Chapter 44: Chapter 44: Power More Real Than an Epic

The sun rises and the moon sets, time quietly moves forward to five months later.

The Iron Pine Hills in the early morning are shrouded in a light white mist. Galos buries his snout into the spruce needle cluster drenched in dew, the chilling droplets rolling down the gap between the scales, taking away the residual heat from last night’s training.

Five months ago.

After a brief encounter with the adventurers.

Galos put away the map and continued his routine life as if nothing had happened, hunting powerful beasts and monsters, honing his physique and exploring magic skills, interspersed with short breaks.

During this period, the land spiders continuously went back and forth, bringing back oil clay.

The oil clay was refined into black oil by Samantha, serving as an energy source for Galos, making his essence full and boosting his training efficiency.

“Strength! Strength! Strength!”

He took one of the few remaining sips of black oil.

Galos, freshly awakened, instantly became energized, his gaze sharp, then soared into the sky in the morning light, hunting in the gentle breeze, battling fierce beasts and monsters, tempering his combat skills and reaction speed.

When the time reached noon.

After hunting and consuming an 8th-level Wilderness Giant Lizard, Galos began his flight training.

Bathed in golden sunlight, Galos’ wings gleamed with a metallic luster yet still soared through the sky.

Relying solely on his wings, without using magical energy.

Through persistent training and strengthening, the flexibility of Galos’ wing joints far exceeds that of ordinary young dragons, with impressive durability, able to withstand sandstorms in the wilderness for hours without landing.

His project for today was diving and sudden stopping.

Galos flapped his wings, diving toward the ground from the sky, and just tens of meters from the surface, he suddenly spread his wings wide, coming to a halt.

This maneuver exerted a great impact on his body.

As the times increased, it eventually caused a tear in the flesh membrane at the root of the right wing.

Galos nonchalantly licked away the oozing Dragon Blood.

This level of pain had long since become commonplace.

When the sun set and the twin moons rose, Galos returned to the Iron Pine Hills to engage in the most dangerous resistance training, letting Samantha breathe Dragon Breath on him.

The flames breathed by a Fire Dragon are not ordinary fire.

With high temperature, dominance, and immense impact.

Even for a fellow Fire Dragon, facing Dragon Breath head-on would still inflict significant harm.

Initially, when enduring Samantha’s Dragon Breath directly, Galos would also be blasted away, his entire body burnt. However, now, due to further changes in his buffer scales, things were different.

Behold.

The Red Iron Young Dragon bathed in roaring flames, the buffer scales on his body deepened in branding iron color within the flames and slowly extended upward, without exploding; instead, absorbing the high temperature and impact.

Two seconds later.

Crash! A buffer scale reached its limit and exploded suddenly.

Shooting fragments, aflame and of branding iron color, hit a spruce tree, erupting into a deafening roar and exploding into a blaze that split it in half.

Now the buffer scales.

Not only could they absorb impact, but they also gained the property to absorb high temperature and then explode.

Galos renamed them—Explosive Scales.

Currently, these Explosive Scales have not fully evolved; they need to endure fire attribute attacks to explode. When Galos strikes them purely with brute force, they absorb kinetic energy while their scale temperature also rises.

After some time.

Galos estimated that they could convert kinetic energy to heat or absorb his own magical energy, transforming into explosive energy, launched with the shattering of Dragon Scales.

By then, it would be considered a complete evolution.

When Samantha was exhausted, Galos asked the Earth Bear to attack him with its earth attribute skills until it too was sapped of energy, then soared to the desolate mountain venue.

Here.

He trained his resistance to ice and lightning with the Silver Frost Ring and Lightning Tail Ring, day by day enhancing defense and muscle strength, interspersing with Dragon Breath Spray to strengthen the intensity and duration of various Dragon Breaths.

When time came to deep night, the day finally came to an end.

Galos went through this day after day, night after night.

With the night deep, stars filled the sky like countless eyes silently watching the vast earth.

Galos lay alone on a rock platform in the desolate mountain, savoring the starlight and his own metamorphosis during this rare moment of rest.

About a year had passed since leaving the territory of the Iron Dragon Lady.

Eighty-year-old Galos’ body length reached 7.2 meters.

His body grew thicker and stronger, with muscle, Dragon Scales, and bone density vastly surpassing ordinary young dragons.

The branding iron pattern on his Explosive Scales gradually extended toward his spine, when the pattern fully reached, it might signal the completion of Explosive Scale evolution.

The feeling of electricity under his Dragon Tail Scales became more intense, like an invisible electric network interwoven.

Through regular coating with alchemy tools and routine training, the lower skin membrane of traditional Dragon Race became thinner, dense feather-like fine scales overlapped on it, gradually turning fiery red, sparking when they brushed against each other when flapping.

These were not formed in the blink of an eye.

They were pieced together through minute progress, a growth trajectory unique to Galos.

The wilderness offered no legendary encounters, only day-by-day accumulation, each shattered Dragon Scale recounting a strength more real than epics.

This is the true source of Galos’ strength.

Legendary alchemy tools compared to this will is just trivial objects.

As for life level, it remained at level 7, with no improvement.

At first, Galos was puzzled why so many changes had not raised his life level, but upon reflection, he was at peace.

Life level is merely a reference, incapable of measuring concrete strength; everything below legendary remains within the realm of mortals.

He reckoned, against his year-ago self at level 7, he might not be able to securely win, but surely could overpower.

Moreover.

Galos’ evolution was not directly elevating his life level but was about ’potential.’

Like an adult cat transforming into a young tiger.

The size might remain the same, but its future prospects are entirely different.

Absence of improvement in life level was also normal, after all, he was only 8 years old.

At 8, a level 7 Dragon Race is achievable only by a Golden Dragon.

And Golden Dragon is the undisputed pinnacle among normal Dragon Race, favored most by Dragon God, unmatched by Red Dragons, which at 8 years old remain around level 6, some even only at level 5.

“If I were to face a Golden Dragon of the same level, I wonder if I could win.”

Galos gazed at the celestial sea of stars, blinked, and pondered.

Next, it would still be day after day, enduring the ceaseless routine to strengthen himself.

Yet, merely five days passed.

Galos encountered a problem—the black oil was gone.

For some reason, no land spider returned for two or three days, meaning no oil clay brought back, no raw material for refining black oil, and Galos used up the remaining black oil.

“It seems like something went wrong.”

“Were the oil-collecting land spiders discovered?”

Galos paced back and forth in the mottled shadows, feeling an unsettling twinge inside.

Accidents imply variables.

Variables imply danger.

The abnormal disappearance of the land spiders triggered a keen sense of danger in Galos.

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