Just as Yvette was about to return to the air-raid shelter, Dugrabi suddenly called out to her, somewhat stiffly saying, “What are you thinking about regarding that matter?”

“What matter?” Yvette turned her head to look at him, confusion reflecting in her ruby-like eyes.

“Just… just that matter!”

“Oh~~” Yvette exclaimed as if she understood but quickly tilted her head to ask again, “What matter?”

“Don’t pretend to be clueless!” Dugrabi snapped. Only in front of a being like her would he hold back; if it had been a normal human mage, he might have let a breath of dragon fire loose.

How dare she tease the proud son of the Flame Dragon King! What gall! Even the three main churches of the true gods wouldn’t dare to treat him so negligently!

“…But why would you want to take me as your master? I should be nowhere near your father’s level,” Yvette asked.

This time, she genuinely didn’t understand.

From Dugrabi’s introductions, she had gleaned some understanding of the dragon race, knowing full well that the six Dragon Kings were extraordinarily powerful and could be considered the first tier of battle strength in the human world. It was quite difficult for ordinary beings, even those lesser deities with fewer followers, to defeat a Dragon King.

Among the six Dragon Kings, the Flame Dragon King was ranked as one of the top two in terms of combat ability—he was a true powerhouse of the dragon race.

Given these outstanding conditions, it seemed absurd for Dugrabi to voluntarily want to take her as a master.

Even now, Yvette didn’t realize that she had inadvertently stepped into the mainstream mythology of the Glimmering Continent, becoming an inconspicuous and niche deity by riding on the coattails of the legendary mage.

She even thought that as long as she didn’t bring it up, Dugrabi wouldn’t be able to guess her connection to the legendary mage and would only perceive her as someone related to Rosalyn Cian.

Thus, her misunderstanding about the reason behind Dugrabi wanting to be her apprentice quickly took shape.

She figured it could be that Dugrabi wanted to use her connections to get close to the legendary mage.

This was a rather reasonable explanation, logically sound.

The only argument against this logic was that such long-term strategy didn’t seem like something Dugrabi’s intellect could conceive.

…

Confronted with Yvette’s questioning, Dugrabi fell silent for a moment, unsure how to respond.

He wished to have adventures like the legendary mage but did not want to reveal the legend of the Silver Witch to her, as it would suggest that he had been planning this for a long time. All his actions over the past four years would seem deliberate and insincere.

Although he had indeed been planning, he believed he was sincere, or perhaps his pride as a dragon made him look down upon pretense.

After a long pause, he found an excuse to awkwardly say, “I can’t go back right now, but I don’t want to waste time. I want to start learning as soon as possible…” He hesitated, “Uh… is that alright?”

Yvette furrowed her brows. She thought this kind of statement would be fine coming from anyone else, but it didn’t feel right coming from Dugrabi. First, dragons could live for two thousand years, and they didn’t reach adulthood until around seven hundred. They also had the innate ability of “Dragon Speech” that awakened with age—there was no need to rush.

Moreover, he was especially proud of being a dragon and looked down on humans and other races. To him, even the gods seemed to be nothing more than groups on par with dragons. In such circumstances, it was even stranger for him to lower his noble dragon head and take a human as a master.

Also, he seemed rather lazy…

Despite her lack of obsession, seeing that Dugrabi was unwilling to explain, she confirmed earnestly, “Do you truly want to learn?”

Although she didn’t have a magical terminal, from what she understood, the regulations of magic on the Glimmering Continent were quite low; all spells were limited to within 200 runes, and common spells wouldn’t exceed 50 runes.

After all, there were no elemental chips, rune caches, or rune disks there. Mages had to memorize incantations and could not perform high-level spells due to such limitations.

In such a case, it wouldn’t worry her to teach Dugrabi some foundational knowledge and give him some smaller specification spells.

“Of course, I genuinely want to learn!” Dugrabi said quickly.

“It can be done… but I need to evaluate you first.”

