The blazing sun hung high overhead, its scorching rays pouring down like molten gold, baking the entire Wilderness until it was blistering hot.
The ground temperature kept rising, and the air rippled with distortion. The distant mountains flickered in and out through the heat haze, their outlines blurred like a mirage.
In weather like this, many creatures could not bear the heat and rarely went out.
The dragonkin living inside the Ring-Shaped Sinkhole were not among them.
As fire dragons, such sweltering weather instead made them more energetic and active than usual.
More than a month had passed since Garos's last negotiation with Iron Dragon Mother.
Hatchling Dragons were at the stage of growing rapidly, and Garos had been diligently training to strengthen himself.
Over the past month, his body had vaguely grown another size. His dragon scales seemed forged from steel and iron, while the muscle fibers concealed beneath them tightened like twisted metal cables whenever he exerted force, ready to unleash tremendous power at any moment.
"Break time is over. Go mine for me!"
Near the mountainside, Garos flicked his tail and threw two stones, each striking Iron Dragon Brother and Red Dragon Sister on the head.
The two Dragonlings raised their heads in dissatisfaction and protested indignantly, "We've only rested for an hour! Garos, this is abuse! With the same mining hours, Mother's Kobold followers get to rest for two hours!"
Iron Dragon Mother had followers.
One Kobold clan specialized in mining for Iron Dragon Mother.
At those words, Garos's tail lashed the ground, striking sparks as he paced over to the two Dragonlings.
"Do you know why you can never beat me, why I always pin you beneath me, why all you can do is let me torment and humiliate you again and again?"
He lowered his gaze and asked.
The two Dragonlings looked at each other, unable to make sense of it.
"Because you lack ambition!"
Garos leaned down toward the two Dragonlings, his shadow engulfing them as he said in a deep voice, "You are noble True Dragons, with Dragon Veins flowing through your bodies, yet you actually compare yourselves to Kobolds!"
The Hatchling Dragon shook his head, his expression full of pity and disappointment.
"Trash that cannot even surpass Kobolds truly disgraces your True Dragon blood."
He spoke in an exceptionally disdainful tone.
"Bullshit! Kobolds aren't worthy of being compared to me!"
Red Dragon Sister flew into a rage.
"Bullshit! I'm a hundred times stronger than Kobolds!"
Iron Dragon Brother also flew into a rage.
Garos's expression eased slightly, and he grinned. "Words are cheap. Prove it to me. Let me see your determination. Let me see the strength and resilience you possess as dragonkin."
"Hmph, don't underestimate us!"
The two Dragonlings snorted coldly, then eagerly entered the mine tunnel they had previously opened. They threw themselves into the work with all their strength, determined to make Garos understand that they were not creatures Kobolds could compare to. In their hearts, they swore to make Garos see them in a better light.
Provocation—the ultimate weapon against dragonkin.
Proud and arrogant dragonkin could not stand being provoked.
Garos withdrew his gaze from the two Dragonlings entering the mine.
"If only Iron Dragon Mother were as easy to fool as they are."
Garos sighed.
As dragonkin grew older and gained experience, they could more or less control their instincts. An adult dragon like Iron Dragon Mother was far more intelligent than Dragonlings.
As for those two Dragonlings, they were basically fools right now and easy to trick.
If dragons like them grew another year and became Hatchling Dragons, then were driven away by their dragon mother to live alone according to normal development, it was hard to imagine how they could survive in this perilous world with their weak yet playful personalities.
At the same time.
A violent gust of wind suddenly swept past.
Garos looked up at the sky and saw Iron Dragon Mother soaring overhead with her wings spread wide. Her immense body radiated rolling Dragon Might, and her nearly forty-meter wingspan cast a dense shadow across the ground.
Dust flew wildly from the ground, and scattered stones trembled without end.
Iron Dragon Mother dropped a pitch-black mass. It crashed to the ground with a deafening boom, like an earthquake. Its landing point was smashed into a deep pit, dense cracks spreading continuously outward as a ring of dust rapidly expanded.
Garos beat his wings to disperse the dust and focused his eyes.
A Great-Horned Savage Bull weighing dozens of tons, its body layered with bulging muscles, a pair of enormous horns on its head, and hard armor covering its body, came into Garos's view.
This was a fierce beast above level 10.
It was also the high-quality blood food Garos needed.
Iron Dragon Mother was honoring the terms of her deal with Garos by regularly providing him with high-quality blood food.
This was specifically for him.
As for the two Dragonlings, Garos forced them to mine, but they were not working day and night without rest. They were not true slaves. Once they returned to the Dragon Lair, Iron Dragon Mother provided them with food.
Iron Dragon Mother was cold by nature but valued rules. She had always been reliable when it came to what she was supposed to do. She had never mistreated any Dragonling, though she had never treated them especially well either.
After dropping off the prey, Iron Dragon Mother did not linger and returned directly to her own lair.
"Time to eat."
Garos withdrew his gaze, took a deep breath, and began to rend the Great-Horned Savage Bull's body.
The layer of hard armor covering its surface could not be bitten through in one go even by Garos's teeth, which had been trained by chewing metal ore. He had to bite down and tear at it several times.
The beef was extremely fresh, no worse than gnawing on it while it was still alive. It was tough and satisfyingly chewy.
With every bite he swallowed, Garos felt warmth spread through his body as he received a rich replenishment of nutrients and energy.
When he had consumed nearly half of the Great-Horned Savage Bull's flesh, a numb, itchy sensation suddenly began to emerge from both inside and outside Garos's body, surging back and forth like waves.
"This is the feeling."
Delight flashed in Garos's eyes.
He had eaten a great deal of beef in one go. Even with a dragon's furnace-like iron stomach, Garos had felt somewhat stuffed just now. But as the tingling sensation emerged from within and without, his fullness faded away, replaced by an intense craving for food.
The Hatchling Dragon took a deep breath, opened his dragon maw wide, and revealed a mouthful of dragon teeth.
Awoo!
Garos tore off a huge mouthful of beef. After chewing it two or three times, he swallowed it. The beef in his stomach almost instantly turned into a warm current that flowed with waves of numbness through his limbs and organs, mainly concentrating in the areas Garos had trained recently.
The scales that had come into intimate contact with the earth, the dragon horns that had repeatedly rammed into mountainsides, and the dragon tail that had whipped against rocks.
It also included the muscles, internal organs, and everything else that had endured the backlash.
However.
No visible changes occurred on Garos's body. Only the tingling, electric sensation continued without stopping.
"Evolution isn't completed in an instant. Once I've accumulated enough adaptation and received sufficient energy, I'll make rapid progress over the following period and gain corresponding evolution based on my recent accumulated adaptation."
Garos thought silently.
Over the past few years, he had continuously pondered and explored the essence of his talent, forming some guesses of his own.
Every creature actually possessed the power of Adaptive Evolution. Under normal circumstances, however, it often required millions upon millions of years and an immense span of time to develop.
But Garos could shorten that time limitlessly.
The key was that his evolution talent itself was also growing.
"Perhaps one day in the future, I'll be able to complete Adaptive Evolution in an instant, or even evolve directly in the direction I want."
He thought.
Then Garos pressed onward and actually devoured all the Great-Horned Savage Bull meat, despite the beast weighing many times more than himself.
The numb, tingling sensation across his body became especially intense and rich.
He struck while the iron was hot. Beneath the bright, glaring sunlight, he continued ramming into mountains and the ground again and again, suffering and rejoicing all at once.
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