"Now let's set off. I want to go to a world suitable for stellar core refinement, as guided by our lineage," Yuna said eagerly under Garon's watchful gaze.
"Are you in such a hurry?" Garon asked, observing Yuna's eager demeanor.
Yuna nodded, "While I'm in good condition, let's quickly find the right planet. Otherwise, if we wait longer, I might need another adjustment."
Garon nodded slightly and said, "Alright. You've been preparing for over a year for the stellar core refinement; you must know which type of world would be most suitable. Give me the coordinates, and I'll use time transport to take us there."
Yuna flicked her tail lightly and spoke softly, "When I was exploring the prime material world on my own, I found a suitable universe with many planets, enough for me to find a suitable one."
Yuna then shared the coordinates of this prime material world with Garon.
With a thought, Garon enveloped himself and Yuna in the power of time. Wrapped in the currents of the River of Time, the forms of the two dragons gradually became ethereal and vanished from the dragon's nest in an instant.
---
Prime Material World.
Albert Star System.
In the silent vastness of space, planets large and small floated silently in the vacuum, the entire system cold and silent, seemingly devoid of any lively life.
Not all prime material worlds can harbor life, especially in cosmic formations, due to the unique dangers of space. Most lack the conditions necessary for life, with a minuscule chance of life arising, making ninety-nine percent of these areas lifeless.
Thus, deities generally do not pay much attention to these types of worlds.
Like Garon's previous world, Earth, which was part of a universe without borders and contained very few life forms. The first generation of Iron Dragons fled to Earth because such worlds are less likely to be watched by deities, yet it could not escape the pursuit of the immortal Dragon Queen.
On a barren, dusty planet.
Tiny ripples appeared in the River of Time, and soon after, the forms of two dragons materialized on its surface.
Upon arriving, Garon immediately surveyed the surroundings.
Whoosh! Gusts of wind over ten levels swept across the cracked and dry surface of the planet, whipping up a storm of yellow-red dust that blurred the view. With no atmosphere to provide protection, the planet was exposed directly to the vacuum of space, devoid of oxygen, freezing cold, and bombarded with various high-energy rays lethal to ordinary life.
Garon, having once traversed the vacuum of space in his physical form during his time in the Alpha Theia Empire, found the environment familiar.
High-energy cosmic rays invisible to the naked eye struck the dragons' scales, making them appear like radiant orbs of light in an energy spectrum view. However, these deadly rays to ordinary life were excellent supplementary energy sources for Garon and Yuna.
Garon inhaled deeply.
As a result of the intense energy concentration, a visible vortex formed before his maw, attracting various high-energy rays into a continuous stream that he swallowed into his lungs, then transformed into usable energy by his draconic organs.
Crackle and pop.
The highly compressed cosmic rays burst forth from Garon's mouth in a display of light, exploding with energy.
"These energies, when highly compressed, have a strange, rusty taste. Not the best flavor, but the explosive reaction in the mouth feels quite good," Garon commented judiciously after tasting.
This activity, however, was highly dangerous and not advisable to imitate.
Turning his head, he saw Yuna mimicking him, opening her mouth to gulp down cosmic rays. Her entire body was covered in radiant light, each of her bright red, diamond-like scales shimmering as if made of exquisite rubies.
At the same time.
Not far from the two dragons, a creature resembling an ant, covered in a thick carapace but as large as a lion or tiger, emerged from the barren ground and peeked out its head.
Looking at the two dragons, which resembled deities from another world, absorbing dangerous radiation energy as if it were drinking water, the creature's small eyes were filled with immense shock.
"Intelligent life in such a harsh environment is rare," Garon commented, shifting his gaze to the peculiar creature.
The creature's lively mental fluctuations, though not high—akin to the lowest level of gnolls—were apparent to Garon.
With a flash of silver light, the dragon's mountainous form instantly moved in front of the unknown creature, casting a shadow formed by cosmic light.
"This life form must be quite resilient," Garon remarked with curiosity.
The creature curled up, its carapace tightly sealed, and it turned into a rock-like shape, playing dead.
"Let's leave it be; it's rare for life to arise in such places."
Garon
's psychic sweep of the planet revealed that this was the only form of life present, concentrated just below the surface nearby.
"Let's give you a little gift; maybe you'll develop a civilization in the future."
"Let's come back and check on you later."
"Don't disappoint me, little one."
Like a human encountering an interesting ant and deciding based on their mood to either crush it or grant it a sugar cube, Garon did not harm the frightened creature. Instead, he took out a legendary-level elemental core, marked it with a time stamp, and tossed it before the creature.
In the future.
If this species develops a civilization, they might evolve myths about Garon's scales and claws.
Yuna also approached and examined the creature.
"When I last came to this planet, I also found only this type of life."
"I even flew to other planets to look, but I didn't find any other intelligent life. This prime material world is very silent, but there's a chance that a thriving cradle of life could emerge somewhere."
Garon looked at Yuna and asked, "What exactly is the state of the planet you want to choose for your stellar core refinement?"
Yuna considered her words and slowly explained to Garon.
After listening, Garon had an epiphany.
Yuna meant that the suitable planet for stellar core refinement needed to be able to sustain nuclear fusion deep within, like the sun, a star in its prime, in the most stable phase of a main-sequence star.
Looking up, Garon gazed into the distance.
In the cold vacuum of space, some streaks of light were visible.
It was the light emitted by a star.
The planet under Garon and Yuna's feet was slowly rotating and also under the range of the light. On the opposite side, obscured by the planet beneath them, Garon could clearly sense a main-sequence star, stably and orderly floating in orbit.
