69novels Page 5
Page 5
The sapphire represents only one reward: if you choose to accept it, the elemental subspecies of Casalos will be forcibly transformed into the water attribute.
"After all that effort, what kind of junk did we get? No wonder the next passage was opened without us picking it up."
Iron Dragon is a fire dragon, how could it possibly accept a change in its subspecies' attributes so easily? That would involve so many things. Putting aside other issues, can a water-type subspecies dragon still guarantee the original power of its fire breath? It's not like the breath itself is changed, and Casaroz doesn't possess the Super Breath feat that can alter the breath's attributes.
Casalos had played similar games before, and he knew very well that in certain combat situations, combined with Super Breath and other super magic feats, this subspecies attribute transformation could be a very useful thing: when the characteristics of elemental subspecies are reflected in dragons, the most significant effect is the inherent immunity to damage of the same attribute and vulnerability to the opposite attribute.
Something that can change attributes is an absolute godsend when it comes to targeting specific enemies.
But now, it's its first time going through trials, and it doesn't even know what kind of rooms and monsters it's about to encounter, so it doesn't dare to choose randomly.
So it had no choice but to abandon the spoils it had finally managed to decipher, and dejectedly headed towards the new passage.
Of course, Casalos didn't come away empty-handed. Upon completing the puzzle, its custom interface showed a guaranteed reward of 2 gold coins and 14 silver coins. At this point, its total gold coins reached 16, and its silver coins reached 80.
In the self-adjusting "interface", I changed the channel with the fishy and sweet feeling to a shiny golden treasure chest icon, and then selected a channel that felt "warm" to crawl into. However, the expected sliding effect did not appear immediately.
Casalos first felt as if he had been thrown into sticky glue, and then some enormous force was forcibly stuffed into every tiny part of his body and exploded, causing the entire dragon to briefly lose consciousness.
When it recovered, it had returned to the familiar travertine water channel where it had slid down.
It discovered that its size had swelled up considerably, approaching the standard for a large size.
Although he didn't open the attribute panel, Casalos understood from the abstract information that his creature level had been upgraded from 8 to 9 when he passed through the puzzle room.
"You get a hit die every four rooms? And another 4... What's the point of this number anyway?"
The Dragon's Treasury gave Casalos little time to think; in the blink of an eye, it landed in a new "room," where monsters were already baring their fangs and claws as they surrounded it.
The monster was a green lizard with two sails on its back, not a species Casalos knew—it had never seen anything like it in its past life, and the abstract legacy of the Athelon had no answer.
Just as the monster's appearance became clear, clumps of yellowish-green slime emitting a pungent odor shot out of its mouth, falling in parabolic arcs.
A strong sense of crisis made Casalos raise the scales on his body, and he leaped backward with all his might to avoid the landing of the slime.
Clumps of slime, having lost their target, slammed onto the ground, hissing and releasing large plumes of white mist, instantly corroding the ground into pits and craters.
A few tiny droplets still splashed onto the Casalos scales. The metallic sheen of the scales quickly dimmed where they were touched, and then irregular gaps were etched into the medulla of the scales.
"Roar!"
The signal of nerve ending damage is transmitted to the cerebral cortex of the fledgling dragon, which is then converted into severe pain and fed back to the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland then secretes a large amount of hormones such as thyroid-stimulating hormone and adrenocorticotropic hormone, which spread and are received by target glands such as the thyroid and adrenal glands, releasing excessive amounts of thyroid and adrenaline.
These stimulants and hormones surged into the dragon's basal vessels with the blood, creating a more intense reaction with the dragon magic flowing within, causing the dragon magic throughout the body to boil.
Casalos instantly lost its mind, roaring and flapping its wings and limbs, charging into the swarm of lizards through even more corrosive slime, frantically unleashing bites, claw strikes, wing strikes, and breath attacks, tearing apart everything in its path.
When it regained consciousness, the mine, which was now more than four times the size of the first kobold's room, was filled with bits of flesh and corpses.
"Hiss, what's going on... Could this be Long Kuang?"