“Evaluation?” Dugrabi grew anxious. “What kind of evaluation?”

“You don’t need to know that, but once it’s over, I will tell you,” Yvette said, turning and disappearing down the corridor of the air-raid shelter.

…

In the following days, Dugrabi received a rather challenging combat spell—a super simplified version of the Crimson Armor, essentially reducing its complexity to minimalist line art.

Although it contained only a bit more than two hundred runes, considering that the average spell on the Glimmering Continent didn’t exceed fifty runes in complexity, this spell was already on par with the legendary forbidden spells in terms of difficulty.

Dugrabi initially thought this was the so-called evaluation, but the Silver Witch subsequently informed him that it wasn’t; she just wanted to give him something to do, a preliminary start to learning.

What was this? Where was the evaluation?

As Dugrabi waited impatiently for the supposed evaluation, he noticed the Silver Witch was just like usual—sleeping until noon every day and then spending the whole day in her room. When she occasionally stepped outside, it was only to get some fresh air and enjoy the view, soon returning within minutes. She seemed even lazier than him, the so-called “lazy dragon prince” who at least enjoyed going out and exploring.

Could it be that she was deceiving herself? Did finishing up this spell mean the evaluation would be over?

With this thought, Dugrabi rarely put in the effort.

But soon, another problem arose—he didn’t recognize the runes. The first step to learning any spell was not the spells themselves but having the witch teach him a lesson about runes to establish a basic understanding of them.

This was an utter nightmare for him.

It was like trying to learn a foreign song, where the first step wasn’t the song itself but learning the foreign language. For Dugrabi, who had never put in effort since childhood, this challenge felt even more torturous than sitting through a history class.

He would even prefer to attend history class; at least the dragon in charge of the lecture would treat him with respect and wouldn’t dare make any comments if he fell asleep, while in the witch’s rune class, dozing off truly might result in a beating.

So, after studying for more than two months, Dugrabi decided to take a leave of absence.

After all, the witch had mentioned this wasn’t an evaluation. For a dragon that wouldn’t reach adulthood until seven hundred years old, delaying for another seven or eight years was hardly different from a human delaying for several days.

Moreover, the witch herself was also a long-lived being, so she would surely understand him.

…

And so, time passed swiftly, and summer of the following year arrived. It had been exactly five years since a human, a doll, and a dragon had settled here together.

On a calm and peaceful morning, while resting atop a straw pile in the air-raid shelter hall and still waking up, Dugrabi felt someone poking his nose. He opened his eyes angrily to see a clumsy little doll wearing a floral crown that was staring at him.

“Mr. Dragon, Mr. Dragon, are you awake?” the little doll exclaimed happily upon seeing him open his eyes.

This was the mechanical doll named Jasmine, designed as a little girl, and one of only three children in the local kingdom. Her most prominent characteristic was the floral crown atop her head, serving as a recognizable gender feature.

The other two children, named “Soap” and “Roller,” were both boys. They were a bit noisier than Jasmine and not very endearing.

If it had been Soap or Roller bothering him while he slept, he would have already begun blowing fire. The Dragon Prince needs to rest; how dare a bunch of lowly alchemical beings disturb him?

But Jasmine had done a lot for him during their time together, and in his eyes, she was like a hardworking low-tier dragon attendant and half a friend. Therefore, Dugrabi decided to be more forgiving and suppressed his morning grouchiness, gruffly asking, “What is it?”

“The sun is already out, Mr. Dragon. Didn’t you ask me to wake you up?” Jasmine’s speaker produced a sweet tone, clear like wind chimes in the summer.

“Seems so,” Dugrabi yawned.

“You and I had plans yesterday to go play at the base today. Soap and Roller are already waiting outside. Are you getting up, Mr. Dragon?” Jasmine queried.

“Go out to play…” Dugrabi drooped his head and yawned again, “I’m too tired today, never mind.”

