Chapter 187: Third Monthly Settlement
The next day, Ian, as usual, personally fed the black dragon Ion dog's milk.
Unfortunately, while Ion was very eager to eat, it completely ignored almost all of Ian's commands, making Ian wonder if his feeding was ineffective.
"A dragon is not a slave." Seeing Ian's repeated failures to interact with the black dragon Ion, Daenerys finally couldn't help but speak in High Valyrian.
"What do you mean?" Ian was somewhat confused.
"You can only get a dragon to understand your commands if you speak High Valyrian," Daenerys explained, then asked, "Aren't you learning Valyrian from Priestess Celia every day? Why can't you understand anything?"
Maybe it's because I was distracted during class? "It's only been a few days, Your Grace," Ian chuckled. "I've only learned some basic vocabulary." Actually, he hadn't even learned the basics.
"Then how about I teach you from now on? Viserys taught me many dragon-commanding words."
Although dragons were long extinct, the Targaryen family's dragon-lore lessons had never stopped. Perhaps they all hoped for the day dragons would return.
But you really are determined to teach me a foreign language.
"If it is Your Grace's wish, I will obey." Ian agreed, because he truly felt the need to learn Valyrian.
He planned to use a basic skill selection scroll later to improve his Valyrian foundation before learning from Daenerys, which might save some skill points.
"We can begin now, starting with the basic dragon commands. How about that?" Daenerys herself didn't know why, but she was very happy to receive a positive answer. Perhaps being Ian's teacher on a certain subject would be very fulfilling for her.
Following this, under Daenerys's guidance, Ian began his daily lesson in the foreign language and basic dragon handling.
The lessons continued until dusk, and after dinner, Ian returned to his cabin early.
Judging from the dragon's progress, when he gave commands to Ion in Valyrian, its response was noticeably more positive, but it was still considerably less obedient than it was to Daenerys's commands.
Based on this, Ian's initial conclusion was that nursing the black dragon was quite effective. Although it didn't consider him its mother, it at least treated him as a caretaker. Otherwise, it was unlikely to respond to commands from someone without Valyrian blood.
Of course, this was also related to the fact that Ion was newly hatched and had little self-awareness.
Once the dragon grew a little older, commanding it would be much more difficult. For example, in the original timeline, Drogon, at just over three years old, even rebelled and flew away, leaving Daenerys unable to control him.
The only truly effective way to control a dragon was to become its dragonrider, but unfortunately, the damned system didn't provide players with Valyrian dragonlord bloodlines, making this path extremely difficult.
Similarly, since players didn't possess dragonlord bloodlines, the NPCs provided by the system likely wouldn't either. Therefore, the only person Ian could truly trust to become a dragonrider was Daenerys.
As for recruiting people with Valyrian dragonlord bloodlines from the Free Cities, Ian would never do that. The rebellion of the two bastard dragonseeds recruited by the Blacks during the Dance of the Dragons was a stark lesson.
He'd rather the remaining dragons have no riders, or even not hatch any other dragons, than entrust such a strategic weapon to someone he couldn't absolutely trust.
After a brief review, Ian went to bed early, because today was the settlement day for the third month, and also the day the third main quest was updated. He needed to get up before dawn to organize his system-related matters.
Several hours passed quickly. When Ian woke up, it was already past midnight. He didn't sit up but logged into the system while still in bed.
The first message was yesterday's report on the remaining players, which remained unchanged at twenty-seven.
The second message was last month's settlement report:
[Congratulations to the player who ranked first on the leaderboard on the third month's settlement day.
Player rewards: 20 points, 2,888 gold dragons, and one S-rank NPC of choice (within the region).]
Just as Ian had anticipated, the rewards for the leaderboard increased each month, this time by 10 points and 1,000 gold dragons compared to last month.
Although this reward wasn't that important to Ian now, what would it mean if these increasing rewards accumulated over time, even over six months or two years?
Thinking about this, Ian suddenly didn't want players to be eliminated too quickly.
After all, once the number of surviving players fell below twenty, the leaderboard mechanism would be canceled, and he would lose this stable monthly benefit.
Without further hesitation, Ian directly opened the S-rank NPC selection scroll.
Then he saw the three NPC options he had received this time.
[Stepstones Pirate Lord: Strength 33-36, Agility 31-35, Spirit 0-6 Skills: Advanced Swordplay, Advanced Throwing (Hand Axe and Spear), Navigation Mastery, Random Other Skills Equipment: Longsword, Throwing Axe, Mail Hauberk]
[Meereen Champion Pit Fighter: Strength 35-38, Agility 32-35, Spirit 0-6 Random Weapon Mastery, Random Advanced Weapon, Random Other Skills Equipment: Random]
[Qohor Black Goat Temple Cavalry: Strength 32-40, Agility 28-35, Spirit 4-8 Skills: Advanced Arakh, Advanced Mace, Advanced Riding, Intermediate Lance Equipment: Qohorik Arakh, Mace, Qohorik Black Goat Armor, Heavy Destrier]
Looking at the three cards, Ian began a simple analysis.
The first card was the Stepstones Pirate Lord. The name sounded impressive, but based on the stats, he was only average among S-rank NPCs.
Ian could roughly guess the reason for this situation. There were simply too many 'pirate lords' in the Stepstones.
Legend had it that the Stepstones were once part of the Arm of Dorne, connecting Westeros and Essos. When the First Men invaded Westeros across the land bridge, the greenseers of the Children of the Forest used powerful magic to shatter the Arm of Dorne, and the broken land bridge formed the Stepstones.
No one had ever counted how many islands there were in the Stepstones—perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands—but only Bloodstone and Grey Gallows were notable. In the Stepstones, anyone who occupied a small island and had one or two ships dared to call themselves a pirate lord.
However, even though this so-called pirate lord was only mediocre, he was indeed a good choice for Ian at the moment. Having a pirate captain meant he could buy another ship before entering the Summer Sea, making his journey eastward safer.
The second card was the Meereen Champion Pit Fighter. This was purely based on luck. Meereen had hundreds of fighting pits, large and small, and the prestige of a champion varied greatly. For example, Ian and his group had already defeated several mid-level champion pit fighters in the Pentos tournament.
Although Ian was usually very lucky with draws, and the probability of getting an elite warrior from this card was high, at this stage, Ian believed he didn't need many pure combat specialists.
Therefore, he directly ruled out this option.
(End of Chapter)
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