Having fought fiercely under the lizard's highly corrosive spitting slime, Casalos's scales had been mostly corroded, with many areas even revealing carbonized dragon skin. The excruciating pain, as if a layer of skin had been peeled off, was washing over its consciousness. Now, any additional stimulation could cause it to revert to its previous state of madness.
Thankfully, the battle was over, and the egg-yolk-colored spherical trophy hovered above the last lizard carcass it had torn apart, allowing it to slowly calm itself down.
This mine pit is no longer a dry space with wooden structures, but a natural stone cave with many pools of water.
During the battle, the lizard's corrosive slime splattered everywhere, and the heat released during the dilution of the slime mixed with water boiled several pools.
Shaking its head, it found a pool of water that wasn't too polluted and stepped into it, flapping its wings and tail to create ripples and cleanse the wounds on its body that were still being corroded.
"Damn it, how come dragons turn red so easily... Well, the dragon age of Faerûn was ultimately shattered by the endless rage that dragons are born with."
Through the abstract inheritance of the Atheros, it already knew the situation it had just encountered. It also understood that fighting against the dragon's wrath with its will was an inevitable inner war that every dragon had throughout its entire life.
13. The End of the First Time
As is widely known, the end of the Age of Dragons began with Dragon Frenzy.
Most Faerûn believe that the culprit behind the Dragon Frenzy is the King Eater, which triggered it, while the vast majority of dragons blame the elves who built the Dragon Frenzy Maze to adjust the King Eater's orbit.
But in fact, if we really get to the bottom of it, the most fundamental reason for the appearance of Dragon Fury is the dragon's innate rage, which is extremely easy to overwhelm the true dragon's reason. Dragon Fury is the state that Casaroz was just in.
Once the dragon's rage is unleashed, it will descend into utter madness, tearing apart everything in its path.
Whether it's the King Eater or the Elf's Dragon Frenzy Lock, from a rational and objective perspective, they are merely the fuse that ignites the dragon's rage—of course, for individuals within society to insist on being rational and objective is the biggest joke.
No dragon should ever forget the disaster and humiliation that King Eater and the elves brought to the dragons.
Unfortunately, the new generation of dragons has almost forgotten everything, and only the dragon's rage continues to plague the dragons.
Dragon rage might be a bloodline curse left over from an era unknown to dragons, or it might simply be a physiological defect of dragons. In any case, apart from suppressing it through various means, no dragon can escape its torment. Casalos's God-like perspective does know that there is indeed a dragon that has truly escaped dragon madness, but that guy certainly doesn't have a good impression of the Atheros. Moreover, even the supreme dragons, or even some dragon gods, would have to give that guy a smile when they actually encounter him. It's not going to go looking for trouble for the time being.
Fortunately, Casalos is not without a solution. The Atheros have survived to this day despite their decline, so they must have a way to effectively suppress the dragon's rage.
Once it passes through the transitional period of the Supreme Dragon Inheritance Ceremony, it will be able to connect to the mental network, or once the Dragon Mom and Dragon Dad have some free time, it should be able to learn the relevant knowledge.
Besides, it also has cheat codes.
Besides, with sufficient mental preparation, the situation just now could actually be avoided in most cases... The main reason it fell into dragon rage so easily was that it was a newly hatched dragon, not yet prepared for anything and having no experience in dealing with injury and pain.
Just as a humanoid baby can only cry when it is in pain or discomfort, a fledgling dragon will unconsciously fall into dragon rage if it is injured, even by the slightest bit.
With Iron Dragon's willpower being no less than Golden Dragon's, as long as he makes sufficient mental preparations, he won't be so easily tricked.
Beyond the most direct strengthening, the trials in the Dragon Treasury offer Casaloz an irreplaceable treasure in terms of the rich experience it gains in various aspects of dragon life, including combat. Based on what it has seen so far, the growth speed and development possibilities within the trial dungeons mean that it may soon be able to personally experience the limits of every possible dragon growth scenario, thus enabling it to formulate the most efficient growth path in reality that suits its own conditions.
This is an experience that even the dragon gods have never tried or experienced!
After licking its wounds, calming its emotions, and establishing appropriate mental expectations, Casalos embarked on its first trial journey once again. However, the trial came to an abrupt end in the sixth room it entered.
