Life is tough, so Honglong resorts to performing?

Chapter 107: Life Back on Track and Twists and Turns
"Regarding matters concerning the Frostfire King, I'm afraid it's best to wait for those guys to contact me on their own initiative."

Loren pondered.

If you take the initiative to contact the heretics, you will appear cheap and eager, and you will be easily bargained down.

Secondly, it also exposes a simple problem:

Where did you get this information that you have access to that authority?
Although the Transcendent Ones are insane, they are by no means stupid.

A fool couldn't have existed for that long.

Although I saw several of their hideouts being raided today, even a centipede with a hundred legs will not die easily, let alone a group of heretics who are like cockroaches.

If you see one, there's already a whole bunch inside; kill one, and there are thousands more.

Sons and grandsons, generation after generation, without end.

As long as the soil that gave birth to the Transcendent Ones still exists—that is, the current federal social environment that emphasizes equality but is actually not equal—then these cultists will surely be like withered grass in autumn, impossible to burn out by wildfire and able to spring up again with the spring breeze.

"But the environment has changed... ha."

Loren gave a cold laugh.

When the day comes that the environment changes, it's hard to say which way it will change.

He thought about the problem of the wilderness and the loss of contact with the gods. If these two major problems were solved, no matter how they were solved, the world might no longer be in the same perilous situation as before.

But is the absence of a crisis always a good thing?
When that time comes, will those beings who already enjoy benefits and possess greater military power—the superior races—be content with their current positions and wealth?

This is a world where individual power resides within oneself.

You have an unwillingness to climb higher, but don't they have the same desire?
Those who don't have it want it, those who do want more, and those who have more want even more. Even if they compete fairly, the one with more will most likely use their early advantage to swallow up the other two...

Once this kind of annexation begins, it is difficult to stop, and it is unknown what the world will eventually become.

"No, maybe I do know a little bit..."

Loren was reminded of his memories from his past life.

He thought of the famous Cold War and the so-called Golden Age, and how the victors, or rather the survivors, of the Cold War quickly degenerated after the Cold War ended. Combining this with the current attitude of the Federation, he felt that there was a certain resemblance.

"If a country has no wise advisors or capable ministers at home and no external enemies abroad, it will surely perish."

Memories of his past life flooded Loren's mind once again.

"That's why building and managing power is the most troublesome thing. It's better to be a figurehead like me, taking the lead and leaving most of the management to others, while I focus on improving my strength and occasionally participate in some events to show my true colors."

Loren complained.

Before the Federation was established, many of the five-colored dragons liked to be leaders and build their own factions. But back then, managing factions was easy, since everyone faced the challenge of survival and death, and the leader only needed to be able to fight.

However, with the changing times, people's perception of the leader has also changed.

As the company's leader, what are your core strengths? What kind of investment can you attract? What are your own financial reserves? What kind of employee benefits have you prepared?
What's the use of just being able to fight if you have nothing? Can you even beat the Federation?

Without you as my boss, do you think someone outside would beat me to death?
With the threat of death removed, the reasons for the establishment of some past powers were largely eliminated.

Among the five-colored dragons, especially the red dragons, more and more are becoming nominal leaders.

In companies across the country, the titles of adult dragons are all like the Monkey King's title, each one sounding more impressive than the last, but in reality, they are just doing the work.

However, the title and salary are quite good, making him a standard upper-middle-class person, which can be considered a two-way journey between society and the Five-Colored Dragons.

Of course, some of them truly took responsibility, becoming the dragon leader and establishing the dragon organization.

Putting aside the metal dragons, the most famous one is the white ancient dragon who founded Frostdragon City.

He essentially changed the living conditions of the white dragons in one fell swoop.

In addition, the blue and green dragons also have well-known forces and organizations of all sizes, and even the black dragons, although not very powerful, have quite a few organizations.

As for their Red Dragons...

Why should you be the boss? I don't accept this!

Loren recalled that he had looked it up and found that among the various dragon organizations registered in the Federation, the Red Dragon Organization was the most numerous, the smallest in terms of the number of people and scale, the most involved in factual illegal and criminal activities, the most involved in skirting the law, and had so many labor disputes that they could fill several baskets.

When Loren found out about that news, he was both amused and exasperated, and could only say that's just how our Red Dragons are.

As for the metal dragons who went to join the Order...

Don't even think about it.

Loren said that those guys who cared too much about order and rules would drive his impulsive little red dragon crazy.

