Under the Red Dragon

“One, two, three, heave!”

A high elf druid shouted, communicating with the War Treants through natural magic, directing several War Treants to move the boulders from the ruins.

Thump, thump, thump.

One after another, War Treants either individually lifted stones or jointly hoisted massive boulders, moving through the ruins, diligently clearing this vast architectural site.

Many War Treants also extended their branches, carrying giant baskets woven from tough, thick vines by many elves. Elven warriors filled the baskets with rubble from the ground, which the War Treants then carried to the forest for disposal.

After incorporating most of the elven tribes in the plane, Caron dispatched some elf druids proficient in natural magic to assist mages in clearing and exploring this ancient magical site.

Among most races in the world, those who gain the allegiance of War Treants treat them as honored guests, relying on them as guardians of their territory and war weapons in large-scale battles.

But in Caron's eyes, these War Treants were more suitable as laborers.

These Treants were tireless and uncomplaining, only needing to replenish their magical energy and life force to work all day long, making them invaluable plant-based laborers.

In addition, many War Treants and other elves migrated to the dragon's territory in the main plane of Aikania.

These War Treants would also undertake the heavy task of building Caron's massive dragon fortress. Although these Treants were not very agile, they were better than any beast race for moving heavy objects.

The other members of the dragon clan personally escorted the treasures and elven tribes plundered from this world back to the world of Aikania.

During this journey, the dragon clan's harvest was incredibly rich. The fruits harvested from the Tree of Life alone exceeded twenty, each fruit capable of extending lifespan by no less than two hundred years.

This was the result of countless years of nurturing by the Tree of Life growing in the Green Wilds plane, with the dragon clan becoming the victorious beneficiaries of the fruits.

This alone was a massive fortune. To prevent accidents, Caron even personally escorted the Fruits of Life with the dragon clan, placing them in the deepest part of the dragon clan's treasury.

The young red dragon Cadilos has now become the guardian of the dragon clan's treasury, chained to the treasury gate with iron chains forged from divine iron nurtured for thousands of years in the depths of the volcano. No one but Caron himself dared to approach the treasury gate.

To protect these important treasures, Caron renovated the dragon clan's treasury, setting up countless trap spells and warning magics inside.

If the dragon clan didn't distrust the mages like Hughes, these mages would have even wanted to join forces to set up a super-large magic barrier for the dragon's treasury.

Because these mages were also given two Fruits of Life. Although the original agreement between the mages and the dragons was that the mages only required ownership of the ancient magic empire's property, while the development rights of the plane belonged to the dragon clan.

But Caron knew that the subsequent direction of the cooperative relationship between the two parties still depended on their cooperative attitude. Those who hoarded everything for themselves would never have a good ending.

He was not one of those dragon natives blinded by greed, so he was quite generous in sharing some of the spoils with the mages.

In addition, there were piles of Life Tree branches, all of which were tender branches of the Tree of Life, richest in natural power and life force.

Caron would not leave these Life Tree branches in the treasury to gather dust. The dragon clan's territory was now recruiting mages skilled in making magic weapons and alchemical weapons to turn these Life Tree branches into staffs and some unique magical items.

A portion would be sent to the newly opened auction house in the dragon clan's territory to add luster to the first auction.

The dragon auction house was a very important part of the territory's economic plan and cultural promotion, and it was also a point that could demonstrate the dragon clan's credibility.

For this reason, Fafner, the territory's chief executive, under the guidance of newly recruited human scholars, had sent invitation letters and gifts to the leaders of major merchant guilds active in the Northern Continent and many nobles who remained neutral or friendly to the dragons, and even the nobles of the Orc Kingdom received this gift.

As for forces with unclear attitudes, Fafner, after careful consideration, also sent invitation letters and gifts.

Only some forces that clearly expressed malice towards the dragons, Fafner, although she did not send invitation letters, also spread the news through the channels of the dragon merchant guilds, letting them know this information.

At the suggestion of the scholars, this clever chief executive was trying to improve the relationship between the dragon clan and other forces. After contact, perhaps the stereotypes in their minds would be broken, thereby changing the relationship between the two parties.

But in any case, this was also a fact that the dragon territory needed to face.