Yuna chose this location because she had discovered a suitable star.
Next, Garon, carrying Yuna, used time transport again to reach the other side of the planet.
After the two dragons left, the curled-up creature cautiously unfolded its body, turning its insect-like head to look around.
Seeing no sign of the terrifying dragons, it hesitated for a moment before picking up the elemental core Garon had dropped. It looked once more at the direction the dragons had left before diving into the ground, disappearing from sight.
---
On the other side of the planet.
The forms of the two dragons shattered the dazzling light of the star, solidly landing on the planet's surface, gazing toward the massive, glowing star in the distance.
The intense heat and brilliant light of the star enveloped everything, blinding any ordinary life that dared to look directly at it without protection.
In front of a vigorous star, even dragons as large as hills seemed as small as dust.
Gazing at the star blocking his view, Garon raised an eyebrow.
"Are you sure you want to choose this star? How about we pick a smaller one?" Garon voiced his concern.
Visible in the distance, another star appeared the size of a basketball from their perspective, but it was actually several times smaller than the star closest to Garon and Yuna.
Garon was referring to it.
In this star system-sized prime material world, only these two stars existed.
Yuna raised her chin slightly, "It doesn't matter. You might not know, but as long as we can withstand the star's fusion reactions and dive deep into it, we can harness the substantial gravitational forces within the star core, continuously strengthening ourselves."
The young power dragon proudly said, "No matter how strong the gravity inside a star, it's not particularly dangerous for us power dragons."
"I assure you, nothing will go wrong."
"And the larger the star's mass, the better the effect of the stellar core refinement."
Seeing Yuna's confident expression, Garon was somewhat skeptical but responded, "Alright, but don't be too sure of yourself. It's easy to run into trouble that way."
Understanding power dragons wasn't Garon's forte, so he chose to trust his partner's capabilities.
"It's fine, it's fine," Yuna said with a longing look. "In our clan's records, it's said that our ancestors even used black holes as dragon nests."
A black hole as a dragon nest?
That's pretty fierce.
Hearing Yuna's words, Garon looked shocked.
In the prime material world, there are countless dangerous celestial bodies in the universe, like stars, supernovae, white dwarfs, and neutron stars, which are purely life-restricted zones that even deities seldom venture into.
Subject to the rules of the prime material realm, where divine power cannot be fully exerted, if a deity's true form encounters these dangerous celestial bodies, they might indeed face peril.
If all dangerous celestial bodies were ranked, black holes would undoubtedly be at the top.
After the Dawn War between gods and primal elder gods
, it's said that some undying, concept-like horrific elder gods were sealed within massive black holes, a containment more challenging to breach than sealed void tunnels.
Originally, all the data on god-making was also thrown by the goddess of magic into a mini black hole for storage.
"Even light cannot escape from a black hole's gravitational pull, and time itself twists."
"How powerful must one be to forge a dragon's nest inside a black hole?"
Garon also longed for that level of power.
He recalled the first ancient power dragon he saw while fighting with an elder god's avatar, who ultimately created a mini black hole through infinite gravitational amplification and collapse, crushing the elder god's avatar. Because the scene was so impressive, Garon vividly remembered it.
"So, you don't have to worry about me. Celestial forbidden zones aren't dangerous for us power dragons."
"And even if something unexpected happens, I'm not afraid."
"I'm still not an adult, so during the stellar core refinement, powerful elders will secretly guard me."
Yuna shook her head nonchalantly.
Garon, reassured, nodded, "Okay, since that's the case, let's choose this star."
Once again looking towards the vast, powerful star, Garon, carrying Yuna, used time transport, crossing immeasurable light-years, using the River of Time as a conduit to leap forth.
Yuna herself controlled a special form of teleportation using force fields.
However, she needed to be in perfect condition for the stellar core refinement, so all the traveling and teleporting were left to Garon to handle.
Time transport was much faster than traversing physically.
After a while, at a location just a few hundred kilometers from the star, Garon and Yuna's forms solidified.
Endless heat and brilliant light assaulted them.
At this distance, the massive star filled Garon's view, and the constant nuclear fusion explosions on the star's surface formed visible flares, with tongues of fire reaching up into the sky, even licking the position where Garon and Yuna were located.
Unlike the universe where the Alpha Theia Empire was located.
Here, the vacuum had no artificially formed atmospheric medium to carry sound, so all nuclear fusion occurred silently, but the scenes it created were still terrifying.
The surface temperature of the star could melt and vaporize steel.
Approaching the outskirts of the massive star, and facing the destructive aura of this fiery orb, Yuna couldn't help but feel a bit nervous.
Regardless of how carefree and confident she had appeared before, this was her first time undertaking stellar core refinement and being so close to a vigorous star without any relevant experience.
"I, I'm going," Yuna said, swallowing nervously under the illumination of the star's light.
Seeing Yuna's nervousness, Garon said, "How about we wait until you're stronger?"
Yuna stiffened her neck and said, "No, I plan to use a black hole as my dragon nest in the future. Humph, how could a mere star scare me, Yuna? I'm not nervous at all."
After saying that, Yuna activated her force field shield, covering her dragon scales, then gritted her teeth and plunged towards the star like a meteor.
In a blink, the young power dragon's body was engulfed by endless fusion flames, but a closer look would reveal that these flames couldn't penetrate the force field around Yuna; they merely clung to her without truly touching her scales.
Time quietly passed.
Garon's gaze, piercing through the layers of the star's flames, remained focused on Yuna.
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