Two months later, the once relatively peaceful Ice River Tribe had become much livelier.
Near the scattered ice houses, figures of terror lizards, white hounds, and tide crabs constantly moved about, getting along quite harmoniously with the Arctic Ice Spirits.
Garon had chosen his nesting site in the river section near the Ice River Tribe, gathering his other subdued familiars here as well.
Having accepted the dragon blood transformation, the strength and potential of the Arctic Ice Spirits had improved a lot, but to Garon's disappointment, these were all manifested in frost magic. Not a single Arctic Ice Spirit showed any ability to influence time.
What they had accepted seemed to be just the bloodline of a white dragon, without obtaining even a trace of the Time Dragon bloodline.
However, Garon quickly became relieved after his initial disappointment. If the bloodline that influenced time was so easy to obtain, Time Dragons wouldn't be regarded as legendary true dragons.
....
Under the cold, deep river water, a giant beast seemed to be churning, causing the surface of the winding glacier river to stir up a turbulent wave.
A white shadow eight meters long was faintly visible beneath the water's surface – it was Garon.
In just two short months, after another period of slumber, although he hadn't gained any new time-based abilities, his size had increased significantly. His robust dragon body was eight meters long from head to tail, his shoulder height was one meter six when standing on all fours, his wingspan was nearly ten meters, and he had mastered a spell-like ability that only juvenile white dragons possessed.
This growth rate was enough to shock all true dragons.
His main food now was the giant-hoofed yak, a four-meter-long, three-ton beast whose running sounded like thunder and was not easy to provoke, but it was no match for Garon's familiars, which were captured by hunting teams composed of Arctic Ice Spirits, terror lizards, white hounds, and others.
Ninety percent of the Ice River Tribe's manpower was busy hunting blood food for Garon, but it only barely satisfied him. Occasionally, he still needed to hunt some magical creatures himself for extra meals.
On the other hand, as the lord of this place, Garon wasn't doing nothing.
For example, when hunting teams encountered some powerful magical creatures, Garon would step in and kill them after confirming he could handle them. Or if powerful ferocious beasts coveted the tribe and the Ice River Tribe was unable to deal with them, Garon would also take action as appropriate.
Such situations were rare, happening only once in the past two months.
Garon was currently chasing a school of fish under the glacier river, a group of strong, plump river sharks with an average length of about two meters. Although their mouths were full of crisscrossing fangs, they didn't have spell-like abilities and were just ordinary beasts. Under Garon's agile and nimble pursuit, they had no power to resist, like fish on a cutting board.
These glacier sharks had a very good taste and texture, their meat was delicious and cool, and they were easy to catch, making them one of Garon's favorite foods.
However, because their numbers weren't very large, Garon only treated them as a pastime to satisfy his appetite.
Crunch!
Biting two glacier sharks at once, Garon chewed slightly and swallowed them both.
The remaining glacier sharks panicked and fled in disarray, but Garon didn't continue chasing them. He just savored the delicious and chewy texture, turned around, and dived down, arriving at a dragon lair at the bottom of the river.
The dragon lair was built at the deepest part of this section of the glacier river, about fifty meters below the surface, emitting a faint cold light in the dim riverbed.
This was formed after Garon spent a day transforming into an excavator, digging a pit, and then coating it with a layer of glittering ice crystals using his frosty breath. Although somewhat curved, the overall shape was an inverted L.
The deepest part of the dragon lair was where Garon slept.
The structure of a dragon's eyes was special. They had nictitating membranes under their eyelids that could waterproof their eyes, and their pupils also had a layer of crystalline structure that could focus light, allowing them to gather enough light in the dark to gain the ability of darkvision.
Although it was very dark underwater, it didn't block Garon's vision.
For him, it was just a bit dim, but he could still see things clearly.
At the deepest part of the dragon lair, Garon learned from the White Dragon Mother and built an ice bed large enough for him to lie down on.
Because the temperature of the river water in the extreme northern ice field was very low, this underwater ice was extremely difficult to melt, and he only needed to spend very little effort to maintain it slightly.
On Garon's large ice bed, it wasn't empty. There was also a broken suit of armor covered in difficult-to-remove rust stains, and a similar rusty sword.
After lying down on the ice bed, Garon played with the rusty armor and sword, feeling the heavy passage of time and history contained within them.
He gently rubbed them, a look of satisfaction on his face.
These two items were dug out by Garon from the riverbed silt while building the cave. From the first glance, Garon was attracted to them.
He didn't like them for what they were, but for the traces of time left on them.
For Garon, these long-lasting items with a long history of time were more attractive than gold coins and gems.
Of course, gold coins and gems also had a certain attraction for Garon, just not as much as special items that had passed through much time. If there were gold coins or gems that had experienced a long passage of time, that would be the best.
Staying next to these collectibles, Garon felt that the speed at which he devoured time essence had subtly increased.
When he used abilities like Time Manipulation and Plundering the Thread of Time, he consumed the power of time essence, so the speed at which he devoured time essence was a relatively important factor for Garon.
"Bury them and dig them out again after a long time. Then they will have experienced even more time."
Garon thought.
However, because he currently had too few collectibles, he was reluctant to actually do so.
Next, Garon hugged his beloved collectibles and began to close his eyes to sleep, quickly digesting the few giant-hoofed yaks and glacier sharks he had just eaten. The total weight of these foods was even heavier than Garon's own tonnage. Dragons could eat more than their own weight in creatures at one time.
Half a day later, Garon had slept enough.
He opened his eyes, reluctantly left the ice bed, and placed the rusty armor and sword permeated with traces of time beside him.
His body, already eight meters long including his dragon tail, moved through the water like a nimble fish, his dragon wings folded at his sides. Garon quickly left the water in a fusiform posture.
Whoosh!
Countless crystal-clear water droplets slid down his white scales, setting off Garon's lithe dragon body like a celestial being descending to earth.
Several Arctic Ice Spirits saw Garon and respectfully lowered their heads, saying, "Praise the great True Dragon."
After Garon took this place as his territory and took the Arctic Ice Spirits as his familiars, the lives of the Arctic Ice Spirits improved at a visible speed. Creatures like terror lizards and white hounds, which could originally hunt them as toys, had now become pet-like existences.
Having the protection of a true dragon, even an immature one, was a rare and precious thing.
Having accepted protection and dragon blood transformation, the Arctic Ice Spirits paid with their own labor.
As elemental life, they didn't need flesh and blood food. They could survive just by absorbing the abundant ice elemental energy in the air of the extreme northern ice field, making them very easy to raise. As for their hunting gains, ordinary-quality creatures were used to feed the brainless familiars like terror lizards, while delicious and fatty creatures like giant-hoofed yaks were given to Garon as food.
Garon didn't respond to the respect of the few Arctic Ice Spirits. As a true dragon, he didn't need to respond to the respect of his familiars; accepting it was enough.
Leisurely flapping his dragon wings, Garon left towards the more northern direction, flying to a place far from the small glacier river, out of sight of his familiars.
He used his dragon claws to dig away the snow, revealing the gray-brown permafrost below, and then dug a small pit in the permafrost as well.