Low-Key Development

The canyon mornings were always shrouded in mist, the fog drifting slowly with the air currents, brushing past the pine and cypress trees on both banks, as leisurely as the pace of dragon life.

Inside the cave, Jose awoke from his slumber and stretched lazily.

Ever since they settled down, he'd been increasingly leaning towards the "shut-in" lifestyle, often sleeping for ten days after a single meal.

But a young dragon's slumber wasn't a typical sleep; it was a mental state somewhere between wakefulness and sleep.

In this state, beastly instincts like the sixth sense were fully unleashed. The moment they received external stimuli, they would immediately awaken, maximizing the young dragon's safety.

This peculiar physiological mechanism was the result of long-term biological evolution. On one hand, young dragons had low combat power, and slumber could reduce energy consumption, allowing more energy to be channeled into physical development.

On the other hand, for young dragons, slumber was an essential part of growth, even the main part, all stemming from the Dragon Heritage.

The Dragon Heritage, simply put, was the memories left behind by their ancient dragon ancestors for their descendants. These memories were all-encompassing: magical knowledge, combat techniques, life experiences, philosophies on being a dragon, values...

The problem lay here: the memories left by successive dragon ancestors were as vast as the sea. If they were to flood in all at once, they could overwhelm the young dragon's tender brain, regressing them into mindless idiots.

To address this issue, dragons solved it by dividing the Dragon Heritage into small chunks, storing them separately. Given that their brains processed too much information when awake, slumber became the optimal time for young dragons to digest the Dragon Heritage.

"This is practically the real-life version of 'I like to study in my dreams'."

Jose couldn't help but sigh. He never expected his ultimate dream from his previous life to be realized after his transmigration.

However, Red Dragons had always been known to the world for their wanton disregard for rules, their arson, murder, and looting. How could such scoundrels be reliable teachers?

Just like reading a novel, when flipping through the Dragon Heritage, you never knew what you'd encounter next.

For instance, an ancestor named Klaus, one moment he was expounding on his brilliant idea—using the small grapples on his wings to activate a magic staff—and the next, without any warning, he'd start bragging about his conquests of "beauties" from various races.

With the noble scientific mindset of observing the birth of a new species, Jose finished reading this ancestor's combat records, who could be considered great in every sense of the word, and then his worldview shattered, making him question life itself.

From a human perspective, an unreliable ancestor like Klaus was undoubtedly an oddity, but by dragon standards, this was perfectly normal.

If one were to give a title to the knowledge recorded in the Dragon Heritage, it would be: "How to Become a Scoundrel," "How to Rob Efficiently," "The Art of Intimidation," "Training Manual," "Your Pain, My Pleasure"...

"No wonder Red Dragons have such a bad reputation; there's a reason for all of it," Jose muttered, tossing a piece of iron ore into his mouth.

Fortunately, he already possessed a sound personality before transmigrating. Otherwise, he too would have been brainwashed by the Dragon Heritage, becoming like other Red Dragons, looking down on all races, including other dragon species, and naturally believing that the entire world should obey him.

However, the Red Dragon's way of life wasn't entirely without merit. As long as they didn't mess up, arrogance was equivalent to self-promotion, an effective means of spreading their fame. The greater their fame, the more wanderers in the wilderness would be attracted to join them.

For Jose, with his human consciousness, arrogance could serve as a disguise to conceal his true personality, lowering his enemies' vigilance. And looking down on others, calling another sentient being a "crawler," sounded quite cool (and a bit chuunibyou).

"Ha! The great True Dragon—He Aotian—is born!"

Gurgle gurgle.

His stomach growled, forcing Jose to temporarily shed the title of Aotian and face reality. It was time to go hunting.

His snout, with a sharp horn on the nose, exhaled two streams of sulfurous breath. He stood up from the ground, his bones cracking with each movement.

He walked through the downward-sloping passage and arrived at the takeoff platform. The young Red Dragon looked down at the entire canyon.

At this moment, the sun was rising in the sky, and the canyon was filled with mist, resulting in very low visibility.

But it didn't matter; he was already very familiar with this land.

The Red Dragon leaped from the cliff, falling into the clouds and flapping his wings like a playful child, stirring up strong winds that dispersed the mist. This was a novel experience for Jose, who had no wings in his previous life.

After playing for a while, he began flying along the canyon, searching for prey. He wasn't just flying randomly to get lucky; his flight path was also strategic.

First, his flying altitude would not exceed the mountain peaks. This way, even if someone stood on a distant mountain peak, they wouldn't be able to see the Red Dragon in the canyon, minimizing the risk of his whereabouts being exposed.

Second, there was a hunting range, extending ten miles around the nest. The two dragons had patrolled this territory many times and hadn't found anything that could threaten them.

This was their hunting ground.

With his knowledge of the territory, Jose easily found prey: a cave located in the mountain forest, inhabited by a family of wild boars.

The Red Dragon descended from the sky, tore open the soil layer above the cave, unearthed the wild boar family buried under the loose soil, and ate the defenseless boar father and mother.

He wouldn't do anything as foolish as depleting the fishery; the trembling little wild boars survived.

Jose wasn't worried about the survival of the little wild boars. In the past two months, the carnivores within the territory had either ended up in the bellies of the two dragons or had fled. He wouldn't leave these competitors to vie for food resources with him.

With his stomach full, the Red Dragon began his journey back. But before he could fall into another slumber to receive his ancestors' teachings, he decided to go see his little White Dragon subordinate.

Kashi's nest was very close to Jose's home, by the river at the bottom of the cliff—a semi-submerged cave carved at the junction of the river and the cliff face.

After settling down, the two dragons had been in a slumber state for extended periods, and their waking hours often didn't coincide. They hadn't seen each other for over two months.

Jose landed on the riverbank. His hind legs touched the smooth pebbles polished by the river water. The pebbles made a hissing friction sound as they were compressed by the heavy weight, and he folded his wings.

"Kashi!"

After roaring out, not long after, a figure, wriggling like a swimming fish, emerged from the clear river. Kashi poked his head out of the water, droplets of water falling like a chain along the edges of his body.

"Jo... Jose boss."

"Did you complete the task I gave you?"

"Yes... yes, now I... I practice speaking before each... each slumber."

Jose nodded with satisfaction. Kashi's stutter was due to his young age and incomplete brain development. It would eventually improve with time.

Jose wanted to speed up this process, not for any other reason than to communicate better with Kashi, as listening to his hesitant speech was quite uncomfortable.

He didn't have any good methods for treating a stutter, so he could only have Kashi practice speaking more. Practice makes 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 in donations.