Chapter 41: Ancient Dragon Person (Revised)
The Sky Dog Beast skillfully used its clawed tail to grab honey, avoiding getting the sticky stuff all over itself, occasionally bringing the tail to the front to nibble on some honey.
Jie Jie returned to the lakeside like this. The stone pile he had built the first time he came here had been scattered by some unknown monster, but not too badly. It didn’t take long to rebuild it.
But the little dried meat that fell under the stone pile was gone. No matter, today he would roast again.
As usual, the burnt ones were fed to the two baby fire dragons, and the well-cooked ones he ate himself.
With practice, he found the perfect balance between burnt and raw for the fire dragon meat.
Spread a bit of honey on it, the meat is fragrant with a hint of sweetness. Although it can’t compare to braised pork or sweet and sour spareribs, it’s still pretty good!
New life is blending into this world. The two young dragons have much bigger appetites than before.
When he feeds them, he often calls out “Shao gua” and “Shao wa,” but unfortunately, they still haven’t reacted to the special syllables.
During this time, he also checked the dragon eggs. Apart from the female fire dragon still gathering strength inside the egg, another egg started to shake slightly.
By the time night fell, the newborn female fire dragon finally broke through the first barrier of life and arrived in the world.
Unlike the two male fire dragons, the female fire dragon’s shell hardened as soon as she was born.
It’s not hard to guess, it used the undeveloped spikes on its chin to break the eggshell and obtain air, so there was no rush to completely break out of the shell, allowing enough time for the shell to harden inside the egg.
Iron Pot and Porcelain Bowl observed their new younger sister, approaching her with open mouths. The three baby dragons seemed ready to fight again.
Their claws develop slower than their shells, so they couldn’t hurt each other.
Because she had used up most of her strength in the egg, Wooden Ladle, the third of the pot-and-bowl group, quickly got overwhelmed.
Jie Jie pulled Iron Pot and Porcelain Bowl away at just the right moment, extending his claw holding a small meatball towards Wooden Ladle.
The baby dragon stared at the non-kin Sky Dog Beast, standing back while tightly closing its jaws.
But it soon received its due treatment, forcibly fed by Jie Jie who grabbed it and pried its jaws apart.
The moon and the sun alternated, and when the fourth baby dragon hatched and ate its first meal, there wasn’t much fire dragon left.
The fourth one was another male fire dragon. Iron Pot, Porcelain Bowl, Wooden Ladle… what kind of basin should Jie Jie call the fourth one?
In the end, the fourth one casually became “Basin.”
Jie Jie also found familiar ingredients in the forest, tomatoes, known as Frostfall Tomatoes in cat food.
If it weren’t for the tomato plant being in its fruiting period, with red tomatoes hanging all over, it would be hard to recognize during regular encounters.
When you have both tomatoes and eggs in hand, what you should do is obvious.
First, put the tomatoes in the container made from the fire dragon eggshell and crush them, then pick an unfertilized fire dragon egg, crack it open, and mix the egg liquid into it.
Place the eggshell containing the ingredients on the stone pile with the fire lit, Jie Jie anxiously kneaded his claws beside it.
Excited? Very excited.
The mixture of egg liquid and tomatoes gradually solidified under high temperature, but the final product was far from the expected scrambled eggs with tomatoes.
The Sky Dog Beast dipped its washed claws into the eggshell, grabbed the dry mixture out, and hesitantly put it into its mouth.
…
Not bad, but not particularly good either. Not as good as eating roasted eggs and tomatoes directly. Quite disappointing.
After all, it’s still a problem of tools and techniques, not the ingredients.
Putting the tomatoes into the pocket structure on the Sky Dog Beast’s body, the fire dragon behind him was already reduced to a skeleton, the last piece of meat stripped off and stored in a new bag.
It seemed time to set off. After returning from the ancient tree canopy to the lakeside, the intense aerial combat life stopped. There hadn’t been any encounters with other large monsters these past two days.
As for that impressive Thunder Wolf Dragon… Jie Jie stood upright using his tail, swaying like a weathervane.
Then he forcefully swung his body, spinning half a circle in the air. The Sky Dog Beast also has excellent martial arts skills and is called “Mountain Forest Warrior Monk.”
At the edge of the forest, there were more Thunder Light Bugs and old footprints, but the Thunder Wolf Dragon itself was nowhere to be found.
Eggs and eggshells were all brought along. This time, the third one, Wooden Ladle, and the fourth one, Basin, were tied to the carrying pole. Iron Pot and Porcelain Bowl could follow him themselves.
This group of monsters thus followed the source of the lake upstream, passing through the valley formed by the roots of the ancient trees and the mountain.
The stream that initially accompanied them had scattered and hidden under the rocks, but the direction was correct. Further ahead, it would be the flooded forest visible from the treetops.
Jie Jie occasionally had to correct the behavior of the four baby dragons, but he himself was also as curious as a child, unable to resist touching new things, walking slowly without rushing.
His pockets were bulging with tomatoes, walnuts, fruits, and mushrooms.
It was somewhat regrettable that when they stepped out from the damp roots and saw nothing but overcast skies, a heavy rain immediately poured down.
He could only retreat with the baby dragons to a sheltered place. Fortunately, if he had walked faster and gone further earlier, finding a larger shelter would have been difficult.
Unfortunately, the meat fed to the baby dragons was gone. Following him, these little ones got hungry quickly, and their energy wasn’t as vigorous as before.
Now with the heavy rain, the humidity in the Ancient Tree Forest intensified significantly. The fire dragons’ vitality was also completely drained, slumping dejectedly, embraced by Jie Jie’s tail.
They weren’t the only ones seeking shelter from the rain. A diminutive figure holding a staff hurried by, stopping in surprise upon seeing the group of monsters taking refuge.
That short figure was different from the monsters; it was indeed a humanoid creature.
Wearing a hat and a cloak made of leaves, it was “he” rather than “it.”
This was an Ancient Dragon Person, a dragon person who had lived in the New Continent since ancient times. Finally, Jie Jie encountered a human in the New Continent.
“……”
The Ancient Dragon Person looked at the monster carrying two baby fire dragons on its shoulders and protecting two more under its wings. Under the hat’s netting, a series of faint sounds emerged.
This was not any language Jie Jie had ever heard, more like the rustling sound of wind blowing through fallen leaves.
He must be surprised. Jie Jie thought about how he himself looked like a monster but exhibited a series of human-like behaviors. Anyone would be shocked upon seeing such a sight.
The Sky Dog Beast and the Ancient Dragon Person stared at each other, while the baby dragons growled at the Ancient Dragon Person.
In the eyes of the Ancient Dragon Person, that unfamiliar monster patted the heads of the baby fire dragons to stop their growls.
Then, it reached into its abdomen, took something out, and extended its claw towards him.
The claw opened, revealing a mature walnut with a slight crack.
???
