It had been nearly two months, hadn't it?
After the Velkhana subjugation campaign ended, the hunters didn't immediately evacuate the Glavenus tribe's territory. Instead, at the warm invitation of the Grimalkynes, they remained to celebrate the disappearance of the "Wicked Dragon," the return of the "Glavenus Boss," and to receive the cats' heartfelt gratitude for their assistance.
Of course, the humble members of the Research Commission weren't the type to rest on their laurels. They didn't grow arrogant just because they had helped the Grimalkynes; rather, they needed to tend to those injured in the battle. At the very least, they had to wait until these people regained the ability to move on their own. Otherwise, given the sheer danger of the path between the Glavenus tribe and Astera, it would be impossible to safely transport the wounded back.
"It doesn't count, meow," Sparky said, shaking his head. "Look."
Extending a paw, he showed the Admiral a drop of deep green liquid on his paw pad. It looked no different from any other leaf at first glance—it was something he had just squeezed from the severed stem.
"Is there still sap?" The Admiral mused, pinching the leaf and stem with his fingernails. He found that although the leaf felt hard to the touch and looked like stone, the surface was still soft... or at least somewhat pliable and resilient. It had nothing to do with actual crystal.
"Has the tribe discovered any monsters recently with a color similar to this leaf?" the Admiral asked. "Or perhaps a monster capable of spitting energy of this color?"
"No, meow," Sparky shook his head. "I check the scout reports every day, meow. It's all just the big guys we already know, meow."
"That's strange... Though I'm no scholar, even I know that sudden changes in the environment don't happen without a reason..."
The Admiral's words carried a heavy implication. He looked at Sparky, and Sparky looked back. Without a doubt, in that moment of eye contact, the man and the cat thought of the same thing.
"The Glavenus Boss?"
"It's the Boss, meow!"
The Admiral's voice still held a hint of doubt, but Sparky sounded like a detective revealing the culprit, asserting it directly. After all, a quick comparison showed that the only new factor around the Great Tree compared to before was Asterion.
"But nothing on the Glavenus Boss's body shows this ghostly blue color," the Admiral noted. "Let's investigate further first. See how many places these mutated leaves have appeared."
"That's all we can do, meow."
The Gilded Underground
The Grimalkynes, who had relaxed slightly after the death of the Velkhana, grew tense once more. Reconnaissance teams constantly departed from the Great Tree, weaving through the dense branches to find anything related to this ghostly blue hue.
But no matter how hard they worked, the only result was the discovery of a few more blue leaves on the Great Tree itself. Aside from that, there was nothing. Ordinary trees didn't have roots that ran deep enough to tap into Asterion's new nest; it would take time to see such obvious changes elsewhere.
Left with no other choice and after much deliberation, Sparky and Caly could only head deep underground to find Asterion. They sought the wisdom of the Glavenus Boss. Only they could go; the hunters were strictly forbidden from entering the forbidden zone.
And then, they saw a dragon.
A dragon they had never seen before—massive beyond belief and dazzlingly golden.
Gold was a metal of immense value in the Glavenus tribe; they could exchange it for many valuable goods at Astera. But Sparky had never even dreamed of this much gold—at most, he'd dreamed of his hut being floored with the stuff.
But this dragon, from its massive spiraling golden horns to its broad, long tail, was covered in countless shimmering scales of gold. It wasn't even ordinary gold; it was gold so beautiful it could be called a work of art. It was so radiant that under the illumination of the glowing magma, the entire underground world shone brilliantly because of this dragon's presence, as bright as day.
The two pairs of cat eyes widened to the size of fists. Unlike Sparky, a commoner who only cared about the quantity and value of the gold, Caly focused more on the craftsmanship of the gold on the dragon's body.
Even the youngest kitten in the tribe knew that if you shaped gold into something—say, the likeness of a Grimalkyne—and named it after an ancestor or an ancestral bowl, those Ape-Dragons (Humans) would joyfully buy it for even more goods.
