In the blink of an eye, a month had passed.
On a sunny, dry, and cold day, Garon had just consumed a barbecued Icefang Wolf, a Mammoth frozen in ice crystals, and a fifteen-meter-long Icefall Serpent. His spirit was vibrant, and his magical energy was abundant.
During this time, he had been engrossed in studying spells and hadn't gone hunting.
All his food was provided by the Northern Ice Spirits and ogres, saving Garon a great deal of energy. To him, the greatest benefit of having minions was exactly this.
As for their combat strength and growth rate... these were negligible to him.
After a hearty meal and drink, Garon ventured onto a several hundred-meter-radius of icy tundra.
There was not a speck of snow, and the dark brown, hard-frozen ground was covered with various traces left by spells.
Scorched black marks from burns, frosty whites from freezing, and scratches from slicing—the old mage's notebook contained mostly research insights, recording spell models mainly of high-level spells, ranging from third to sixth tier, of which Garon could learn only a few.
His current spiritual and magical power could only sustain him to cast fourth-tier spells.
He had previously tried to inscribe a fifth-tier spell model, but after depleting his spiritual power, he couldn't complete the inscription and naturally failed.
A dragon's spiritual power grows with age, and each period of deep sleep significantly boosts it.
The meditation techniques used by human spellcasters are not suitable for dragons.
The old mage's notebook described a Fireball Meditation Technique: in the world of consciousness, imagining a giant fireball to burn one's own mind as a way to strengthen spiritual power.
Garon had tried it.
Unfortunately, the slight increase in his spiritual power during meditation was minuscule compared to the natural growth achieved by simply sleeping.
At this time, Garon had mastered the fourth-tier spell, Explosive Fireball.
Its power, enhanced by acceleration and his staff, was startling even to Garon.
Besides the energy shaping spells, he also hadn't neglected curse and transformation spells he'd learned from a two-headed ogre. The frost and cutting marks on the ground were the results of these two types of spells.
The fourth-tier curses, Orb of Cold and Orb of Fire.
And the fourth-tier transformations, Dragon Breath Simulation and Enlarge, were all mastered and understood by Garon.
He wasn't particularly interested in the fourth-tier curses, as Frost Dragon Breath and Explosive Fireball were superior substitutes, making them somewhat redundant.
What intrigued him most was the Enlarge spell he had recently learned.
On the open ground, Garon stretched his dragon wings, eager to try.
Magical power flowed into the spell model of Enlarge, and under Garon's control, he cast it on himself.
Instantly, a rich elemental glow appeared on Garon's body.
Amid the rising glow, his body visibly swelled, his wings widened and lengthened, and his dragon horns thickened and grew.
Soon, a sixteen-meter-long, imposing, enlarged Garon stood in place, with a wingspan of nearly twenty meters that blocked the sunlight and cast a large shadow on the ground.
Garon's face showed excitement, and he heavily slapped his dragon claw on the ground.
Boom!
The ground trembled violently, and stones flew about, leaving a deep claw imprint surrounded by dense, branch-like cracks.
Clutching his claw into a fist, power surged.
Garon thought that in this state, he could probably knock out a White Dragon Mother with one punch, without the hassle of the other day.
Feeling the rapid drain of magical energy within, Garon excitedly played around for a while, turning the ground into a mess, before he dispelled the Enlarge spell and returned to his twelve-meter size.
The magical cost of the Enlarge spell was not small.
But having experienced a larger size, reverting back made Garon feel somewhat uncomfortable.
"I wonder how long until I can enter an evolutionary sleep."
Although he didn't know the exact time, living in a dragon's nest with highly active elemental energy, Garon felt it wouldn't be long.
He hoped that the next sleep would allow his body to grow to the size of an adult White Dragon, the size he was when he cast Enlarge, and if he could master some time-related powers, that would be even better.
Meanwhile, two bear cubs playfully tumbled over.
When they stood upright, they were already close to two meters tall. Though still cubs, their size was comparable to ordinary wild bears, and they even possessed some simple spell-like abilities.
Their growth rate was much faster than that of typical Northern bears.
Garon suspected it was because of his influence.
Moreover, they bore a faint dragon-like aura, although Garon had not performed any dragonline transformations on the bear cubs.
There are three main types of non-d
ragon beings with dragon bloodlines.
One is minions actively transformed by a true dragon, the most common type.
The second type, like the bear cubs, unknowingly absorbs the dragon's essence from living in a true dragon's territory, gradually transforming over time.
The third type is the offspring born from the union of a true dragon and another species.
These dragon-blooded beings have a distinct name, Dragonborn.
Though true dragons and other species do not have reproductive barriers, the chance of birthing Dragonborn is still much lower, making them exceedingly rare.
However, the first generation of Dragonborn might possess more than half dragon blood, able to transform into dragons, and much stronger than typical dragon-blooded creatures.
Thinking this, Garon couldn't help but ponder.
"If I, a high-quality true dragon, were to have Dragonborn with different species, would they carry some of my time abilities?"
"If I were to mate with a true dragon, would the offspring be a Time Dragon or a White Dragon?"
"If I could find another legendary dragon as a mate, would my offspring possess the abilities of both legendary dragons?"
Driven by curiosity about the unknown, Garon momentarily felt the impulse to create a Dragonborn, though the feeling was fleeting.
As a dragon less than three years old, such matters were not yet within his considerations.
The two bear cubs saw Garon and affectionately came over to play around him. After toying with them for a few minutes, Garon returned to his icy cliff dragon nest.
He lay on a crystal bed strewn with gems and coins, found a comfortable position, and closed his eyes for a deep sleep.
Having mastered all fourth-tier spells, Garon was now relatively idle.
With no need to hunt and no new knowledge to learn, other than sleeping and resting, Garon had no other activities.
However, ordinary sleep also aided growth, albeit far less effective than evolutionary sleep.
Garon was fond of sleeping; during his free time, he often returned to the dragon nest to sleep for days, lying on treasures and enjoying the pulsating elemental energy.
Now he somewhat understood why the White Dragon Mother was always sleeping.
Three days later, Garon woke up.
Refreshed and with nothing else to do because he had learned the spells and had no opportunity to use them in battle, he decided to go hunting himself.
As for the target, he had already decided.