Chapter 266 - The Growth of the Sleeping Dragon

With that time, it would be better to inspect your own territory more. Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on NoᴠᴇFɪre.nᴇtThe Dragon Oak Mother Tree is divided into two parts: the upper and the lower.

The upper part is everything above the branches.

The lower part is what used to be the root system. During a state of war, the soil beneath it was forcefully brought up tens of meters, becoming part of its body.

Not only was the Dragon Oak Dragon Nest perfectly preserved, but most of the Dark Domain remained intact as well, though many areas were twisted and displaced. What used to be passageways on a single plane turned into levels upon levels.

The reason for this was simple.

Even with substantial reduction, the sheer size of the Dragon Oak Mother Tree is still impressive. To maintain balance, the lower half must be sufficiently bloated and heavy.

Otherwise, with one lift of its leg, it would topple over.

The upper half naturally belongs to the Fae Race.

The lower half, then, is under the dominion of Gaven and his kingdom of Gnolls.

After comprehensive consideration, Gaven decided to temporarily suppress the development pace of the Dragon Oak Territory in the Rocklands, maintaining the population of Gnolls in the three towns at around twenty thousand.

The surplus Gnolls were all pulled back into the Dragon Oak Mother Tree to build the Dragon Oak Dragon Nest and to plant mushrooms on a large scale.

The Gnolls are quite adept at mushroom farming; being cave dwellers, they heavily rely on caverns, especially since they cannot go out to hunt during winter, and fungi produced inside caves are one of their essential food sources.

The Dragon Oak Dragon Nest completed first was for the Young Red Copper Dragon.

This was the result of all the Gnolls concentrating their efforts and hurriedly rushing the work in recent days.

Ever since the counterattack against the Foul Giants, Aivensa’s condition had been noticeably off.

Her demand for meat skyrocketed, her little tummy becoming a bottomless pit, requiring at least one cow per meal and necessitating four or five meals a day.

Apart from eating, she spent most of her time listless and drowsy.

This indicated that her rapid growth phase had arrived, and she was accumulating energy for her dragon hibernation.

Aside from their legendary greed, Giant Dragons are also famously known for their extended periods of hibernation.

Many Giant Dragons could easily sleep for a year or even longer.

Ten to eight years isn’t uncommon either.

And a century or two is not unheard of.

The frequency and duration of a dragon’s hibernation is directly proportional to its age.

The younger the Giant Dragon, the shorter and less frequent its hibernations.

The older the Giant Dragon, the longer and more frequent its hibernations; many Ancient Ancient Dragons often sleep for decades or even centuries, then wake to wreak havoc for a few months or a year before returning to slumber for more decades.

Indeed, the lives of Giant Dragons are exceedingly long, often measured in millennia, but their waking hours are not long, as they spend most of their time asleep.

For many aged Giant Dragons, prolonged sleep is because life becomes a bit boring after living for so long; it’s better to take a nap before waking up to see a different world, perhaps pillaging a little treasure to add to their dragon nests.

For the younger Giant Dragons, extended hibernations are often a necessity—they need to undergo hibernation to rapidly progress through different stages of development.

In other words, the growth of a Giant Dragon isn’t gradual but rather accumulative within certain stages. After saturation with power, they suddenly grow into the next phase during an extended hibernation.

Doesn’t that sound familiar?

It’s very similar to the advancement of Professional Levels for Combat Profession Practitioners.

Especially since there are legends saying that the rapid growth of Giant Dragons is less related to their age and more to their accumulated wealth.

Some Giants Dragons that possess vast wealth but have not reached their growth phase have entered a period of rapid development.

Conversely, some older dragons, despite their age, have not advanced to the next stage due to their relative lack of wealth.

This trait clearly coincides with Professional Levels.

Regarding this, Gaven has his own understanding: it’s a way to measure a Giant Dragon’s influence through wealth.

The more influential the Giant Dragon, the faster it grows, and vice versa.

Thus, those world-renowned Dragons with vast treasures tend to be terrifyingly powerful and possess extra Professional Levels.

"Yawn..." Aivensa, lying on a Dragon Bed piled up with Gold Coins, let out a long yawn. Despite feeling utterly sleepy, she still stubbornly insisted, beseeching, "Gaven, Gaven, Gaven, can we finish the story of the three attacks on the White Bone Spirit? I don’t know how long I will be asleep for this time, and if I don’t finish the story, I can’t sleep peacefully."

"This is already the third part, and previously, you said you wanted a beginning, so you could go to sleep with a story. Now you’re complaining about not finishing it. All the good things seem to go your way," Gaven decided to stand his ground and not give in to the pitiful looks of the Young Red Copper Dragon any longer; he felt like he was coddling a child.

"I promise, this time it’s for real," the Young Dragon quickly lifted its right claw in assurance.

"I believe you for the last time. If you still won’t sleep, then I’ll leave you be," Gaven decided to give this repeat offender one last chance.

"Or maybe, I’ll just activate my Professional Level and not sleep at all?" Aivensa’s eyeballs spun, coming up with a new idea.

If it had been any other time, sensing that she was about to enter rapid growth hibernation, Aivensa would have been overjoyed and impatient.

Because it meant her body would rapidly mature, progressing to the next stage.

However, this time she was a bit conflicted, wanting to gain greater strength,

but not wanting to miss out on the interesting events that happened around Gaven.

Upon reflection, just following Gaven for a short three months, the events that occurred and her own growth were greater than all of her experiences since birth combined.

