Mornings in the canyon were always shrouded in mist. The fog drifted lazily with the air currents, brushing past the verdant pines and cypresses on either bank, as leisurely as a dragon's pace of life.
Inside the cave, Jose woke from his sleep and stretched.
Ever since settling down, he had been heading more and more in the direction of a shut-in. After one meal, he would often sleep for ten days.
But a dragon hatchling's slumber was not sleep in the usual sense. It was a mental state somewhere between wakefulness and sleep.
In this state, beastly instincts such as the sixth sense were fully unleashed. At the slightest external stimulus, he would immediately awaken, ensuring the dragon hatchling's safety to the greatest extent possible.
This peculiar physiological mechanism was the result of long-term biological evolution. On one hand, dragon hatchlings had low combat power, and sleeping reduced energy consumption, allowing more energy to be used for physical development.
On the other hand, sleep was an indispensable part of a dragon hatchling's growth—perhaps even the main part. All of this stemmed from Dragon Heritage.
Simply put, Dragon Heritage was the memories dragon ancestors had left for their descendants. These memories encompassed everything: magical knowledge, combat techniques, life experiences, views on dragonhood, values...
The problem lay right there. The memories left behind by generations of dragon ancestors were as vast as an ocean. If they flooded in all at once, they could burst a dragon hatchling's immature brain and reduce it to a mindless idiot.
To address this issue, dragons split Dragon Heritage into small pieces and stored them separately. Since the brain processed too much information while awake, sleep became the best time for dragon hatchlings to digest Dragon Heritage.
"This is basically the real-life version of learning in my dreams."
Jose could not help sighing. He had never expected the ultimate dream of his previous life to come true after transmigrating.
However, Red Dragons had always been notorious for doing whatever they pleased—burning, killing, and plundering. How could such villains possibly make reliable teachers?
Reading through Dragon Heritage was like reading a novel. You never knew what you would see next.
For instance, an ancestor named Klaus might be explaining his brilliant idea one moment—using the little hooks on his wings to activate a wand—and then, without warning, start bragging about his romantic conquests the next. His list of conquests included "beauties" from every race.
With the lofty scientific spirit of observing the birth of a new species, Jose finished reading the practical records of this ancestor, who was great in every sense of the word. Then his worldview shattered, and he began questioning life.
From a human perspective, an unreliable ancestor like Klaus was undoubtedly a weirdo. But by dragon standards, this was completely normal.
If the knowledge recorded in Dragon Heritage were given book titles, they would be things like: "How Villains Are Made," "How to Rob Efficiently," "The Art of Intimidation," "The Training Manual," "Your Pain, My Pleasure"...
"No wonder Red Dragons have such a terrible reputation. There's a reason for all of it," Jose muttered, tossing a chunk of iron ore into his mouth.
Fortunately, he had already possessed a sound personality before transmigrating. Otherwise, Dragon Heritage would have brainwashed him too, turning him into a Red Dragon like all the others—one who looked down on every race, including other dragon species, and took it for granted that the entire world should obey him.
Still, a Red Dragon's way of dealing with the world was not entirely without merit. So long as nothing went wrong, arrogance and conceit were the same as self-promotion, an effective means of spreading one's reputation. And the greater one's reputation, the more likely wanderers in the wilderness would be drawn to pledge themselves to him.
For Jose, who possessed a human way of thinking, arrogance could serve as a disguise to conceal his true personality and lower his enemies' guard. Besides, looking down one's nose at others and calling another sentient creature a reptile felt strangely satisfying—rather chuunibyo.
"Ha! The great true dragon—He Aotian—has been born!"
Grrr~.
His stomach growled, and Jose had no choice but to temporarily set aside the Aotian title and face reality. It was time to go hunting.
His horned snout expelled two streams of sulfur-scented breath. He rose from the ground, and the bones throughout his body crackled loudly.
He passed through the downward-sloping passage and arrived at the takeoff platform, where the Young Red Dragon overlooked the entire canyon.
The red sun had just risen over the horizon, and the canyon was filled with mist, making visibility extremely low.
But that did not matter. He was already very familiar with this land.
The Red Dragon leaped from the cliff and plunged into the clouds, flapping his wings playfully and stirring up fierce winds that scattered the mist. For Jose, who had once lacked wings, this was a novel experience.
After playing around for a while, he began flying along the canyon in search of prey. He was not merely flying about at random and relying on luck; there was strategy to his flight route.
First, his flight altitude never exceeded the peaks. That way, even if someone stood on a distant mountaintop, they would not see the Red Dragon within the canyon, minimizing the risk of his tracks being exposed.
Second, there was a limit to where he hunted: within ten miles of the nest. The two dragons had patrolled this territory many times and had found nothing that could threaten them.
This was the hunting ground of the two dragons.
Thanks to his familiarity with the territory, Jose easily found his prey. It was a burrow in the mountain forest, home to a family of wild boars.
The Red Dragon descended from the sky, tore open the layer of soil above the burrow, dug out the boar family buried beneath the loose earth, and ate the utterly defenseless father and mother boars.
He would not do something as foolish as fishing a pond dry. The trembling little boars survived.
Jose was not worried about the little boars' survival either. Over the past two months, the carnivores within the territory had either ended up in the two dragons' stomachs or fled. He would not leave competitors behind to contend with him for food resources.
Having filled his belly, the Red Dragon began his return journey. But before going back to sleep and receiving the tireless teachings of his ancestors once more, he decided to check on his White Dragon underling.
Kashi's nest was very close to Jose's home, right beside the river at the foot of the cliff. It was a half-submerged cave carved where the river met the cliff wall.
After settling down, the two dragons had spent long periods asleep, and their waking hours often did not overlap. They had not seen each other for over two months.
Jose landed on the riverbank, his hind legs touching pebbles polished smooth by the river. The stones screeched as they were pressed beneath his weight and ground against one another. He folded his wings.
"Kashi!"
Not long after he roared, a fishlike figure swayed beneath the clear river surface. Kashi emerged from the water, droplets streaming down the edges of his body like chains of beads.
"Jo... Jose, Boss."
"Did you complete the task I gave you?"
"Yes... yes. Now, before... before every sleep, I... I practice speaking."
Jose nodded in satisfaction. Kashi's stuttering was caused by his young age and incomplete brain development. It would improve sooner or later as time passed.
Jose simply wanted to speed up the process, for no other reason than to communicate with Kashi more easily. After all, listening to someone speak in fits and starts was rather uncomfortable.
He had no particularly good method for treating a stutter. All he could do was have Kashi practice speaking more. Practice made perfect.
Thanks to Shunying Mohun for the 404 coins, Yayla for the 666 coins, FGRH for the 233 coins, and Dragon Slayer Swordsaint for the 106 coins.
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