Chapter 87: A Way Forward

The professor, since you have already made contact with that red dragon, did you happen to ask it about how to take human form?

The black dragon could not help asking.

“Of course we did,” the professor said with a smile. “Mr. Huang, please rest assured. We have always taken your matter very seriously in our research team.”

“And the question of how a giant dragon becomes a human, how one life form changes into another, is itself a subject of great mystery and fascination to us at the Academy of Sciences.”

“So after we made contact with that red dragon, we repeatedly raised the matter with it in an academic spirit, hoping it could help us unravel the riddle.”

“And then? What did it say?”

“The red dragon’s answer was... it didn’t know either.”

The professor gave a wry smile. “It said that its ability to take human form was inherited from its ancestral memories, something akin to an inborn talent or instinct. As for the exact principle behind it, even it could not explain clearly.”

...

The black dragon had not expected such an answer and was momentarily at a loss for words. Honestly, it had only wanted to be a person. Why did it have to be so difficult?!

Was it really necessary to risk exposing the user’s true information and offer gold to the Dragon God, Heberion, just to unlock the ability to transform into human form?

Or should it... go meet that red dragon in person, see whether it could somehow share its brain’s data, copy and paste its ancestral memories?

After thinking it over, the black dragon felt the latter method might suit it better.

After all, it still did not know what Heberion’s attitude toward the Land of Xia was.

Rumor had it that this Dragon God was rather eccentric and stingy. If it were ever to catch the black dragon in the act of being a traitor, that would truly be hard to smooth over.

...

In the end, the black dragon still agreed to provide three hundred dragon scales. Setting aside questions of ideological commitment, its personal will was also quite strong in this matter.

After all, it had loved fireworks since childhood and adored blowing things up. If it could witness a five-thousand-megaton firework blossoming in the depths of space, striking all those gods across the sky with a blow of socialist justice, that would be unimaginably thrilling and deeply worth looking forward to.

Besides, those three hundred scales did not have to be provided all at once. Since this was, after all, the first strike against the fish, the Academy of Sciences and the military needed time to prepare. For now, the black dragon only had to contribute ten scales a day, and that would more or less be enough.

...I wonder what would happen if my teeth bit my own scales?

The black dragon looked at the scales detached from its body and could not help but have a sudden thought.

With its current degree of control over its body, shedding a few scales was no trouble at all.

It only needed to restrain the relevant nerves, sever the connection between its body and the scales, and then it could strip them away with ease.

It was even easier than a black-hearted boss firing an employee without cause. After all, an employee might resist and appeal to labor arbitration... but a scale would not even make a sound.

The black dragon’s teeth were razor-sharp, and its bite force was astonishing. If not for the insufficient mouth opening, it might even have been able to bite through several meters of alloy steel plate.

And its scales possessed extraordinary defensive power; a few centimeters of them were worth several meters of alloy steel plate, and they would not deform at all even under searing heat of hundreds of thousands of degrees. They were regarded as one of the most perfect defensive materials currently known to the Academy of Sciences.

So which was stronger: the spear, or the shield?

With that question in mind, the black dragon tried to bite its own scale.

“It actually won’t bite through...”

After gnawing hard for a while with its molars, the black dragon finally discovered that in this contest between spear and shield, the scales had clearly taken the upper hand.

I never thought my offensive talent would lose to my defensive talent...

The black dragon muttered. Just as it was about to give up, something in its mind suddenly stirred restlessly. Looking into it, it discovered that the dragon tooth inlaid with gold was emitting a fierce signal for battle, urging, Let me do it. Let me crush it!

“...”

Little brother, do you have no self-awareness? Gold teeth are mostly for decoration. Who really uses them to bite things? If nothing’s wrong, don’t come out stealing the spotlight. What if you chip or break yourself? How wasteful would that be!

The mind could not help scolding it, but considering how strong the gold tooth’s desire to fight was, it finally let it try.

Having obtained authorization from the mind, the black dragon’s gold tooth instantly shone with dazzling brilliance, clearly gathering tremendous force upon itself.

The black dragon tried a few taps, adjusted the angle, then suddenly clenched its upper jaw with force. The golden dragon tooth struck the scale with perfect precision!

Crack...

The black dragon heard only a crisp snap, and then its mind was filled with a storm of disbelief.

Damn it, damn it, damn it, you actually shattered it?

The black dragon spat the scale fragments onto the ground. On closer inspection, it found that its supposedly indestructible scale had shattered directly into more than twenty pieces!

This was also the first time it had gained a clear, subjective understanding of the gold dragon tooth’s power.

Is the enhancement gold grants to a giant dragon’s strength really this outrageous?

Shocked and exhilarated, the black dragon even wondered whether it ought to report this to the Academy of Sciences and apply for dozens of tons of gold so that all of its dragon teeth could be gilded.

“But that would seem a little unbalanced...”

The black dragon was not blinded by gold. It suddenly thought of the weight of its entire body, which was barely under two hundred tons.

If all its teeth were strengthened with gold, then just its head alone would weigh over a hundred tons. Would that not make it a textbook case of top-heavy imbalance, a malformed giant dragon?

Still, probably every giant dragon would want to be such a malformed creature!

After pondering for a while, the black dragon eventually told the professor that it could bite through its own scales.

It mainly felt that the power and uses of its gold dragon teeth might still have considerable room for development, and perhaps could be of help to some of the Academy of Sciences’ research.

Of course, it also could not rule out the hope that they would approve more gold for strengthening its dragon teeth... There was nothing to be done; the black dragon had set its flag too high before, and the gold from wages and labor earnings had all been locked into fixed deposits. Only the gold earmarked for experimental research remained under its control.

The professor, upon hearing this, was indeed very interested and immediately organized personnel to conduct strength tests on the shattered scales.

“...Good, very good. The strength of the scales has not decreased much.”

After reviewing the results, the professor let out a relieved breath, then said with excitement, “This means the scales’ formidable defensive power does not come from some unique structure, but from their very composition!”

“And that also means their properties are extremely stable and reliable. They will not lose their miraculous defensive ability because of structural damage!”

“Mr. Huang, this discovery is of great help to us. I’ll submit a report right away and apply for more gold to strengthen more of your dragon teeth!”

...

Eh?

The black dragon was a little stunned. I haven’t even hinted at it yet, and you’re already bringing it up on your own. How embarrassing for me.