On this dragon's body, the gold didn't appear as shells or scales, nor as thick, crude lumps. Instead, it possessed fine, beautiful, concrete shapes, one after another. This dragon looked as if it carried a "Golden Kingdom" on its back. There were trees, grass, and flowers; there were mountain ranges, houses, and even a—wait, a Grimalkyne?!
Caly was certain she wasn't mistaken. At the base of the golden dragon's forelimb—or rather, the shoulder—there was clearly a golden statue shaped like a Grimalkyne. It was reclining on the edge, holding a fishing rod, with a thin golden line dangling from the tip.
The Golden Dragon that Carries the World!
At this moment, only this thought occupied Caly's mind. This golden dragon was simply too magnificent, too exquisite, and everything on its back was far too lifelike.
Needless to say, this was the "new clothes" Asterion had custom-made for Kulve Taroth. It had taken a great deal of effort to make her understand what he was talking about.
A Meeting of Giants
"Roar." (My cats are here. See? Those are the Grimalkynes.)
Noticing the approach of Sparky and Caly, Asterion let out a low growl. The "living textbooks" had arrived.
Asterion patted his head with a foreclaw, feeling a bit annoyed. A few days ago, Kulve Taroth had followed the Everstream corridors to find him. After the two dragons discussed the "Principles of Nature" for a while, she demanded the new clothes he had promised. Asterion had been busy ever since. Dammit, why didn't I just call a Grimalkyne or one of the Ape-Dragons down for her to look at?
Why did I have to draw on the ground and have her mold a model to constantly improve?
Perhaps because they had talked about the "Principles of Nature" for too long, Asterion felt his brain becoming a bit stiff.
"Roar?" (These are the Grimalkynes? I've seen similar ones in El Dorado.)
Turning around, Kulve Taroth suddenly leaned in close to Sparky and Caly. Her pair of orange-gold dragon eyes were larger than the two cats combined.
This was terrifying for the felines. Roughly estimated, this golden dragon's length and height were comparable to their own Boss. Most importantly, she was a stranger—never seen before—so they knew nothing of her preferences or temperament.
They didn't even dare to turn and run because their Boss was right there. Sparky and Caly dug their claws deep into the ground, not daring to move an inch. Enduring the fear from the depths of their souls, the cats seemed frozen solid; their paws were nailed to the floor, but their upper bodies leaned straight back. Even their fur drifted backward—Spinosaurus Mode: Activated!
"G-good evening, meow!"
Well, the mode wasn't that active. A voice-cracked greeting escaped Sparky's mouth. He didn't know why he said it; he was almost moved to tears by panic and just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
The Grimalkynes' reaction amused Kulve Taroth. She stopped scaring them and raised her head again.
"Roar, roar, roar." (They are quite different from the ones in El Dorado. These cats are bigger, smarter, and easy to keep. They can even make delicious food.)
Could Grimalkynes be compared to Gajalakas? That was like comparing a traditional knight to a "Knight of Justice." Longswords and poison throwing knives weren't the same thing at all.
"Roar?" (I want to go up and see. And those "Ape-Dragons" you mentioned before.) Kulve Taroth said.
Although she was a "shut-in" dragon who stayed underground year-round, Kulve Taroth occasionally went out to see the sights. Forty years ago, when the Research Commission first arrived in the New World, the Admiral and his team had been lucky enough to encounter a Kulve Taroth while exploring the depths of the Wildspire Waste.
"Roar, roar." (Of course. Treat this place like your own home. You can even create a new El Dorado here.)
Asterion agreed readily. If Kulve Taroth stayed here, it meant he'd have a friend to talk to during his long and boring task of "polluting"—no, "permeating"—the New World. It also meant his future Dragon Kingdom would have a powerful ally.
Plus, it didn't cost him anything. He just had to let Kulve Taroth enjoy the wonders of Grimalkyne service. Occasionally, they could even get novelty goods from the Old World through the Ape-Dragons.
Grimalkynes—truly versatile.