“Oh, that’s fine then… I won’t bother you anymore, Mr. Dragon.” Jasmine said regretfully. After watching the black dragon close his eyes, she turned and walked outside to inform her two waiting companions, and predictably received some disappointed sighs in response.

With the addition of Dugrabi, the “Children’s Exploration Team” of Cookes had become much more colorful than before. The most significant change was that Dugrabi could now act as a mode of transportation, greatly extending the range of their expeditions.

Before Dugrabi’s arrival, Jasmine, Soap, and Roller had only played around the nearby valleys. With their short legs, they couldn’t travel very far and always had to return home before dark.

Now, however, it was different. The black dragon could carry them on all four of his claws and fly distances of ten or twenty kilometers at a time, allowing the children to explore mysterious areas that they had never dared to consider before. What an exhilarating experience!

“Jasmine, you can talk to Brother Dragon. Can you persuade him?” Roller said. “We had a deal; it’s so disappointing to cancel suddenly.”

“Forget it. Mr. Dragon looks very tired today; don’t push him too much,” Jasmine directly refused. “Roller, don’t you remember what Grandpa Copper Skin said? You have to learn to think for others and put yourself in their shoes. That’s part of your training.”

“Fine…” Roller thought to himself, how can I put myself in someone else’s shoes? I don’t even know what tired feels like.

After spending a day napping in the air-raid shelter, Dugrabi finally felt up to taking the Children’s Exploration Team out the next day. Their destination this time was an abandoned military base.

The base was nearly 25 kilometers away from the valley where the kingdom was located. Given the surrounding wide-open terrain, mostly flat land, they could spot any Mountain Whales from afar, making it a low-risk venture.

Carrying the three little dolls with his claws, Dugrabi soared over mountains and lush meadows, coming to a huge clearing pockmarked with holes, surrounded by the crumbling skeletons of human buildings. The area was carpeted with moss and jagged black stones. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novelꞁire.net

Once he landed and set the three children down, he looked around, curiosity shining in his eyes.

He was quite interested in the history of the End of Days, which was also why he was willing to accompany these children on their explorations. Although he couldn’t read the texts in Black Tide language, little Jasmine explained things to him, allowing him to catch glimpses of the ancient civilization that had once thrived millennia ago—an empire akin to a divine land on earth.

Such a civilization ultimately met with such a downfall, deepening his awareness of the terror and power of the End of Days Witch, the true first villain of mythology who had backstabbed the Creator and destroyed the Eden. She deserved her title as the King of Evil Gods.

Watching the three children excitedly run into the adjacent ruins, Dugrabi flapped his wings and flew into the pit. This was the lower half of the military base, filled with mystery. The last time he came, he had merely taken a quick glance, but this time he intended to observe more.

After exploring the underground space for quite some time, hours seemed to pass, and Dugrabi began to grow bored. Many of the areas here weren’t designed for large-sized beings, and doors were often blocked, making it challenging to break through even with dragon fire. He decided to go up and bring Jasmine down to help see if there were any more secrets to uncover.

However, just as he prepared to fly out, a strange noise caught his attention, heightening his alertness. Listening carefully, he realized it was an eerie animal call, coming closer, cold and drawn out, as if from the darkest depths of the ocean, spreading a chilling fear.

In an instant, a cold realization dawned in his heart.

—Mountain Whales were coming, and not just one.

Once he recognized this, Dugrabi narrowed his vertical slit eyes and immediately ceased all motions. He suddenly felt a pang of regret for having been too engrossed just now, forgetting to occasionally step outside and check for dangers. The Mountain Whales were sneaking up on this place without him being aware, and to navigate this crisis safely, hiding underground until the pod departed was the best plan.

But then he quickly recalled that the three children were still above ground in the ruins, and those structures were mostly just skeletal frames without roofs. If the Mountain Whales flew overhead, the space to hide would be quite limited.

Damn it! he cursed inwardly as Dugrabi gritted his teeth and flapped his wings, accelerating toward the opening of the cave.