Chapter 23: Chapter 23: The Young Dragon’s Challenge Chapter 23: Chapter 23: The Young Dragon’s Challenge The sudden news, like a bucket of ice water being dumped over his head, instantly sobered Muria. After a period of silence, he looked down at the girl beneath him.

“Mia, keep an eye on those six young dragons, as always. Notify me if they wake up.”

“Understood, Young Master Muria.” Mia respectively replied. The girl then lifted her head, her large sparkling eyes looking at Muria,”So, are you coming to sleep in my room tonight?”

“Mia, you’re a little too dedicated to your job as my personal servant.” Muria looked down at the maid who left a strong impression on him, with a pleasant smell wafting off her.

Ever since the day Mia slept next to him, Muria took the opportunity to ask Maid head Sophia to employ Mia, who had the audacity to be his personal servant and attend to his daily needs.

Maid head Sophia agreed instantly to his request. She had an overwhelming amount of daily responsibilities, so it was beneficial to have someone share the workload.

As for the worry of her authority being undermined, she didn’t need to concern herself—the source of Sophia’s authority was the Golden Dragon Mother, not Muria. She’d only worry about losing power if the Dragon mother decided to find another personal maid besides her.

“Cough, I’m just doing my duties as a personal maid. A personal maid should be by your side, of course!” Mia defended herself.

“Is that what you think a personal maid does?” Muria looked at Mia speechlessly, “Sophia would certainly scold you if she knew.”

“Hehe! The maid head wouldn’t know as long as you don’t tell her.” Mia grinned at Muria, “Are you coming to my room tonight or not?”

Faced with the maid’s repeated questioning, Muria raised an eyebrow and retorted, “Every time I return to the castle, I sleep in your room. Isn’t it always the case?”

… For more than a year, Muria frequented the martial arts field. He gradually reduced the time spent in the library studying the memory research of magic models. Many low-rank spells are basically immune to dragons. Even if young dragons can’t be completely immune, they can exempt a large part of spell damage.

Therefore, physical attacks are often more effective against dragons. The premise, of course, is that you can face it without being killed by a swipe of its claws. Otherwise, it would be wiser to choose to escape.

This is not a problem for Muria. The blood of Titan and Ancestral Golden Dragon flowing in his veins are among the most potent bloodlines in the known world. They are even more potent than the Red Dragon bloodline.

Muria is confident that he could crush any single young dragon. However, he faces not one, but six. With such numbers, even he feels a bit nervous.

Under such pressure, Muria frequented the martial arts field even more. In the end, he practically lived in the martial arts field, handling meals and sleep there.

During the combat trials at the martial arts field, Muria demanded that all the Cloud Giant Guards fighting with him use their full strength without holding back.

As for other cloud giant leaders as well as mountain giants, tidal giants, and even storm giants, Muria did not foolishly require them to use their full strength.

They are all battle-hardened giants with at least a Golden stage three status. Regardless of Muria’s bloodline blessing, being beaten up is the only outcome for him. He is still too young.

On Muria’s thirteenth birthday, he was dueling a Storm Giant using a greatsword. Amid the fight, he saw Mia, his personal maid, enter the martial arts field.

Muria, holding a greatsword over one meter wide and over ten meters long, repelled the storm giant with a single sword stroke. He then signaled for a halt to the battle and looked at Mia, who had come to his side.

“Young Master Muria, those vile dragons are about to awake. I can feel the increasingly active dragon vein power from each of the six.”

“Is that so?” Muria nodded. There was no worry on his face, only confidence. “I’ve been waiting impatiently.”

For almost five years, under the pressure of that nagging sense of crisis, Muria had been relentlessly training himself day in and day out. His ideal life of eating to his heart’s content, sleeping well, and having fun – he only enjoyed a few months of it.

Everything he did was to prepare for the trial arranged by the legendary Dragon mother Atreus. Whether she did this on purpose or not, Muria was not sure,
But Muria felt it was more likely that Dragon mother Atreus did so on purpose because Atreus was a Legendary Mage. A mage of this level had terrifying intelligence that even surpassed some deities.

Such a powerful being would always have profound reasons for their actions and wouldn’t act aimlessly. They wouldn’t engage in useless deeds.

Muria drove his greatsword into the granite slab. He had borrowed this weapon from a Storm Giant, so he naturally couldn’t just run off with it.

Oddly enough, most giants are dirt poor. Due to their enormous size, it’s hard for them to find metal weapons that suit them. Most of them resort to using rocks or wooden sticks for attack, which couldn’t be any more pitiful.

