Amos and the other dragons swaggered into the Direwolf territories; twenty dire wolves weren't enough to intimidate the young dragons.
The wolves also discovered the trespassing young dragons.
A wolf howled and a group of two-meter-long black dire wolves, led by the alpha wolf, arrived to confront the dragons.
The wolves also perceived that the young dragons weren't that easily provoked. They stared at the young dragons with vigilance; muscles taut; their teeth in a menacing grin; saliva dripping from their jowls; throat trembling; making a low growl to warn the intruders. The alpha of the pack was over three meters long and looked even more ferocious than the rest.
Amos used his mental power to scan the alpha's information:
[Name]: Forest Wolf (Alpha)
[Level]: Level 7 Direwolf
[Strength]: Tier 2
[Camp]: Absolute neutral
[Introduction]: The alpha of the Direwolf pack living in the Great Forest of Moto. The one who controls the power of the shadows, the nocturnal hunter. His strength weakens during the day.
Amos used his mental power to send a friendly message to the Direwolf alpha; a transcendent creature would be able to carry out preliminary communication like this.
The alpha was stunned for a moment and soon realized that the voice in his head belonged to the dragon in front of him, and he began to communicate too.
"Dragon! What are you doing here?"
"We have no malicious intentions. We just want to pass by the territory of the wolves and simultaneously gather a bit of information from you."
"Why should I help you?"
Amos immediately released his powers and the pack was quickly broken up, and the weak ones below Tier 2 were a bit unstable under his powerful aura.
He withdrew his powers as soon as he released them.
"Look, if our communication doesn't go well, the wolves will suffer heavy losses. On the contrary, if you agree to my insignificant request, not only will there be peace amongst us, but you will also stand to gain the friendship of a dragon. Be wise and know what to choose."
The alpha's eye quivered pondering over his next move. "Alright, I'll tell you everything I know, but you must help me deal with the southern Scorpion-lion and; we can deal with him together, easily."
Amos had no idea that the alpha would step up to make a deal.
"No, we are in a hurry!"
"Don't be quick to refuse. The Scorpion-lion has killed three human adventurers a while ago. Maybe they have the map you need."
Amos understood that the alpha was a shrewd creature; he directly saw through Amos's true purpose. His goal was to draw the dragons to confront his enemy together.
"The Scorpion-lion's map is of no use to us. Besides, do you think you can hire us, dragon's, with a mere map?"
The alpha saw that his conditions couldn't move Amos, so he decided to incite him some more.
"The injured adventurers were only a bargain; all the spoils of this battle will belong to you.
"The relics we wolves have accumulated from trespassing adventurers will also belong to you. We do this to show our sincerity. Compared to this offer, If I had just agreed to your offer and shared some information without disclosing some important aspects, would you still have been able to see through it?"
Amos thought it was worth the effort: "You've convinced me, but first, you'll tell me about this Scorpion's strengths and weaknesses and hand me the information about the forest to prove your sincerity."
"I'm fine with it. It's in a cave not far ahead of us. Come with me, I'll take you there."
Amos explained the situation to his siblings and they seemed pleased. Having not owned any property so far, and it something akin to a disgrace to dragons.
The young dragons followed the wolves, keeping a safe distance between them. There was no love lost between them.
The wolves stopped at the entrance of a small cave.
"It is here, you can go in a choose by yourself."
"Don't bother, Willie, Elena take everything out."
After a while ...
The cave was emptied by two young dragons.
Looking at the small pile of debris in front of him, Amos squinted at the alpha and said: "You don't seem to be sincere enough."
"It can't be helped as we have use for these things, but there was a Spellcaster among the three adventures."
A Spellcaster was synonymous with wealth.
Amos said uncomfortably, "Information!"
"That Scorpion isn't much better than me. If I hadn't been afraid of the wolves' losses, I'd have killed him myself, and he wouldn't have dared to provoke us and everything would've been alright."
The alpha's voice changed, and his voice was heavy. "But it suddenly became demonised a few days ago."
"Demonisation? Please explain your words!"
"I don't know much, either. I only discovered it two days ago, but even if it's been demonised, it won't have too much of an increase in strength in a short time. We can still resolve this if we work together."
Demonisation meant that a creature was contaminated by the winds of Abyss. After being contaminated, the creature would become increasingly more irritable and its strength would increase with time and eventually end up as a bloodthirsty creature that'd destroy everything until it's killed.
Thirteen thousand years ago, demons from Abyss invaded Nordhill in waves, and under the leadership of the Elves, the continental overlords, all of Nordhill joined forces in their fight against the Demon army.
In the first war, the sky burned and earth sundered and nearly one-third of the Nordhill continent submerged and in the end, the gods came down to battle fight against the demons themselves. After paying a terrible price, the demons were finally driven out of Nordhill.
But the terrible influence of the demon invasion did not end there. And now and then, Nordhill would open a crack that led to the abyss.
While these cracks would soon vanish under the surface laws, the dark winds of the abyss would still flow into Nordhill, where it turned ordinary creatures into monsters, causing endless trouble for the mainland.
Without waiting for Amos to speak, the Direwolf leader continued: "Next to the territory of the wolf pack is ..."
Amos was satisfied with the information provided by the wolf leader, signalling that he could leave.
"You can rest here for the night and we can start before dawn, tomorrow."
After the wolves left, the young dragons began to clean up their harvest.
A direct scan of the pile led him to a conclusion.
A total of 26 gold coins, 58 silver coins, 32 copper coins, plus a piece of Druid's heirloom bark.
Amos pulled out the Druidian bark from a pile of broken copper iron. He examined the bark in his hand, rough and hard, not knowing what it was, and he would never have looked at it if it had not been for the system.
"Scanning!"
[Name]: Druid's heirloom bark.
[Introduction]: The carrier of the druid's inheritance of knowledge, for some reason, drifts out. It contains the natural energy of the druid, and the druid's blessed life forms can acquire knowledge from the bark.
This was a pleasant surprise, but it wasn't very valuable and it didn't seem to be any good except for making deals.
Amos gave the coins to his dragon brother and sisters. There were thousands of gold coins in the dimensional bag, so, naturally, they didn't lack this little money.
"Amos, can I have this bark? It feels very nice."
Amos looked at Elena with a strange face. A dragon sensed the druid's natural energy! Are you kidding me?
Without saying much, Amos gave it to Elena.