These guys didn't even rest at night; instead, they adopted a shift system. One group mined during the day, another mined at night... and then they used carts produced through overtime work to transport the excavated stones and ore back to their camp.
It was kind of funny that the hunters in this time period hadn't yet tamed the local herbivores, so they were pulling the carts themselves—and they were truly incredibly strong, requiring only two people to drag a cart all the way back.
However, observing the ecology of hunters was gradually no longer the center of Asterion's life. Some time ago, after hunting that Nightshade Paolumu, Asterion immediately found opportunities to hunt a few more.
To make a long story short, he focused entirely on eating the air sacs.
After eating a full six Nightshade Paolumus and their air sacs, perhaps because he had ingested enough... well, evolutionary information?
Or perhaps it was because Asterion's prayers while eating these things had produced an effect. In any case, by the time he ate the fourth Nightshade Paolumu, his body finally began to show some abnormal changes.
It wasn't that he could take a deep breath and inflate himself into a balloon like a Nightshade Paolumu or a standard Paolumu. Fortunately, the change wasn't like that; otherwise, Asterion couldn't imagine how much people would laugh at a Glavenus that had fattened into a ball.
Of course, he didn't develop the ability to secrete sleep-inducing substances either; he didn't turn into a Sleep Glavenus.
The change occurred in Asterion's carapace. To be precise, another layer of shell had appeared outside his original carapace.
A shell upon a shell.
At a glance, it was still a dark red color, but these shells appearing on top of the original carapace possessed none of the defensive power of the layer beneath them. Instead, they were extremely light.
They were filled with compressed air. Asterion could even perceive their existence, allowing him to consciously control these surface shells to inhale large amounts of air.
Could this be considered... an air sac?
Air sacs that belonged to him.
Not an internal organ, but an external... organ?
A large number of external organs. Even though they hadn't appeared on every single plate of shell on his body yet, their numbers were already significant.
But could these little things really achieve his goal, increasing his buoyancy in the air and helping him fly into the sky in the future?
Asterion did try hopping to check if taking off felt any easier, but perhaps because this "shell-on-shell" hadn't covered his whole body yet, to be honest, he didn't feel much difference.
The bigger change was actually to his appearance—er, he got uglier.
The mineral secretions already present here and there on his original carapace made him look like a spotted wyvern. Now, with an extra thick layer of shell-on-shell, Asterion's body surface looked like a mountainous terrain with high and low peaks at a glance—completely uneven.
Okay, to be honest, he looked like a giant cauliflower, or perhaps some kind of tumor.
No wonder those few accompanying scholars from the First Fleet made those outrageous guesses; Asterion's current appearance really did look very pathological.
He was somewhat self-aware of his current looks. After all, every time he went to the swamp area in the Wildspire Waste to drink, Asterion would admire his handsome wyvern form in the water's reflection. Unfortunately, lately, he found it harder and harder to admire.
But it didn't matter. He believed that as he hunted more Nightshade Paolumus and ingested more life energy, sooner or later these uneven little imperfections would disappear.
In terms of a wyvern's lifespan, he could afford to wait.
Time passed neither slowly nor quickly like this: hunting, eating, growing... Unknowingly, Asterion had been in this world for over a year.
For a juvenile Glavenus, they are cared for by the adult female for about a year after hatching. This time is sufficient for them to grow to a size capable of hunting alone and to initially forge their sword-tail into a sharp Great Sword.
After that, they must live alone. Because they are no longer juvenile Glavenus, the adult female loses all her previous patience and maternal instinct at this point, turning to kick these new Glavenus out of her territory.
If these young Glavenus want to stay, what awaits them is not the care of an old mother, but her great blade.
It can only be said that there is a reason the population of the Glavenus species never goes up; too many factors limit their numbers so that the ecology in their living area doesn't collapse.
However, for Asterion, this anomaly of a Glavenus, he had crossed this stage long ago. This didn't just refer to living as a solitary wyvern, but also to the fact that his body size had already approached that of an adult Glavenus more than two months ago.
Nothing else to it, he just relied on his ability to eat.
Massive food intake, abundant life energy—with Asterion's special ability, it would have been unnatural if he hadn't grown this big.
And this speed was actually being dragged down by his evolutionary abilities; most of the life energy Asterion gained from eating was used to complete the full-body coverage of the mineral secretions on his shell, as well as the full-body coverage of those "shells-upon-shells."
But even so, these new changes hadn't managed to cover his whole body yet. Currently, they only covered the base of his heat-radiating plates, his chest and abdomen, and a small portion of his body.
Because his body size was also growing rapidly during this time, creating a situation of "catching up."
But it didn't matter. Asterion believed that as his size gradually approached the limits of the Glavenus species or the limits of his body, this growth would slow down or even stop, and the evolutionary transformation on his body would catch up sooner or later.
If the previous Asterion looked like a "Cauliflower Wyvern," looking at a glance like a sick dragon, then now he looked like a knight wearing full heavy plate armor.
An ordinary Glavenus could mostly still be called slender, but the current Asterion was a full size sturdier than a regular Glavenus—extremely burly.
Just like the difference between a common Fanged Beast and a Rajang.
But don't let Asterion's current burly, majestic appearance—which looked incredibly heavy—fool you. When he really moved, his actions were agile beyond the enemy's imagination.
Simply because that layer of shell that made him look exceptionally sturdy was merely a layer outside his true carapace. Hmm, air sac shells—they were detachable, and they were renewable.
When these air sac shells fell off, Asterion didn't even feel pain.
Correspondingly, these air sac shells didn't provide much powerful protection. They were filled with compressed special gas, so not only were they not heavy at all, they actually increased Asterion's air buoyancy, making him even more agile when he moved.