Not to mention that many of the Five-Colored Dragon predecessors have already used this tactic, with extremely negative consequences.

For this reason, even the organizations of silver dragons who like to collect white dragon eggs to raise no longer accept five-colored dragons.

This is certainly not racial discrimination; the metal dragons absolutely abide by the Federation's order and rules.

This is simply a matter of internal optimization among our dragon clan members and choices regarding their social survival strategies. Everyone has different values, so we can't force them to blend in.

It can only be said that the predecessors cut down trees, and the successors are left to suffer the scorching sun.

Loren shook his head, banishing these chaotic thoughts from his mind, and began to think about what to do next.

Even for military networks, packing and transporting supplies takes time, and today's work isn't over yet, so...

He should resume his spiritual practice and training.

It's fine to enjoy combat for a while, but if you want to keep enjoying combat, you have to keep working hard.

The speed of evolution in this era is like flying. Who knows, one day, the five-colored dragons who don't strive for advancement and just lie around sleeping and gnawing on stones to level up might not even be able to make it to the middle or upper levels.

"Let's continue practicing the Fireball fusion under the Flame Fusion technique."

After recalling the details of the last battle, Loren made a decision.

If he had mastered the Flame Fusion technique in the previous battle with the half-elf and could have used the Fireball spell to fuse, then as one of the core techniques of the demigod Balrog, a fused version of three or more Fireballs might have been able to penetrate the opponent's protective armor in one strike, killing them instantly and cleanly, without any need for further combat.

High-level weapons are so effective in striking civilian-grade armed forces.

And that's why these kinds of mages either end up in the military or in jail. Money? What's that? It doesn't exist.

The design concept, or rather one of the characteristics, of civilian-grade magic crystal weapons is that they lack high special resistance, which is illegal.

The third-tier civilian-grade magic crystal weapon is designed to withstand level five to six ordinary magic. This magic defense generally exists in the form of a field, while the external reactive armor is for countering melee attacks.

According to the regulations, both its basic magic defense and physical defense are fixed values.

Detection-type magic crystal armor, like that of the vulture, will add defense through additional armaments such as feather shields, but this defense is still within a fixed value.

It is said that a single, high-penetration, level-one arcane missile casually carried on a military-grade magic crystal armor can not only penetrate civilian-grade magical defense fields but also damage the opponent's armor. "First, master the art of fire fusion, at least be able to fuse three fireballs, and then consider your own fusion energy ball."

Writing a thesis should be put on hold for now. He should learn some magic and practice it to deepen his understanding before making a decision.

Loren made up his mind and began to immerse himself in one spell attempt and practice after another.

While the little red dragon diligently practiced his magic, the world continued to change relentlessly.

Celia Yeying's several "art" works, deliberately announced by her, quickly ignited public opinion in Greenleaf City.

Videos, some censored and some uncensored, spread rapidly in various group chats, especially among young people, sparking widespread discussion.

All traitors must die?

Spider, spider web, blood?

What are these heretics? Who are the traitors, and why are they doing this?
The design of spider silk and spider webs, along with the recent visit of Spider Silk City and the propaganda department's vigorous promotion of the Drow elves, inevitably led all the blame to Spider Silk City and the upcoming Drow elf delegation, thanks to the popular science and speculation of busybodies.

A group of drow elves came to their Verdant City ahead of time to kill people, and they are so brazen?
As a city with a large number of half-elves, there are quite a few people in Greenleaf City whose ancestors had drow elf blood.

When they began to explain the drow's past customs and habits, it was as if the drow had been shoved into their heads and couldn't get it off.

"My dearest grandmother, do you like the gift I prepared for you?"

Celia hummed softly as she approached a cabin on the list and disappeared back into the shadows.

His hunt is far from over.

……

"Phew, finally it worked."

In the demiplane, the little red dragon looked at the special fireball in his hand that was radiating distorted high temperature and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

After a whole afternoon of practice, Loren was finally able to completely fuse the three fireballs together with the help of Flame Fusion.

"The key to fusion is actually the continuous increase of magic power, who would have thought?"

Having finally grasped the key to the spell, Loren grumbled in this way.

Although it appears to be a three-in-one fireball spell, its total mana consumption is roughly between the mana consumption of five regular fireball spells and six regular fireball spells.

"According to conventional spell configuration theory, this is simply impossible. No wonder it requires external elemental shaping to achieve a stable state."

