As soon as these words were spoken, a peculiar kingdom sprang to mind for the three scholars. The template was easy enough to apply; human kingdoms were a ready-made example.
However, in their fantasy world, the citizens of this kingdom were all manner of wyverns, and this Glavenus sat upon the throne, a crown resting atop his head.
Scholars, after all, never lacked for imagination.
"Just picture it: a kingdom composed entirely of various monsters. A monster like a Rathalos could be the captain of the royal guard... Hmm, and there would have to be a blonde Glavenus princess, very willful, always issuing all sorts of inexplicable quests..."
"Hey, hey, hey!! Voll! Stop it! Your fantasy is getting a little too specific!!"
Things fell into a panic for a moment. Bent and the other scholar hurriedly covered their companion's mouth. Keywords like "willful princess" were a topic strictly off-limits, whether in the Kingdom or the Guild.
Cough, cough!
"Ah, look quickly! That strike by the Glavenus was excellent."
"Mm-hm, yes, yes, truly excellent."
After muddling through the awkwardness, the three resumed recording in their notebooks. Even though they could only observe from a distance, the scholars still wanted to gather as much intelligence on this Glavenus as possible.
"Wait, have you guys noticed a problem?" Bent suddenly asked. "Think back to when we first tried to explore the Wildspire Waste, and during this recent period... have we ever seen any dung left behind by the Glavenus?"
The scholars looked at each other in dismay.
"Uh, he's so intelligent, maybe he found a specific spot for a latrine?" Voll guessed, but before Bent could answer, he dismissed the conjecture himself.
Another unsolved mystery added to the pile.
Asterion had actually noticed the scholars' presence as well. After all, these guys came by practically every day; even if he hadn't spotted them at first, he certainly had by now.
As long as these scholars didn't come up to his face to annoy a dragon, or attempt to capture him for research, Asterion wouldn't mind them.
Observe away, go ahead and observe. Asterion believed his evolution speed would be faster than the scholars could imagine. It would only take one opportunity for everything they had previously observed to become obsolete and worthless—perhaps by the time the Sapphire Star arrived in forty years, the appearance of a Glavenus would no longer be discernible on Asterion at all.
Another sunset. This time, however, the heavy-breathing Asterion did not leave immediately. Instead, he turned around and fixed his gaze on the Huntsman.
"Roar." (I am leaving.)
"Roar, roar, roar." (Thank you for your help during this time.)
Watching Asterion roaring at him repeatedly, the Huntsman didn't feel any nervousness—he simply didn't understand.
He couldn't see the face beneath the Huntsman's helmet, but Asterion could guess that it was likely written with confusion right now.
The experience of this period had been nothing short of miraculous for Asterion. Originally, he had no intention of making contact with hunters; he only thought to watch them from afar and steal their techniques, just like before.
He hadn't expected these hunters to have guts big enough to shock a dragon. Even after realizing Asterion's presence, they didn't deliberately avoid him or flee. Instead, they bravely approached him, and the Huntsman had selflessly imparted his swordsmanship.
"Roar, roar! Roar!" (Take this. Starting tomorrow, I won't be coming back.)
Asterion didn't want to owe the hunter anything; being mutually debt-free was the best state.
He turned his body sideways, consciously controlling his armored air sacs to release the gas within, then clamped his teeth onto two layers of shell—forcefully tearing a piece off.
With Asterion's current size, a single piece of his shell was about the size of a hunter's head. So, after sizing up the Huntsman, Asterion tore off six more pieces of shell and tossed them all in front of him.
It hurt, naturally, but for Asterion, this bit of pain was nothing.
"This is... for me?" The Huntsman paused, stunned.
"Roar!"
With one last roar, intending to say nothing more, Asterion turned and left the hillside without looking back.
Gazing at Asterion's retreating figure, the Huntsman picked up the shells from the ground. After shaking his head, he walked toward the base. He hadn't gone far when he saw the scholars running down from the cliff, alerted by the commotion.
"What happened?!" Bent asked anxiously. "Is this the Glavenus's shell? Why did it suddenly give you these?"
