"Hmm." Upon hearing the Golden Dragon Mother's words, Muria nodded. He wasn't sure whether his father Ansol's behavior, visiting him only once considering his current identity, was normal or not.
"Uh." Seeing the indifferent reaction of Muria, the Golden Dragon Mother felt a bit disappointed but immediately, her golden eyes brightened up because she noticed the silvery-blue metal block held by her son.
"This is." The floating Golden Dragon Mother motioned with her hand and Muria felt an irresistible force acting on the Fine Gold he held. He watched as the Fine Gold left his hand and floated to the Golden Dragon Mother.
With sparkling eyes and fine facial features, the Golden Dragon Mother looked at the piece of Fine Gold, which was half her human height, she rubbed her slender hands on it and laughed cheerily.
"Not bad, not bad, I didn't expect to find such a great gain in my own castle."
"That's mine, Mother." Muria hurriedly said as he saw the Golden Dragon Mother shamelessly intending to pocket the Fine Gold.
"Yours?" The Golden Dragon Mother glanced at Muria, "You haven't even left this island. Where did you get Fine Gold? It must have been in my castle."
"It was gifted to me by the Cloud Giant leader Poton, he said it was for me to forge an exclusive weapon." Muria tried to recover his possession of the legendary metal.
"Exclusive weapon?" The Golden Dragon Mother pondered for a moment, "You still have a lot of time ahead of you, why the rush?"
Then, the beautiful blonde girl with sparkling eyes and teeth grinned at Muria, "Also, you're still young, you might lose such a valuable thing. So, I'll keep it for you for now and give it back when you're grown up."
"Give it back when I grow up?" Muria gritted his teeth. He was familiar with this trick. Even though his body was large, he was definitely still a fledgling. But his experience wasn't.
"That's settled then." The Golden Dragon Mother saw the shade of Muria's face darken, hurriedly grabbed the Fine Gold, opened the Door of Choices, and ran back to her room.
Just returning to her room, the Golden Dragon Mother Atris hadn't even touched the Door of Choices yet, but stuck her head out again, "Oh yeah, Little Muria, I have a suggestion for you. Go to my library, find the Magic Book about the shape-shifting spell, and learn how to transform into a human. You'll find it a lot of fun."
Having said that, the Golden Dragon Mother retracted back into the room, preparing to touch the Door of Choices, but then she remembered something else and leaned out again, glanced at the six shivering baby dragons, "Take good care of these six dragons, don't ever let them die, as for the rest, just go with the flow."
Having said that, the Door of Choices with a blue outline then collapsed and dispersed, scattering drops of spirit light.
Muria lifted the hand that was just holding the Fine Gold, standing there dumbfounded, "The extent of the Golden Dragon Mother's greed is beyond my imagination. Damn it, she even snatched her own son's belongings."
"Master Muria." The maid Sophia standing on the side softly called out, "Are you alright?"
Muria took a deep breath and then exhaled, nodded at the blonde maid, "I'm fine, it's just a piece of Fine Gold. No big deal."
Despite saying that, he still felt heartbroken and couldn't bear it. He said to Sophia, "I'm going to the library to find a book. You keep an eye on these dragon hatchlings."
Saying this, Muria left the room and headed towards the Golden Dragon Mother's library. Ever since he had gone through a period of deep sleep, Muria felt extraordinarily energetic. He had been bouncing around all day but still didn't feel like sleeping, nor did he feel any fatigue.
"The volume of books here is a bit exaggerated." Muria stood at the entrance of the library, looking at the endless rows of bookshelves. Just as he was about to enter to find a book, he embarrassingly discovered a fact.
"Why did a nearly hundred-meter-long golden dragon set the space between the bookshelves according to human standards?" Muria looked at the narrow passages between the bookshelves, feeling frustrated. He simply couldn't fit in.
"Well, no wonder she told me to learn the shape-shifting spell and transform into a human. Speaking of which, the shape-shifting spell seems to be a talent of the golden dragons. When you reach a certain age, you naturally master it without having to study it deliberately." Muria murmured.
Having no choice, Muria left the library and asked two dragonkin maids to retrieve the related magic books about the shape-shifting spell.
"Huh, I'm really fortunate to be born with mental power and magic power all over my body. According to Elasia's standards, I'm now at Silver Third Rank, right? At this level, I can learn the Fourth Circle Shape-shifting Spell." Muria thought to himself with self-satisfaction while holding the Magic Book that was only as big as his palm. But now, his desire to learn the shape-shifting spell became even more urgent because he discovered yet another inconvenience about having a large body.
