Peeping

With plenty of time to spare, Caesar did not leave immediately, because there was still something he needed to do. He had to calculate exactly how long it took for the liquid in his sacs to go from depleted to secreted again and fully replenished. He needed the most thorough understanding possible of his own abilities.

One minute, two minutes...

Estimating the time, Caesar laid his neck flat on the ground and remained focused.

"Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz."

However, once he held his breath, stilled himself, and became completely quiet, a faint sound reached his ears, like the fluttering wings of bees.

The frequency was extremely high, but the sound itself was tiny. If the surroundings had not been so quiet that a falling needle could be heard, Caesar truly might have overlooked such a subtle noise.

Auditory hallucination? Or some kind of insect?

Caesar shook his head, clearing away the tangled thoughts disrupting his concentration. He focused and sensed the changes within his body; the liquid in his sacs was gradually filling the chambers.

About fifteen minutes later, the chamber used to spew burning liquid was saturated again. A minute or two after that, the sacs used to spew frost and acid also successively gave him a sense of fullness.

"Fifteen minutes, huh."

Caesar committed the number to memory. The time needed for all three chambers—fire, frost, and acid—to refill should have been the same. The few minutes' difference only existed because he had used them in a different order.

"Whoosh—"

Caesar opened his mouth, and blazing flames surged forth from his throat once more.

Just as a newborn child needed to learn how to walk, newly formed organs for spewing breath also needed constant practice before they could be mastered. He did not care about the expenditure. His goal was to become proficient with his breath as quickly as possible and put it to use in actual combat—at the very least, he had to be able to barely hit a moving target.

"Ooh."

During this, he vaguely heard the sound of an exhale. A black dot swept past the corner of Caesar's eye, and the barely audible fluttering of wings flashed by again.

An insect?

No.

Caesar immediately stopped breathing fire. His broad vertical pupils shrank into slits. Dragons had excellent vision; though the moment had been brief, he had caught a glimpse of it. He had seen the creature's shape, and it was definitely not some insect like a fly.

It looked more like... a human?

Where had such a tiny human come from!?

Caesar's body immediately tensed. He did not want his two breath weapons, fire and frost, discovered by another intelligent creature—not until he had enough power to deal with the trouble that would bring.

"Come out!"

Caesar let out a low roar. Fortunately, the thicket before him had already turned into scorched earth. Now that he had truly noticed something was wrong, it was quite difficult for the other party to hide. He quickly found the little thing flying close to the ground.

Caesar opened his mouth and swept a fan-shaped sheet of flames toward it. He did not care whether the target could withstand it or not. Matters concerning his breath weapons concerned his own safety; he could not simply let this peeping creature escape.

Only then did Caesar finally see the target's full appearance.

It was a humanoid creature no bigger than his palm. Other than the four strikingly conspicuous transparent wings on its back, it looked no different from a human. Setting aside its miniature size, it appeared to be a girl of sixteen or seventeen.

The little creature had long pale-green hair. Her body was wrapped tightly in a bud-shaped dress, leaving only her bare arms and wings exposed. Her skin was fair.

The flames rolled forth mightily. To that little creature, no bigger than Caesar's claw, the roaring fire was practically a sea of flames. In only two seconds, it had completely engulfed the area.

It could not escape being burned alive.

Yet in the next moment, Caesar saw the radiance of magic. Pale cyan ripples spread across the unknown lifeform's body, and its speed immediately increased by more than a level. It escaped the sea of fire by a hair's breadth.

"Ooh, a black dragon that can spew different kinds of dragon breath. That was close." A crisp murmur sounded.

A Forest Fairy?

Caesar's gaze turned dangerous. The other party was indeed an intelligent creature, and it had been spying on him for quite some time, aware of the differences in his breath weapons.

He quickly gave chase.

Compared to the palm-sized Forest Fairy, the black dragon, over seven meters long, was simply a colossal beast. With one light leap, Caesar could cover four to five meters. Catching this little thing would be effortless.

Thickets were shoved aside, mounds of earth smashed apart. In less than twenty seconds, he overtook the Forest Fairy fleeing ahead with her head in her hands. Then, displaying astonishing bodily control, he bent his knees and halted against his own momentum before twisting around, his enormous head blocking her path.

Because she was moving too fast, the Forest Fairy nearly crashed into Caesar's exposed teeth.

Before she could react, a great cloud of white vapor poured from Caesar's mouth. Freezing solution flowed through the ducts into the open air, rapidly vaporizing upon contact and absorbing a tremendous amount of heat. The temperature dropped so low that the surrounding trees were quickly coated in frost.

The little creature trying to escape was frozen instantly.

Despite sounding similar to elves, Forest Fairies actually had nothing to do with elvenkind. They were another kind of creature altogether. Regardless of sex, they were tiny, only slightly larger than woodland birds. Their temperament resembled that of gentle cats: curious, yet timid.

Forest Fairies shared some traits with dragons. Their vitality was exceptionally tenacious, and they were born knowing magic, though it was not very powerful. They preferred living alone or with a beloved companion, and were distributed throughout temperate forests across the lands. They were a famously neutral species.

The Forest Fairy before him had been frozen into an ice sculpture by Caesar. She retained the posture of nearly crashing into the black dragon, her eyes tightly shut and her fists clenched hard.

"Got you."

Caesar relaxed. Amid sharp cracking sounds, he peeled away the ice and held the Forest Fairy in his claw, pondering how to deal with this little creature.

This species was particularly sensitive to magical reactions. They could rapidly detect the direction and intensity of magical fluctuations within their range of perception. Some experienced Forest Fairies could even identify a spell's specific type and name. They were magical scouts coveted by humans and other races alike; whenever one was encountered, it would immediately be captured and raised in captivity.

Because they possessed such coveted perception yet lacked sufficient ability to protect themselves, they had been hunted by humans and other races to the brink of extinction. They were now quite rare and seldom seen across the continent. Only in some primeval forest regions could traces of Forest Fairies still be found.

The other party had pried into his secrets, so Caesar would never let her go easily. It would be best if he could take this Forest Fairy as a follower. A stitch in time saves nine; if he ever faced a spellcaster in the future, a Forest Fairy would be tremendously useful.

As Caesar pondered this, he suddenly realized that the little creature had somehow gone completely silent.

"What's going on?"

He vigorously shook the Forest Fairy in his hand. The little creature's body swayed with his motion, without the slightest struggle, as if she had no awareness at all.

"Dead?"

Caesar placed the little creature on the ground and hooked her twice with his claw. The palm-sized humanoid rolled twice across the ground, still unconscious.

"Ah..."

Caesar smacked his lips. This was also his first time seeing a Forest Fairy. Legend said that these creatures possessed vitality as tenacious as that of a young dragon, so how could she not even withstand a single frost breath?

After waiting two minutes, he stared at the Forest Fairy, who still showed no sign of movement. After some thought, he picked the little creature up from the ground and tossed her into his mouth.

"Mm, since she's dead, I might as well eat her."