This also meant that the dragon territory would begin to step onto the stage of the entire world as a new political force of order.

The image displayed by the dragon territory to the outside world was an open image of compatibility and inclusion, coexistence of various races, which was different from the closed-door and self-contained image of ordinary dragon monster kingdoms.

This was also a kind of momentum propaganda, to create influence for the dragon's formal establishment of a kingdom. Although it would take a long time to establish a kingdom, it was necessary to gradually establish this impression and plan for this goal.

Caron knew the principle of accumulating food widely and slowly claiming kingship, but many things were not justified if the name was not correct. Even some recruited scholars and talents were unwilling to come because they heard that the dragon territory was only a small-scale lord's governance.

Obviously, some places in the dragon territory were not attractive enough to these people, such as the not-yet-clearly established official system and corresponding powers.

However, as long as the kingdom was formally established, all this would be solved easily, and the deadline Caron set for this time was after passing the next stage of sleep. His territory still had a considerable amount of time to develop.

However, as long as he embarked on the orthodox path, Caron and the dragon clan would be regarded as a part of the order, and the worries about the gaze from the gods would become easier.

As long as he was in order, then the gods would return to the gods, and mortals would return to mortals. As for the war between countries, or the war between agents, the dragons were not afraid.

Moreover, thanks to the location of the dragon clan's territory, if they wanted to attack the dragon clan's territory, they could only transport troops by ship through the boundless ocean, which was completely unnecessary to worry about for a territory with dragons.

For this reason, the dragon territory was now even busier. For the exhibition at that time, the repaired warriors were also reorganized and became a fully staffed army.

They would then be displayed as the dragon kingdom's military power, proving that the dragon kingdom had the strength and confidence to establish a country.

Caron naturally taught the method of military discipline training to the military leaders who trained the warriors. Although these fancy methods could not improve combat effectiveness.

But to a certain extent, it could improve discipline and cohesion, making these warriors more likely to obey the orders of their superiors on the battlefield.

Most importantly, the queue trained by this method looked good, which was enough for the dragons.

“Attention, at ease, look to the left,” the barbarian leader, now the commander of the Berserker Regiment, Jib shouted loudly, personally teaching the warriors who had been selected to serve as regimental officers in front of him, and then these regimental officers personally trained the warriors under their command.

Pa, some of the warriors looked to the left, some looked to the right, and two unlucky guys had heads that were too protruding and bumped into each other.

“Damn it, you bunch of idiots, you only know how to cause me trouble all day long, you can't even tell the most basic left and right,” Jib roared angrily, cursing, and kicked the two unlucky guys down.

“Look carefully, this is the right side, this is the left side,” Jib stretched out his hand to signal.

“Chief… Commander,” a human warrior said with a flushed face, stammering: “You pointed the direction in reverse.”

Jib was furious again, he shouted at the top of his voice: “I know, I did it on purpose, just to make you deepen your impression, you all remember it for me, if you can't even tell such a simple direction, go back to being ordinary warriors!”

With monster race warriors occupying the majority of the number of regimental warriors, Caron chose the simplest and most popular military system.

Warriors are in teams of ten, and the team leader can be called the captain, or the decurion.

Ten teams, a total of one hundred warriors, are a company, and the company leader can be called the company commander, or the centurion.

Ten companies, a total of one thousand warriors, are a battle group, and the battle group leader can be called the commander, or the chiliarch.

Ten battle groups, a total of ten thousand warriors, are a complete army, and the commander of the army can be called the army commander, or the myriarch.

However, the dragon territory's army warriors, aside from the kobold soldiers whose combat effectiveness can be temporarily ignored, have not exceeded one army even with full calculation.

Among them, the centaur cavalry led by the dragon-born centaur warrior Chiron has also expanded to five hundred warriors, although they are all built as heavy cavalry clad in heavy armor, their combat effectiveness is far more than the scale of a five hundred-man regiment.

The gnoll leader Yugu and the centaur Chiron are both serving as battle group commanders, but Yugu is a legitimate battle group commander, and the gnoll warriors under his command have been completely filled.