Unfortunately, its condition was already poor, with most of its scales corroded, and then it was extremely unlucky to encounter an elite monster room.
Casalos chose to enter through a passage he had never encountered before, one that exuded a fierce aura. He slid down the travertine tunnel, which was filled with flowing rainwater, into a glacier-filled cave. When he saw the young white dragon, Casalos knew he was doomed.
The dragon's breath, imbued with extreme frost magic, easily overwhelmed Casalos's vision and annihilated the psychological defenses of dragon rage that it had just established.
Before it could even mount any symbolic retaliation, before its anger could be released, it was plunged into endless darkness by that unforgettable chill.
The vortex reappeared from nothingness, reversing and expanding into an endless palace.
"Ah..." A weak and mournful wail echoed in the boundless hall. Casaloz's fledgling dragon's figure came to reality and crashed heavily onto the obsidian floor.
Its limbs clung tightly to its body, its wings folded shut to completely envelop its entire body, its tail wrapped around its waist and abdomen, its head buried in its chest and abdomen, its hunched body trembling uncontrollably, its upper and lower jaws colliding together, its sharp, spear-like teeth rubbing and colliding, producing a piercing noise, the crunching and groaning sounds mixed together, like the low moans of a tormented soul in the hell of Bato.
After a long while, the groans gradually subsided, and Casalos finally managed to stretch his trembling limbs, slowly propping himself up to sit up. He exhaled a breath of burning spark dragon breath to envelop himself, using the heat of the dragon flames and the paralysis of the lightning to drive away the non-existent cold within his body.
One bite, then another, the dragon's breath containing the magic of "lightning" burned away even the fire-immune scales, leaving them tattered and broken. Only then did Casalos feel his body begin to warm up slightly.
However, it was also brought to the brink of death by its self-destructive breath.
The coldness wasn't actually there; it was just that the despairing aura of the deadly attack still lingered within its heart. The psychological pressure of the Dragon's Treasure Vault dungeon was this real experience of death, etched directly into its soul!
This time it was frozen by the white dragon's cold breath; next time it might be hacked to death by a flurry of blades, or shattered into pieces by some kind of magic... If it can't get over this mental hurdle, perhaps it will never enter the Dragon's Treasury dungeon again.
Not everyone can face death calmly, even if they know it's a hoax.
The grand hall revealed by the Dragon's Treasury wasn't a dungeon, but rather resembled a preparation room in a roguelike game; the severe injuries caused by self-harm weren't real either. As Casalos regained its consciousness, its ethereal body was also repaired to its original state by an unknown force, gradually restoring its strength and mobility. Panting heavily, it focused its attention on its gold coin harvest.
Its previous decision to change the "currency" of the Dragon Treasury to gold coins with light effects and a real tactile feel was perhaps one of the best decisions ever. If there is anything that can restore a dragon's sanity, it is undoubtedly gold coins.
Thirty-seven whole gold coins and a third of the size of a gold coin were placed in front of its beak. The bright light warmed its heart, allowing it to temporarily forget the terrible pain it had just suffered. It stretched out its two front paws and brought them together, then lay down and began to count the coins again and again with its wing hooks.
Unfortunately, no matter how many times you count, there won't be one more.
"Hmm, I remember getting 24.3 coins when I went through the Lizard Room, and now it's 37.3. It seems there's an extra reward at the end of the dungeon. I wonder what it's based on. Is it based on my performance evaluation in the game...? And who made that evaluation?"
14. First choice
Relying on his willpower comparable to that of a golden dragon and the invincibility function of the Dragon's Treasure Vault preparation area to regain his sanity, Casaroz finally began to seriously review his experience, with his main focus being on the rewards.
"We still suffered from a lack of experience; after all, it was our first time!"
It sighed and thought: How about a young white dragon... Well, no matter how much a white dragon loses its dragon status, it is still a real dragon. Given Casalos's in-game development at that time, he could never beat a young white dragon.
However, it has already been upgraded to 9HD, and has also gained an additional basic attack feat, a magical item, and a spell-like ability, so passing through the Lizard Room without taking damage should not be a problem.
