Six pairs of eyes, Muria could sense the deep malice contained in a few of those gazes.
"Renata. Come, come here." Muria ignored those malicious looks, smiled and squatted down, waving at the little mother dragon Renata.
Renata glanced at her older brothers and sisters, hesitated a little, and then took a step towards Muria.
"Such a good girl." Muria scooped Renata up in one hand, cradled her in his arms, and stood up.
"Roar!" Upon seeing Muria's move, Nestling Auston let out a growl, just took a step forward, but stopped abruptly. Turning his head, he saw his tail being stepped on by his sister Cynthia.
"Be patient, Auston, it's not yet the time." Cynthia whispered in Dragon Language.
Auston shot a glance at Muria who was holding and caressing Renata, turned his head away bitterly, lay down on the ground, closed his eyes, and decided to take the 'out of sight, out of mind' approach.
"Quite a patient one." Muria, cradling Renata, glanced at Auston, who had already lain down and started to doze off, put down the somewhat shyly wriggling Renata in his arms and turned to the direction of the library.
"No more playing around, I don't have much time."
In the room, when Muria's figure totally disappeared from the sight of the nestlings, the ostentatiously drowsy Auston and the other four nestlings quickly surrounded Renata who had just landed.
"Enjoyed being touched by that bastard, didn't you, my dear sister." Auston darkly eyed Renata, it seemed if Renata didn't provide a reasonable explanation, he wouldn't mind attacking his own little sister.
"No, no," Renata, seeing her surrounding brothers and sisters, receded a little timidly.
"Then why did you run there immediately after hearing Muria's calling?" nestling Andre asked.
"I..." Little Renata hesitated for a while, "I'm afraid of getting hurt. If I didn't obey him, I might get struck by Muria's lightning."
Hearing this answer, the nestlings looked at each other, then fell silent. This answer was quite flawless. They were all scared of Muria's fury. However, they weren't ready to give in.
"Renata, remember this, Muria is just a bastard who bullies us with the advantage of being born eight years earlier than us, a mixed-blood riff-raff with disgusting Golden Dragon lineage." Auston furiously abused Muria. After being together for a long period, the nestlings had known the true identity of Muria, he was not a Golden Dragon.
"My eldest brother, I have to remind you of a fact." Jessica looked straight into the her brother's eyes: "Although Muria only has a half Golden Dragon lineage, the other half of his lineage is not some low-breed blood, but comes from the Titan who is capable of controlling thunder and storm, they are a race even nobler than us the Red Dragons."
"Therefore, Muria's lineage is more noble than yours," Cynthia summarized.
"Hmph, even so, it can't change the fact that he is a mixed breed, he doesn't even have the most basic dragon form, which indicates that what extent his dragon blood has been suppressed to." Auston retorted. This time he didn't label Muria as a riff-raff. Even evil dragons would maintain the basic reverence to the awe-inspiring Titans.
"You guys think, if after we become young dragons, all of us charged at him together and still couldn't beat Muria, what then?" Albert asked somewhat worriedly, "After all, Muria's bloodline is really strong."
"Impossible, that bastard Muria only takes the advantage of age to bully us with a martial prowess that is leagues ahead of ours. At the same age, I'm definitely not weaker than him. Absolutely not." Auston hit the ground with his claws, expressing his determination.
"Stop dreaming, Auston." Cynthia said contemptuously, "That day when Muria's mother came here, you all felt it, right? That was the presence of a Legend. What does it prove? It proves that Muria is not just having an ordinary Golden Dragon lineage. A Titan's bloodline, plus a lineage far superior to ordinary Golden Dragon's."
"At the same age, you are definitely not Muria's opponent in single combat." This time, it was Jessica who made the conclusion.
"Bastards, how dare you belittle me?" Hearing this, Auston flew into a rage, stood up straight, "Do you want to experience my strength?"
"We are just stating the facts, Auston." Cynthia and Jessica stood up straight, looking at Auston unflinchingly, "Though you were born a few seconds ahead of us, we give you face by calling you our elder brother, you are not much stronger than us."
Seeing the highly tense atmosphere, Andre and Albert looked at each other, then seemed eager to initiate a big fight. That's the Red Dragons, evil dragons who worshipped violence.
"Weren't you discussing how to resist Muria? Why are you about to fight each other now?" Little Renata asked weakly from the side.
Hearing this question, the nestlings became quiet, easing the atmosphere a bit.