The personnel distribution of the barbarian Jib's battle group is much more complicated. Not only are there many barbarian warriors, but also some elf warriors and human warriors, as well as some alien warriors such as trolls, ogres, and hobgoblins, which makes up a whole battle group.

There is also the commander of the Imperial Guard, the dragon-born werewolf Saha. Although he also serves as the battle group commander, there are only more than three hundred Imperial Guard warriors under his command, but they are also the most combat-effective warriors in the entire dragon territory.

Although these warriors do not seem to be large in number, they are all elites who have experienced battles. With the equipment of sophisticated weapons and armor, these warriors are enough to show the dragon territory's military power.

Moreover, as professional warriors, they must be completely out of production.

Although the dragon territory is currently self-sufficient in food, it still needs time to develop and cannot support more out-of-production warriors.

In addition to these officially out-of-production battle group warriors, the dragon territory has a large number of dependent auxiliary soldiers and guards, and these auxiliary soldiers and guards used for the territory's daily security and management of logistics will also undergo reorganization and gradually become regularized.

There are also some druids, mages, and priests who are good at healing magic and divine arts who are incorporated into the army as healing groups, but most of them are pharmacists and mortal doctors who are good at potions and conventional treatment methods.

Not only are the people in the dragon territory busy, but those who do not belong to the dragon territory are also busy.

Although the official auction time set for the dragon auction is one year later, the letters sent by the giant demon Fafner have been placed on the desks of various targets through the channels of merchant groups and the transmission channels of ravens and magical communications.

This is the time left for those who have received the invitation letters to react. Caron does not know what kind of reactions and choices those people will make.

But facing the many treasures thrown out by the dragon auction house in order to open up the situation and reputation, I believe few people will be able to refuse this invitation.

For the thing of reputation, Caron gradually realized some of the mysteries behind it. Some powerful existences are keen to make their names known in the endless planes and astral world, and go from fooling the guys under their feet to praise and worship, using this reputation to transform into primitive power.

Some sufficiently ancient existences even use this method to step into the realm of the gods. Although they are not faith gods, they are also quasi-divine power existences permeated with divine aura.

Although Caron does not know how to use this reputation to transform into primitive power, he has already noticed the existence of this method, which is also a topic he needs to explore and study in the future.

Just as Caron himself thought, he is a patient with a lack of firepower and fear. The more means he has, the more secure he feels.

Tap, tap, tap.

At the resident of the Holy Coin Merchant Group, hurried footsteps echoed in the magnificent halls. The interior, which was not much different in appearance from most of the buildings in the Golden City, was completely different.

Most of the buildings in the Golden City are tall and wide, and the interior likes to engrave various simple murals of insects and birds, which looks particularly simple and atmospheric. This is also the characteristic of emerging cities, abandoning useless decorations and only seeking practicality and simplicity, and using all their strength for development.

However, the interior buildings of the Holy Coin Merchant Group's resident are covered with the most luxurious decorations everywhere. Whether it is the ceiling, walls, floor, or even many pillars, they are covered with golden paint oil.

The interior decorations are mainly in the exquisite and complex, brightly colored Baroque style, and try to match the decoration theme with various precious metals and gems as much as possible.

If the dragons saw this luxurious scene, they would probably immediately have the idea of ​​robbing and occupying it.

But this merchant group dared to build such a venue in the dragon territory.

The leader of the Holy Coin Merchant Group is a gorgeously dressed middle-aged man, but the middle-aged leader who is in charge of the entire merchant group's power is now standing respectfully aside, handing an invitation letter and envelope to the young man sitting in the main seat of the hall.

“Your Excellency Sart, I heard that you are coming here today, and I rushed back to present this good news to you.”

The gorgeously dressed middle-aged man said with a respectful expression.

The young man named Sart sitting in the main seat of the hall has a beautiful appearance. His sea-blue eyes are as deep as the sea. He is wearing a silk shirt, leather sleeves and short boots, and a gilded crown inlaid with gems on his head.

Sart stretched out his right hand wearing white gloves, took the invitation letter and envelope, and began to read.

However, the treasures listed in the Dragon Auction House's letter to attract customers did not stir him, because the Fruit of the Tree of Life was not among them.

But it also shows the high standards of this young man, as even the other treasures are rare and precious in the world.

