The Grimalkynes peeked out from behind the branches and leaves. Some of the more restless ones even took out their spears, mimicking the movements of Boss Glavenus.
They tucked their spears between their legs, pretending they had tails to whip around.
It was so stupid it could make you cry.
So stupid, in fact, that Sparky immediately delivered a flying kick, sending that particular cat flying.
"I told you to learn the essence of the Boss's swordsmanship, not how to grow a tail, meow!!"
His paws were clenched hard in anger!
Ahem. Anyway, the situation was this: when the Grimalkynes discovered that Boss Glavenus was actually teaching swordsmanship to another Glavenus, every single one of them gathered to watch. Even the little furballs were mimicking the moves with twigs in the corners, having a grand old time.
Every dragon was happy. Uh, well, maybe the Acidic Glavenus currently getting beaten up wasn't very happy.
Although Asterion didn't use the blade of his tail to cut her directly, preferring to smack her with the broad, flat side, the lashings were still painful... and they wounded the Acidic Glavenus's cold, arrogant pride.
If the Acidic Glavenus could beat him right now, Asterion had no doubt this little female dragon would chop him into sashimi.
Fortunately, she couldn't. Heh heh.
Asterion whipped his tail with even more gusto.
"Roar!!" (What are you angry about?!)
Smack!
"Roar, roar!!" (Can't you even control where your blade lands?!)
Smack!
"Roar! Roar, roar, roar!!" (Your forehand is sloppy, your backhand is weak, your footwork is loose, and your reactions are slow! And you think you can learn the sword like this?!)
Smack!
"Roar!!!" (I'll kill you!!!)
Clearly, that last murderous roar came from the Acidic Glavenus.
She had waited so many years for this guy to appear, finally getting the chance to become stronger. It should have been a beautiful thing, so why did it turn out like this?!
Pain, suffering, the Acidic Glavenus's rage felt hot enough to burn Asterion to ash, but Asterion—
Smack!
Another merciless tail whip.
"Roar!" (Getting angry is useless!)
Asterion was teaching the Acidic Glavenus a lesson through sheer physical force.
After an entire afternoon, the Acidic Glavenus had been whipped into near silence. She stopped roaring and simply fell, got up, swung her blade, fell, got up, swung her blade, fell...
She was no match for Asterion.
Or rather, from the very first time the two dragons met years ago, she had never been a match for him. It was just that back then, Asterion had been delighted to see one of his own kind for the first time and wanted a contest of swordsmanship. But now, he no longer had that need.
Strength, speed, health pool—Asterion crushed the Acidic Glavenus in every aspect. In his current eyes, this once "decent" female dragon was just average.
However, it had to be said that Asterion's special training method was effective. Compared to the beginning, by the time the sky began to darken, the Acidic Glavenus's tail blade swings had become much sharper.
Many times, just as Asterion lashed out with his tail, the Acidic Glavenus would unconsciously find the trajectory of his blade and parry or dodge.
In the end, swordsmanship wasn't something you could improve behind closed doors. Life-and-death battles against powerful opponents were the shortcut to rapid improvement.
The Acidic Glavenus was still too green.
Clang, clang, smack!
The tail blade, forged from mineral secretions, clashed against hard blade-scales. Asterion deflected the Acidic Glavenus's blade once again, then heavily slammed the flat of his tail against her body, knocking her down.
"Roar! Roar, roar, roar!" (That's it for today. Think about it yourself. Think about the mistakes you made and how you can defeat me.)
As the Acidic Glavenus struggled to get up again, Asterion's words caused her entire body to go limp. She lay on the ground, motionless.
She was exhausted. More exhausted than if she'd spent the day mating.
In contrast, Asterion looked quite calm, though the eight heat vents on his back were continuously ejecting steam.
After being cooped up in the nest for two years, his bones finally felt stretched out. Through his combat with the Acidic Glavenus, Asterion was constantly familiarizing himself with the sensation of having an extra pair of wings on his back. Incidentally, he was improving his swordsmanship, ensuring the wings didn't interfere with his movements but could instead be utilized.
