Life is tough, so Honglong resorts to performing?

Chapter 113 After Growth
Loren felt that he had been having pretty good luck lately, getting whatever he wanted.

He needed to make a second contact with the One who could only move, and the target of that contact was right in front of him, focusing his attention on him.

"He wants to see the Frostfire Lord's power, is that it? Well then, we'll show you."

Loren thought to himself, and he channeled the magic power within his body into fire-related elements. His body temperature rose steadily as he left the cave. The red dragon's inherent high fire resistance meant that this action could not harm him at all, and it even gave Loren some inspiration for his future performances.

"For example, being thrown into lava by the main characters and then fully resurrected wearing lava armor. The lava land is my home, how could I die in my own home..."

While lost in thought and musing, Loren used his dragon magic to manipulate the surrounding elements, dispelling the cold and raising the temperature.

As his soul grew stronger, the little red dragon became more and more adept at multitasking, even doing three things at once. He was even pondering the script he had arranged earlier. As the music from the mountainside began to play, flames created by the magic realm started to appear around him. Loren understood that the time for the dragon's roar in the album's setting had arrived.

"Awooooo~"

As expected, the red dragon opened its mouth and let out an angry roar, a sign of its dissatisfaction at being mocked by the musicians. The wind and snow on the horizon vanished and reappeared with the red dragon's roar, and the music below the mountain began to change, creating a tense atmosphere and an air of escape.

Loren flapped his wings, but instead of appearing and darting through the snowstorm as originally planned to create tension, he used the Dragon Spellsman's ability to melt and condense the cold snowstorm under high energy, turning it into a huge cloud that enveloped him. A massive cloud dragon, far larger than the original size of the red dragon, appeared on the snow mountain peak, carrying the snowstorm as it rushed towards the musicians below, like an avalanche.

Seeing this, the band members were not in a hurry. After seeing their leader, Sisos, nod, the group played even more energetically, and the melody of the music became more urgent and cheerful. Avalanche was one of the pieces they had discussed before, but it was abandoned because of its difficulty.

But what better performance opportunity could there be? Like an avalanche of clouds crashing down from the howling snow, the joyful musicians calmly accepted their end...

If there's anyone dissatisfied with this event, it's Mr. Tower Owner, who was still backstage frantically trying to pay more money.

The Red Dragon's manipulation of elements using dragon language greatly consumed the Magic Realm's computing power. In its backend monitoring, as the Red Dragon was exposed to the cold environment, the ice element displayed in the detection was rapidly decreasing, while the fire, high temperature, and other elements were rapidly increasing.

Judging from this single instance of using the Demon Realm, the Red Dragon is clearly not an easy actor to handle, but this is inconsistent with the Red Dragon's previous performance, so this is clearly an out-of-control performance.

"Given his current age and abilities, it's normal for him to occasionally lose control when wielding authority from a demigod or even an even more ancient source. In fact, considering it's the first time a red dragon has come to an extremely cold environment, the fact that he lasted this long before losing control is already an excellent performance."

The tower master thought that this phenomenon could certainly be included as one of the pieces of evidence that the red dragon might have gained power. Even if the red dragon's size did not increase tomorrow, this would be enough for him to report back.

The amount of money I spent this time was a bit high, but fortunately it was for the organization, and the organization would give me some other compensation, so it didn't matter.

Loren descended from the sky on a giant cloud dragon, burying everything, and the music stopped, as did the filming.

While outside, Lyra began adjusting the parameters and environment of the Magic Realm to bring it to its pre-shooting state.

After all, the final variation and changes were quite significant, and whether or not to reshoot or start over would need to be discussed with Hisos and the others.

"No need for reshoots, I think this part is great and very interesting. The music can be reworked and edited, but the video is fine as it is!"

After discussion, Sisos made the final decision.

"Since we still have time, let's reproduce the melody and the sound of the snow-capped mountains here a few times to make it easier for us to tune later."

While Sisos was making arrangements, Loren, seeing that he had nothing to do, found another place to lie down.

Given my position among this group, it would be too hasty for me to initiate communication with the tower master. It would be better to wait for the other party to come to me first.