"The Dragon Territory has finally decided to show itself to the outside world," Sartre said after a long silence. "Given the development of the Dragon Territory, this place will eventually be a prosperous country, and its wealthy population will attract the covetous eyes of the Churches of the Gods."

"But I didn't expect these dragons to embrace order so early, which will open a door for those churches. So what's the price? Is it to make all the Churches of the Gods wanting to reside in the Dragon Territory recognize the legitimacy of their rule?"

"Well, I like these dragons. Order always makes wealth easier to circulate and creates more wealth!" Sartre said with a smile in a low voice.

The middle-aged leader of the Saint Coin Merchant Guild silently wiped the sweat from his forehead. He only received this news because of the many treasures at the auction and hadn't thought about anything else.

But the person in front of him thought of deeper levels through a simple matter. This ability made the middle-aged man sigh, 'Fortunately, I'm just a glove for those clerics. If I were a cleric myself, I would have been eaten clean long ago.'

In fact, Sartre was just overthinking things. Although Calron intends to introduce one or two relatively harmless churches in the future, it won't be now, but after unifying and consolidating the ideology within the territory.

At that time, Calron can open one or two doors and allow some churches with good relations with him to reside in the territory. However, whether they can harvest the power of faith from the Dragon Territory depends on their ability.

"Lord Sartre has great foresight. I didn't think of that at all," the middle-aged man flattered diligently and skillfully.

Sartre nodded, generously accepting his subordinate's praise. He smiled and said, "It doesn't matter. Anyway, we have no other purpose, just to make these people rich through transactions, bring them happiness, and incidentally offer some faith to the goddess."

"Hey, do you think someone as noble as me will definitely be able to open up new missionary areas and be promoted to a higher level!"

Sartre smiled, and his hands in white gloves clapped gently.

Clap.

The thin but sturdy invitation was thrown against the wall, the great force causing the entire invitation to stick completely to the castle wall.

"These dragons, damned ten thousand times over, actually sent me an invitation. Are they mocking me?" Charal Caesar, who was originally calm, instantly had his eyes stained with a strange ghostly green.

Realizing that his emotions were not right, he immediately stopped and took a deep breath, "However, the Fountain of Life, that kind of thing is a bit helpful to me. Hehe, the Golden Land, it's worth sending someone over to take a look."

Most of the people who received the dragon's invitation showed a certain interest. In their view, the Dragon Territory, far away from many civilizations, was not threatening. On the contrary, it could establish a certain degree of mutually beneficial relationship with them, if the dragons were really as rumored.

Profit first, no matter in which world, is always the case, even among the gods.

There were also some well-informed Five-Colored Dragons who were very interested in this news. In the view of these Five-Colored Dragons, they couldn't avoid those hateful humans and other races fast enough. Why was this dragon group so keen on establishing contact with these civilizations?

This is a truth that these Five-Colored Dragons can never understand. An isolated civilization is a civilization with no way out. Closing the country to international intercourse is a dead end.

……

Calron's body was already extremely huge, and standing upright was like a red castle, but compared to the corpse of the adult green dragon lying on the ground, some differences could still be seen.

This adult green dragon's body had exceeded twenty meters, and there were only two wounds on its body. One was in the heart, pierced as if by a condensed laser, creating a hole that went through the entire heart.

The other was on the head. The dragon horns on the adult green dragon's head, like a crown, were snapped off by brute force, as if during the battle, an opponent with great strength held down the head, snapped off the horns, and then a fatal attack easily and simply solved this adult green dragon.

Even after dying for countless years, the corpse of this huge green dragon had not rotted, but the body had become shriveled, as if all the moisture and blood had been lost from the body.

The corpse of this huge green dragon was found by the mages in front of the only complete building in the center of the ruins. Thanks to this discovery, the exploration team had been very careful.

Until the entire ruins were cleared, this complete mage tower, mostly submerged in the soil, with only two floors exposed, was finally completely revealed in front of everyone.

During the clearing of the ruins by the War Ancient Tree, no danger was discovered, and from the direction of the traces of this green dragon's corpse, it was likely that this green dragon, after suffering a fatal injury, barely managed to escape from the mage tower, and then finally couldn't hold on and fell to its death.