"In any case, before we become young dragons, nobody is allowed to provoke Muria. After becoming nestlings, no one-on-ones are allowed either. The six of us should team up to challenge Muria, striving to defeat him all together." Finally, Cynthia set the outcome of this discussion.
"Um, I want to ask, what if we defeated Muria? What then?" Renata weakly asked for the second time.
"Of course, we'll slaughter him, feast on his flesh, and drain his fresh blood." Auston roared impatiently.
"Auston, are you out of your mind? Don't get us killed as well." Cynthia barked at Auston. "Think about it, where are we? This is the castle of Muria's mother, the legendary Golden Dragon!"
"Look at this castle, our room is made of Magic Crystal, can you imagine how powerful Muria's mother must be? If we kill him, our fate will be worse than death." Jessica also shouted at Auston.
In the worldview of the Dragon Race, both Benevolent and Evil Dragons' strength is proportional to their size. However, for giant dragons, there is another measure of strength, their wealth. The richer the giant dragon, the stronger. This is a universally acknowledged truth among the Dragon Race.
"If we can't kill him, what should we do? What's the point of us challenging Muria?" Anxious Auston asked in frustration.
"We negotiate with him. He must treat us equally as real dragons, provide us with enough food for our growth, and most importantly, he cannot keep us as his pets."
"Another thing, he must regularly give us gold." Nestling Albert excitedly added.
"No, not just gold. Also gems, weapons..." With a head start from Nestling Albert, the rest of the baby dragons fell into fantasy about what to do after defeating Muria.
"Uh, what if we lost?" For the third time, young Dragon Renata weakly raised her claws.
...The atmosphere had been heated, the five energetic dragon nestlings abruptly fell silent, then Cynthia furiously yelled at Renata: "Renata, shut up, you're not allowed to talk during our discussion."
...
In the library, Muria, reduced to the size of a freshly weaned human infant, stood in front of a floating Magic Book.
Level 0 magic, Mage's Hand.
"Mage's Hand may be a trick and laughable in battle, but as an auxiliary skill, it is surprisingly useful."
Muria was memorizing the one-ring magic Lesser Fireball's data from this Magic Book.
After memorizing, Muria immediately began to construct a magic model in his Sea of Spirits. If he failed, he would try again; the mental impact of failing to construct a model could be ignored.
"Hmm, success. Let's try to activate it." Muria looked at the small magic crystal model in his Sea of Spirits and started to pour in his mental power, activating the magic power within his body.
"Huh!" A red fireball, nearly a meter in diameter and much larger than Muria's current size, appeared in front of him. This size of Lesser Fireball has significantly exceeded the standard, which is enough to amaze many low-level mages.
The Lesser Fireball, as the name suggests, yields fire elements when activated. The fireball Muria had accumulated is already of the volume of a third-ring magic Fireball.
"Bloodline Amplification." Muria muttered. He was not surprised, after all, he possessed half of the fire elemental True Dragon's lineage. Moreover, this was not the first time that the effect of a magic spell had exceeded its original level.
Today, Muria had finally made up his mind no longer to be a 'salted fish,' primarily due to his increasing unease about the six baby dragons that the Golden Dragon Mother asked him to raise.
Muria had a rough guess about Golden Dragon Mother's intentions, so when the six baby dragons began to resist and attack him, he had a premonition that he would have no one to rely on—no one in the castle would help him; he had to rely on himself.
Therefore, to enhance his combat power, Muria started to learn spells, planning to memorize all spells from level zero to four, and constructing their models within his Sea of Spirits.
Just now, Muria successfully crafted the Lesser Electric Shock, a one-ring magic from the shaping series, and after activating it, a thunderball nearly a meter in diameter was floating quietly in front of him, which had Muria stunned for quite a while.
Then, Muria found the answer in his heritage memory. Creatures with powerful bloodlines will naturally possess magic-like abilities without learning. As such, when they voluntarily learn spells related to their bloodline power, the effect of their magic spells will naturally be amplified.
"What is this?" Muria speechlessly examined the spell book that had floated silently to him. After giving it a quick glance, he scoffed: "Ventriloquism? Isn't that meant for the mute mages? Take it away."
The Invisible Servant took away the book silently and without protest.
"Magic Missile, not bad, this is worth learning" Muria looked at another spell book brought by the Invisible Servant, his eyes lighting up.