"It is because of its emptiness that the cup is useful."
― Carole Wilkinson, Dragon Keeper
---
The first thing I did after coming back from our excursion and resting a bit was upgrade the Fire Temple.
I had 4 temples for each of my 4 dragon types. And each had been upgraded to Tier 2, making all 4 dragons' current level cap at 30. But since Pyra reached her cap and Cyclis was quickly moving towards the said cap, I wanted to upgrade all 4, if possible.
But I didn't have the money for it. The Tier 3 upgrades for the Dragon Temples cost 100,000 Gold each. That was most of the savings I currently possessed. So, I could only upgrade one at the moment. And obviously, it had to be the Fire Dragon Temple. Only Pyra had reached her level cap among my dragons. In the future, I would upgrade all, though. After Fire, it'll probably be the Wind Dragon temple, followed by Earth and Water, depending on who reached their cap first and the money I have stored by then.
So, without much fanfare, I opened the [Map], selected Fire Dragon Temple, and hit the Upgrade button.
I watched as the Construction Golems began their work upgrading the temple. Some parts were broken, and then new protrusions and additional features were added to the original architecture and the surrounding area at a speed that would put most construction companies back on Earth to weep in shame and envy. The essence of the temple remained the same, but it was further added upon and expanded. In other words, there was more Lava in and around it now. Very safe indeed.
I spent some time just looking at the golems hard at work and just let my mind wander.
The excursion today had been quite fruitful, even if my main goal wasn't reached. If I continued at this pace, I might be able to grow my dragons and myself a fair bit at the very least.
'Maybe I should focus on this rather than adding more dragons for the time being. I need a substantial pool of Gold to do a few things before I add more dragons to my collection. Hmm, yeah. I suppose I should. It's not like there's any hurry. And the more times I go through the portal, the more chances I will have of the portal spawning near a civilization… and leveling up is starting to become quite fun too, even if the grind becomes monotonous after some time. Though, I wonder if it's the perk's doing or if I'm just craving some action that I am leaning towards fighting the Grimm. It's quite boring on this island with no amenities. Another reason a civilization would be quite nice. Ah, but I don't have this world's currency or ID, so it's not like I can buy anything even if I manage to enter one. Maybe I should collect some things from the island and sell them for money and hope to get an ID. Yeah, that's an idea… The Apples. They're quite nice, even if I don't eat them much. What else? … I wonder if I can sell the Gold coins. Wouldn't that net me plenty of money? Though, there are a few problems with that. How would I explain where I got them from? Does this world allow people to keep treasures found in ruins or does the government lay claim to them? If that's the case, selling Gold coins is a no-go. Hmm… '
I kept pondering while watching the building being upgraded and before I knew it, a while had passed. I left the Golems to finish the job while I went to my hut to sleep.
***
It'd roughly been a week since I went on my second adventure in the wilderness of Remnant.
Three more outings followed that one in the ensuing week, each lasting different durations and providing different gains. But by the end of my latest outing, I decided to finally take a longer break. I had plenty of reasons for it, but it mostly boiled down to three: One, I had been running out of Gold frequently and had to wait for it to regenerate so I could upgrade all the temples and some other things I had plans for.
Second, I was leveling at a pretty decent pace—at least I thought so—and had reached a level where I could truly deem myself a Superhuman. I tested it by lifting rocks that would have most certainly been impossible for my past self, my running speed was probably faster than even the fastest professional athletes on Earth, and I could perform previously mentally taxing processes with ease. Not that I had very many ways of testing that particular aspect of myself, so take it with a grain of salt.
My Dragons had similarly grown in both strength and quite literally. Pyra, now a Level 48, was almost thrice my height. She looked like a proper, fearsome dragon, capable of chomping down entire Grimms in one go and able to soar high into the sky.
My wish to fly on a dragon's back had been fulfilled. And subsequently, I'd learned my lesson. Dragon riding isn't as easy as it looks. I almost fell three times during our ride through the sky, either when Pyra performed sharp turns or when I accidentally loosened my hold on her. The heart attack I got was not pleasant, but overall, I would say it was one hell of a thrill ride. Would definitely do it again. But with more safety measures in place.
