Chapter 51

Hehe, everyone who reads this chapter will know why the protagonist has to walk in the underground river. There are two reasons: one is for the convenience of permeating something, and the other is the principle of Earth generating Wood in the Five Elements. Those who have read old books probably understand!

"Sir, sir, I... I saw a dinosaur!" As soon as Cook entered the cave, he ran back and loudly told Lori, who was playing with Little Ashy.

"Dinosaur?" Lori, holding the chubby Little Ashy, asked in surprise.

"That roar from half an hour ago, oh my God, that thing was a hundred meters long!" Cook described with his hands waving.

"Half an hour ago, you mean a dragon, not a dinosaur, right?" Lori looked enlightened.

"Dragon, do you mean the giant dragons you talked about?" Cook finally came to his senses after a while.

"Yes, what color was the giant dragon you saw?" Conie asked from the side, but from her expression, Cook found it hard to imagine that these people were not surprised.

"Purple body!" Cook, still thinking about that big guy, answered without hesitation.

"Thunder Dragon, it's a Thunder Dragon!" Lori exclaimed in amazement.

Cook was a bit confused and weakly asked, "Sir, you don't seem very surprised?"

"What's there to be surprised about? The place we are in is the territory of the giant dragons." Lori retorted irritably.

"Territory of the giant dragons?" Cook was really stunned.

"All the high mountains and mountain ranges on the continent, the upper half is the territory of the giant dragons. And the Angons Mountains are one of the five major mountain ranges on the continent. What else could it be if not the territory of the giant dragons?" Lori looked at Cook dumbfoundedly and then explained.

Cook almost jumped up and asked, "Aren't you afraid? You know, those are giant dragons!"

"What's there to be afraid of? We don't have money, and besides, is being afraid useful? The giant dragons have an agreement with humans and won't attack humans. Of course, if we intrude into their territory like this, they can deal with us as they please, but our current position is very safe." Lori shrugged.

Cook thought about it and realized that the big guy probably couldn't easily enter a cave a kilometer deep. He then became curious about the giant dragons and kept asking Lori questions, often exclaiming in amazement.

"Sir, has no one ever tried to steal dragon eggs, given how powerful a giant dragon is?" Cook, having learned from Lori that giant dragons are almost at the top of the food chain, couldn't help but ask curiously.

"Of course, there was a guy in history who auctioned a green dragon's egg. Do you know how much it sold for?" Lori asked, trying to build suspense.

"Probably a few million gold coins?" That was the limit of what Cook could think of.

"Ha! It was over twenty million crystals, but not gold, but magic crystals!" Lori chuckled and said.

"Crystals?" Cook didn't understand what crystals represented in terms of gold coins.

"One crystal can be exchanged for a hundred diamond coins, one diamond coin for a hundred purple gold coins, and one purple gold coin for a hundred gold coins. Do you know how much that is? And crystals are rare and valuable." Lori explained with a smile.

"Damn!" Cook did a quick calculation and realized it was an astronomical number. Twenty million with six zeros, what else could it be?

"Sir, did the giant dragons cause any trouble?" Cook was most worried about this.

"Trouble? It was an auction in the underground black market, and dragons are divided into many tribes. Different types are different tribes, and dragons usually live alone, even if they are a pair, they are often apart. And do you think people are stupid? It takes a few hundred years for a dragon to grow up. By the time the little green dragon grows up, it will be outdated." Lori said irritably.

"A few hundred years, that's a long time." Cook shook his head.

"Long? For a family, a few hundred years is just a blink of an eye. If a family had a giant dragon to protect them, what else would they have to fear?" Conie also chimed in.

"True!" Cook responded absentmindedly, but he had another thought. The big egg that Big Mouth mentioned, Cook suspected it was a dragon egg.

"Ah, it also requires luck. The lifespan of a giant dragon is at least several thousand years, but in those thousands of years, a female dragon can only give birth to one or two offspring at most. So dragon eggs are very hard to find. And after a female dragon lays an egg, she will find a safe place to hatch it, and during this period, she will kill any dangerous creatures that approach her nest without hesitation." Lori sighed, thinking about what she would do with twenty million crystals.

"So only the female dragon takes care of the dragon egg?" Cook asked again.

"Yes, because male giant dragons are completely irresponsible." Lori found it strange why Cook was so persistent about asking about giant dragons, but she didn't think Cook could find a dragon egg. Since she was bored, she continued to explain to Cook. Not only was Cook listening, but Micky was also listening attentively.

"Oh! Sir, can't the giant dragons track the dragon egg by smell or something?" Cook asked again, still unsure.

"What method? An egg, what smell can you expect from it? But why didn't you bring back any game today?" Lori retorted irritably.

Cook looked dejected and replied, "Sir, I've killed all the rabbits nearby. Maybe I need to go further."

"Um, the food on this snow mountain is scarce. It's already rare to have so many rabbits in this area. You decide what to do. Don't count on us. In this environment, we fire mages are not as good as a strong man!" Lori was now wrapped in white rabbit fur, looking like a white bear, but her pink skin under the white fur was even more captivating.

"Alright, Sir, I'll go practice!" Cook was very pleased to hear this but didn't show it.

