Chapter 300: Chapter 113 Dragon Cave
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
There were strange flowers on the island.
It was a pity that Soran didn’t study the branches of Alchemy and herbal medicine. He couldn’t distinguish the properties of these plants. He took his men around from the side and felt that they were closer to the north of the island since the surrounding temperature was lower. This was a rare phenomenon might be related to the geothermal energy emitted by volcanoes in the south of the island. The northern part of the island was covered with ice and snow, but it was mainly concentrated in an area—the area where Soran thought the white dragon nest would be.
There lived a dragon here, and there was hardly any other creature.
It took Soran about half an hour to walk around the snow-capped mountain. The surrounding cliffs were very smooth and steep, and covered with a layer of solid ice. It was not like a natural environment, but more like it was deliberately arranged like this. Dragons liked to make a nest on steep hilltops so that other creatures that couldn’t fly could not get close to them. The white dragon, whose ability was slightly weaker than that of the other dragons, also liked to use their breath to spray ice around the nest.
This kind of ice layer would make it very difficult to climb around the cliff and any enemies who dared to challenge it near the nest would be at a disadvantage. But the white dragon would not have such a problem because they were born with a special ability to walk on ice. Soran previously dealt with a few Ice Quetzalcoatlus which had part of the white dragon’s lineage. That was why they liked to cover the area around their nest with ice too. [Details in Volume I. ]
“Hide.”
Soran made a sign to the other men behind him and said in a deep voice, “You guys stay nearby. I’ll find a way to draw the white dragon out of the nest, then you guys find a chance to attack its wings with the heavy harpoon.”
Heavy weapons naturally had a +1 armor breaking ability.
It could be simply understood that heavy weapons were much better than ordinary swords to deal with full-body plate armor. These heavy harpoons had hidden armor breaking effects; it may be difficult for them to break dragon scales, but breaking the dragon wings were quite simple. There were obvious barbs on the harpoon. Some of the harpoons were linked to chains, and the other end was made from steel. If properly used, it could lock the dragon’s wings and make them completely lose the ability to fly.
Unless the dragon forcefully pulled the harpoon out with its fles.h.!.+
“Shadowveil!”
Soran’s figure gradually disappeared into the shadow, and he looked around the environment, and then moved along the right side near the mountain wall. Because it was covered with a layer of ice, the whole mountain wall was very smooth, and other people couldn’t climb up. But for Soran, who had 25 Dexterity, there was no problem. He had a pair of daggers in his palm, and then he climbed up quietly. Soon he reached an open platform on the top.
It was a large platform.
The diameter was more than 50 meters wide. Soran looked at it and knew that it was prepared by the dragon. Dragons flew almost like eagles. They liked to dive down from a high place and then fly up with air pressure. That was why many of them would prepare such a platform for themselves. Even dragons occupying ancient castles liked to dive down from the highest part of the castle when flying.
It was a habit of theirs!
Walking a little to the left of the platform, Soran felt something wrong.
It was a feeling difficult to describe.
He was breathing heavily. His heart beat faster as if he was frightened. The hairs on his back were standing up, and he had a sense of inexplicable powerlessness and emptiness. It was like a bad cold and his whole person had no strength.
This was a Frightful Presence!
As soon as he got the feeling, a row of data appeared:
“You’re affected by Frightful Presence!”
“Activated a test of will!… Test of will pa.s.sed!… You’ve successfully resisted the side-effects of Frightful Presence!…”
The feeling of powerlessness gradually subsided.
The effects did not last long; Soran soon recovered.
One of the biggest headaches of dragon-slaying was Frightful Presence of a pure-blood dragon, which was an ability that did not need activation. It was also a natural ability of the dragon to exert pressure on any nearby creature close to it. This kind of intimidation affected both friendly and foe. Although it wouldn’t directly kill the enemy, it could intimidate the enemy. It was quite useful to deal with some creatures with weak Strength, weak mind and weak will.
Most dragons would use Frightful Presence to enslave creatures.
Ordinary people would not be able to withstand the effects of Frightful Presence.
