The battered soul space was completely restored by the dissipating starlight, even becoming significantly fortified. Immediately afterward, a tiny ray of white light slipped into this space, completely unnoticed by anyone.
A nameless fire burned deep within Izo; he utterly loathed how they had spoken in riddles.
You clearly had the ability to make things clear from the start, yet you insisted on engaging in pointless pleasantries, only to tell me you were fading fast right when it came to the crucial information!
“Fuck!! What kind of bullshit is this!”
Clasping his head in frustration, Izo suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion.
“Dragon, what's wrong?”
Startled by the sudden voice, Izo flinched.
“Who's there?!”
“Dragon, it's me. It's bird.”
“Bird??”
Hearing this, Izo's confusion turned to surprise. Around him, there was only one kind of creature that could be called a bird:
“You can't be that Snowrot Bird, can you?!”
“How did you get in here?”
The more Izo thought about it, the more alarmed he felt. No matter how magical this world was, it shouldn't be possible to stuff a Snowrot Bird's soul into a dragon's head, right?
“Don't know. Dragon brought bird in.”
Could it be because we were lying so close together that the mental shockwave from the chain shattering brought her in?
At this thought, Izo immediately accepted the reality. After all, he had long wanted to have a deep conversation with this larger-than-average Snowrot Bird.
Unfortunately, there was a language barrier, and he didn't know the spell Comprehend Languages.
After spending so much time together, only this Snowrot Bird has gotten close to me. Maybe the other birds just can't be tamed.
Thinking this, Izo took the initiative to initiate the first communication between bird and dragon using his terrible communication skills.
“What's your name? Are you male or female?”
After all, he hadn't been good at communicating in his past life, and after transmigrating, he was born into a chromatic dragon nest where strength was revered above all else, making communication skills entirely useless.
On top of that, over the past year he had done nothing but hunt or train, hardly speaking a word, which caused his communication skills to hit rock bottom.
“Bird doesn't know what a name is.”
“You are being very rude, dragon.”
As social animals with decent intelligence, Snowrot Birds clearly possessed their own system of etiquette.
Izo's current behavior was like interrogating a prisoner; even the most arrogant of normal dragons wouldn't directly blurt out questions about name and gender like that.
“Uh... isn't this how your flock communicates?”
Seeing her remain silent, Izo still didn't feel awkward in the slightest.
“Alright, let me introduce myself first. My name is Izo.”
“Okay, dragon.”
“Bird understands.”
“That's a name. So what are you called?”
“Dragon, you are very dumb.”
“Bird already said just now, bird has no name.”
Hearing this, Izo thought for a moment and said:
“Hmm... then let me give you one.”
“How about Eva?”
In the language of this otherworldly realm, "Eva" meant "Child of Snow."
“Okay, dragon.”
“Bird likes this name very much.”
“That's not right. You should say, 'Eva likes this name very much.'”
“Bird likes the name Eva very much.”
Izo froze for a second. It seemed Snowrot Birds were somewhat similar to cats from his previous life—they had no concept of "I."
After several fruitless attempts to communicate about the name, Izo simply gave up obsessing over it.
“Well then, nice to meet you, Eva.”
“I hope we have a fun time hunting together in the future. Right now, I have some other matters to deal with.”
“So please head outside first.”
With that, Izo flew toward the giant structure of the Dragon Inheritance without looking back. He didn't want to waste any more time on useless chatter.
“It's snowing in dragon's world, bird doesn't know what to do...”
The pure white Snowrot Bird slowly faded away within the pitch-black space.
Approaching the Dragon Inheritance, Izo extended his mental power into it once more.
With one chain gone, the massive book was no longer as impenetrable as before.
Izo's mental power squeezed through the tiny crack and penetrated the shallowest layer of the Dragon Inheritance.
Recorded within was Izo's true name:
Izo Aetherion Phrocklos West...
It also contained essential knowledge that all newborn dragons needed to know, as well as innate dragon spells like Comprehend Languages, Elemental Breath, Levitation, and more.
Like a dry sponge, Izo swam in the sea of knowledge, frantically making up for the information he had missed.
If anyone had witnessed this scene, they might have suspected the silver dragon before them suffered from a rare case of Spell-phagy.
Dragons afflicted with Spell-phagy exhibited a clear symptom: a bottomless craving for magical knowledge, identical to Izo's current mental state.
...
Clatter~
At the very bottom of the cave, small pebbles slipped down as a gray rat—the most common kind in the Northern Territory—crawled out from beneath a pile of ore.
It cautiously poked its head forward, sniffing around. Seeing no apparent danger, it slowly climbed out from the pile of rubble.
Snooore—snooore—
The snoring coming from behind froze the gray rat in its tracks. Turning around slowly, it spotted a stuffed Leodero lying on a pile of ore, snoring with his belly round and full.
Seeing that the dragon had no other reaction, the gray rat rolled its bright purple eyes and actually breathed a humanlike sigh of relief.
Keeping its footsteps quiet, it slowly tiptoed toward the cave entrance.
Gently slipping past the fast-asleep Vivian, the gray rat finally stepped onto the soft snow. It carefully dodged one Snowrot Bird nest after another along the way.
Soon, it ducked into the bushes, moving farther and farther away from the snowy mountain.
Rustle, rustle, rustle—
The gray rat pushed through bush after bush, completely oblivious to the faint sound behind it.
Whoosh!
A white shadow suddenly lunged out from the thicket, pinning down the fleeing gray rat.
It was a tree fox. Covered in leaf-like fur, they often prowled through bushes and thickets to ambush passing small creatures.
As luck would have it, gray rats were right on this little creature's menu.
“Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak!”
The gray rat squealed frantically as the tree fox opened its fangs and lunged to bite the rat's nape.
Just as blood began to spurt out, a faint blue light flashed, and the gray rat smoothly transformed into a gnome!!
Caught off guard, the tree fox was thrown up into the air by the expanding gnome. The gnome slapped fiercely, swatting away the tree fox clinging to his nape.
“Awoo-woo-woo—!”
Yelping in pain, the tree fox fled into the bushes.
“Dammit! What rotten luck!!”
With bloodshot eyes and a panicked, unhinged look on his face, the gnome glanced around, looked up at the moon, then sprinted off in a chosen direction.
On the other side, the tree fox perched in a tree, observing the strange "gray rat."
Its tiny brain truly couldn't fathom how its prey had suddenly turned into such a huge creature.
As it wondered, its pupils were dyed with a layer of purple.
The tree fox's liveliness instantly vanished. It leaped off the branch and ran deep into the icefield.
Rate on N.U.
