Birth

Chen Jing awoke from a long, hazy nightmare. The moment he opened his eyes, he couldn't help but shudder, an instinctive "What the hell" slipping from his lips.

The familiar nightstand was gone. The dark red floor and the room with its cyan wallpaper had vanished without a trace, replaced by an endless, vast jungle and a steaming primordial swamp.

A gaunt, pitch-black behemoth lay prone on the ground, its pale yellow, vertical pupils fixed directly upon him.

To see such a sight the moment one opened their eyes—surely, no one could remain calm.

What kind of hellish place is this? Didn't I just go to sleep at home after pulling an all-nighter? Chen Jing's mind was a blank slate of confusion. No matter how many reasons he could conjure, he had no business being in a place like this.

"Ugh..."

The behemoth before him was thin and hideous. It lacked significant muscle mass, yet its joints were abnormally thick. Its wings were composed almost entirely of bone structure and skin, and the bony protrusions on its cheeks were even more jagged, some piercing through the skin to lie exposed like a skull.

It stared at the hatchling that had just crawled out of the eggshell, its throat rolling as it emitted a muffled, indecipherable growl.

Is this... a dragon?

Am I dreaming? Chen Jing licked his dry lips. The hideous creature before him looked exactly like the black dragons in fantasy works; as someone obsessed with all kinds of games, he naturally recognized it.

Immediately after, Chen Jing discovered that in this strange, eerie dream, he had also transformed into a hatchling—a newborn black dragon, the size of a foal, still covered in translucent, pale-red slime.

As a sharp pain flashed through his brain, a series of unfamiliar fragments flooded in, merging with his memories.

I... I really turned into a dragon?

Chen Jing shook his head. As the chaotic mess of his thoughts settled with the addition of these memory fragments, he finally began to make sense of things.

"Caesar Ortorenso Targaryen."

This was his True Name. The hatchling had successfully completed its task upon birth, but as the True Name was spoken, the immense draconic inheritance followed in an instant. The hatchling hadn't had time to follow the dragon clan's operating manual to seal away the inheritance, and the sheer volume of knowledge had exploded its brain, turning it into a degenerate, demented idiot.

Chen Jing had simply taken advantage of the dragon's vulnerability to occupy the nest.

The memories answered his confusion one by one. There was no need for reading or filtering; it felt as if these were his own personal experiences.

One had to know that dreams lacked logic and could never present such detail. Furthermore, in just a fleeting moment, he had mastered the basic draconic knowledge of Draconic and Common, with thousands of syllables and characters imprinted upon his mind.

This was no dream. He had transmigrated into a fantasy world vastly different from Earth, changing from a nine-to-five office drone into a hatchling of the chromatic black dragons.

How such an unscientific event as transmigration had occurred, he couldn't find an answer to for the time being. The fact that he had become a beast was something he could neither reject nor complain about to customer service. Fortunately, Chen Jing was not a person to wallow in self-pity; he could only accept reality, control his emotions, and avoid wasting time and energy on useless things.

The silver lining in this misfortune was that the original memories of the black dragon hatchling had been inherited by Chen Jing. Although the hatchling had failed to accept the draconic inheritance, the most basic draconic cognition remained, fused with his own.

He had become a dragon—a notorious, notoriously unreliable black dragon.

In fact, in this world, aside from the disgrace of the dragon race known as white dragons, a black dragon of the same age had almost no power to fight back against any other chromatic or metallic dragon. Whether in magical attainment or physical strength, they would be easily hung up and beaten.

Such an awkward status was certainly not good news for him, but he had a more pressing practical problem to solve: adapting to life as a dragon.

The hatchling avoided the Black Dragon Mother's gaze, calming down as quickly as possible. Under the suspicious and scrutinizing eyes of the terrifying, pitch-black behemoth, he began to lick the slime covering his body clean.

There was no time to think. To avoid increasing the Black Dragon Mother's suspicion, Chen Jing turned around immediately, faced the pile of fragments he had created, and began to gnaw on the eggshell.

The energy-rich egg shards would allow him to survive the initial hunger of birth and provide enough energy to activate his body for its first growth spurt. Chen Jing knew he had to grow strong as quickly as possible.

Even for dragons at the top of the food chain, a newborn hatchling could not avoid the reality of frailty—they could barely manage a breath attack, but these little guys needed several hours before they could run freely, let alone hunt for food.

The basic draconic knowledge gave him many advantages. Without the need for filtering or reading, the knowledge appeared naturally in his mind, allowing Chen Jing to understand everything after a brief moment of stagnation, enabling him to act more like a hatchling in front of the Black Dragon Mother rather than an outsider who had seized her child's body.