Adding to tonight's physical enhancement further aligns with the belief among these cultists that the enhancement was achieved by absorbing the cold and converting it into heat during a cold environment…

"It's great, really going very smoothly, just a little too smoothly. All the conditions were met just before today. Anyone who didn't know better would think Lady Luck is still around..."

Loren muttered to himself that the complete loss of contact with the gods would have the greatest impact on prophetic spells. Almost all high-ranking divination mages and clergy had stated that the celestial phenomena were unpredictable and that normal prophetic spells would not exist in this era.

Besides them, the priests of the Fate Goddess of Fortune and Misfortune had the greatest influence.

They are the only clergy who were wiped out after the gods lost contact, and the specific reasons for this remain unknown to this day. The gods of luck and misfortune are also considered to be the gods most likely to have died.

"Based on the information I have, there is no major problem with what is happening now. If someone is really plotting against me, the information gap between us is something I can hardly imagine or deal with. I should just accept the situation since I can't fight back now."

Red Dragon shook his head, banishing these cautious thoughts from his mind.

Ultimately, in order to gather all the necessary resources and powerful individuals, he needed to deal with a large number of them. If there were someone capable of influencing so many powerful beings, then crushing a little red dragon like himself would be an easy task.

"Anyone who tries to ride the wave of the times is bound to be lucky. To be precise, the statement should be reversed: only those lucky enough can rise with the tide of the times and have the last laugh..."

Having made up his mind, Honglong stopped thinking about these things. While worrying about things that might not happen has its reasons, it would be foolish to give up on things altogether because of a minor setback.

Loren found a spot, sent a message to Sisos that he was going to sleep until tomorrow, then took out materials from his storage bag, used magic to build himself a simple hut in a corner, and swaggered inside.

"Protective barrier, silencing barrier, activate!"

After skillfully casting the spell to create a protective barrier, Loren lay down and adjusted his position slightly.

Since a breakthrough in the soul has already occurred, a breakthrough in the body is naturally not far off.

"I'll probably sleep until tomorrow."

Thinking this, the little red dragon fell into a deep sleep, no longer caring about the changing world outside.

……

When Loren awoke from his slumber, the first thing he felt was not the external environment, but an unprecedented sense of fullness from within his body.

He instinctively wanted to stretch his limbs, which had been curled up in the cramped cave all night, but immediately sensed something was wrong.

The makeshift hut, which had originally been fairly spacious, now felt incredibly cramped. His back and the base of his wings pressed tightly against the magically sculpted rock walls, creaking and scraping with the slightest movement, even causing some loose stones to tumble down. "The growth is greater than I expected. Is it because this is my first upgrade?"

Loren thought to himself that as a professional mage, he must have left a certain amount of redundancy when he built this little house, and now, that redundancy is completely filled.

"The wingspan should be almost four meters larger, and the body length should be more than two meters longer. The high-level magic crystal block inside the body has melted almost half of it... Not bad, very useful, really not bad."

Inside the cramped hut, Loren closed his eyes and scanned his body with his mental power. The intertwining of flesh and magic was even tighter than before, and the enhancement of his soul brought him a better ability to manipulate magic. If every Thousand-Day Fruit had such an effect, he might be able to gain the ability to transform into an elemental creature ahead of time, and use this move to avoid a lot of physical damage skills.

But that was obviously impossible. He knew this when he bought the stuff. The first one was the most effective. However, after supplementing with other items, he could still achieve about 80% of the effect by taking the second Thousand-Day Fruit after the first cycle was over.

"The fact that this optimal enhancement process could be tested means that many young dragons completed their initial growth through the military network, most likely those metal dragons..."

"Tsk, tsk tsk."

After a moment of reflection, Loren took out the Dragon Hundred-Day Ointment from his storage bag, and began to apply and maintain it to all the scales on his body using several mage hands.

"Ouch, it's a little itchy."

Loren sensed the new scales on his body, which were much more sensitive than the old ones. But as the 100-day cream was applied, Loren felt waves of heat coming from the application, and then the sensitive and uncomfortable feeling disappeared.

"You can't tell anything from the outside..."

