Records

The system space was enormous anyway. There was no way it would run out of room.

Redd barely glanced at these things before dumping them all into the space.

What he truly cared about were the Dragon Eggs and the various books.

Whenever he unearthed a Dragon Egg, he immediately used the system to check its vitality.

The final tally came to 632 Dragon Eggs that still retained vitality. Although many had already shattered and completely lost their vitality, those still numbered a full 868.

Redd put away these lifeless Dragon Eggs as well, thinking they might serve some other purpose later, perhaps as decorations or research materials.

As for the books, only 127 were intact, but the damaged, scattered ones with loose pages and faded writing

were impossible to count precisely. He estimated they could fill a fairly large room in the Dragonpit.

Every one of them might contain secrets of the Valyria Ruins' past, or even the history of House Targaryen.

It took them almost two months to thoroughly loot all the thirty-odd ruined Fire Peak fortresses they could find.

During that time, King Ghidorah's Kevin really wanted to throw in the towel.

The relentless, grueling work, combined with Redd's daily "lessons in love" (which were really just knocks on the head), filled his adorable little heart with resentment.

But one of his two older brothers was too clever and always wanted to boss him around, while the other was too straightforward and prone to causing trouble. He could only accept his lot.

Still, when Redd had them use Gravity Beams to split mountains and shatter stone, the results were undeniably impressive, saving them a great deal of time and energy,

though poor King Ghidorah ended up with scorched smoke rising from his mouths every time he used the skill, feeling utterly drained,

and wore an expression every day as though he had nothing left to live for, his three little faces scrunched up as if protesting this endless life of digging.

But with Redd's "lessons in love" and the occasional metal snack they unearthed, he could only endure in silence and keep waving his little claws, scraping away dirt and digging.

This day-after-day excavation, relying purely on physical labor, eventually left even Redd exhausted in body and mind.

He began to realize that there were more than thirty such ruined Fire Peak palace-fortresses throughout the Valyria Ruins,

each once the residence of a House Targaryen. Turning an enormous active volcano into a magnificent palace-fortress was itself an astonishing feat of engineering.

Although the apocalyptic natural disaster had completely destroyed many of them, erasing them from the river of history,

the remaining fortress ruins were still as immense as the skeletons of giant beasts, looking as though they could never be fully excavated.

The thought left Redd feeling deeply powerless. If he kept digging like this, there was no telling when he would find the answers he wanted.

In the end, Redd decided to abandon this inefficient, physically draining method for the time being.

He told King Ghidorah to keep digging and made an enticing promise: all the metal he unearthed would be his.

For King Ghidorah, metal was not merely food, but also the source of his growth and the sustenance for his abilities.

Hearing this condition, his little faces, which had looked utterly lifeless, finally showed a spark of "life,"

and although he was still reluctant, for the sake of the metal, he resigned himself to waving his little claws and returning to the excavation, only at a noticeably slower pace.

Redd himself turned toward the mountainous piles of books.

He hoped to find the secret of Fire Peak's protective power in these ancient writings,

or even just records from when these fortresses were built. Any clue would do.

He gave a wry smile, remembering how he had never passed an English exam in his previous life,

but fortunately, the memories of the original owner of the body he occupied contained a decent store of knowledge. At least he was not illiterate and could just about read these ancient texts.

And so Redd began carefully looking through the many books, page by page.

He paid particular attention to the damaged, rotting books, so fragile they seemed liable to crumble at a touch,

because it was often these battered remnants of the distant past that were most likely to conceal unknown secrets.

He had to be especially careful, as though touching a butterfly's fragile wings, afraid that one careless move would utterly destroy these fragments that carried history.

Redd spent several days patiently searching through piles of damaged books, as though panning for gold in sand.

At last, in a fairly intact, weighty tome with an intricate flame crest engraved on its cover, he found a record of the "Fourteen Flames."

What nearly made him throw up was that it opened with a long passage of extravagant flattery,

praising their ancestors to the skies with nonsense such as "conquering the earth as gods," "embodiments of wisdom and courage," and "descendants with the blood of true dragons flowing through their veins." Redd frowned as he read.

But he remained patient, skipped the nauseating praise, and finally found some substantive information about Fire Peak's secrets.

He came to roughly understand that, in the beginning, on this land that later generations called Valyria,

there had been only fourteen enormous volcanoes, forming a spectacular volcanic chain that acted like a bridge,

connecting the isolated Valyrian Peninsula out at sea to the vast continent of Essos.

It was on these Fire Peaks that the ancestors of the Valyrians discovered dragons.

Rather than choosing fear and slaughter, they used a magical item called "Dragonbinder" and, through a mysterious, ancient ritual,

created a blood connection between the entire Valyria people and the dragons, forming a bond that was almost equal.

Building on this, they then raised young dragons with extraordinary patience, ensuring that these powerful creatures, during their ignorant and most vulnerable early years,

developed a strong dependence on and trust in humans. Only then did dragons eventually become the Valyrians' mighty battle mounts.

Understanding dawned on Redd. This also explained why the "wild dragons" scattered elsewhere were so difficult to tame.

Because they had never encountered humans in their youth and had developed no trust, gaining their acceptance and taming them into reliable companions was naturally no easy task.

And in the eyes of dragons, humans without Valyria blood might forever be nothing more than tiny, insignificant insects,

utterly unqualified to speak with them as equals. Hoping to build trust and subdue a dragon was nothing short of a fool's dream.

It seemed this blood connection was far more complex and profound than he had imagined.

Redd continued turning the pages, which recorded a still more glorious, yet bloodier chapter in Valyrian history.

At first, they had been merely a small town beside the volcanic chain, but with the formidable fighting power their bond with dragons gave them,

they had actually crushed the Ghiscari Empire, which was then at the height of its power,

and subsequently established the vast Valyrian Freehold, whose territory had once expanded to cover most of southern Essos.