That was why it was not necessarily useful to use sea tactics to deal with a dragon because seeing a dragon may make many ordinary soldiers fear and render them useless. The specific effect could be imagined as a Tyrannosaurus Rex or a group of wild elephants rus.h.i.+ng towards you, and then you had a long spear and a s.h.i.+eld in your hand. In this case. If you still dared to stand and fight in place, then you will surely pa.s.s the test. If you couldn’t do this, you would fail against Frightful Presence. (Test of Will 16 +!)
Soran was a person who attached great importance to the Will attribute, so it was not surprising that he could resist the effects of Frightful Presence. However, it depended on the will of the pirates if they could resist the effects of Frightful Presence afterward. But his men, who had sailed on the sea all year round, who withstood the storm and waves, and who often faced the danger of killing and fighting sea monsters, must have greater will then ordinary people.
Will was very important!
After Soran went to the Abyss, he understood its importance.
After going from the side, Soran soon found his goal—a large adult white dragon.
The dragon cave was not deep.
Adult dragons were impatient. They sometimes seemed careless. Just like young adults were impulsive. Only in old age, those dragons become cunning. At that time, they begin to avoid head-on combat and liked to use traps to deal with invaders. Their Dragon Cave would gradually become a huge maze and their treasure would be hidden deeper and deeper. Sometimes they would even have creatures guarding the entrance.
As for ancient dragons, there was one ancient red dragon around Whiterun.
Until now, others thought it was only an adult red dragon that appeared there. There would be a period of time before others would find out that there was an ancient red dragon hidden there. Then there would be a big stir in the whole southern plain, and it would cause a lot of panics. At that time, it was a big buzz, but Soran didn’t know whether the events would turn out the same as before. If possible, he would want to try his luck in the future because there was an artifact in the nest of the ancient red dragon.
White dragons were the weakest dragons among the five. It was a Chaotic Evil creature.
The cave in front of him was similar to that in Soran’s memory. White dragons liked to dig down. Although the dragon’s nest was on a high mountain, the cave it made was deep. All sides were frozen because of its ice dragon breath which made the whole place look like a huge ice cellar. White dragons were not very picky about their food. Like other dragons, it could eat almost anything. However, white dragons preferred to use dragon breath to freeze its prey and then eating them. Many white dragons lived out on islands and would often dive into the sea to hunt for fish.
The most important point was white dragons liked to surprise attack from above, and would definitely use dragon breathe immediately as its first attack.
The scales of the white dragon in the embryonic stage would reflect light like a mirror, and the l.u.s.ter would gradually disappear with age. After reaching adulthood, the color of a white dragon would become gray and white, which was an important basis for judging the strength of a white dragon. Soran just looked inside the dragon’s cave, and roughly judged that this was a white dragon in its late adulthood.
Most dragon’s strength could be calculated simply according to their age. Their growth periods were: Newborn dragon (Challenge Rating 1); young dragon (Challenge Rating 4); Juvenile dragon (Challenge Rating 7); Youth dragon (Challenge Rating 10); adult dragon (Challenge Rating 13); adult prime dragon (Challenge Rating 16); old dragon (Challenge Rating 19); extremely old dragon (Challenge Rating 21).
All dragons were basically like this.
On the other hand, anything beyond this was considered to be ancient dragons. This kind of dragon basically had divinity. It could be said that the difficulty of dealing with them was not much different from that of challenging the G.o.ds and saints. Therefore, luck was very important in killing ancient dragons.
The dragon in front of Soran was going from [adult dragon] to [adult prime dragon]!
This was not good news.
Even the weakest white dragon among the five would have additional physical resistance and spell resistance after the transition from adulthood to adult prime. It then would be immune to any physical damage and spell damage below 10. This natural ability increases over time and could eventually evolve into immunity to certain types of damage. Fortunately, after these dragons were killed, their skin would inherit part of the defense resistance and could be directly made into first-cla.s.s rare grade equipment.
This was somewhat troublesome!
Soran looked at the 50 feet adult white dragon and slowly moved toward it.