Chapter 10: The First Lair
On the fifteenth day of the Kobolds' huffing and puffing while mining, Livia finally made up her mind—she couldn't just keep making do by lying on random platforms. She wanted a proper, grand, Red Dragon-exclusive luxury mansion where she could live for a lifetime and that could defend against home-thieves.
Lying on that small platform by the crater, she spent a full hour seriously studying the inner walls. She recalled all the dragon novels, setting collections, and structural diagrams from her past life. While she didn't remember much else, the three iron laws of a Red Dragon's lair were etched into her DNA: it must be easy to defend and hard to attack, it must be close to a heat source, and it must have a back door for escaping.
After much picking and choosing, she finally locked onto a position twenty meters below the platform.
That section of the rock wall naturally curved inward, forming a massive semi-arc pit. It was about fifty meters from the lava lake, allowing the heat to lazily steam up—neither too hot nor too dry, with a comfortable temperature like constant-temperature underfloor heating. Even better, above the pit was a sheer, vertical cliff without a single crack for a foothold; there was absolutely no need to worry about reckless magical beasts falling from the sky to launch a sneak attack.
Livia nodded in satisfaction and flew down with a flap, landing on the edge of the pit.
Her claws stepped onto it; it was warm, solid, and just the right hardness—a good piece of rock suitable for renovation.
She took a deep breath, and the lava furnace in her chest started with a "hum."
In the next second, Dragon Breath billowed out.
It wasn't the compressed explosive fireballs used for fighting, but a continuous stream of fire—steady power, high temperature. When sprayed on the rock wall, it was like an industrial welding torch; the rock "sizzled" and melted into glowing, scalding liquid magma, flowing down along the textures.
Livia slowly shifted her head, using the tongue of flame to trace a neat outline of a doorway on the rock wall.
The magma flowed down along the lines, dripping to the ground where it cooled and solidified into a shiny black glassy shell, both hard and slippery.
She sprayed like this for a full hour, until she felt like the back of her throat was about to burn dry (if dragons even had such a thing). Finally, a large doorway ten meters high, eight meters wide, and five meters deep was hollowed out.
She crawled into the doorway to take a breather and peered inside—well, the back was all solid rock; she had to keep excavating.
For the next half month, Livia lived as a full-time renovation dragon.
Her daily schedule was frighteningly standard:
In the morning, she would first dive into the lava lake for a magma morning bath, filling the energy of her chest furnace to the brim;
Then she would fly back to the pit and give the rock wall a wild spraying session until her firepower hit rock bottom and her whole body went soft;
Next, she would sprawl on the ground to recover, and once full, she'd continue spraying;
The cycle repeated, and she never grew tired of it.
The group of Kobolds below climbed up every day to deliver ore, occasionally squatting at the edge of the platform to act as spectators.
The leader of the Kobolds was silently nicknamed "Kowt-Beetle" by Livia—after all, this fellow kowtowed every time he saw her, kowtowing loudly and seriously, more devout than anyone else.
Kowt-Beetle stared at Livia's fire-breathing excavation, his eyes fixed, babbling a stream of output from his mouth.
The system automatically translated:
[The Great lord of flames is creating a miracle! She is carving the mountain with Dragon Breath! She must be the Dragon God descended to earth!]
Livia didn't even lift an eyelid.
Miracle my foot, I'm just renovating.
By the tenth day of digging, the main hall of the lair was finally declared complete.
The main hall was a full three hundred square meters with a ceiling height of twenty meters. The floor had been repeatedly melted and leveled by Dragon Breath, making it smooth and hard enough to reflect light; the surrounding rock walls were similarly burned to be as dense as steel—windproof and leak-proof. In the very center, she deliberately left a thick natural rock pillar stretching from the floor to the ceiling, specifically for load-bearing to prevent collapse.
As for those crooked patterns on the rock pillar—don't misunderstand, they weren't some Dragon race artistic totems; it was simply that her claws were itchy after spraying for so long, so she carved them for fun.
