ALL NOVEL Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Hatching Eggs (Edited)
"Don't go too far!" the mother red dragon roared in struggle upon hearing Muria's words. Even a malevolent dragon has maternal instincts to protect its young, and the mother dragon's attention had been focused on its eggs since waking up.
"Calm down! I haven't done anything to you." Muria took a few steps back, his ears ringing from the mother dragon's roar. He had already forgotten about kicking the red dragon just moments ago; in his view, that was nothing significant.
Similarly unable to break free from the chains, the mother red dragon's tone suddenly became choked up: "Why has this happened? Why must we suffer such calamity?"
"Uh!" Muria watched the thirty-five-meter-long crimson behemoth, its eyes, red like lava balls, shedding two streams of magma-like liquid, "Is it crying?" he wasn't sure.
After all, according to what Muria knew from books, red dragons were among the most proud and arrogant of the chromatic dragons. However, Muria couldn't see any arrogance in these two; instead, he saw their grievance, yes, profound grievance.
"What have you gone through?" Muria asked curiously, "Or rather, how did you offend my mother to end up captured here?"
"We did nothing to provoke your mother," the slightly larger male red dragon turned its head back, full of resentment, "Before today, we had only heard of your mother's name and never once seen her."
"Then you must have done something bad, and word got to my mother," Muria said with certainty.
"Bullshit," the male red dragon roared in anger, "In recent decades, I've only raided a few groups of adventurers who came near my territory. I haven't robbed human cities."
"That's right, we were about to lay eggs, how could we possibly stir up trouble and attract outside attention?" the mother dragon added, equally filled with grievance and indignation.
Muria fell silent; if these two dragons were telling the truth, then they were indeed somewhat innocent. Raiding adventurers who ventured into their territory over decades is remarkably law-abiding for malevolent dragons, practically exemplary good dragons.
"Today, while my mate and I were guarding our eggs in our lair, sleeping, your mother appeared, brutally and unreasonably beating us. No matter what we said, she wouldn't listen, and she beat us until we passed out," the male dragon vented his grievances to Muria, pouring out his sorrow.
Muria peered closer; both the male and the female dragon had unnaturally twisted areas on their bodies, broken bones, and their skins bore many scars congealed into scabs, indicating that the golden dragon mother had indeed been harsh.
"You really are unlucky," hearing the red dragons' story and seeing their injuries, Muria began to feel sympathy for this pitiful pair of red dragons. "But if you didn't do anything, how did my mother find out about your lair?"
Upon hearing Muria's question, the two malevolent dragons pondered before the mother dragon growled in angry Dragonic: "Adventurers, it must have been those damned adventurers who leaked the location of our lair."
"Roar! Damn those adventurers, I, Karlos, swear I'll devour every adventurer I encounter from now on," the male dragon Karlos roared furiously, blaming their misfortune on adventurers.
"These two tragic dragons. Haha, I'm dying of laughter," now, Muria fully understood the situation. His golden dragon mother probably learned about a pair of adult red dragons from something like the Adventurers' Guild. As a metallic dragon naturally opposed to chromatic dragons, his mother, Atreus, directly sought them out, resulting in the current situation where the lair of the red dragon couple, Karlos, was utterly destroyed.
"Ah, my treasure!" Another roar, almost a howl, echoed in the hall, this time from the red dragon Karlos, who had just remembered all the treasure he lost, irrevocably gone.
Muria looked amusingly at the two malevolent dragons, fearsome enough to terrify ordinary people at the mere mention of their name, and thought to himself before reassuringly saying, "Don't be too sad. At least you're still alive. Treasure can be accumulated again in the future."
However, the red dragon couple, immersed in the sorrow of losing all their treasure, couldn't hear Muria's words, wailing on their own. For red dragons, known for their greed, losing treasure was as painful as losing life itself.
"Let's go, leave them be," Muria signaled to Sophia and the four dragonborn maids, chuckling to themselves, planning to take them back to his room.
"Atreus's offspring, what do you plan to do with my children?" a sorrowful voice came from behind Muria, not because of the lost treasure but out of concern for her eggs.
Muria didn't look back, "I'm not going to do anything to your children, just planning to hatch them all."
Leaving the mother dragon with a bewildering answer, Muria and the maids left the hall.
In his room, Muria frowned as he began his daily necessary meal, today's food being a golden, crispy, tender roasted whole bull.
This bull, now a meal on the plate, was not smaller than Muria himself, highlighting Muria's astonishing appetite as he consumed an amount of food not less than his own volume every day.
Muria's frown wasn't because the roasted bull was unpalatable; in fact, the bull was exquisitely delicious, prepared by the chefs of the Crystal Castle for their very particular master—the legendary dragon Atreus.
What really caused Muria to frown was the six red dragon eggs placed in his room. He had boldly claimed he would hatch all six eggs, a task not easy to accomplish. Normally, hatching half of a clutch of malevolent dragon eggs would be considered good, let alone all of them, unless blessed by the gods!
"Sophia," Muria called out to his personal maid as he started feeling drowsy.
"Master Muria," the blonde girl responded respectfully. "What can I do for you?"
"Before I wake up, find me all the books about hatching these things from my mother's library," Muria pointed at the six red dragon eggs surrounded by fire elements on the ground.
"As you wish, Master Muria."
"Go now! I'm going to sleep," Muria yawned grandly, climbed into his crystal bed, topped with soft velvet blankets (upon his request, as the hard crystal bed was uncomfortable), and fell asleep...
The next day, when Muria woke up, he was slightly stunned by the pile of books in front of him.
Then he turned to Sophia, who, as always, stood by his side, and pointed to the three-meter-tall pile of books: "Are all these about how to hatch dragon eggs?"
"Yes, Master Muria."
"Well then, no choice but to start reading!" Muria stretched and began to go through the books, one by one. These books, especially dedicated to dragonkind and primarily to lesser dragons, were rare and valuable. Of course, thanks to the dragon lineage's inherited memory, Muria could understand this book written in Elvish. In fact, having inherited the
legacy, he was fluent in over a dozen languages, including Common, Elvish, Draconic, Demonic, Giant, and Dwarvish, and could naturally read books written in these languages.
In Aerasia, being proficient in over a dozen languages was still not enough, as there were nearly a thousand languages in use across the world.
"Red dragons usually place their eggs in fire-element-rich volcanic areas, then let them hatch over time, naturally."
"Madness, this laissez-faire approach, if it achieves a 50% hatching rate, only proves the incredible vitality of the dragon race."
Muria was frustrated with the hatching process for red dragons described in the books. Despite being highly intelligent beings, they lived like beasts, using their intellect for destruction and robbery rather than contemplating how to improve the survival rate of their offspring.
"Clearly, hatching red dragon eggs requires a fire-element-rich environment, but it doesn't necessarily have to be in a volcano." Muria skimmed through book after book, formulating a plan.
To improve the survival rate of dragon eggs, researchers in Aerasia had long studied this, achieving significant results. So, Muria only needed to follow established procedures.
"Volcanic regions are abundant with fire, but too violent and unstable for hatching red dragon eggs. The unhatched drakelings must face the onslaught of violent fire elements to absorb fire energy."
"The method to increase the survival rate of red dragon eggs is simple: use fire elemental energy crystals as a power source to construct a simple magic circle that can release fire energy steadily."