"Tastes not bad."

Chen Jing muttered in Draconic. The hard eggshell was as brittle as potato chips in the hatchling's mouth, and in his opinion, the taste was indeed similar to potato chips.

Hmm, seaweed flavor.

Various chaotic thoughts popped into the confused hatchling's mind. Having seamlessly merged with the dragon's memories, he felt no fear toward the dark behemoth not far away, but rather a sense of reverence.

Just as Chen Jing was slurping up the slime on the eggshell, his siblings in the draconic sense were born. Two hatchlings crawled out of their eggs, emitting loud, sharp roars and reciting a string of True Names so long they would make one's head ache.

Compared to an adult black dragon, the newborn hatchlings had short, thick limbs, limp wings, and heads that occupied a large proportion of their bodies. Although they couldn't stand steadily, the sharp teeth in their mouths were already taking shape.

Chen Jing stared at the newborn dragons, seeing himself in them.

At the same time, while the female hatchling beside him was lifting her head to roar and accept her inheritance, he quietly moved his body, controlling his clumsy, young claws to shamelessly snatch a piece of eggshell that she had shattered.

Ugh!

Taking a bite, his eyes squinted like a squirrel's.

The taste was actually different!

Cumin flavor!

Chen Jing happily chewed and swallowed the stolen egg shard, then, while the little female dragon wasn't looking, reached out his young claw again.

Just as he was joyfully grabbing another piece of eggshell, a massive, jagged mouth reached over, clamped onto the stealing hatchling—who was flailing his limbs and twisting his tail—and after a few jolts, tossed him to another spot.

The Black Dragon Mother's eyes were tinged with a faint, pale yellow, with thin, vertical pupils at the center, much like a cat's, providing a wide field of vision.

The Black Dragon Mother stared at him, her eyes full of warning. She let out a low, dissatisfied growl, as if reprimanding him.

At this moment, the little female dragon also noticed the scene. This little female was slightly smaller than Chen Jing, with two slender, sharp horns extending behind her ears. The nascent bone on her nose was still very soft, and her wings hung limply, unable to support themselves.

The little female dragon glared at Caesar, puffing up and emitting a childish hiss, green acid dripping from her mouth.

As the worst-tempered and extremely selfish black dragons, even as kin, Chen Jing's behavior was enough to annoy his sister. If not for the Black Dragon Mother's suppression, these two newborn hatchlings would likely have started a fight right then and there.

—Even if they could barely stand.

Chen Jing, having taken advantage of the situation, had already cast the matter to the back of his mind. He did not respond to his sister's shrieks, but instead wiggled his body, which he had not yet fully adapted to, and rolled off to the side to contemplate his life as a dragon.

To the hatchling, this was a sign of weakness, so the little female dragon snorted proudly twice, lowered her head, and began to gnaw on her own eggshell, no longer bothering her brother, who she thought looked "ugly."

An unknown world.

As a visitor from another world, Chen Jing could not help but worry about his future. A fantasy world with "dragons" was, needless to say, far more dangerous and cruel than the Earth where he had once lived a life of drifting.

However, his luck was not too bad. At least he had not turned into a kobold, gnome, or goblin—those lower-tier species. Furthermore, the presence of the Black Dragon Mother gave Chen Jing a sense of security.

Thinking of this, he quickly swam a bit toward the shore. Without leaving the Black Dragon Mother's line of sight, he reached the shallows and buried his body in the mud and sand at the edge of the marshland, leaving only a small part of his head exposed to observe his surroundings.

The area was surrounded by a forest filled with thick fog. In the distance, there were roaring waterfalls, and the rushing water of the riverbank surged in all directions, creating countless marshlands.

It seemed this place was not bad; a primitive rainforest devoid of human presence meant, at the very least, there would be no shortage of food.

It made sense, too. Their mother had reached her prime. At this age, a black dragon would no longer mate and lay eggs randomly in the countryside; they would carefully select a suitable environment to build a nest and understand the importance of guarding their offspring as they grew.

He had become a frail black dragon hatchling, but with his birth mother watching over him, he was not without support. All in all, it was a decent start.

"A black dragon? Fine."

Chen Jing stared at the slightly ugly hatchling in the lake water and whispered, "From now on, I am Caesar Ortorenso, with Targaryen as my surname."

Before he could think any further, the little hatchling Caesar was captured by an irrepressible sense of drowsiness. The first slumber of a newborn dragon came fiercely and swiftly. He only had time to sink into the mud and sand before he instantly fell into a deep sleep.