With the main hall finished, next came the functional zoning. A dragon's luxury mansion must have everything it should have.
On the east side, she hollowed out a fifty-meter-long steep slope passage leading all the way to a fissure at the bottom of the lava lake. In the future, if she wanted to bathe or replenish energy, she wouldn't have to fly out the cave entrance and circle around; she could just stick her head into the fissure and gulp down magma directly, prioritizing convenience and speed.
On the west side, a second branch road was created, eighty meters long, with an exit hidden in an extremely inconspicuous pit on the outer wall of the crater. She even deliberately made the exit narrow and cramped, only allowing her—a single dragon—to enter or exit. If any pursuers dared to follow her through here, they could squeeze themselves into meat patties first.
On the north side was the third branch road—the ultimate escape secret passage.
One hundred and twenty meters long, it extended all the way down, leading directly to a natural underground lava river tunnel at the base of the volcano. She didn't dare explore too deep inside, but she wasn't panicked at all: as long as there was magma, a Red Dragon could swim sideways, more at ease than a fish in water. In a life-threatening moment, she could dive into the tunnel, and no one would be able to catch up.
With the hardware structure settled, Livia began working on the security system. After all, she was a Red Dragon; both face and substance were required.
The first killing move: Acid Trap.
The materials were the acid glands dismantled from the Magma Core Giant Scorpion she had hunted earlier. Each was as big as a watermelon and filled with highly corrosive acid that could "sizzle" holes into the ground. She carefully wedged the glands into rock crevices at the top of the main passage, supporting them with thin stone slabs, and then connected a fine vine to the corner.
If any blind creature barged in and stepped on the vine, the stone slabs would shatter, and the acid would pour over their head—there would be no "next"; they would simply dissolve into a puddle of water.
The second killing move: Illusion Rune.
This was something she had secretly copied from the ancient inscriptions on the ceiling of the Dragon Mother's lair. It belonged to a low-end version of Draconic illusion magic. Although she only knew how to write a few simple lines, it was perfectly enough to trick people.
She carved it in the most conspicuous place at the passage entrance, with content that was blunt and wicked: [Gold Mountain Ahead].
Any dim-witted creature that couldn't understand Draconic would, upon triggering the rune, immediately have their mind filled with hallucinations—gold coins everywhere, mountains of gems, and eye-blinding treasures. They would lose their sanity on the spot and charge forward wildly, only to step into thin air and fall straight into the lava lake for a free bath.
Livia squatted at the entrance and admired it for a long time, the more she looked, the more satisfied she became: perfect, sufficiently devious, sufficiently mean, sufficiently Red Dragon.
The final item: Exclusive Treasure Room.
She partitioned off an independent small cave of about fifty square meters at the deepest part of the main hall to serve as the stronghold for hiding treasures.
Standing in the center of the empty cave, she fished out that ruby she had pried off the Magma Core Giant Scorpion from between her scales and solemnly placed it on the stone platform in the very center.
A single, lonely ruby.
In the vast, empty cave, it looked as desolate as could be.
Livia squatted beside it and stared at this gem for a full half hour.
As she watched, memories of her past life inexplicably bubbled up.
She remembered that small single room she rented in a suburban village in her previous life. Fourteen square meters, squeezed with a bed, a desk, and a chair. The walls were covered in messy posters, and her most valuable possession was a second-hand small TV she had scavenged for eighty yuan, which even had a crack in the middle of the screen.
Every day after returning from work, she would leave the TV on as background noise and lie on the bed scrolling through her phone. Even if no one was talking, she felt the room had a bit of life, making it feel less lonely.
Then she looked at this Treasure Room before her eyes.
It was much larger than that single room and much more grand.
But there was only one ruby.
It was so empty she could hear an echo.
She lay down, resting her chin on her front claws, and continued to stare blankly at that ruby.
Outside the main hall, the clinking and clanging of the Kobolds mining drifted in muffled, as if through a thick quilt.