Deceptive, allowing for tactical plays, while also letting Asterion jump higher and run faster. However, there were pros and cons; lacking the boost of his own body weight, Asterion couldn't use his mass to increase the power of a slash when he leaped up to strike.
All in all, Asterion was quite satisfied.
On the road to the dream of flight, he had taken the first step.
"Hurry up, hurry up! Put your backs into it!"
"Shh! Keep it down! That guy is still in there!"
From the road at the entrance of the nest came the squeaky sound of carts again. It was the sound of hunters pushing their small carts, with a few of them urging each other on in hushed tones.
It was strange to say, but over the better part of a year, Asterion had gradually claimed the area centered around his nest as his territory.
And he didn't know when it started—hmm, perhaps it was the first time he turned a blind eye to those hunters he accidentally encountered pushing carts past him?
Anyway, unknowingly, when the hunters transported their hunted prey or excavated ore now, they had gradually gotten used to taking this wide road in front of his nest.
Firstly, because of convenience; this wide road with only stones and wild grass allowed them to reach their base, Astera, by the shortest distance.
Secondly, because of safety. This was Asterion's territory. The fact that Asterion wouldn't attack these small carts meant that no reckless hotheads—like an Anjanath or some other weird thing—would suddenly dash out onto this stretch of road to attack the cargo carts.
After the first team of hunters passed in front of a staring Asterion while sweating profusely, back and forth, this situation somehow inexplicably continued.
But to be honest, Asterion had recently wanted to move.
On one hand, as his body size continued to increase—and was expected to continue increasing in the future—this cave that initially accommodated him and Sparky, his Kulu-Ya-Ku brother, now seemed exceptionally crowded.
And since he was unwilling to destroy this place full of memories, he might as well just move.
On the other hand, hunters were always passing by his front door, which was somewhat disturbing... especially since these guys sometimes transported prey past him. The scent of that fresh blood always whetted Asterion's appetite.
However, this strange tacit understanding was quite interesting. One day when he woke up and went out, Asterion actually saw a dead Apceros at his doorstep—freshly dead, at that.
Although a cursory search revealed no traces of hunters nearby, Asterion had reason to believe that the Apceros was placed there by hunters, possibly scholars among them who were likely hiding nearby wanting to observe him right now.
Needless to say, Asterion kicked that Apceros flying right then and there—he didn't want to eat things sent by hunters in this manner.
Of course, impossible to know how those scholars felt, but when he kicked the Apceros away, Asterion thought with rather wicked amusement about whether those scholars would write a line in their investigation report about him: "Arrogant nature, only eats food he hunted himself."
But thanks to this strange tacit understanding, Asterion at least didn't have to worry about Sparky being cut up for materials by passing hunters for now.
The hunters of the First Fleet... sure, there were a few good hands among them, but to be honest, the majority of the hunters were still a bit too mediocre. The only things they could bully were small bird wyverns like the Kulu-Ya-Ku.
And in the resource-scarce Wildspire Waste, the equipment these hunters used most was made from these small bird wyverns.
To let the hunters distinguish his partner Sparky from the other ordinary Kulu-Ya-Ku in the Wildspire Waste, Asterion had painstakingly made a special mark for him.
Hmm, or perhaps one could say he put a set of equipment on Sparky?
Enduring the pain, he tore off three pieces of shell from the side of his chest—the kind that were connected to each other. Asterion carefully used his sword-tail to drill a hole in the center of each of the three shells. This was truly delicate work.
Given Asterion's current body size and the thickness of his sword-tail, doing this job was tantamount to pulling a noodle, but the noodle had to be thin enough to pass through the eye of an embroidery needle.
It could only be said that Asterion broke quite a sweat drilling them; truly a case of "in me the tiger sniffs the rose."
But the result was good. After drilling a hole large enough for Sparky's head to pass through, Asterion placed this piece of shell directly around Sparky's neck—that slender neck—so it finally rested on his chest where it met his two front claws, with the pair of claws sticking out perfectly from the holes on either side.
Hmm... it looked a bit like those square wooden cangues worn by prisoners about to be beheaded in ancient times...
Cough, cough! What was he thinking!
This wasn't a cangue, but something with significant protective power. The shell with the hole in the middle ensured it stayed firmly on Sparky's body, while the two pieces of shell drooping down on the sides could protect Sparky's flanks. It was almost like he was wearing a little vest.
As for the appearance... who cares, as long as it works. At least the objective was achieved.
Thanks to such an obvious shell marker, the hunters could easily recognize that this Kulu-Ya-Ku was the partner of that weird Glavenus who turned a blind eye to their cargo carts, and thus would not hunt him.
To tell the truth, the current hunter base, Astera, was also full of discussions about this odd-looking dragon that was probably a Glavenus and his Kulu-Ya-Ku partner, appearing to have formed a strange trend.
At the start, there were indeed voices in the base asking whether they should gather to hunt down that Glavenus for safety's sake; otherwise, given the aggression of a Glavenus, it would be trouble if it discovered the base's existence and launched an attack.
However, such voices were quickly blocked by the few scholars in the base. As the changes in Asterion's body became more and more obvious, and the shell-on-shell and mineral secretions gradually increased, they also rejected their initial guess that this Glavenus was a diseased dragon.
Now, they believed they had discovered a Glavenus Subspecies living in this new land—or perhaps even a Deviant.
Therefore, it had extreme research value. There might be only this one, so they couldn't adopt rough methods to deal with it.
Hmm, and taking a step back, with the Admiral, the Commander, and others absent right now, it wasn't even certain if the remaining hunters had the ability to hunt this Glavenus.
They were here to investigate, not to throw their lives away.
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