After that, encountering the young white dragon was purely a matter of luck, and there was no solution. But if you're in good shape, you can at least fight for two rounds before falling, instead of being instantly defeated. That way, your final evaluation will be much higher, and your gold coin earnings won't be so pitiful.
"Hmm, I must remember that this aura indicates an elite room or a boss room. I can't just randomly enter it before I've developed to a certain level... I wonder if there's a mechanism that forces me to enter the boss room after a certain number of levels. My first experience was too shallow."
Casaroz swallowed the gold coin with a shake of his head, then slowly stood up, opened the enhancement interface he had created as a talent tree and skill book, and began to worry again.
"What can you do with so few gold coins? The cheapest basic feat costs at least 400, and usable spell-like abilities start at three digits. Attribute enhancement is even more terrifying, starting at four digits, and each attribute is different. The price increases exponentially when you add more points... Tsk, is this some kind of cheat code designed by Tencent's operations team?"
Despite his complaints, Casalos understood the real reason why attribute points were so expensive—the attribute values were set according to the general D&D rules he remembered, so the growth of each attribute point was no simple matter.
In the general rules of D&D, humanoid classes can only gain one free attribute point every four levels, which is enough to prove how precious this thing is.
Without considering the calculation method of board games, based on its current personal experience, the actual effect of the increase in basic attribute points is an exponential increase in decibel value on the original basis. Therefore, the exponential increase in the purchase price of attribute enhancement in the Dragon's Treasure Vault is the result corresponding to the actual improvement effect.
If we replace the attributes with linear calculations common in RPG games, and continue using the average level of an adult male in Faerûn as a baseline of 10, then for example, 20 points of Strength should become 178 points. Now, purchasing 1 point of Strength enhancement is equivalent to directly increasing the linear value by 60 points, which would normally require a four-figure sum of gold.
With about thirty gold coins, Casalos can only choose to activate enhancements that are equivalent to zero-ring spells, such as spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities. Although these things also consume mana or stamina, they do not occupy spell slots—that is, skill bars—given their casting level, and many of them are quite practical.
Casalos wasn't too keen on investing the money he'd worked so hard to earn after "dying once" into a zero-ring spell-level extra ability.
It is more likely to invest those 37.3 gold coins into a practical basic specialty.
In fact, the gold coins, talent trees, skill books, and attribute bars in the Dragon's Treasury are all display phenomena that Casalos adjusted so that he could intuitively see the effects of the cheat codes. These things are not really like the talent trees and skill books in the game, where you have to reach a certain threshold of resources to put them in and activate them.
Even if resources are insufficient, they can be directly invested in the basic feats at the "root" of the talent tree. Although they cannot directly unlock the feats, they can still gain some knowledge and skills in the abilities represented by those feats.
Taking its current mastery of specialties such as hovering and turning as an example, dragons that do not have the relevant specialties can also change direction quickly in flight and hover in narrow spaces. However, without specialties, they are more likely to crash into walls when flying like this, and the probability of making mistakes when performing corresponding maneuvers is also very high, which can easily lead to accidents, just like Casalos did when it first flew.
The essence of a specialty is to transform one's physical and magical skills into a "conditioned reflex" ability that is aided by the magical power of everything in the world of Toril. This makes it a skill or technique that is substantially mastered by the body and can function normally without requiring extra effort or resources. It can respond instantly and take perfect effect when necessary.
Investing insufficient gold coins in skill enhancement allows Casalos to unlock the corresponding skill recognition ahead of time and gain a certain amount of "proficiency" in the corresponding skill. Even if it cannot form a conditioned reflex, it can still increase the success rate of Casalos consciously controlling itself to perform the corresponding skill ability.
Furthermore, as it tries, practices, and uses the skill, its "proficiency" will gradually increase. Once the dragon magic power in the body is sufficient to memorize it, it can be transformed into a skill—this is the principle behind training to acquire basic skills.
Interestingly, the dragons of Faerûn and most professions of those humanoid races require roughly four levels of mana to grow to the threshold needed to memorize a new feat... Hmm, the number 4 is everywhere in this world, could the 4 that is so common in cheat codes be related to this?
