Dragon has obviously studied this before and answered fluently, "Using ordinary humans as the reference object, successfully completing Dragon Scale Transformation Ritual will probably increase their upper limit of life by about twenty years."
"Different transformation rituals have different emphases and effects in extending life."
"Theoretically, if [Heart Transformation Ritual] can be successfully developed and implemented in the future, the strengthening of the life source it brings will at least increase the life span of the recipient by more than a hundred years."
Garos nodded clearly, understanding what Black Dragon meant.
The life extension effect of Dragonforged Transformation is cumulative and gradually enhanced.
Immediately afterwards, Black Dragon added another piece of information, "In addition, regarding Dragon Scale Transformation Ritual's success rate... it still remains at about three-tenths of what we reported before."
"But if the ceremony venue can be moved to the extremely rich Undead Cavern of Negative Energy, and with the help of the special environmental energy field there, the success rate is expected to increase to five out of ten."
"If other suitable auxiliary materials can be found, or if both the transformer and the person leading the ceremony are in optimal condition, there is room for further improvement in the success rate."
The first step, Dragon Scale Transformation, mainly acts on the body surface and outer layer defense, and does not involve important organs such as the heart and brain. Therefore, the technical difficulty is relatively lowest and the risks are relatively controllable.
The difficulty of subsequent transformation rituals will gradually increase, but individuals who can successfully survive the early stages of Dragonforged Transformation will have their physical constitution significantly enhanced.
In this step-by-step approach, the possibility of successfully surviving subsequent transformation rituals will also increase accordingly.
This is also the core advantage of splitting the complete Dragon Vein Conversion into twenty independent rituals.
Over time, if this technology can be fully matured and stabilized, creating a powerful dragon-cast army for the Molten Iron Tribe will be the next best thing.
Its great value in improving the essence of life and breaking through the life span limit of the race is its most immeasurable value.
There is no shortage of various secret methods and methods to extend life and even pursue immortality in this world.
Transforming it into Lich is one of the extreme and costly ways.
However, those known life-extending methods either have extremely limited effects, are limited to certain professions or races, or, like the Lich transformation, are accompanied by major flaws that cannot be ignored, almost completely changing the life form and mind.
Twenty-Way Dragonforged Transformation Ritual may not be perfect, but the advantages it exhibits are real and tangible, while its shortcomings and risks are already very low compared to other methods.
Predictable.
As long as a little bit of news is revealed to the outside world, there is no telling how many powerful beings who have fallen into despair because their lifespan is about to end will be attracted to seek their allegiance.
Of course, all this has a major premise.
By then, Molten Iron Tribe must have the confidence and strength to retain this heaven-defying technology without being snatched away by various forces.
"Chief, regarding the transformation of Undead Lair."
Black Dragon hesitated for a moment, then asked in a low voice, "I hope Ludwig can participate with me."
"Transforming a Undead Lair into a special place suitable for Dragonforging Ritual involves a lot of knowledge in the field of life and cannot be separated from the assistance of Ludwig."
"Furthermore, although Negative Energy's rich environment will make Ludwig feel uncomfortable, it is also an excellent temper and exercise. The ultimate aura of death can actually help him understand the essence of life, which is of great benefit to his growth."
Garos heard this and nodded with satisfaction, approving of Black Dragon's idea.
"Okay."
The dragons under his command should have the consciousness to never forget to seize every opportunity to sharpen their minions and strengthen themselves, no matter in good times or bad.
"Soon, an elderly human will come to receive the first Dragonforged Transformation."
Red Iron Dragon's expression returned to calm, and he said calmly, "You and Ludwig need to do everything possible to ensure that he survives."
The key position of the leader of the Gem Merchants' Guild is to continue to be held by the old Nick who knows the basics and knows how to advance and retreat appropriately. This is currently the best choice.
On the other hand.
If the transformation ceremony is completed, he can also serve as an example for the Molten Iron Tribe to quietly strive for more power within Lothern Federation for those who hold certain positions but are anxious and wavering because their life span is about to end.
"I understand what you mean."
Feeling the importance contained in Red Iron Dragon's calm words, Black Dragon Seraphina solemnly nodded. "I will make every effort to ensure the success of the ceremony."