Reincarnated as a blue dragon, he collided head-on with a wizarding civilization.

Motu ignored Shark White's excitement at successfully avenging himself.

He glanced at the pickaxe lying quietly among the rubble in the distance, then slowly walked towards it, past the pool of dark red blood seeping into the cracks in the rocks.

The pickaxe had runes engraved by a wizard.

This dragonborn kobold seems to have actually found something interesting in the junkyard.

The pickaxe lay horizontally in the crevice between two grayish-white rocks, with the pick head pointing downwards and the wooden handle resting diagonally on a piece of gravel.

Motu bent down, hooked it up with the tip of its claws, and weighed it in its hand.

It's quite heavy.

The iron pickaxe was about the size of a human head, its surface rusted, but the blade was still sharp, gleaming with a dark metallic luster in the dim light.

The wooden handle was wrapped in blackened animal hide, soaked with sweat time and again, and felt slippery to the touch, as if it were coated with a layer of dried resin.

Motu held the pickaxe up to his eyes and examined it carefully.

Several crooked lines were engraved on the pickaxe.

It's not a scratch, not a decoration, but a kind of regular, deliberate line.

Follow the edges of the pickaxe, where it converges into a spiral pattern at the cutting edge, then extends out from the other side, circling halfway before disappearing at the joint between the wooden handle and the pickaxe.

These lines are not exactly neat, but the depth and spacing of each stroke are remarkably consistent.

Although the person who carved these things was clumsy, they had clearly received basic training.

Runes.

Suddenly, Motu's hand paused.

In the instant he focused his attention on the pickaxe, he sensed a faint residual magic that did not belong to the kobolds.

The magic was very faint, like the trace left after a puddle of water evaporates; it was impossible to detect unless one deliberately tried to perceive it.

But its texture is very special. It's not the rough, beastly magic of Warcraft, but rather more delicate and mellow, like the lingering fragrance left after being steeped in strong wine.

This is not magic infused by the kobolds themselves.

Its red dragon bloodline was too thin, and it only possessed the strength of a mud-born species, making it unable to support this quality of magical output.

This is the residue that has been absorbed after prolonged contact with a certain high-energy substance.

Motu brought the pickaxe close to his nose and sniffed it carefully.

The iron of the pickaxe carried a faint, almost imperceptible stench of blood.

It wasn't the blood of an ordinary wild animal, but dragon blood.

He was all too familiar with that slightly sulfurous, scorching smell.

A certain high-energy component in the dragon's blood seeped into the iron, altering the structure of the pickaxe at the molecular level.

This pickaxe has been in contact with at least one high-concentration, high-ranking dragon-blooded magical beast over a long period of time.

And it's not a matter of just one or two days, but rather a considerable amount of time.

Just as Blue Dragon was carefully examining the pickaxe, Shark White had already excitedly entered the kobold's shack and rummaged through the boxes and cabinets for quite a while.

The shack could be heard from time to time with a clattering sound.

Something was knocked over, something was torn apart, and there was also Sha Bai's muttering curses:

"What kind of junk is this... Ugh, what's this... Ugh, it stinks!"

After a while, Shark White finally crawled out of the hut, carrying a bunch of things in its mouth, rummaging through its paws for a few more, and with a tattered cloth wrapped around its tail.

It piled everything onto the rubble, panting heavily, its three-layered serrated edges gleaming, its vertical pupils filled with smugness.

That's all!

it says,

"That dog is so poor, his shack is full of bones and fur, there isn't even a decent piece of meat."

The spoils were piled on the rubble, and Motu counted them one by one.

A small bag containing something, it was a bit heavy.

The bag was made from the dried stomach of some kind of animal and sewn together. It was very rough, with crooked stitches and a leather rope that had been torn off from somewhere tied to the opening.

Motu untied the leather cord and poured the contents into his paw.

A small bag of rough gemstone fragments.

To be precise, they weren't gems, but rather "treasures" that the kobolds had picked up in mines and other places.

Several pieces of hematite, with dark red rust on their surface, were rubbed until smooth and shiny; several pieces of quartz, with poor transparency, had their edges rounded, as if they had been played with for a long time.

A piece of heavily weathered agate, its patterns blurred and indistinct, leaving only a dark yellow base color; a few thin pieces of mica, gleaming silvery-white in the light.

