Chương 44: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 44 - The Cornerstone of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry

Mesent lay sprawled across his bed with a look of pure satisfaction on his face. He had no idea that the woman who had just been intimate with him had already moved on to a great knight. He was even less aware that his death star had begun to flicker.... Early morning. Dragon's Nest. Six o'clock sharp, and Su Nian was awake. A dragon's internal clock was merciless that way, not a minute off, not a second, provided the dragon had no interest in sleeping longer. Anna was still deep under.

Her pale pink lips were parted slightly, puffing out warm little clouds of breath that smelled faintly of milk. Her entire tiny, soft body was curled up against Su Nian's chest, both small hands loosely wrapped around his neck. Her delicate face was pink and dewy, eyelashes trembling with each slow breath. She was smiling in her sleep. Two small dimples pressed into her cheeks, sweet and completely disarming. Su Nian's mouth watered. He couldn't help himself. He leaned in and licked her face.

"Mmm~" Anna squirmed at the sensation and turned her face to the other side. Su Nian's neck followed. He licked her twenty times in total. By the end, Anna was making small unhappy sounds, her brow furrowing, clearly on the verge of waking up. Only then did he pull back, running his tongue along his dragon lips, satisfied. Anna's Favorability had stalled out somewhere around sixty. No matter what he did, it barely moved, one point, two points on a good day, sometimes nothing at all. He wasn't bothered.

That was how these things worked. You couldn't rush it, and rushing it would've been pointless anyway, given the barbs, and the fact that he still couldn't take human form. Slow was fine. He wrapped Anna carefully in animal skins and set her down on the fur mat, gentle as placing something fragile on a shelf. Then he shook himself, spread his wings briefly, and rose to his feet on the stone platform. The early bird gets the worm.

Ugly black dragons were still snoring away somewhere, but handsome ones had territories to inspect. Su Nian climbed to the top of the Dragon's Nest and looked out over his domain. Every monster was already running laps under Grey Wolf's supervision, their heavy footfalls kicking up dust across the valley floor. He watched them wheeze and pant through their circuits. A slow grin spread across his ferocious maw. He breathed out two lazy smoke rings.

It felt exactly like watching a senior student oversee freshman military training. Half an hour later, all five thousand-plus beasts had assembled in neat formation below the Dragon's Nest. Grey Wolf marched to the front, spine straight, chest out. He snapped a sharp salute with one wolf paw, then roared in Gnoll:"Report, Boss! Total strength: 5, 789 beasts. Present: 5, 787 beasts. Two beasts absent, awaiting instructions!"

"What happened to those two?" Su Nian tilted his head, curious.

"Report, Boss! The two absentees are Elite Gnolls Banana Wolf and Melon Wolf! Yesterday they went to collect Tyrant Stink Bug feces! They vomited themselves into exhaustion and still cannot get out of bed!"

"I see." Su Nian's expression went serious.

"They were contributing to the organization. Let them rest, and make sure they're fed properly. Don't shortchange them." He flexed his claws and spread his wings wide, letting the full silhouette of him fill the sky above the formation. His gaze moved slowly over the upturned faces below, beasts standing tall, muscles visibly thicker than they'd been months ago.

"I see your growth," he said.

"Every one of you has come a long way from what you were. I'm proud of that." Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. He let the words sit for a moment.

"Don't betray your own effort. Train hard. Hold yourselves to a high standard. When the time comes to face our enemies, that is what gives us the right to make demands of them."

"That's all. Everyone return to your training positions. Bolikri and Grey Wolf, stay. The rest of you — dismissed!" The beasts answered with a collective roar and broke formation, thundering back toward their training grounds with genuine enthusiasm. Life had gotten better for the creatures at the bottom of the food chain, the Blaze Rabbits, the Snake-Chickens, the Spear Pigs.

There was more training now, yes, but they ate well, slept warm, and most importantly, no predator was going to come out of nowhere and kill them for a meal. That alone was worth more than they could say. Military structure plus a steady stream of Su Nian's ideas had done the rest. He was the one who brought stability. He was the one who brought strength. Their loyalty had grown in step with those things, and the problem of potential rebellion had quietly ceased to be a problem at all.

Given enough time, even without the dragon vein's influence, these monsters would start to resemble their master.

"Grey Wolf. Bolikri." Su Nian looked at his two highest-ranking followers.