So, I searched for dragon saddles, or something equivalent to the moment I landed on the island after my first ride. Should have done it before I rode Pyra, but you live and learn. I blame my childish excitement for that lack of hindsight. Sadly, there wasn't anything close to that, so I typed a request to the Admin. I mean, I thought it made sense that a Dragon Taming System would have things like dragon saddles, but I guess not. But then again, it was in beta, so maybe this was expected? Anyway, I got a reply to that fairly quickly. The admin said there was a planned minor update to the System in the upcoming days. The dragon saddle or equivalent would be added in the [Shop] in that update.
Anyway, following Pyra, my other dragons were doing pretty well too. Nixie was level 26. I had a portal open near a large lake and it was a good opportunity for Nixie to grow. She tore through the underwater Grimm and some in the surrounding land. But it was still clear that Nixie was falling behind.
Terrin and Cyclis, who were allowed on all the adventures, had already outgrown Nixie, now at Level 37 and 35 respectively. Consequently, they'd grown large enough to be comparable to Pyra. Cyclis was already the longest due to its eastern dragon features and Terrin was shaping up to be a very bulky one. Both had outgrown me and Nixie, while being the shortest among all my dragons, was still a bit taller than me.
Their growth spurt meant my dragons had a much greater appetite. So, I had to increase the farms once more. And there I ran into some issues. I hadn't been planning the infrastructure very much, mostly allotting areas for certain buildings/farms. But it was becoming more and more clear to me that I needed to plan things out a little. My attempt at increasing the Berry Farm number caused it to intrude a little too close to one of the habitats, thus making me shift it to a different location.
It prompted me to start planning a proper layout for the infrastructure. I didn't want this island to be a mess. I mean, what city/farm-building player would like a mess. A crazy one, that's who! And I wasn't crazy. No sir. So, it was time to do some major shuffling and island decor.
***
I had told my dragons to go and spend some time on the beach down south, so I didn't have to disturb their rest while I was playing architect with my System menu and the island.
"Alright. First things first, I should lay a road network."
The [Shop] had 4 main sections: Dragons – which, as the name suggested, had dragon eggs for sale; Habitats – where I could buy the right habitat for my dragons; Buildings – it was where all the farms, temples, and other structures were located; and finally, Decorations – this one was a miscellaneous category that contained a lot of small to medium decorative structures, plants and shrubs, and even Paths. This was where I found Path blocks. I had 7 available options unlocked at the moment, ranging from basic Granite tiles (with three variants: Beige, Black, and White) to the fancy Marble tiles, with other choices in between that I didn't fancy, such as Unpaved tiles, Dirt tiles, etc. After deliberating between Ascot Grey Slate tiles and Marble tiles for an unnecessary amount of time, I settled for the Slate tiles.
Each Slate tile cost 10 Gold for the Small variant and 50 Gold for the Large variant. And it was both cost-efficient and looked better than the ten times more costly Marble tile variants in my opinion.
So, with that, I started marking the paths. The portal leading to Remnant was the central monument and I decided to have its non-staired sides surrounded by a thin layer of greenery with some flowering bushes and plants, then a circular square layer of Large Slate tiles surrounding it, acting as the Main Road. The Main road then stretched in the four cardinal directions, dividing the island into 4 sections.
The mountain with the dragon statue, which I'd simply dubbed the Dragon Mountain, was located in the Northeast quadrant. This Quadrant also had the least 'free space' as it was filled with the mountain itself, the freshwater pond, and a bunch of trees. My Hut was located in the Northwest quadrant and also had some trees, though there was free space to expand and add structures. For the moment, I shifted half of the Dragon Berry Farms on the free land, placing them in a way that looked pleasing to the eye.
The Southeast and Southwest quadrants were where most of the free space was, though it was currently littered with various Habitats and the remaining farms that I hadn't moved. On the [Map], I began selecting all of them and with a few clicks, everything in the two Southern quadrants disappeared and was stored in my Inventory, bar the road I had built, leaving an open space for me to work with.
Nodding to myself, I mentally planned out an arrangement and then started placing them one by one, adding smaller roads to make further divisions and making proper pathways to the structures and habitats.
But I got a little stuck here.