Even if there isn't enough mana to memorize the physical and magical skills learned and trained into a specialty, improving proficiency in those skills will still significantly enhance actual combat power, so investing in it is never a bad deal.
Having made his decision, Casalos gritted his teeth and threw the gold coins he had earned with his life into the root of a branch of the now-visible talent tree, into a node called the Iron Will feat.
Its first experience taught it many unforgettable lessons:
First, Dragon Fury is definitely a hindrance. Having the Iron Will feat will allow you to better and more effectively suppress Dragon Fury, reducing the chance of it going out of control, so that you can go as deep as possible in future dungeon adventures.
Secondly, it is to make it truly feel how fatal the attribute weaknesses of dragons as elemental subspecies are.
The young white dragon's breath of ice left an indelible shadow on it.
That was the White Dragon, a disgrace to the true dragons! As an iron dragon, the noble leader of the sub-iron dragons, it was actually killed by the White Dragon, a disgrace to the true dragons, with a single breath. What dragon would let this go?!
Casalos desperately needs an ability to suppress his vulnerability to cold.
The advanced path of the Carved Skin Dragon, which it can currently see among the three major branches of the talent tree, perfectly meets its urgent needs.
15. Exit
Similar to the advanced professions of humanoid races, the advanced professions unique to true dragons are enough to bring about a qualitative change in true dragons.
At level 2 of the Carved Skin Dragon, Casalos will directly gain the additional feat of Suppress Weakness, thereby improving his vulnerability to cold against ice-type enemies. Although it is still called a "feat", Suppress Weakness is not a basic feat that can be obtained through training, but a deeper, permanent passive effect similar to "Magic Constant".
The Dragon's Treasury offers great convenience and freedom. It's not impossible to directly unlock these kinds of feats within Casalos's current talent tree and skill books, but the price is exorbitant, and the actual benefits might not be ideal if you deviate from the talent tree's planned path.
Casalos was well aware that due to the complete randomness of the Dragon's Vault dungeon, the next time he encountered a room currently designated as an elite or boss room, the probability of him facing the White Dragon again was high. However, in his subconscious, he already regarded the White Dragon that had "killed" him once as an obstacle he had to overcome, a necessary stage goal to defeat.
If they encountered a white dragon in reality, it might not let them off easily... Of course, that only applies to those it could defeat.
As more gold coins were invested, the grayed-out icon of the Iron Will feat in the talent tree began to light up slightly, and the entire talent tree finally began to show signs of spring budding and vitality, no longer lifeless and gray.
This was merely Casalos's first short period of slumber.
After completing his talent selection, Casalos did not immediately leave the Dragon Vault. His brief experience led him to consider adding a new feature to the Dragon Vault's interface: an encyclopedia function.
In the six rooms, Casalos encountered three types of enemies that could be easily identified through the abstract inheritance of the Atheros. In addition to the feat-type spell abilities that were definitely compatible with dragons, the rewards he received also included identifiable magical items.
It is evident that the monsters and items in the Dragon's Treasury dungeon are likely largely based on things from the planet Toril.
It collects everything encountered in the training dungeons—monsters, items, magical equipment, spells, feats, and any other random things—even artifacts, kingdoms, and deities that might exist in boss rooms. It records these things in an illustrated format, creating intuitive attribute "cards." As the training in the Casalos dungeons progresses, the illustrated function will quickly transform into the Toril Encyclopedia, giving it the most intuitive understanding and knowledge of many things that cannot be encountered in reality. This will become a huge boost to its soft power as a cheat.
Knowledge is always one of the most effective forces, regardless of the type of knowledge.
With the addition of the encyclopedia feature, Dragon's Treasury automatically created detailed attribute descriptions for the monsters it had encountered, referencing its own attribute panel. Casalos breathed a sigh of relief, mentally prepared himself, and exited Dragon's Treasury.
Sure enough, the false, bone-chilling cold that it had managed to suppress deep into its soul immediately reacted to its real body as it withdrew, washing over its consciousness, which was in a short slumber, wave after wave, trying to forcibly awaken it from its slumber.