A dragon’s growth is divided into several stages: baby dragon, juvenile dragon, adult dragon, prime dragon, old dragon, and ancient dragon.
A normal adult dragon would need roughly 200-300 years of growth to mature. As babies, they were quite weak and at most could only defeat a few minor beasts. At this point, they could not live on their own and had to rely on their mothers for feeding and protection.
Dragons were reclusive creatures for the most part. While a few would live with their mating partners as tigers did, in a truly independent spirit, their children would often leave home after becoming juvenile dragons.
This was also the most dangerous period in a dragon’s life. They were not exactly strong, but they were not weak either. One could hire a fairly competent adventurer party to get rid of them. In addition, this was the first time they left their parents and had to fend for themselves. They would need to learn many things through experience. In this period of time, dragons would live carefully and hide deep inside forests. They would try to find areas without powerful creatures and would wait to evolve.
After this, they would become adult dragons. By this point, few adventurers could actually face them. The bulk of those that tried would end up as dragon food.
After adulthood came the prime stage of their lives. By then they were already equivalent to legendary rank powerhouses. They existed at more or less the peak of dragonkind, and only few legend ranks could guarantee that they could kill them, especially given their ability to flee if necessary.
Then came old age. This is where most dragons stopped progressing. At this point, even legendary rank powerhouses would find it hard to kill them. The most reliable way to do so was to gather several legendaries and attack it en masse. At this stage, dragons would begin to spend more of their time sleeping in order to conserve their energy. They typically stopped looking for trouble at this point, and would often pass away in slumber. Only a handful of talented dragons could break through this stage and become ancient dragons.
Ancient dragons were the longest-lived and wisest of the mortal dragon race. They were revered by all of dragonkind and could draw out respect from even the brashest of dragonkin. While they were not demigods, their strength could rival them.
This time, Louie borrowed the energy left behind by the Intelligent Brain to carry out the first evolution, directly crossing the baby dragon stage to the juvenile dragon stage.
His body was now twice as long, reaching 10 meters in length. Moreover, he always felt that he was different from other young dragons. Specifically, he thought himself stronger than they were, but he understood this to be nothing more than his speculation.
[Host need not guess. Be it speed, strength, vitality, or other aspects, the host is far stronger than other dragons of this world. A portion of your body was also strengthened by science. As a product of Terran Civilization’s ‘God Creation Plan’, your body has undergone a perfect genetic adjustment. If you could evolve to the final stage, then you would become the Terran Civilization’s ‘ultimate strategic weapon’. With just your physical body, you could destroy the world and prevail over any civilization.]
Louie was slightly happy at the Intelligent Brain’s consolation, but he still complained, “…… Even if you put it that way, I am still a young dragon. Could my current body resist a guided missile?”
[Impossible!]
“Then what nonsense are you still talking about?!”
Though Louie grumbled, the Intelligent Brain’s words filled him with longing for the future. Even if he was far away from the final evolution, he now had a clear goal. According to the Intelligent Brain’s words, when he reached that final level, even guided missiles would be child’s play for his physical body. There wouldn’t be any problem at all even if he charged into a star, right? At that time, he would truly become a ‘super dragon’!
Louie was elated as he thought, then he admired his new body. Following the change to a juvenile dragon, his scales, which were soft when he was a baby, had now become a lot harder. Divine power appeared to coat them, and he could see mysterious magical runes on each one. They were likely what granted dragons their formidable defenses.
If he evolved to the final rank and obtained the help of magic, it was easy to imagine how strong he would become. Just thinking about it filled him with excitement.
But when Louie was immersed in his fantasies, he suddenly thought of a problem and spoke in alarm, “……That’s not right. Intelligent Brain, you said that the whatchamacallit civilization invaded San Soliel, right? Then, why does this world still exist? Doesn’t that mean the invaders failed and that you guys lost?”
[……]
The Intelligent Brain paused for a bit and spoke.
[Host has not deduced wrongly. The Terran Civilization failed their invasion. While the aborigines of this world were incredibly weak, and the Terrans could annihilate most of them, the Gods were an overlooked but critical oversight.]
[They are a group of unscientific creatures with abilities not grounded in any understanding of materialistic laws. Take for instance the host’s use of ‘Emerald Dreamland’ earlier. That is a phenomenon that Terrans could not replicate with science. In fact, several aspects of it violate numerous physical laws. Naturally, contracts and curses are good examples of this as well. ]
[Because they did not understand the Gods, the Terran Civilization’s expeditionary force suffered heavy casualties. The Gods’ curse also penetrated into the main body of the civilization through the individual creatures. As a result, both civilizations suffered.]
Louie roughly understood what the Intelligent Brain spoke of. As a liberal arts student, even if he did not understand physics or biology, he had a small understanding of the nature of the laws governing Earth.
For example, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is roughly twenty-two divided by seven. But if one traveled to another world where pi was twenty-four divided by seven instead, it would likely break many calculations premised on the former understanding. And though this was a minor change, because scientific equipment often relied on extreme meticulousness, the discrepancy could cripple entire systems. The more detailed the equipment, the faster it would fail.
Louie appreciated the Gods’ abilities even more after listening to the Intelligent Brain. They could confound even basic arithmetic and turn one plus one into three. With their curses and other strange abilities, the Terran Civilization definitely suffered huge losses.
‘This also shows that the Terran Civilization’s level of technology was not as overwhelming as imagined. If technology develops into its final stage, there should be nothing that could not be explained by science.’
Science and magic were just the same things, just with different rules of reference, he believed.
But the words of the Intelligent Brain comforted Louie’s heart. In fact, he had an inexplicable fear of the Terran Civilization which could turn him into a dragon. Now, it seemed that even it had its limits.