Then the danger comes from inside the mage tower.

This is normal. A mage's mage tower is equivalent to a mage's war fortress, and it is not surprising how terrifying the internal means are.

So they can only gradually try and explore.

These elves already belong to the dragon group, so Calron can't just send these elves into the mage tower to take risks for no reason. This is equivalent to punishing without guilt, which is a taboo for a ruler.

He is a dictatorial ruler, but he is not a tyrant, at least not when facing his own subjects.

So these mages can only carefully study the ancient knowledge left behind and use various magic to test, hoping to find a safe way to explore the ruins.

While those mages were studying the ruins, Calron was studying what value the corpse of the adult green dragon in front of him had.

He wouldn't think that this was a blasphemous act just because he was a dragon, and this green dragon had nothing to do with him, so he only had the idea of making the best use of everything.

However, this green dragon has been dead for countless years, and the magic power on its body has dried up. The reason why it can remain unrotten is partly due to the special nature of the dragon's body and partly because of the life-filled Green Field Forest plane.

Even the scales on its body cannot be used to forge armor. It has lost the dragon scales' strong defensive ability, and its bloodline is dry, so it cannot be moved into the laboratory as a research sample.

And Calron plans to take the corpse of this green dragon back to the territory and bury it in the mountain where the Dragon Sanctuary stands, the place designated as the Heroic Spirit Cemetery, but he feels that this green dragon is not qualified.

In the end, he decided to drag the corpse of this green dragon to the depths of the forest and bury it, which can be regarded as the green dragon's bones being able to rest.

But when Calron buried the green dragon's corpse, a thick fog filled the forest again. The strange creature that had appeared in the mist before, the creature like a shriveled giraffe, appeared in front of Calron.

This time, this strange creature did not ignore Calron's existence as before. This strange creature took the initiative to speak.

Its voice sounded to Calron as if it was communicating directly through the spirit and soul, rather than the vibration of the physical throat organs.

"Red Dragon, be careful, the soul is the bottom line that the gods cannot touch. Although the eyes of many gods have been drawn to the edge of the world, there will always be a day when those high-ranking gods will get a chance to catch their breath and cast their eyes on you!"

Although this strange life was warning Calron, it was more of expressing a kind of friendly reminder.

"I have walked in the main plane for countless years, and the dragons I have seen are all the same, greedy, boring, and stupid. You are different, Calron, I like you very much, so you must not make mistakes."

"Release those imprisoned souls. As for those souls that become your believers, you can keep them. This is a right that even the gods cannot take away."

Calron felt the kindness of the creature in front of him. He nodded politely and said, "Thank you for your kind reminder, mysterious and kind existence. May I know your name, which is noble because of your character."

"Katos," the strange creature also nodded. Although it looked ugly, it was so beautiful in Calron's eyes. It said, "I am the messenger sent by Beast Township, walking in the material world. Calron, from the moment you imprisoned the soul of that Titan Python, I have noticed you,"

"But you are still wise and restrained. Although you have the ability to retain souls, you have never practiced this behavior. Otherwise, I would have to fight you!"

Calron listened and secretly raised his vigilance. It was indeed the right choice not to rashly keep souls in the first place. In this world, you still need to be cautious at all times.

"Thank you for your reminder, Katos. May I ask, what are the gods being drawn to? As far as I know, many gods have not responded to their believers and church officials for a long time," Calron's curiosity prompted him to ask his question.

"Many people even speculate that those gods have fallen into some unsolvable trouble. If the clerics' divine arts were not still useful, they would probably think" Calron stopped talking and didn't say everything.

But the strange creature Katos obviously understood what Calron meant. It looked back at the sky of this world, hesitant to speak.

In the end, Katos hesitated for a long time, and then shook his head, "I don't know, after all, that is something that belongs to the great existence of gods. However, I know that those gods were involved because of the chaos created by the ancient magical empire, to this day,"

The fog gradually faded, and Katos's figure also slowly faded, leaving only its last words: "Be careful, Calron, don't get too close to those crazy mages. The trouble they cause is bigger than you think!"

Thanks to Le Zhengmo's reward and the votes of all the readers!