"I suspect he won't be coming back," the Huntsman said in a deep voice, handing the shells to the scholars who were already dying of curiosity. "As for these shells, they are likely the payment he gave me."
"Huh?!"
From the Huntsman, Asterion had already obtained what he wanted.
The techniques hunters used with the Long Sword, how to systematically practice swordsmanship, and what direction to improve in the future...
There wasn't much more the Huntsman could help Asterion with. After all, when it came down to it, the Huntsman was just a human using his hands to display swordsmanship. He didn't have the body of a Glavenus, nor did he know how a Glavenus felt.
So, in the end, Asterion had to figure it out himself—but unlike before, this time he wasn't pondering blindly. He had the hunters' experience as a reference.
Asterion believed he wasn't incapable of infusing his weapon with energy to "level up his blade" like a hunter. In fact, during previous practices, he had already felt the sensation of mobilizing the life energy within his body several times.
It flowed with the movement of his muscles; power accumulated within his body and transferred.
It was just that every time, something seemed slightly off. It wasn't smooth enough, not unobstructed enough. It felt rather like hitting a wall—yet the wall wasn't hard enough to be impenetrable. It seemed as if just a little more force could break through, but no matter how he adjusted his posture, it didn't feel right.
This feeling was somewhat tormenting for a dragon, but Asterion didn't have a good solution.
Perhaps... he needed a battle?
A spark of inspiration.
Asterion made a decision that went against the ancestors of all Glavenus.
After such a long time, he finally began to reforge his severed tail. However, unlike when he first forged his sword-tail, this time Asterion only hastily reforged it using Iron Ore and Machalite Ore—simply put, he didn't use high-quality materials.
This was a decision no other Glavenus would make, solely because Asterion had a new evolutionary plan for his sword-tail.
He was about to begin hunting for new evolutionary information. Before the tail's evolution was complete, this sword-tail only needed to serve the most basic functions.
Intact, big enough, heavy enough, sharp enough. That was all.
If the New World were viewed as a single living organism, then the Rotten Vale would be its excretory system. Hmm, or perhaps its lowest-lying organ?
Located at the bottom of the entire New World, it was filled with the corpses of all kinds of monsters. Many Elder Dragons would even enter here to wait for death when their lifespans neared their end, and the life energy within them would flow out after their death, merging into nature.
In a sense, the Rotten Vale was the endpoint of the New World's natural cycle. It held the essence left behind by massive numbers of dead wyverns, and even the skeletal remains of top-tier Elder Dragons like the Dalamadur.
Rocks left by dead Elder Dragons, ores, countless bones... and the life energy re-entering the cycle would flow from here into the veins of the earth, nurturing the entire New World via the flow of the Everstream.
Although filled with poisonous gas and rotting flesh—where ordinary life would die just by breathing the air—the importance of the Rotten Vale was undeniable.
This was the root of the New World.
Having spent several months traveling north from the flower field swamp area in the south of the Wildspire Waste, Asterion finally arrived at a canyon that sloped continuously downward like the maw of an abyss. This was the outer layer of the Rotten Vale.
It truly was like an abyss. The air was permeated with visible yellow-green effluvium, and even the stone walls on both sides had become slimy. As for the nauseating stench, it went without saying; microbial decomposition of corpses naturally didn't produce any pleasant fragrances.
And now, Asterion had entered this canyon. He opened his mouth wide and took a deep breath—shockingly enough, he didn't feel much of a stink.
To be honest, it was a bit sweet and sour.
At least, for Asterion's palate.
What surprised Asterion was that inhaling the effluvium gave him the sensation of digesting something. Although it was digested in an instant, it was subtle but perceptible.
As long as he didn't get poisoned and collapse, it was fine.
The Rotten Vale was a vast area, far larger than the map in the game. At the canyon entrance, Asterion found traces left by a Kushala Daora—probably that old Kushala Daora.
He had no interest in following the tracks to pick a fight. Asterion hadn't come here to chop the old Kushala Daora to death, and before his new evolution was complete, he didn't have the ability to kill it anyway. Fighting now would result in an outcome not much different from the battle half a year ago.
He was here to find the ecological apex of the Rotten Vale.
The Odogaron.