Asterion just hoped Kulve Taroth would be gentle when petting the cats. He didn't want her being as heavy-handed as a Cybertronian.
"Roar?" (Make preparations.)
Asterion's words were directed at Caly. This Shaman cat had been able to understand the dialogue between the two dragons from the start.
"W-wait a moment, meow," Caly said stiltedly. Not seeing Asterion for over a decade made her feel out of place; he felt exceptionally strange. "Something has happened, Boss, meow! Strange leaves are growing at home, meow! I'm afraid some dangerous fellow has popped up to cause a Great Catastrophe, meow!!"
She started hesitantly but became more fluent as she spoke, excitedly waving the leaf in her paw. Its ghostly blue glow was exceptionally vivid even in this underground world.
As for Asterion—it looked a bit familiar.
Isn't that my energy? How did you end up picking it up?
"They grew from the tree, meow!" Seeing the Boss looking over, Sparky pulled a handful of blue leaves from his armor like a magic trick. "They only grow on the Great Tree where your nest is, Boss, meow! Nowhere else, meow! Maybe some dangerous monster sneaked in and wants to be like that ice-using jerk and turn the... forest... into..."
Sparky's voice grew smaller and slower, eventually trailing off into a few scattered words.
Previously, he couldn't take his eyes off Kulve Taroth. Now, as his gaze finally moved past Asterion to the cave behind him, he saw several large chunks of beautiful, ghostly blue semi-transparent crystals blooming from the rocks like flowers.
They were as tall as two or three Grimalkynes. While there weren't many that large, countless tiny blue crystals filled the cracks in the rocks and the surfaces of the brownish-black tree roots.
Sparky... suddenly understood.
Asterion could ignore the Glavenus tribe, even their homecoming banquet, but the tribe could not ignore Asterion. Thus, when Asterion dug a new nest in the Everstream, Sparky—as the tribal leader—had come down in fear and trepidation to pay respects. He had worried the Grimalkynes had done something to anger the Boss, but luckily, Asterion had reassured him.
But Sparky remembered clearly that during his last visit, there was no golden dragon in the Boss's nest, nor were there these ghostly blue stones.
In other words, the "dangerous dragon" he had just been talking about... was the Boss?!
Sparky fainted!
The Energy Converter
Asterion didn't feel offended. On the contrary, he found Sparky's reaction quite amusing. Without the delicate fingers of an Ape-Dragon, Asterion couldn't pinch small objects. He could only lean down to inspect the two leaves that Sparky had dropped in his panic.
Interesting.
Asterion had assumed the first changes would appear in ants or aphids—tiny creatures that would be the easiest to permeate. But according to Sparky, the Grimalkynes had searched the entire territory and found changes only in the Great Tree... As expected of a tree that had lived for countless years with roots in the leylines; its awareness was high, and its reaction was fast.
These ghostly blue crystals didn't appear naturally just because Asterion existed. He hadn't lived in the new nest for long; it was impossible to change the environment so quickly. These beautiful little things were actually Energy Converters Asterion had created during this time.
He had no choice. Initially, Asterion had simply released his internal energy into the Everstream, but he soon realized that was foolish. If his internal heat organ had already become a perpetual motion machine, he could just pour energy out recklessly. Unfortunately, it hadn't fully developed yet, and the energy consumption of outputting it was far greater than his initial estimates.
If he kept that up, he might regress instead of evolving.
Thus, Asterion changed his strategy. He condensed his "Underworld" attribute energy into these ghostly blue crystals. Unlike the simple aggregation of life energy found in the Elder's Recess, these had a unique attribute.
Asterion didn't just place these crystals in his nest; he laid them in large quantities along this section of the Everstream. This way, when the leyline energy flowed through, it would passively pass through the Underworld crystals, picking up a trace of his energy before continuing.
At the same time, this Underworld energy inherited some of Asterion's traits: it would instinctively devour surrounding life energy to grow itself, ensuring it would never run out.
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