Glancing at the Acidic Glavenus still lying on the ground, Asterion felt she hadn't yet grasped a key truth: strength and speed were the fundamental cornerstones of swordsmanship. This silly female dragon was still foolishly clinging to the hope that learning techniques would let her hack him to death.
Assessment complete: She is a pure idiot.
In comparison, that little thing in the distance was the primary target of Asterion's class.
Cometblade.
The little thing was hiding in the distant woods. The Grimalkynes had already discovered his presence, but to the Grimalkynes of the Glavenus Tribe, Cometblade was a "Little Boss Glavenus." They had seen him many times over the past year and considered him an acquaintance, so they didn't sound the alarm.
Cometblade had no intention of attacking the Grimalkynes. He simply hid quietly in the forest, using the massive tree trunks and lush foliage to conceal his body, watching Asterion's little classroom from afar.
Asterion had spotted him long ago. Even though the Acidic Glavenus had shown the little thing the harsh reality of "adult maternal love," he evidently couldn't quite accept it and had secretly followed them all the way to the base of the Great Tree.
And then he began to steal the techniques—well, it couldn't really be called stealing. In fact, the reason Asterion shouted his instructions to the Acidic Glavenus so loudly was so that Cometblade could hear them in the distance.
Asterion certainly didn't plan to look after Cometblade forever. Cometblade was effectively a Deviant of the Glavenus species, and in the world of the Glavenus, Cometblade was already an adult who needed to hunt and seize territory on his own.
It was just a bit faster than a Rathalos family. Every Rathalos family would disband once the young dragons could hunt for themselves. The young would then care for themselves, hunt, build nests, fight other Rathalos, and reproduce. Their parents would also fight other Rathalos during the breeding season after the previous family disbanded, forming new families and repeating the cycle.
Glavenus already stood at the top of the food chain, and Cometblade was a step above that.
He already possessed powerful talents and potential that ninety-nine percent of monsters in this cruel world craved—and now, he was adding the Glavenus Sword Style created by Asterion to his arsenal.
In Asterion's view, if Cometblade—who had inherited his talents, was already a Glavenus Deviant, and had mastered the Glavenus Sword Style—still couldn't survive, then the little thing truly deserved to die.
Seeing Cometblade quietly retreat beneath the dense leaves after noticing his gaze, Asterion turned around, took a deep breath, and flew up toward the top of the Great Tree.
Don't die, little thing!
The entire Glavenus Tribe became lively because Asterion had stepped out of the nest after two years. The Grimalkynes seemed to have received a massive boost of encouragement; just one look at Asterion filled them with motivation, and they worked with even more energy.
The Acidic Glavenus found a spot beneath the Great Tree that offered shelter from the rain. It wasn't a stone cave, but a tree hollow, barely large enough to accommodate her massive body.
In the eyes of the Grimalkynes, the Acidic Glavenus was the Boss's wife... Err, although they didn't know why the Boss didn't live with his wife, or why he beat her up every day, the Boss was the Boss. He surely had his reasons.
Anyway, when the Grimalkynes delivered meals to Asterion, they would also deliver a portion to the Acidic Glavenus.
Back during the migration, the Acidic Glavenus had acted as a guard under Asterion's orders, so she wasn't a stranger to the Grimalkynes. Over the years, a few exceptionally talented Grimalkynes in the Glavenus Tribe had even emerged who could understand Draconic.
However, the speech was vague, so they could only communicate general ideas.
Life seemed to stabilize. Every day, Asterion would try to tinker with his wings. As a land-dwelling dragon, his bloodline originally had no flight genes or instincts, so he had to try and summarize the key points of flight, even researching flying techniques.
Honestly, it was quite troublesome because Asterion was simply too heavy. Every time a flight attempt failed, he would crash into the ground, leaving him dazed and disoriented.
Unlike dragons that could fly just by flapping their wings, jet-propulsion flight required precise angles. If the angle was slightly off, he would nosedive into the ground. This was especially true given Asterion's current lack of sufficient power.
It was a difficult exploration.
Practicing flight, hunting monsters that trespassed into his territory, and bringing back the carcasses—Asterion's life became stable and fulfilling.
During this period, he would occasionally take an afternoon or a day to instruct the Acidic Glavenus in swordsmanship. The little female dragon's blade swings were starting to look decent. Maybe one day, a spark of inspiration would strike, and a faint white light would coat her tail blade.