Before leaving the hut, Loren carefully examined his scales after applying the ointment. He made sure that they had no special smell or oily sheen, and that apart from being a bit brighter in color, they were almost indistinguishable from the scales of a normal red dragon. Then, the little red dragon began to dismantle the hut and tidy up, preparing to go out and meet people.

At this moment, in his psychic perception, there was only one living being in the outside world. Hisos, his band, and Lyra should be staying at a nearby hotel, and it wasn't time for them to go to work yet. Naturally, most of the employees of the Magic Realm Company were also not there. So who was the person left here?
It's so hard to guess, dear boss! It's past six in the morning, aren't you going to leave work yet...?

The hut was dismantled and put away as building materials by Loren. The noise of his dismantling was recorded by several prepared cameras. Meanwhile, the tower owner, who was a light sleeper and had something on his mind, was naturally awakened.

He got up from his small bed in his office, found a spot, and quickly began to examine the photos he had secretly taken in front of the Magic Crystal Terminal, comparing them with yesterday's records.

"It's grown! The wingspan has increased by about 4.12 meters, the body length by 2.57 meters, and the weight increase, based on its size, should be measured in tons. This level of increase, and it hasn't eaten anything recently!"

The tower master began organizing Loren's physical data in front of the magic crystal terminal, combining it with the evidence taken yesterday, and compiling it into a complete file before sending it to his superiors.

A reply came quickly.

“Very good. Next, you will go directly to make contact with this red dragon. As a chaotic and evil creature, the red dragon will definitely side with us as long as we offer a high enough price. I will reimburse you for all expenses in the future. I have also secured a future city councilor position for you. If things go well today, the people in the organization will spare no effort to help you change careers and become a councilor in Emerald Leaf City!”

"Can I become a member of parliament...?"

The tower master felt a surge of excitement as he read the message from his superiors.

He glanced at the somewhat lazy red dragon over there, suppressing his fear despite it.

As a follower of the Transcendent Ones, he naturally harbored a fear of these superior races, even the dragons whom the organization did not exclude.

To have a one-on-one conversation with a dragon in this environment would truly test his courage.

"But this may be my only chance in this life: a leap in family status, the adulation and envy of others, and truly joining high society..."

"Besides, there's no going back now..."

The tower master sighed and opened the office door, which met the huge dragon head that seemed to have turned around because it heard the noise.

The dragon's head, which had turned around, had a half-smile on its face. In its deep-set eyes were golden vertical pupils, which resembled two burning flames, pointing directly at the dark corners of the tower master's heart.

The tower master took two steps back, took a deep breath, and tried to calm his rapidly beating heart. He then spoke somewhat haltingly.
Good day, dear Mr. Loren.

"Good day, this...Master Tower?"

Loren tilted his head, "Finally, you've spoken up, kid."

Considering that he hadn't asked the other person's name yet, Loren simply addressed him as such.

The red dragon's voice, carrying the deep, resonant hum unique to dragons, echoed through the empty hall of the magical realm.

Since the other party is asking for my help, and judging from my mind reading, they seem to be a coward, I definitely have to put on an act!
The red dragon deliberately slowed its speech, its golden vertical pupils slightly contracting as it focused on the somewhat awkward human standing at the office door.

Tower Master, Erich Hohenheim, the cultist who bore the brunt of the work, felt an invisible pressure. Even though the red dragon did not use any spells like Dragon's Might and even deliberately restrained its aura, Erich still couldn't help but feel nervous considering what he was about to say.

He forced himself to stand up straight and straightened his slightly wrinkled robe.

“Erich Hohenheim, I am at your service.”

He bowed slightly, making a gesture of invitation.

"I wonder if I could take a moment of your time, Mr. Loren? There are some things... I'd like to discuss privately."

The red dragon's lips seemed to curve into a subtle upward arc. He had waited so long; finally, the main event was about to begin. His massive body slowly turned, the scales rubbing together with a soft rustling sound. He turned around and carefully observed the awkward man before him.

"in private?"

Loren's voice carried a hint of amusement, and flames seemed to flicker in his golden pupils.

“I thought we were already in private, Mr. Tower Master. Or rather… Mr. Hohenheim.”

(End of this chapter)