Just then, the system panel popped up inappropriately:
[System Prompt: Territory Confirmation Successful]
[Current Lair Level: Junior]
[Territory Defense Value: 3 / 10,000]
[Defense Value Composition: Acid Trap +2, Illusion Rune +1]
[Servant Recruitment Possibilities]
- Kobold Miners (Current Loyalty: 78, slight fluctuations)
- Fire Elementals (Closest distance: approx. 200 km, completely ignore dragons)
- Fire Hawks (Requires taming, current quantity: 0)
Livia stared at that '3' for a long time.
A perfect score was ten thousand, and after working herself to death on renovations for so long, she had only managed to get 3 points.
It was a bit heartbreaking.
She looked at that solitary ruby again, silently got up, and turned to fly toward the bottom of the crater.
The lava lake bubbled and churned below, bubbles bursting and splashing strings of sparks.
She took a deep breath and dove in headfirst, her entire dragon body completely sinking into the magma.
The scalding magma wrapped around her whole body, seeping into every crack between her scales; a warm sensation spread from the top of her head to the tip of her tail. She sank to the bottom of the lake, lay on the burning rocks, and closed her eyes.
The world suddenly became quiet.
There was only the sound of the magma slowly flowing, glug, glug, like the heartbeat of the entire world.
She lay at the bottom of the lake for a very, very long time.
Long enough for the furnace in her chest to burn scalding hot again, long enough for all those messy emotions in her head to be evaporated clean by the high temperature, leaving only one thought in her heart:
It might be empty, but at least it's my own nest.
When she resurfaced, shook off the magma on her body, and flew back to the lair's platform, Kowt-Beetle was already squatting there waiting for her.
As soon as he saw her return, he knelt down with a "thud," his head hitting the ground with a bang. After finishing, he immediately dragged out today's offerings from behind him—a pile of freshly mined ores: iron ore, copper ore, and sulfur chunks, stacked neatly.
[Great lord of flames! These are the ores we mined today! All are offered to you!]
Livia looked down at that pile of greyish stones, then at Kowt-Beetle's bright little eyes.
After two seconds of silence, she extended a claw, picked out the largest piece of iron ore, gently took it in her mouth, flew into the Treasure Room, and carefully placed it next to the ruby.
Then she flew back out again.
She picked up a piece of copper ore and placed it on the left.
Then she picked up a piece of sulfur and placed it on the right.
One trip, two trips, three trips...
She flew back and forth over a dozen times, moving all the ores into the Treasure Room.
She squatted at the entrance of the Treasure Room and peered inside.
One ruby, a dozen pieces of iron ore, seven or eight pieces of copper ore, and several large chunks of sulfur.
It still wasn't considered wealthy, and it was still quite empty.
But it seemed... much more pleasing to the eye than before.
Livia lay down again, chin on her front claws, quietly staring at this pile of her very first bit of treasure.
Outside, the clinking and clanging of the Kobolds mining never stopped.
Below, the glugging and bubbling of the lava lake continued.
She closed her eyes, feeling for the first time that this empty crater really felt a bit like home.
Three days later, Livia decided to go out and get the lay of the land.
She spread her wings and flew toward the Stone-Winged Demon lair fifty kilometers to the west. She didn't dare charge in for a fight directly, only observing stealthily from a distance.
The Stone-Winged Demons' nest was built on a steep peak, messily piled with bones, mud, and rubble, about twenty meters in diameter. Piles of animal and human bones were scattered around; it looked ferocious.
Three Stone-Winged Demons squatted by the nest, wings folded, heads turning back and forth with eyes like owls, alert to the extreme.
These things were a size smaller than her, but they had the advantage of flying fast, having venomous claws, and being pack monsters that fought three-on-one.
Livia silently evaluated: if she went up now, there was a high probability she couldn't win and might even be counter-killed.
She quietly turned around, flew back to her crater, and lay on the platform to contemplate her dragon life.
After thinking for a while, she stood up, flew into the lava lake again, and comfortably took a magma bath.
No rush.
Take it slow.
After all, she had a lifetime.
After all, this was already her lair.