Troubles

The system coldly prompted him: evolving to the next stage-Titan-required 10,000 evolution points.

"Ten thousand points..." Redd repeated the number under his breath. His head buzzed as though struck by a heavy hammer.

He instinctively looked at the evolution points on his panel-a mere 2 points.

The gap was nothing short of a chasm.

He tried hard to recall his most recent battle.

For those two evolution points, he had expended considerable energy and risked his life to kill that exceptionally cunning and powerful Sandworm.

Every evolution point embodied blood and sweat, and might even come with the risk of death.

"Killing one Sandworm only gets me two evolution points..." Redd calculated silently, his heart sinking.

"If I killed every Sandworm in the Valyria Ruins, how many points could I scrape together?"

Though Sandworms ran rampant in the Valyria Ruins, how many were actually strong enough to provide evolution points yet still safe enough for him to hunt?

Even if he fought day and night, with his current strength, he probably could not kill ten in a month. After all, some Sandworms were far too good at hiding.

That would only amount to twenty evolution points. Over a year, it would only be a little over two hundred.

Ten thousand points... how many years would I have to fight alone?

The thought left him feeling suffocated.

He was only a twelve-year-old child. He still had his own growing and exploring to do. He could not devote all his time to this nearly hopeless hunt.

Besides, beyond the Valyria Ruins, still more unknown dangers and challenges awaited him.

"Looks like extending the Red Dragon Aegon's life won't be so simple..." There was a trace of bitter self-mockery in Redd's voice.

He had originally thought that with the system, anything was possible.

But now it seemed that evolution points were the most real, and most brutal, bottleneck.

He looked at the information showing Aegon's advanced age on the pet panel, and reality once again doused most of the little flame of hope that had just ignited in his heart.

He needed to find a more efficient way, or even other ways, to obtain evolution points. But how could that be easy?

Redd scratched his hair irritably, turning his gaze back to the system panel.

He stopped focusing solely on Aegon's information and broadened his attention to the system's explanation of the general rule of "evolution."

He read through it carefully, trying to find some hidden pattern or shortcut.

The information on the screen was concise and cold, but every word struck Redd's heart like a heavy hammer.

He discovered a startling similarity: whether it was the Black Dragon Ehm or the Red Dragon Aegon,

their next shared evolutionary stage pointed to the same term-Titan.

And the "ticket" to that stage was, without exception, that daunting sum of ten thousand evolution points.

Ten thousand points! Redd repeated inwardly, feeling as though the number were an enormous curse nailed firmly before him.

He could not help imagining what stage would come after Titan.

Perhaps it would be some more powerful form, such as a "Divine Dragon" or a "Dragon King"?

But whatever it was, one thing was certain: the evolution points it required would definitely be an even more terrifying number.

The indistinct notification area on the screen seemed to conceal a string of zeros he could not count at a glance,

each zero representing countless battles, countless drops of sweat, and even countless sacrifices.

Just thinking about it made his scalp prickle and his teeth ache.

Yet when he switched to King Ghidorah's information tab, Redd's mood underwent a subtle change.

King Ghidorah's evolutionary path was completely different from what he had understood before.

The system showed that King Ghidorah's current evolution was not a leap to some powerful stage like Aegon's, but more like a form of "accelerated growth."

Its evolutionary stages were clearly divided into infancy, youth, adulthood, and maturity.

And advancing through each stage required evolution points.

But the amounts required were worlds apart from Aegon's.

Going from infancy to youth might only require dozens or a hundred points;

from youth to adulthood, perhaps hundreds or a thousand;

and only the final transition from adulthood to maturity should require ten thousand evolution points.

Ten thousand points! Redd saw the number again, yet found it much more glaring.

They both reach maturity, so why does Aegon need ten thousand points to reach the "Titan" stage,

while King Ghidorah has to pass through four long stages and likewise spend ten thousand points to reach "maturity"?

He carefully compared the information.

As it turned out, King Ghidorah's current state was equivalent to that of a newborn human child.

It was still in the early stages of life, and each evolution was simply a step in its orderly growth.

Aegon and Ehm's evolutionary paths, meanwhile, seemed more like skipping grades and reaching the top in a single bound.

Though the ultimate goal was to become powerful beings in either case, King Ghidorah's path was longer, but also "safer," or perhaps more "controllable"?

At least the cost of each step was relatively small.

But even so, Redd had to admit that the strength and abilities King Ghidorah shared with him were already enough to kill the vast majority of adults in an instant.

A Titan at the equivalent of the "childhood" stage could unleash such terrifying power.

Then how powerful would it become once it truly reached "maturity," or even a higher stage?

A sense of awe could not help rising in Redd's heart. The very word "Titan" represented an extraordinary existence.

At birth, they might already stand at a destination ordinary people could never reach in their entire lives.

Ordinary people might achieve a measure of success through intelligence and tools, but before sheer biological might, humans were ultimately insignificant.

He looked at Aegon's and King Ghidorah's information on the panel, his heart filled with mixed feelings.

Aegon's evolutionary path seemed to reach the top in a single bound, but was actually strewn with thorns, requiring an astronomical number of evolution points to support it.

King Ghidorah's evolutionary path, though long, was relatively "easier" at every step, and the effects of sharing its strength were immediate.

Redd understood that the choice he now faced was not merely a question of which dragon to evolve, but of what kind of path to choose.

Should he choose rapid, leapfrogging advancement filled with uncertainty, or relatively steady long-term accumulation that required patience?

Either path was full of challenges, and both required tremendous effort from him.

He took a deep breath, feeling the burden on his shoulders grow heavier still.

Redd had just been immersed in the crushing pressure brought on by the evolution points Titans required,

calculating how he could take the first step along this seemingly unreachable path.

Yet when he turned his gaze back to King Ghidorah's information tab, trying to find a little comfort in this relatively "gentle" evolutionary path,

a detail he had completely overlooked before exploded in his mind like a thunderclap.