System
About an hour later, Amos woke up to the sound of flapping wings. He looked up and saw Salilina flying in from the entrance of the cave. She was holding a five-meter long yak in her mouth.
Amos regarded the creature that was frozen into a popsicle. By now, he had come to terms with his new identity as a dragon and so he rushed forward and began gobbling up the animal. He needed to accumulate a lot of energy to deal with his first Dragon's slumber.
Dragon's slumber was no ordinary nap. During its period of dormancy, the powerful draconic genes would allow a dragon to grow rapidly and acquire new knowledge from its ancient dragon inheritance. For the dragon, every sleep meant a qualitative leap in strength.
The innate lifespan of a 'white dragon' was around 2000 years, but it could only enter this wondrous state when it set its foot into a new growth cycle. An ordinary dragon would have eight such growth cycles classified according to their ages throughout their lifespan:
Hatchling: 0 to 3 years.
Infancy: 3 to 10 years.
Puerility: 10 to 30 years.
Juvenility: 30 to 80 years.
Adult: 80 to 500 years.
Maturity: 500 to 1200 years.
Senility: 1200 to 1700 years.
Obsolescent/ Ancientry: 1700 to 2000 years.
When a dragon stepped into the final cycle of its life, its body's metabolism would start to decline. However, its magical attainments become more and more profound over time.
After foreseeing its imminent death, the old dragon would take all of its possessions deep into a cave or a semi-dimension that it had prepared in advance, and bury all its treasures and relics there for eternity.
Some powerful dragons with extraordinary talents might break through the limits and become Ancient dragons, gaining a life span of 100,000 years. At this stage, the dragon could confidently face even the incarnations of the Noble Gods.
If the Ancient dragon had enough strength and opportunity to break through the limit again, it might become a Dragon God. At that time, the dragon would be no weaker than the Gods who wield divine powers. Though, it is impossible to ascertain the exact lifespan of a Dragon God as there was no precedent of them dying from old age.
After finishing a meal more than three times his size, Amos was finally full. Suddenly, unstoppable drowsiness struck him as he braced his eyelids and dragged himself to the corner of the cave. He curled into a ball and fell into a deep sleep.
Amos's round belly shrunk at a speed visible to the naked eye. The powerful bodily functions of a dragon rapidly metabolised food into energy to support the rapid development and growth of his body.
This process did not last long. The next morning, Amos woke up from his sleep.
The energy accumulated in his body was exhausted and pangs of extreme hunger hit him like waves.
Seeing most of the yak still left from yesterday's meal, a second ravenous feast commenced. Fortunately for him, his sibling had yet to hatch; he didn't need to fight over food.
Salilina, who had been sleeping on the ground, woke up and glanced at her cub being noisy after it had finished eating. She made a grunt of dissatisfaction as she changed her posture and fell asleep again.
After a full meal, Amos looked at his body which was nearly three times larger than yesterday. He couldn't help but sigh at the power of his dragon genes.
He stared at his reflection on the ice covering the floor: His tail was slightly short and round while the body was elliptical with densely packed small white scales. He had two underdeveloped horns on top of his head, and his eyes were a brilliant gold with vertical slit-like pupils flashing in the centre.
'Not bad. Cute.'
Amos looked at his body in a daze, but all of a sudden, he jumped up like a frightened kitten who had been teased by its owner while it slept. A sci-fi electronic interface had appeared in front of him out of nowhere.
'Motherf*cker! What the hell?'
Perhaps because he was frightened Amos couldn't take a proper look at the screen before it vanished.
The Young Dragon—Amos—looked around everywhere but found nothing.
He stretched his head below the belly, and only saw an unripened little bird hanging from his crotch.
[ED/N: Hello birdy]
Meanwhile, Salilina raised her head and stared at the dragon cub jumping about. She let out a low growl of dissatisfaction.
Amos knew she was angry, so he smirked and quickly lay down to sleep, acting as a good baby.
Peeved at the sight, Salilina exhaled a white gush of air through her nostrils; she was disinclined to pay attention to the naughty cub and closed her eyes and continued to sleep.
Amos lay quietly on the ground. However, his heart was chaotic thinking about the incident just now.
After a while, the young dragon's eyes lit up, and he thought of a possibility.
This chapter is scrapped from readlightnovel.org
'Could this be the legendary 'system'!?'
He recalled the scene just then and concentrated while staring at his body. Miraculously, the electronic screen appeared once again.
'Does one need to be focused for it to appear?'
Amos immediately started experimenting, and sure enough, the electronic screen appeared again.
[Name]: Amos Aldridge
[Strength]: Level 1 (First-tier)
[Faction]: Neutral
[Introduction]: You are a male white dragon cub with a soul from another world, causing the white dragon bloodline to undergo deep-level mutations, resulting in an ancestral phenomenon. Your body is stronger than an average dragon cub and your scales are more durable. Your lifeforce is abundant. However, you are still a little dragon in the Hatchling stage.
Amos was excited. Ignoring the evaluation, he began to explore other functions of the system. He focused his gaze on the yak skeleton not far away. But, even after staring sorely for a few seconds, the system didn't respond.
'Does it need to be physically touched?'
Amon raised his head and took a peek at Mother. Then he sneaked over and put his little dragon claws on the skeleton and sure enough, the electronic screen appeared again.
[Name]: Northern Yak Skeleton.
[Introduction]: Northern yak is a common species living in the northern ice field of Nordhill. They are transcendent creatures with thick fur and weak ice bloodline which allows them to withstand the severe cold in the north. It is one of the main food sources of white dragons.
In the following two days, Amos randomly searched for some objects in Salilina's treasure pile and tested the function of the system. Now, he had a preliminary understanding of how it worked.
This was purely an auxiliary system. It could scan the object he physically touched and display the information through an electronic screen that was only visible to the host. Besides, It could also deduce particular intelligence based on the acquired knowledge and stored the relevant information.
It was equivalent to a supercomputer with an inbuilt scanning function. The only drawback was that there was no artificial intelligence installed in it. So it could only passively accept instructions.
Although it wasn't of much use at present, Amos had a feeling that it would become his biggest aide after he had accumulated enough knowledge.
***
Amos felt a little bored. The Dragon's Den was built on a vertical cliff more than 600 meters above ground. Even though he was barely able to fly, the heavy snow and the chilly winds outside the cave stopped him from going out to experience the fun of flying.
In addition to gold coins and gems, Salilina's treasure also contained some other things like broken armour, broken swords, and occasionally some intact objects.
As for the original owners of this equipment, he found traces of them here and there in the pile of bones around the corner.
Amos was very interested in those pieces of equipment because besides gaining knowledge and killing time with the system, he could also understand the degree of development of civilization in the outside world.
Therefore, he had become really fond of the equipment.
[PS: This book is not a dark story, nor is it a holy book. The protagonist is neutral. He is decisive in killing the enemy but he is not merciless]
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