Cough, cough. Although the Odogaron gets treated like a chew toy by top-tier predators like Deviljho, and acts chummy with the Fanged Wyvern Great Jagras, it actually holds quite a bit of status in the Rotten Vale. It is one of the few monsters that dares to challenge Elder Dragons.
Even if the Elder Dragon it challenges is the Vaal Hazak, a bottom-tier scavenger Elder Dragon... er, and then it gets kicked away by Vaal Hazak's effluvium blast.
But at least it challenges them. If it were the Great Jagras, a fellow Fanged Wyvern, it wouldn't even dare to try.
(Now we know who's on top, eh?)
It is extremely aggressive, with a frantic fighting style like a rabid dog, throwing chaotic punches that can overwhelm a master. When lacking food, it even travels to the Coral Highlands to hunt, fighting to a draw with the local apex, Legiana. And when a Tigrex invades the Rotten Vale, it dares to clash with the Tigrex head-on.
Nicknamed the Honey Badger! Life and death are trivial; if you're not convinced, let's fight!
Whether it can win is irrelevant; let's fight first!
Right now, Asterion needed such an idealistic, motivated, and ambitious Honey Badger—no, Odogaron. If he could encounter an Ebony Odogaron, that would be even better.
As a subspecies of the Odogaron, the Ebony Odogaron was a comprehensive upgrade, mastering the noble Dragon Element energy. It would certainly be more valuable to eat.
Encountering one would be best, but it didn't matter if he didn't.
According to the evolutionary blueprint Asterion planned for himself, he only needed the Odogaron's muscles.
Coming to the Rotten Vale for the first time, Asterion didn't have a map or anything. He could only wander around based on luck, hoping to run into an Odogaron.
It had to be said that although the Rotten Vale looked like a rotting mess dedicated to Nurgle, with rotting, purulent strips of meat occasionally hanging from the ground and stone walls, it possessed a strange vitality—there were quite a few lifeforms living in this environment.
Densely packed small insects, you know, flies and maggots and such—no need to elaborate on those. There were also many beetles Asterion couldn't recognize crawling out of corners from time to time.
Dragon corpses weren't spread all over the interior of the Rotten Vale as Asterion had expected before entering. He didn't have to step on a "creep tumor" carpet with every step. At least on the path Asterion walked, he only occasionally saw rotting wyvern corpses in cave corners or on the walls.
There were mostly skeletons stripped of flesh. In this unique environment, they hadn't dried out but remained wet and slick.
Asterion even tried to find the Rotten Vale's landmark, the skeleton of the Dalamadur, but unfortunately failed. The journey was just cave after cave, with densely packed openings leading in different directions to who knew where.
Sunlight was impossible here. Illumination relied entirely on bioluminescent fungal colonies or moss. The air was filled with turbid effluvium, lowering visibility. Normal surface creatures couldn't survive in this environment at all.
Asterion also encountered a local wyvern, the Great Girros. Although it was a Fanged Wyvern like the Odogaron, the Great Girros's combat power was far inferior. Trailing a pack of minions behind it, it fled as soon as it saw Asterion from a distance.
He was somewhat dizzy from the endless succession of caves. If not for the marks he left on the stone walls along the way, Asterion really doubted he would be able to find the way back to the surface.
Two days!
Asterion had been searching this area of the Rotten Vale for two whole days!
No one knew how he had survived these two days!
If he hadn't been lucky enough to run into the local wyvern brothers again, he might have started considering gnawing on that rotting meat.
Yes, Asterion's stomach could handle it without issues, but it was psychologically disgusting! And the texture was bad!
For scavengers, this place was paradise, but for Asterion, it wasn't paradise in the slightest.
As for the fate of the local wyvern brothers... don't ask.
Fortunately, around dawn on the third day, just as Asterion found a barely clean spot to lie down and sleep, he suddenly heard a shrill howl. The howl was exceptionally piercing; even from such a distance, it was barely audible but distinct.
Was that an Odogaron's roar?!
Sleep vanished instantly. Asterion climbed straight up from the ground and tracked in the direction of the sound.
Odogaron, is it? I've finally caught you!
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