Chapter 3

Two young dragon whelps were lying in the crater of the nameless volcano, which was gradually entering the state of hibernation.

The intimidating aura surrounding the two was also gradually fading, preventing them from being found by predators.

This was the effect of the growth they experienced during their long sleep, as they were unable to do so before.

As they slept for about a year, Claudius began to regain consciousness.

After shaking his tail and stretching his limbs, he discovered that he had already grown from the size of a foal to that of a stallion.

 As expected, the two eggs idling besides him still showed no change. Claudius was pondering on whether to eat the eggs or not as his stomach grumbled.

 "This feels like cannibalism..."

 While Claudius was having an intense battle within his mind, Britannia woke up as well. Her body was as small as always; around two thirds the size of Claudius.

Without any sense of sympathy, the young dragoness bolted towards one of the eggs, sending a powerful bite to the tough shell.

 This shocked Claudius for a second, as he looked at his cute yet brutal sister munching on an egg.

However, Claudius immediately grabbed the other egg as Britannia turned around and said to him,

"The eggs can no longer be hatched, they are dead already. Now, if you don't want to eat, how about giving me the other one as well?"

 Despite being an egg which could be hatched, it did not seem to be rotten at all and simply tasted like chicken eggs back on Earth. Claudius gobbled up the egg, and sighed as he sat down with a full stomach.

At this very moment, Claudius could hear sounds at the back of his mind.

"Ding Dong!"

A bright screen expanded in front of the eyes of this abnormal crimson dragon.

There he saw a large painting; a painting of a crimson dragon to be more specific. The dragon in the painting looked extremely similar to Claudius, and there were six words below the dragon: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Charisma, and Wisdom.

"Aren't these the attributes of D&D? Looks like I got an awesome cheat for being transported."

As a former person who had read countless web novels, Claudius totally agreed that every transported person should at least receive a cheat.

It seemed that the cheat for him was the attribute system, but the various fancy skills were all gone. All that remained was a list of skill names, like 'XX Leap' or whatnot.

"The system can also tell this is not a game, huh? As this is now reality, the modifiers are probably pointless. You can't throw the die and run around in real life right?"

Speaking of his previous life, Claudius was actually quite curious about the kind of life he led before becoming a dragon. "Eating, drinking, having fun, a load of useless knowledge and nothing else. What the hell was I?"

Anyways, he started looking at his own attributes.

"Hmm, 18 Strength, 11 Dexterity, 19 Constitution, 12 Intelligence, 10 Charisma, and 11 Wisdom. Are these numbers good or bad? If I were human I would totally be a genius, but I guess I'm a dragon now,"

Claudius scratched his head while thinking. He had no idea whether these stats were normal or not, hence he turned and looked at his little sister Britannia, who was still busy eating the egg.

As he focused on  Britannia, her stats showed up on the screen. There it read: 17 Strength, 10 Dexterity, 15 Constitution, 10 Intelligence, 10 Charisma, and 11 Wisdom.

Looking at the stats, Claudius believed that these are probably the standard values of normal crimson dragons.

He could tell that Britannia was a superb dragoness despite not harbouring a human soul.

"Are my stats increased due to the fact that I'm a dragon with a human soul? Oh, the experience bar is empty, not even a single point. It looks like I can't level up now; should I go kill some grunts for experience points?"

Claudius said to himself while staring at the class above his stats, which had the words 'Crimson Dragon (Level 1)/Dragon Whelp' on it.

Despite having such attributes, Claudius knew from the knowledge he gained from the inheritance ceremony of the Dragon Tribe that it was not the time to show off his own strength.

As a baby dragon whelp, he had to live with his tail between his legs for at least five years.

At the age of five, they would develop into dragon whelps which could handle common beasts, while they would have to wait for 25 years before becoming invincible against most, if not all, creatures living across this continent.

Hence, Claudius had to find a comfortable place to live in before reaching his prime age.

According to the knowledge he obtained from the inheritance ceremony, underground caves were the ideal environment for crimson dragons as they had bright, shiny crimson scales.

Perhaps Britannia also had the same thing in mind, for she began to wander around the crater to find a suitable cave to live in.

Claudius, however, thought that hiding in a hole in a volcanic crater was not a good idea.

"Be it humans or whatnot, every single being on this continent should know that crimson dragons like to reside in warm, volcanic areas."

" We can never tell when good-for-nothing fellows will come and search this place. Normally we would be protected by our mother, but for some reason this damn mother of mine decided to abandon her eggs," Claudius said to himself.

After thinking thoroughly, Claudius decided to climb up the walls of the volcano and explore the land nearby before he got hungry again.

It would probably be impossible to find food in a volcano anyways, so he might end up digging a small cave somewhere nearby.

Yet Britannia appeared to not be interested in his plans, as she took off on her own and began expanding a crack in the volcanic crater with her sharp claws.

The Fire Dragon Bay was a mountainous region, hence a wide range of animals lived there.

Claudius climbed up the 20-meter-tall wall and rolled down the slope of the volcano.

After surveying his surroundings, he found a relatively suitable location under a pile of igneous rocks.

The huge rocks supported one another, and an upward slope could be seen further inside.

Claudius climbed up the slope by digging his claws into the igneous rocks, and right in front of him was a large platform.

Rays of sunlight were passing through the gaps of the ceiling, illuminating the 100-square-meter space which could be used as his hidden home.

Claudius was pleased with his new lair, but just to be careful, he decided to sleep at the corner which was dark and not visible from the outside.

Just like that, Claudius made his first step towards becoming a full fledged 'Earthly' crimson dragon in this new world.