Cometblade didn't leave Asterion's territory either. He hid near the Great Tree... well, "hid" was a strong word. Everyone knew he was there; it was just that Asterion pretended not to see him, and the Grimalkynes, noticing Asterion's attitude, pretended not to see him either.
Even the Acidic Glavenus, who genuinely hadn't noticed him at first, eventually discovered Cometblade's presence. But upon realizing Asterion hadn't said anything, she ignored it too—it wasn't her territory anyway.
And so, whenever Asterion began his specialized training for the Acidic Glavenus, Cometblade would quietly pop up and hide in the distance, watching and practicing simultaneously.
Hmm, compared to the Acidic Glavenus, Cometblade was indeed much smarter.
During one teaching session, Asterion clearly saw a layer of faint white light coating the little thing's sword-tail—he was definitely smarter than his mom.
As expected of my cub!
Asterion felt... somewhat gratified. If Cometblade was badass, it proved he was badass. So the more badass the little thing became, the better.
It was all good.
Asterion magnanimously allowed the other two Glavenus to live in his territory and hunt the prey within it.
And thus, a situation extremely rare in the natural world emerged—a family of three Glavenus living together.
Even though one was at the treetop, one at the roots, and one in the distance, considering a Glavenus's leg strength, this distance practically counted as living together.
An unprecedented change!!
It was another great day of confusing the Wycademy scholars.
"You mean to say, Boss Glavenus slept for two years, and when he woke up, his wings had grown?"
A Wyverian scholar rubbed his face, rubbed his eyes, took a deep breath, and addressed Bent, who stood before him.
"That's right. Amazing, isn't it?"
Bent replied with a bright, sunny smile.
For people of the Second Fleet, this might be hard to imagine, but for the First Fleet, everything was conceivable.
This was the safe camp responsible for supplying the Glavenus Tribe. From the Hunters' perspective, it was located deep within the Ancient Forest. Currently, four scholars were stationed here for investigation and research, protected by a Hunter squad.
"That's not right, is it? That makes no sense at all!" the Wyverian scholar retorted loudly. "It's not just a matter of size anymore. The current skeletal structure of the wings is completely different from the small wing structure he had before, right?!"
"One follows the common three-digit wing bone structure covered by wing membranes found in Flying Wyverns, and the other is—is—I don't even know what! Can those cylindrical wings actually fly?!"
"But Boss Glavenus did fly," Bent pointed out calmly. "And he flew very high. He doesn't even climb trees anymore; he just takes off vertically from the ground."
"OK, OK!" The Wyverian scholar took a deep breath. He began to endlessly replay his mentor's words in his mind from when they departed—In the New World, anything is possible.
Good. New World! YES! New World! This is the New World!
"I've accepted this premise. Let's continue the discussion," the Wyverian scholar said, forcing himself to calm down tactically. "In other words, Hara's judgment regarding Boss Glavenus was correct. This is an unknown Elder Dragon that is gradually revealing its true form."
"Yes... or no," Bent said after a moment of thought. "According to our speculation, Boss Glavenus is an unknown Elder Dragon. He doesn't have a concrete form but displays different appearances based on the prey he consumes, such as incorporating excellent organs from his prey into his own body."
"I understand what you mean. That implies that under this premise, Boss Glavenus wouldn't display traits of prey he hasn't eaten, right?" The Wyverian scholar continued, "But now he has grown a pair of wings that no one has ever seen before, and his method of flight is unique—a mode never before seen in any other monster."
"So, these wings might be something that truly belongs to Boss Glavenus," Bent added. "The Wings of an Elder Dragon."
"Truly intriguing," the Wyverian scholar sighed, looking toward the top of the Great Tree. From this position, he could only see a patch of damp moss, but he knew Boss Glavenus was in that direction. "Without a single strip of wing membrane, why can he fly?"
"Based on this flight method alone, he could already be classified as an Elder Dragon, right?" Bent scratched his head and said, "As far as we know, Boss Glavenus is the only monster that flies this way. How should we name him?"
The naming of a monster naturally had to reflect its most defining characteristic.
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