Entering adolescence at the age of twelve, Aivensa didn’t dare to say it was unprecedented, but it was certainly among the few, usually those with innate talents and strong parents to guide them, like the Silver and Gold Dragons.

For a wild dragon like Aivensa, abandoned by her parents, the growth rate was usually slower than that of ordinary dragons; many reached adolescence at seventeen or eighteen years of age.

On average, Giant Dragons entered the adolescent stage at fifteen or sixteen, and Roderick had done so at sixteen and a half.

Therefore, when he learned that Aivensa was about to enter adolescence, the jealousy in his expression couldn’t be hidden no matter what, which gave Aivensa a great sense of achievement.

Others didn’t know, but the adolescent Red Dragon was very aware that Aivensa’s quick growth wasn’t due to her innate talent but because of the Devil Half-Elf.

Before following Gaven, she was much weaker than her peers among the Young Red Copper Dragons and had no prospects of entering the growth slumber any time soon.

"Open a Professional Level? After opening a Professional Level, it can delay your growth slumber?" Gaven asked in surprise.

This was the first time he had heard Aivensa mention this.

The way Giant Dragons obtained Professional Levels was clearly different from ordinary creatures, and the principles followed were something only the dragons could articulate clearly—outsiders found it baffling.

Some Giant Dragons gained several Professional Levels during their teenage years.

Other dragons, even when grown to adulthood or old age, and even Ancient ones, never possessed a single Professional Level.

"Yes," the Young Red Copper Dragon nodded vigorously, perking up as she spoke, "We enter the growth slumber because the accumulated Magic Power in our bodies reaches the current stage’s limit, and we must move to the next stage of our body. However, if you open a Professional Level, part of the Magic Power will be consumed, and there won’t be enough elemental Magic Power needed for the growth slumber, so naturally, it can’t happen."

"So you mean, the Giant Dragon’s Professional Level is obtained by trading the speed of entering the next age stage." Gaven appeared to be deep in thought.

With this understanding, the growth pattern of dragons became clear.

It was easier to explain using the concept of experience value from games.

Such elemental Law creatures like dragons inherently embody a professional template.

Whether through pillaging, hunting for food, or helping others, all these activities earned them Experience Value.

The more significant the impact made, the more Experience Value they gained.

Aivensa was a prime example: before being hired by him, she was just a little wild dragon, mostly hunting for food and pestering the young Red Dragons around the Rocklands.

The experience she could gain each day was quite limited.

Following Gaven, however, was different: they had gathered over twenty thousand Gnolls and fought three or four battles.

Most importantly was accompanying Gaven in discovering the Fairy Wilderness, assisting in hunting down the Carrier Bug, saving the Dragon Oak Mother Tree—all of which brought her a sea of experience, filling her past shortcomings and then some.

By contrast, Gaven’s acquisition of experience was relatively slow and didn’t match the series of activities he was involved in recently.

Normally, even if he couldn’t reach level seven or eight, reaching above level five should have been well within his reach, not just barely meeting the requirements for level four.

Upon close verification, it turned out that he didn’t gain any experience during the two Milestones of Destiny.

All the Magic Laws were absorbed by the Milestones of Destiny.

In other words, the Milestones of Destiny weren’t given for free, but were obtained in the same way as the dragons, by trading off the promotion of Professional Levels.

This matter could be further deduced.

Those Gaven thought could obtain a Milestone of Destiny but did not, simply had not accumulated enough experience to meet the opening conditions.

Not to mention that this was not within Gaven’s control, even if it was,

he would choose Milestones of Destiny without hesitation anyway, after all, such things were rare and priceless, not to mention their practicality.

As for the Professional Levels, they could be improved gradually—it simply meant engaging in more activities and changing more destinies, and that was exactly what he intended to do.

"You could understand it that way," Aivensa said, yawning repeatedly, "What do you think of my idea?"

"Not good," Gaven rejected without hesitation, shaking his head, "Do you think growing one age stage is more significant, or gaining one Professional Level is bigger? Or rather, do you think you could beat Roderick after improving one Professional Level?"

"Even if I reach the same age stage, I wouldn’t be able to," the Young Red Copper Dragon murmured quietly, "We Red Copper Dragons are not known for our fighting abilities."

"No arguing, which growth is greater?" Gaven raised his eyebrows, his eyes round with insistence.

"Need you ask, of course growing an age stage is bigger, but they require different magical elements," Aivensa persisted stubbornly, "Fast growth would deplete all Magic Power elements and then accumulate for the next stage, but Professional Levels are different, it only consumes a portion. When the time comes, you only need to replenish what was consumed."

"It’s still a bit wasteful. If you want to improve your Professional Level, wait until the next age stage. Just upgrade directly as soon as you meet the requirements; this way there will be no waste," Gaven gave a balancing suggestion.

Even if she followed him, after this period of growth, it would take Aivensa another ten years or, at the very least, three to five years to enter the teenage stage. It would be better to moderately enhance a few Professional Levels.

"Isn’t that the same thing?" Aivensa still seemed reluctant; there were so many fun things and interesting items around now.

By the time she woke up again, who knows, this place could have been completely transformed, having missed so much.

She believed that Gaven had the ability to do this.

"It’s not the same," Gaven shook his head and decided to try a different approach to convince the young dragon, "Whether it’s Spring Bud Forest or Dragon Oak Territory, they’ve both entered a peaceful development period in the short term. The most important thing is no longer expansion but to consolidate the current gains. In the short term, we won’t start wars with others, nor will anyone else lightly challenge us."