Loren organized his knowledge of magic based on what he had learned.

Normally, a spell model has a limit to the amount of magic it can hold. Under normal circumstances, there would be no idiotic spells like Fireball, Super Fireball, or Super Super Fireball that continuously gather magic and then unleash it.

If such a spell exists, the person who created it is most likely a madman, and the final form of this spell would therefore fall under the category of forbidden spells.

But now, the fireball in Loren's hand is a fusion of three identical configurations, containing five to six times the normal magic power, and its internal configuration is in a dynamic equilibrium that could be released at any time.

"No wonder we can only create it on the spot, instead of using the three- or four-fold fusion fireball spell as a standalone spell..."

"If we could build this special dynamic model, I feel like we could publish a lot more papers."

The mage's thoughts made Loren realize something. Dynamic models are not new in the world of magic. Many unstable spells have dynamic models, such as the classic fireball spell, which will quickly enter an explosive reaction once it is freed from the restraint of mental power.

But the instability of this fireball seems to be a more subtle state.

"I wonder if it can damage my dragon scales."

Loren looked at the intense energy contained within his hand and had no intention of using himself as a test subject for his own suicidal experiment.

The red dragon's fire immunity and the blue dragon's lightning immunity, among others, have all been proven false in the current Federation tests.

According to current standards, these are Class 1 fire resistance and Class 1 electrical resistance. Above them are two new standards: Class 1 Special and Near-Immune.

Loren tried to slowly dispel the fireball spell in his hand, following the method described in the Balrog's paper.

After several tens of minutes of meticulous work, during which he was covered in sweat, Loren finally succeeded.

"Next, let's find a place to eat and also prepare the ingredients we need to buy for tomorrow's trip to the buffer zone."

Loren hadn't forgotten that it was a new week again. Last week he gave the miners in the buffer zone a day off, and he wondered how many would return this week.

"Whether many or few people stay, it won't affect my life now."

Thanks to collaborations with toy manufacturers and various new revenue streams, Loren's wallet is now bulging again. Although there are still many things to spend money on, at least he is not as strapped for cash as he used to be.

"Speaking of which, I think I still have an album to shoot, but I don't know when I'll start."

Looking back on how he inexplicably became popular on the Magic Crystal website, Loren said that his somewhat fanatical independent musician fan had put a lot of effort into it.

As for whether this force is good or bad, judging from the current results, it should be considered good. As for whether it will get worse in the future, that's hard to say.

"I'll ask him another day. I don't know when his album will be filmed."

"The end of the month is just a week away, and the drow will be here soon."

Before setting off, Loren sorted out recent and future events and realized that there were quite a few things to deal with recently.

"By the way, check on how my psionic alias is coming along, and Echo's new paper should be published soon."

Thinking of this, Loren took out his magic crystal terminal, opened his mailbox, and found the file sent by the other party.

"Roy L. Sirristan?"

"The hybrid bloodline of the Cylistan family's white dragon and a high-purity dragon vein sorcerer, along with a special telepathic connection with their true dragon brothers, eventually developed into psychic power..."

Loren read the description. The other party's design was quite ingenious. Because the mind was too strong and unbalanced, the body was weak and unable to adapt to the cold of frost magic. Therefore, he was not good at frost magic and would even use some fire elemental spells to keep himself warm.

Therefore, his progress in learning magic was slow, but he was still an excellent psychic.

"Not only did you exaggerate my lack of frost magic, but you also added the ability to use fire elemental magic. You're really good at forging documents."

Looking at the explanation in front of him, Loren suddenly felt that the other party might not be so bad after all.

At least in his own profession, he is meticulous.

But what is this attachment message that says "free gift"?
Loren looked at the red dot above and, out of curiosity, clicked on it.

"The dragon vein sorcerers of Frostdragon City, members of the Siristan family, have recently been invited to visit Verdant Leaf City. They will be here to choose a mage partner for their blood-related true dragon 'brother,' and hope that I can attend as a brother and use telepathy to investigate the situation for them?"

"There will be a generous reward after the deed is done, and the Celestan family will tacitly acknowledge my existence as a dragon vein psychic?"

"So you're a fake document maker, and you even act as an information broker on the side, huh!"

"If I didn't conceal or disguise myself when I gave you the information, wouldn't my identity information be part of your reward?"

Loren gritted his teeth, "You better not let me actually catch you!"
(End of this chapter)