"Micky, let's meditate too. Mike, you're in charge of the watch!" Lori ordered loudly.

Cook entered the room he shared with Mike. Recently, Mike was responsible for everyone's food, while Cook mainly hunted, and the three women enjoyed themselves. After all, who could argue with the fact that Little Ashy's owner was Lori? With the recent nutritional supplements, Little Ashy's body was gradually recovering its fighting strength, and the watch duty also fell to Mike.

Cook, besides eating, sleeping, and hunting, had almost no free time. As he continuously consumed and recovered his martial arts energy, the self-rotation speed of his martial arts energy slightly increased, but it was limited. Moreover, Cook noticed a strange phenomenon: Lori, Micky, and Mike would constantly release elements from their bodies, while he, due to the slow self-rotation of his martial arts energy, not only didn't release elements but also continuously absorbed surrounding elements.

However, what annoyed Cook was the scarcity of wood elements, which forced him to extend his recovery time by two-thirds. As for magic meditation, Cook barely managed an hour a day, as he didn't know when he would need to use magic.

"Ah!" Cook sighed and began to practice his martial arts energy. The progress was slow, and the wood elements here were very impure, but he had to practice because it was essential for survival.

It took Cook five hours to finally breathe a long sigh of relief. Previously, he only needed about three hours, including meditation. After finishing his martial arts energy practice, Cook stood up, walked around, and then sat down to meditate.

Cook now used a combination of the Magic Eye and mental power for meditation. The elements in the air were like fish in water, not evenly distributed. The Magic Eye could see this, eliminating the need for mental power to detect elements.

Cook's mental power was very sensitive, and he wasn't afraid of capturing elements of other attributes because his wood-attribute mental power could only capture wood elements. The net formed by mental power could only adhere to wood elements, and other elements would slip through, due to their attributes.

However, unexpected things can happen. Although mental power couldn't capture elements of other attributes, elements couldn't pass through each other because they were the same substance. Under normal circumstances, elements are so tiny that they seem to pass through each other, but in reality, they only brush past each other, with a certain distance between different elements. Even with great force, different elements wouldn't merge, but reactions would occur.

Cook used the Magic Eye to observe elements and the net to continuously capture wood elements, which was already beyond the scope of meditation. Today, Cook encountered an unexpected situation.

Due to the scarcity of elements, Cook had to conserve mental power, so he delegated the task of detecting elements to the Magic Eye. However, the Magic Eye provided a flat visual, as elements blocked each other, while mental power detected elements in all directions. When Cook used the Magic Eye to observe the distribution of elements and then used the mental power net to capture elements in dense areas, it saved time and mental power. Over time, the speed of the mental power net increased, and mental power is essentially a higher form of consciousness.

Cook was immersed in the pleasure of capturing elements. Elements are extremely small, almost like molecules, so the probability of a non-captured molecule entering the third eye was almost zero, as it would require an extremely dense concentration of elements. However, nothing is absolute.

The underground river passage was rich in earth and water elements, which were so dense that they appeared as light bands to the Magic Eye. Wood elements were scattered among these light bands. Cook used the mental power net to continuously capture these free wood elements.

A brown earth element was mixed in a cluster of wood elements, floating in the air. Due to the different attributes, there was always a gap between the earth and wood elements, while the gaps between wood elements were minimal, so the earth element was trapped in the cluster.

Cook's mental power net continuously captured numerous wood elements. After three hours, his magic power had reached its peak, and his third eye felt a slight pain. Cook decided to end his meditation.

"Whoosh!" The dense cluster of wood elements was captured by a large net, and the movement almost caused the cluster to collapse, being absorbed by the mental power net. The wood elements inside finally became free, but unexpectedly, the large gaps in the mental power net disappeared.

"Uh!" As Cook was about to end his meditation, his mind suddenly vibrated, and his mental power expanded. First, he was surprised, then he realized he had officially become a magic apprentice.

"Boom!" Suddenly, Cook felt the magic power in his mind explode. He felt dizzy and lost consciousness.

What Cook didn't know was that the earth element had been directly pulled into his third eye by his almost sealed mental power net. The shape of the net didn't change, but the amount of mental power increased, making the net strands thicker and almost sealing it.

When the earth element entered the third eye, it was hit by the sudden increase in mental power and was forced into a wood element. This caused a chain reaction in Cook's third eye, like a spark in a fuel tank. The wood elements expanded, split, and then expanded again, causing a fission reaction, triggered by the insignificant earth element.

Due to the promotion, the space for storing magic power in Cook's third eye expanded countless times. The original magic power occupied only a small part of this new space. However, after the fission reaction, the entire space was instantly filled with magic power, which continued to expand.

The originally light green magic power, as it expanded, compressed and darkened. Fortunately, the earth element that stimulated the wood elements was extremely rare, so the reaction process was completed in less than a second. If it had continued, Cook's head would have exploded.

"Damn! This promotion is too painful." Not long after, Cook was awakened by the intense headache and cursed.

"Impossible!" Cook checked the source of his magic power and found it almost entirely dark green. This magic power made his head feel swollen. Cook was surprised that his magic power was full right after promotion. Could this be like in games where you get full health and mana upon leveling up? However, Cook rationally believed it was impossible and decided to ask Lori, as she was a professional.

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