Moving Mountains and Filling Seas?

In an instant.

The three white wolves turned into charred, scorched lumps of coal, lying motionless on the ground.

Two intact lumps of black charcoal suddenly dissolved into a skyful of motes of light, leaving a fresh haunch of meat behind.

It was shaped like a drumstick, but only two-thirds the size of a wolf's corpse, with great chunks of red meat connected by fascia.

[Congratulations! Obtained: Meat ×2]

The remaining half lump of charcoal still lay on the scorched earth.

[Feature unlocked: Inventory]

The large piece of meat automatically shrank and slipped into the inventory, taking up one slot.

[Enter stage two?]

Baelon was in no hurry. He opened the description: the inventory had ten slots, each stacking up to 999, but it could only hold things from the trial space.

Huh?

Stacks of 999?!

It could hold things from the trial space?!

Baelon thought of a possibility.

He slowly surveyed the distant forest. Its trees, unreasonably straight and thick, would make fine ship masts.

But that no longer mattered now.

The land beneath his feet was rich, vast, and deep.

Ignoring the half wolf corpse, Baelon suppressed his excitement and scooped up a handful of searing-hot dirt.

The next second, the dirt appeared in his inventory.

[Congratulations! Obtained: Dirt ×1%

(Each cubic meter of earth counts as one unit of dirt)]

A wild smile curled across Baelon's face.

How did people praise and extol the might of gods?!

How did they imagine the power of gods?!

Resurrecting the dead.

Moving mountains and overturning seas.

Dirt poured from his empty palm like water, piling into a small cone on the ground.

Baelon stared intently at the earth. If he dug up enough dirt, stored it in his inventory, then released it all at once.

Now, it seemed he could accomplish one of those feats.

Vermithor saw his rider snatch away the wolf corpse without eating it, staring incessantly at the ground instead and occasionally letting out strange, sleazy laughs.

The dragon eagerly leaned over the wolf corpse and opened his enormous jaws.

"No!"

Baelon braced one hand against Vermithor's head, holding the dragon back with a single arm.

He ignored the remaining wolf corpse, threw himself onto the ground, and began digging.

He had no hoe, and his fingers were not hard enough, but Vermithor's talons were sharp enough!

A gentle breeze swept across the grass.

A man and a dragon were engaged in a strange lesson on the grass.

"Hey, dig, dig, dig! Yes!"

"Just like that! Dig hard with your hind claws, dragon-style!"

Vermithor was highly intelligent. Baelon only demonstrated a few times before the dragon learned to support himself on his wings and lift one foot to dig.

His enormous claws were sharp and powerful. The hooked talons easily pierced the soil and raked backward.

Great clumps of earth piled up behind Vermithor, soon forming a mountain.

After several minutes of digging, once the pit was roughly seventy centimeters deep, the soft, dark topsoil gave way to firm brown clods.

Baelon grew even more excited at the sight.

Good, good, good! The thicker this layer of soil, the better!

He did not forget to offer Vermithor a few words of encouragement. "Good dragon, good dragon!"

"You're amazing, Vermithor!"

Resonating with his rider's emotions, and spurred on by his spoken encouragement, Vermithor dug with ever greater enthusiasm.

Who cared about wolf corpses? How could they be as fun as digging with his rider!

Baelon sensed the pride and excitement coming from Vermithor.

A powerful, surging heartbeat thundered in his ears.

He could not tell whether it came from the dragon's chest or his own.

[Vermithor's affinity +10

Current affinity: lv.2 (40/200)]

The inventory filled with dirt little by little.

Baelon's blood raced. He imagined riding the dragon as dirt rained from the sky, burying everything.

Faced with dragonfire, humans could still seek survival by hiding in caves and underground chambers.

But after dragonfire scoured the ground, how would they deal with an avalanche of earth burying them?!

Moving mountains and filling seas?

Reclaiming land from the sea?

These were no longer dreams for him.

Only after filling three inventory slots did Baelon reluctantly order Vermithor to stop.

By then, the flat trial space looked as though a meteor had struck it, leaving a great exposed pit.

Vermithor raised his head from the pit.

Time to take a look at stage two.

But before heading to stage two, there was one last thing to do.

Baelon ordered Vermithor to crush the remaining half wolf corpse.

Puzzled, Vermithor raised a foot and crushed it with one stomp.

Why take the food away and then not eat it?

Baelon carefully searched the charcoal for a while but found nothing resembling a magic core.

He shook his head regretfully. He had thought the white wolves were magical beasts like those in novels, and that he might find a magic core.

After finally confirming that nothing was amiss with Vermithor's body,

Baelon tilted his head and spread a hand, signaling that Vermithor could eat the remaining half wolf corpse.

"Hurry up and eat. Once you're done, we'll grind the next stage!"

Vermithor: ...

A faint sense of speechlessness came from the dragon.

It was already smeared all over the ground.

He would not eat it.

Baelon said, "Suit yourself."

[Enter stage 2?]

[Yes!]

Black mist veiled Baelon's eyes.

He opened them again.

The familiar grass and forest were still there.

Only now, the grass was level and lush with greenery.

Four boars walking upright slowly emerged from the forest, charging straight at the man and dragon.

Stop charging just because a mountain-sized dragon stood ahead?

What kind of trial spirit would that be?!

The boars forged ahead without the slightest fear.

Baelon stood where he was, not moving a single step.

[Boarman lv.3

Health...]

Baelon glanced at it casually. The boars' tusks were quite nice.

When he reran the instance later, he could take advantage of the fact that half corpses did not disappear to keep white wolf pelts and boar tusks.

He could put them in his bedroom as decorations.

A mighty pillar of fire engulfed the boars. Then the dragon lowered his head, his huge jaws opening and closing.

Vermithor swallowed all four boars, one mouthful apiece.

He did not tear and chew carefully like a young dragon. With just a toss of his head, he swallowed each entire lump of charcoal whole.

Baelon stared at the deeply ridged throat of the dragon.

As Vermithor swallowed, the faint outlines of chunks of meat rose and fell there.

Legend had it that Balerion could swallow the woolly mammoths of the wastelands outside the Port of Ibben whole.

In the Red Keep's sept stood the skull of Balerion the Black Dread, its throat large enough for a knight to ride a horse through.

Vermithor narrowed his eyes and let out a pleased cry.

Three cards appeared.

Baelon smiled at the three cards, thinking that dragons had enormous appetites, and that in wartime, armies needed to requisition large numbers of cattle, sheep, and other livestock regularly to feed them.

But the trial space could become Vermithor's buffet.

[1. Field of Fire · Blue lv.1: Dragonfire temperature +3%

2. Sharp as a Blade · Blue lv.1: Damage dealt by claws +5%

3. Sturdy Scales · Blue lv.1: Scale defense +2%]

Baelon chose the first buff without hesitation.

Vermithor no longer panicked. He stood calmly behind Baelon, watching a streak of light enter his body.

The dragon narrowed his eyes, smoke rising from his nostrils and between his teeth.

[Enter stage three?]

[Yes!]

Baelon immediately entered stage two.

He no longer cared about those minor details or the drops.

He could come back to farm them later.

Right now, there was only one thing he eagerly anticipated.

How many stages he and Vermithor could speedrun in a single life.

How many buffs they could obtain, and how much stronger Vermithor could become.