"I kept you here to talk about the territory." These two had the deepest loyalty of anyone under him. Bolikri sat at 95. Grey Wolf had reached 93. Something in Su Nian's conduct had earned it, not gifts or obvious favors, just the slow accumulation of actions that made sense to them. Their numbers had crept up on their own.

"Grey Wolf. What do you think we're missing most right now?" Grey Wolf paused. He turned it over for a long moment, choosing his words carefully.

"Master. We, meat, not enough. And territory, also not safe. Those humans, might come back anytime."

"Exactly." Su Nian nodded.

"I gave the weaker monsters stability. But for you — for the ones who eat meat — that hasn't helped much. If anything, you have less to hunt than before." He let that acknowledgment land before continuing.

"Simply going out and killing wild animals isn't enough anymore. We need a plan. Managed hunting, and beyond that — domestication. Raising animals ourselves. I call these things animal husbandry and agriculture." Grey Wolf and Bolikri looked at each other.

"Agriculture?" Grey Wolf said.

"Animal... husbandry?" Bolikri tried. Both of them looked thoroughly lost. The words meant nothing to them. Su Nian nodded, pleased by the blankness on their faces. It meant they were ready to learn something.

"The Silvermoon Forest is enormous. Full of resources. Right now, your whole existence is hunt when hungry, dig for roots when you can't hunt. Reactive. Wasteful." He let that picture settle.

"But what if you drove your prey into one place and kept them there? Fed them, managed them, took from them when you needed to? Same with edible plants, grow them in a fixed field, tend them, harvest when the time is right. Everything on hand. Everything available." He watched the idea find purchase. Both of them were tribal leaders. Neither was stupid. They followed the logic, built the picture in their heads, food when you wanted it, as much as you needed, always within reach. Take and go. Endless.

Their eyes lit up. They stared at the massive black dragon before them with something close to reverence. The idea wasn't even complicated. That was the part that struck them. It wasn't complicated at all, and yet it had never once occurred to either of them. Their master had produced it like it was nothing.

"Oh, great master!" Bolikri dropped flat on the ground, tail thrashing wildly.

"Your wisdom runs deeper than the ocean! Wider than the starry sky! If anyone dares to question this, I will take my sharpest, rustiest fork and stab him in the backside!" He meant every word. And if the Black Dragon had let him, he would have crawled over right now to lick his master's toes. He'd tried that once. He'd nearly been kicked to death for it. He had not tried again. Grey Wolf didn't have Bolikri's flair for flattery, but the gleam in his wolf eyes said everything the same.

"Good. Then tell me." Su Nian's tone sharpened back into business.

"Based on what we have here, what creatures in the Silvermoon Forest could work as the foundation for animal husbandry? And agriculture?"

"Master." Grey Wolf didn't hesitate.

"We, often, hunt, mountain goats. Tasty!" He would know. His tribe had ranged the deep forest long enough to map every good hunting ground in it.

"Mountain goats." Su Nian's eyes lit up. He knew the creature. Stocky things with stony horns growing from their skulls, built for terrain more than combat. Nothing like Blaze Rabbits. No breath weapon, no aggression to speak of, they spent their days grazing and nothing else. When threatened, they retreated to cliff faces, where their hard rocky horns served no purpose whatsoever and their real gift showed: they moved across sheer rock like it was flat ground. The Silvermoon Forest had no serious flying predators.

That was the only reason the species hadn't been eaten into extinction. Well. There was one now. But that was a different matter.

"Grey Wolf, well done. That's a genuinely good suggestion."

"Mountain goats breed fast and aren't hard to keep. Their wool becomes winter clothing. Their milk becomes food. Their horns and bones become weapons. And their..." Su Nian trailed off meaningfully.

"In short. Perfect foundation animals." He dropped down from the Dragon's Nest and landed beside Grey Wolf. The Gnoll stiffened, not in fear, but in the barely-contained excitement of someone who couldn't believe what was happening. Su Nian laid one claw on Grey Wolf's shoulder, raised the other, and pressed a single talon gently to the center of the Gnoll's forehead. A drop of heart's blood. Precious. Pure. A reward. It wasn't something he could give freely.

Heart's blood regenerated, but losing too much too fast would leave him compromised. He was measured about it. Bolikri watched this and nearly lost his mind with envy. He scrambled forward on hands and knees to the Black Dragon's feet, tail going berserk, and blurted:"Great master! I know a plant! Earth-yellow, grows in lumps, looks a bit like a tumor, but the taste is incredible! Fills you up for hours! I believe it could serve as the cornerstone for our agricultural development!" ➤ Next: Flame Arrow Tower