The size of the books didn't match his current body size at all. Most magic books were written by human mages and the sizes of their books were set to human standards. Therefore, to read a book, it's best to transform into a human shape.
"Building this shape-shifting spell model with mental power, but the model seems somewhat complex," Muria frowned while looking at the three-dimensional magic models in the magic book. Since this is a Fourth Circle spell, he wondered how complex the Ninth Circle Spell models or those of Legendary Spells must be.
Without thinking too much, Muria sat cross-legged on the ground, and for the first time, he attempted to use meditation methods from the Golden Dragon Inheritance knowledge, beginning to try to enter a meditative state. Although he wasted some time initially due to restless emotions, gradually with a calm mindset, he easily entered the meditative state.
Next, Muria "saw" himself from the perspective of a third party. It was a very peculiar sensation, also one of the uses of mental power.
Then, according to the various data recorded in the magic book, Muria used his mental power to condense into near-transparent threads, beginning to construct a three-dimensional magic model.
In terms of building the magic model, every thread of mental power's size, angular position, and spatial distance could not be off at all. It had to be refined to the highest degree.
Perhaps because shape-shifting was a magic that Golden Dragons naturally possessed, the process of constructing Muria's magic model was much easier than he had imagined.
After failing a few times, Muria was successful in constructing the magic model for the shape-shifting spell, so a diamond-shaped transparent crystal appeared in his Sea of Spirits.
Muria curiously "looked" at this small crystal, suddenly feeling relieved. He was grateful for his current identity. He knew that a human mage, in the process of building a magic model, would think carefully before daring to construct one, because their mental power and the capacity of their Sea of Spirits did not allow for recklessness.
A regular Silver Third Rank mage wouldn't dare to do it like Muria; besides ruining themselves, there would not be a second outcome.
Muria was naturally endowed with abundant mental power, and his mental power grew with age. This was unlike the hard life of human mages who, with painstaking efforts and bitter practices, barely increased their mental power even after squeezing out all the time they had for meditation. It wasn't even as much as Muria could increase by just waking from a sleep.
Therefore, Muria could whimsically begin constructing the magic model after glancing over the magic book a few times. His abundant mental power meant that failing a few times didn't hurt at all. Even if it blew up, the shock would just make him slightly dizzy, and then nothing, he would continue attempting.
"What do I look like in human form?" Muria started to infuse mental power into the magic model, distracting thoughts flooding his mind. The magic model, filled with mental power, began to radiate intensely. Part of his magic power was stirred.
A radiant spirit light covered Muria's body, turning him into a huge ball of light. Then, the ball of light began to shrink rapidly, from seven meters, five meters, three meters, to one meter...
Muria looked around in a daze at the surroundings, familiar yet strange at the same time. Everything seemed to have grown larger, he felt as if he had become a "little man" in a giant's world.
"I've shrunk," said Muria, lifting his hand that didn't seem to have changed much, he soon realized that he had successfully cast the shape-shifting spell and had turned into a human.
Muria touched his head, the dragon horns were gone. He looked behind him; his broad dragon wings and slender tail had disappeared. He really had turned into a human.
"But, this doesn't seem right." Muria extended his mental power and immediately saw his own appearance, a tiny, unimpressive, yet adorable black-haired, golden-pupiled child.
"In this state, one might even believe that I'm still breastfeeding!" Muria tugged at his fair little face, um, it felt pretty good.
"This is far from what I envisioned myself to be." Muria had initially imagined he would turn into a handsome young man, not anticipating that he would become an infant toddler.
"Does the appearance from this shape-shifting spell correspond with my actual age? By the Dragon Race's calculations, I've only just left my nestling phase, corresponding to the human age of a just weaned toddler, isn't it?"
Having become a tiny Muria, he suddenly lost patience to continue staying in the library. Under the watchful gaze of two dragonborn maids whose eyes almost turned into stars, he turned around and left the library.
Muria walked back to his room, receiving affectionate gazes from many dragon maids along the way. No one mistook him, although he had shrunk dozens of times in size, his appearance had not changed.
"Has young master Muria learned shape-shifting? His appearance hasn't changed, but this smaller version is so adorable!"
"Yeah, yeah, if it wasn't for his status, I would want to rush up and give him a squeeze."
"I really want to pinch his cheeks, they look so tender. Ah!"
... Muria walked listening to similar remarks, feeling carefree. However, as soon as he returned to his room, he was met with six pairs of red vertical pupils staring at him.
Seeing Muria in this state, Auston, who had just recovered, didn't even think; he pounced directly. The little dragon Auston's action immediately triggered the other evil dragon cubs, who all pounced as well.