Only a portion of Cloud Giants and Storm Giants possess metal weapons suitable for themselves. Slightly better off are the Tidal Giants as some of them use the anchors from shipwrecks they find on the seafloor as weapons.

Therefore, after learning about this, Muria felt no desire whatsoever to embezzle the weapons of the giants.

After many days, Muria returned to his own room with Mia. Even though it had been five years since he last slept here, this place still felt like home.

Upon entering the room, Muria was immediately met with the stifling high temperature in the air. Any ordinary individual stepping foot in here would become dehydrated and faint within minutes.

Muria’s gaze instantly fell on the culprits behind the high temperature in his room: Six scrawny Red Dragon youngsters that had grown to a length of eight meters. They acted like six furnaces, continually emanating an astonishing amount of heat.

These six baby dragons, throughout their year-long hibernation, had grown in strength to the point of reaching Silver Rank 1. In the meantime, they had also consumed nearly all the energy reserves in their bodies.

Their muscles were emaciated, and their red dragon scales clung tightly to their bodies. Muria could see the shape of each and every bone on them. Despite this, they exuded an intimidating aura of menace particular to evil dragons. No one would dare underestimate an evil dragon in this state.

Muria entered the room and sat in front of the six baby dragons. He noticed some of their eyelids were twitching, signifying they would be awakening soon.

I’m hungry, so hungry, I’m starving. An intense feeling of hunger jolted Cynthia as she gradually awakened, forcing this young dragon, whose hibernation had just ended, to open her eyes.

Upon doing so, Cynthia immediately caught sight of the giant before her, a child-like figure sporting horns on his forehead, dragon wings at his back, and a slender dragon tail.

Muria. Cynthia recognized the one seated in front of her. He was a jerk who bullied them because he was older. The thunderbolt he gave them right after they were born caused her intense pain and forced her and her siblings to obey his every demand for years, preventing them from leaving the room for even a step.

“Roar!” The young female dragon growled. The strength accumulated during hibernation was making her restless. Cynthia wanted to challenge Muria, to give him a taste of the pain he had inflicted on her.

However, Muria’s four-meter stature even when sitting left Cynthia feeling greatly intimidated. Consider this: her length, not counting her tail, only reaches four meters.

Add to that, the pressure of hunger caused Cynthia’s first words, after awakening, to be: “Give me something to eat, Muria.”

Her child-like dragon language seemed to carry a hint of pleading.

Almost simultaneously, outside the room, the Head Maid Sophia appeared with a troupe of Dragon Maids, carrying plate after plate of fresh red raw fish meat cut into chunks. This food was prepared for the hungry young dragons.

Muria watched in silence as Sophia guided the Dragon Maids to place the raw fish chunks, which for humans were simply lumps of meat, before the awakened young dragon. He became more convinced of his suspicion that the Dragon Mother had indeed purposely assigned him to raise these evil dragons.

Cynthia, on seeing the delicate fresh red raw fish meat before her, immediately grabbed a huge chunk with her claws and stuffed it into her mouth, putting the thought of challenging Muria on hold until she had her fill.

The sound of Cynthia eating, along with the smell of the raw fish meat, greatly stimulated the other young dragons. Hence, they woke up one after another.

Under the instinctive control of their bodies, even though they had seen their “enemy,” Muria, these dragons all made the same choice – they bent their heads and ate.

Dragons are top-tier predators, and a dragon’s stomach is like an incredibly efficient melting furnace. This is exactly what Muria saw now. The moment the fish meat the young dragons swallowed landed in their stomachs, it was broken down and digested into nutrients, then transported to every part of their starved bodies.

The most direct external manifestation of this was that Muria watched as the slender bodies of these six young dragons eating begin to fill out their muscles gradually, becoming more robust and full, the scales that had previously clung to their bones were now filled out.

Muria witnessed a miracle: in just an hour, the six starving, skin-and-bones young dragons transformed into six robust, dignified, and ferocious-looking young dragons after eating a large amount of food.

“Muria,” said Auston, a young dragon who just finished his meal. He stood up impatiently and called out Muria’s name.

“What is it?” Muria stood, peering down at the six young dragons with an imposing stare from his ten-meter-tall body.

“We…” Auston looked at Muria’s figure and shrunk his neck. His strength had increased significantly after his hibernation, which gave him a lot of confidence. He glanced again at the other five young dragons and his courage flared, “The six of us dragons want to challenge you together! You, dare to accept?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read