Chương 102: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 102 - A Method to Reduce Slumber Time

By that point, Yamaguchi Mura Chicken's head was already full of brilliant strategies. Pincer movements. Surprise ambushes. Surgical strikes between the gaps.

"Gentlemen! The monsters have retreated because our reinforcements have arrived! With reinforcements, we have the strength to defeat them, so..." He'd found a high spot to stand on, and he was making full use of it. Spittle flying, voice booming, face practically glowing with pride and self-satisfaction. The reinforcements were brought by his woman. His Gougouzi-chan.

"Yamaguchi-kun..." The trembling voices of the players cut him off mid-speech.

"You said... the reinforcements are that Black Dragon?"

"Nani?" No time for shock. WHOOSH— A massive black shadow swept across the sky. Yamaguchi Mura Chicken looked up, but there was no Black Dragon to be seen. Just a cyan fire cloud, rolling closer. And closer. The dragon breath spread like churning fog, swallowing everything, until it had covered every inch of Sakura Island No. 1 Starter Village. Su Nian gave the freshly respawned players a thorough burial, flapped his wings, and moved on. He'd passed through deliberately.

Mostly cleanup work for his monsters, knock the players back into respawn state so they'd stop wandering around causing problems. His real destination was Sakura Island No. 6 Starter Village. The flight after that was quiet. Anna curled on Su Nian's back. The dragon's back had grown wide as a bed by now, and the makeshift "seat" that once stood out so obviously had become almost invisible among the landscape of scales.

Surrounded on all sides by jagged spinal horns, Anna looked less like a passenger and more like a canary nestled inside a cage. But Anna didn't see it that way. This was the warmest shelter she knew. The place her heart called home.

"Brother~" Anna bit lightly at her finger. She had so much she'd wanted to say. But after Su Nian had woken up, it all felt unnecessary somehow.

"Hmm? What's wrong?" His voice came from ahead, low and steady, clear even through the wind.

"Nothing, it's just... just, Anna likes you." Su Nian already knew. Her Favorability had climbed to 90, and the emotional status tag had changed from [Wanting to Possess] to [Engraved in the Heart and Bones]. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. He couldn't quite imagine what 100 would look like. In his experience, "engraved in the heart and bones" was already the deepest thing two people could feel for each other.

He didn't know exactly what Anna had done while he slept. But the Cockatrices and Blaze Rabbits fighting to the death outside the Dragon's Nest, and Grey Wolf rallying back to reinforce, none of that happened on its own. Anna wasn't some clueless little girl. She had her capable side. She just didn't bother showing it in front of him. Then again, girls only let themselves be completely brainless in front of the person they love. All their attention goes there. There's nothing left over for anything else.

"I like you too, Anna." He said it without breaking stride, wings still beating steadily through the sky. He didn't mind the feeling at all.

"Hehe~ Brother, how much do you like Anna?"

"A little more than you like me."

"Impossible! Then Anna likes Brother twice as much. No — a hundred times more!" She was completely serious about this. She needed to love him more. Much more. Her lifespan would never come close to his. She knew that. So she had to love harder, enough to close the gap. That way, when she was gone, that love would still be there. Lingering through the long years. Keeping him company in her place. The wind swept past without knowing any of this. Su Nian knew. He didn't want to let her fall into danger again.

This girl who loved him so fiercely didn't deserve it. And the biggest danger on the horizon was the forced slumber that came with inheritance advancement.

"System, is there any way to shorten or eliminate my slumber advancement trait?" [Ding! Slightly reduce slumber time, improve inheritance efficiency, requires 5, 000 system points] [Moderately reduce slumber time, improve inheritance efficiency, requires system points] [Massively reduce slumber time, improve inheritance efficiency, requires system points] [Completely remove slumber time, forfeit inheritance, requires system points] So either way, he still had to sleep. Or give up the inheritance entirely.

Su Nian felt a flicker of irritation. He'd figured the inheritance didn't matter much. He had the System. He could take a completely different road from other dragons. But then Conner had shown up, and now he wasn't so sure. If he abandoned the inheritance path entirely, he might never cross paths with that being again, and that being's first move had been a divine-tier ability. Losing access to that permanently would be a serious blow. Massive reduction it was, then. He checked his system points. More than enough.

While he'd been sleeping, Grey Wolf had led the monsters in a full siege of Sakura Island No. 1 Starter Village and carved straight through it. Players who could respawn were, functionally, perfect farming tools. [Modification to massively reduce slumber time, improve inheritance acquisition efficiency. This is a soul-level modification and will cause intense discomfort. Host is currently airborne, begin modification now?]"No." No rush. His next slumber was still a long way off. He'd deal with No.

6 Starter Village first, then come back and handle it.

"Brother? Brother — Brother~" Anna's voice pulled him back. He'd been deep in the System interface and hadn't caught a word she'd said.

"Sorry, Anna. I zoned out."

"Hehe, it's fine... it's just, just..." She was fumbling. Her voice trembled slightly. Su Nian couldn't see her face, but he could picture it easily enough, cheeks flushed red, soft hands twisted together in her lap, expression somewhere between mortified and determined.

"I just... wanted to ask when Brother can turn into human form..." Human form. Su Nian sighed inwardly. He'd like that too. But he was still a Juvenile Dragon. Two more stages before he hit Adult. The System's modification options could push the timeline forward, but even if he paid for it now, a Juvenile Dragon in human form was just a small boy. Completely useless. And the modification itself was expensive, with zero combat value. The cost-to-benefit ratio was terrible.

"Why the rush?" Su Nian asked, feigning innocent curiosity. Picking exactly the wrong scab.

"..." Silence. Anna's face went red. She dropped her gaze, bit her lip, hugged her knees to her chest, and said absolutely nothing. But Su Nian heard it anyway. [How am I supposed to answer that... so annoying!] [Brother is such a big dummy!] [It's not hard to figure out. I... I want to have a baby with Brother...] [Then the baby can always be with Brother. Even when I can't be...] Su Nian's wing tilted. He nearly fell out of the sky. ➤ Next: Su Nian's Surprise Attack on the Starter Village