I wanted to place all the Habitats in the Southeast quadrant and place the farms in the Southwest, but finding a proper arrangement for the Habitats took some trial and error, mostly because I wanted to have a sensible arrangement of the Habitats. The most basic arrangement would have been placing the 4 in 4 different sub-quadrants. But that would mean I'd have to rearrange them when I add more Habitat types in the future. There weren't just 4 types of Habitats. No, in total there were 15 types. But out of those, I only had access to 4 at the moment: Fire, Water, Earth, and Wind. There were 4 more in the elemental categories, making the total Eight. The rest were more esoteric in nature and were probably considered as 'Special' Habitats, reserved for when I got certain unique types of dragons, whatever those were.
So, after some deliberation, I decided to divide the quadrant into 16 sub-sections, each sub-section would hold a single type of Habitat, separated by Pathways that coiled around each section and touched every habitat. There was enough space for expansion and/or addition of extra Habitats if or when needed.
Once that was settled, I placed the 4 Habitats in the order – Water, Earth, Wind, and Fire, with Pyra's habitat the farthest from the center and Nixie's the closest. It didn't make much sense to have those mountainous Habitats in the middle of the island after all. They were now closer to Dragon Mountain, creating a backdrop in the Northeast and East direction.
In the Southwest quadrant, I placed every remaining farm and then realized that I still had a lot of space left. So, I brought back the farms I had placed in the Northwest quadrant near my Hut. Now, the farms were all in the Southwest quadrant.
I had a lot of space for future expansion still. But with this, I had some sort of infrastructure and order. There was no doubt, however, that I would be making changes here and there in the future as I added things, but for now, this was a satisfactory arrangement. After I was done, I went to the beach and spent some time bathing and playing with my dragons on the beach. A bit of fun after work.
***
Journal Entry #5: How do dragons make babies?
---
Uhh… I don't know how I ended up with this thought. But I somehow did.
You see… I've been thinking about expanding my dragon collection now that I've trained my existing dragons to a decent Level and have space allocated for new dragons. I was naturally going to buy a new dragon egg from the shop, but then I remembered that Dragon Breeding is a thing.
So… for purely research purposes, my mind wandered, and… how do dragons make babies?
I mean, I have 4 dragons right now: Pyra, Nixie, Cyclis, and Terrin. And it was unavoidable that I'd end up looking at their private bits, ya know. I mean, I am their tamer and whatnot. Anyway, there's a tiny detail that I've noted during my research.
My dragons don't have the special bits. You know, the ones that are used in the baby-making process?
So… how the heck am I supposed to make them breed?
I have the Breeding Den on the island and it doesn't seem to have any magical doodad or anything remotely interesting that might be related to 'breeding'. It just looks like a normal cave with some normal-looking vegetation and a hay bed of sorts where I have to place two dragons.
I've been thinking about it. Should I put two of my dragons in there and see what happens?
Maybe these dragons make babies through some magical shenanigans.
Only one way to find out.
The question is: Who should I choose?
And does it have to be a male and a female?
In the first place, my dragons don't actually have any gender-defining features. I've only labeled them as such for my own convenience. Maybe dragons don't have a gender. Or at least mine don't.
Hmm… assuming gender isn't an issue, I should probably place my two highest-leveled dragons. That's the only stat I can see that seems connected to their size, and thus maybe their age? Do dragons have an age? And if they do, am I planning to commit some sort of child dragon breeding?... Uh… I suddenly don't wanna think any further on this line of thought. Yeah, no. I don't think I should use human logic and laws against these dragons of mine.
… I'll, uh, ask Admin just to be sure. Not gonna risk it.
Yeah…
Anyway, that's all I had for this entry. Probably a really weird entry to have. Good thing I don't have to worry about anyone else reading it.
… probably.
Gosh, I sincerely hope nobody is reading these entries. Fuck, that'd be embarrassing.
I swear my thoughts are a purely scientific curiosity. I'm not a weirdo with a beastiality (dragon) fetish or anything. I like human girls. Uh… well, human-like girls. Shit, doesn't Remnant have faunus? Pretty sure there aren't any Dragon-based faunus.
.
.
.
Wait, they don't transform into humanoid forms, do they?! Oh, for the love of all that's pure and holy, stop thinking!
That's it. I'm ending this entry before I doom myself further.
Bye!
Damien.
***