There were also a few pebbles, round and of various colors, which I don't know where they were picked up from.

These things are worthless in the Dark Forest.

There are no markets, no merchants, no trade here; the glittering stones are no different from ordinary gravel.

But Motu noticed that the surfaces of these stones were very smooth.

It's not the natural smoothness, but the kind that's been repeatedly rubbed by someone.

It's as if someone is holding them in their palm, touching them one by one, day after day, until the edges are smoothed and the surface develops a patina.

Motu's eyes flickered for a rare moment; he could picture the scene.

In the quiet, sometimes lucid moments of the night, in that dark and filthy shack, a short, red-skinned dog-headed man would take out these stones, which were worthless to others, one by one, place them in front of him, and caress them with his rough fingers, examining them over and over. After examining them, he would put them back into his bag, tie the leather rope, and hide them in the deepest part of the shack.

Over time, even these rough and pitted red iron ores can be polished until they become smooth and shiny.

Dragonborn kobolds, influenced by their dragon bloodline, also have a fondness for shiny things.

Although in the Dark Forest, a place with almost no social markets or trade, these gems were of no use to him, merely some glittering ornaments.

But following his instincts, he collected as many as possible, carefully put them into a leather bag, hid them in his lair, and regarded them as his most precious possessions.

Blue Dragon gazed at the piece of red iron ore, which had been rubbed until it was warm and shiny. The ore grains gleamed with a dark yet delicate luster under the sunlight. Unlike the dazzling gemstones, they did not possess the stubborn warmth unique to humble life.

This was a life intertwined with lucidity and madness, a few moments of amusement and solace in his precious days of peace.

Suddenly, Motu let out a soft exclamation.

He snapped out of his slightly complicated emotions, pushed the pile of stones aside, and picked out a crystal the size of a grain of rice, with a dark red luster.

Dragon's blood crystals.

Motu doesn't recognize this thing.

Before venturing into the Dark Forest, during his basic general education at the Dragon Nest, his predecessor had heard about it from the dragon-human instructor.

When some high-ranking dragon blood species are injured, the dragon blood spilled outside, after soaking in soil and other minerals for a long time, may form this kind of associated crystal, which contains an extremely small amount of dragon blood magic.

On the black market of Valen, this thing can fetch a good price, and wizards use it to brew certain low-level potions.

Motu brought the crystal close to his nose and smelled the familiar, slightly sulfurous scent of dragon's blood.

It smells exactly the same as the aura on the pickaxe; they share the same origin.

He shook his head, set the dragon blood crystal aside, and continued counting.

Suddenly, Motu stopped moving.

A dark red scale.

Noticing the blue dragon's movements, Shark White quickly explained that it had found the scale from the deepest part of the den, wrapped in a soft fur, hidden under a pile of bones.

Motu picked up the scale, and the moment his claws touched the surface of the scale, his vertical pupils narrowed slightly.

The scales are still very fresh.

Although dried bloodstains remained on its back, which had turned black, one could still smell the slightly sulfurous odor of dragon blood.

The bloodstains were fresh, not the kind that had been there for months; they had only been there for the last few days.

This doesn't belong to the kobolds.

The tiny keratinous protrusions on its back are less than one-tenth the size of this scale.

This fell from a real dragon-blooded demon beast.

Motu quickly turned the scales over and examined them carefully against the light.

The edges of the cross-section showed no signs of burning or a smooth cut made by a sharp instrument. The scale roots were uneven, and some fine fibrous tissues protruded from the cross-section, dry and curled.

This piece came off on its own after being repeatedly torn and loosened by external forces and unable to support itself.

It wasn't some fierce battle that caused it to be shot down. Rather, this dragon-blooded beast had gone through a tough fight at some point, and several of its scales had loosened. Later, for some reason, perhaps from moving, struggling, or swelling of its wounds, these loose scales finally fell off.

He turned the scales over and looked at the back.

The bloodstains were concentrated, with only a small patch at the base of the scales; the rest of the area was clean.

This indicates that the bloodstains did not splatter from elsewhere, but rather seeped from the base of the scales.

In other words, this scale was torn off from a living dragonblood beast, and the time interval between them was not too long.

A wounded dragon bloodline.

Motu's vertical pupils contracted slightly.