Getting Away From Trouble.

Sam was slowly flapping his wings, stabilizing himself at the height of a fifteen-story building. He looked downwards at the thick canopy of green leaves, still excited about his ability to soar through the skies.

***

It had been five days since Sam got the system and learned a few things about its features, and received his gift bag.

The moment he finished that urgent task on hand, he began traveling south of Irinias city, getting as far away as possible from King Einar and anyone under him.

He knew that the moment the grey dragon's body was found out, everyone would chase him, and the people's strength won't be weak since his value was pretty high, not like ordinary dragons.

The only reason he stayed near the city for a few days was mainly due to his own safety; after all, he was new to this world and still didn't know much about his body and especially his own strength.

Subsequently, he hovered around the mountains and jungle for some time to get used to his new self and learn a little about the different things of the wild before leaving, but the moment he acquired the system, he saw it as a sign to depart this place and left in a hurry.

***

A small dragon launched himself toward the mountains in the distance. He kept flapping his wings while powerful winds enveloped his body, pushing him upward and forward.

As the small dragon soared through the skies, the mountains quickly grew larger with each second. As he kept accelerating, the ground under him slowly turned into a green and brown blur.

These weren't the same mountains south of Irina's city but were a totally different range of mountains that appeared to be way bigger than them.

Thirty minutes into the flight, his wings started to feel sore from the continuous flapping...

'This is not good; this way, I will not reach the mountains in one go...'

More of the dragon's knowledge of how to fly flooded into his brain.

Sam stopped flapping his wings. Instead, he spread his wings as much as he could. The small dragon started to glide, using air currents in the atmosphere to move forward and stay in the air, only occasionally flapping his wings to change direction or increase height and speed.

Soon he reached the mountains, landing on a stone surface at the bottom of the mountain. The temperature was surprisingly the same as in Irina's mountains; consequently, he wasn't bothered by this place.

Surprisingly he couldn't see any caves straight away. But then he caught a familiar smell on the nearby boulder. He approached it and sniffed it up close.

'It smells like a bear...' then he quickly pulled away his head in disgust, 'bear piss. It probably marked this as its territory. So it means it should have its burrow somewhere here.'

As soon as Sam caught a strong scent of a bear from the north, he began to trail it swiftly.

The trail led into a dark canyon covered in shadows thrown by tall cliffs on both sides.

"Grrr!" his sensitive dragon hearing caught a quiet growl coming from deeper in the canyon.

'I must be close.'

Eventually, he caught sight of a massive bear that was as big as a small car as it rubbed its back against a sharp rock. Suddenly, a small gust of wind blew from the direction of the dragon towards the bear.

Sam approached the bear.

The bear sniffed and growled upon sensing an intruder.

The dragon caught the attention of the massive bear, whose head turned in its direction. The creature's teeth were visible, and drool dripped from its mouth. It began to charge toward the dragon, and each step caused nearby stones to shake. Despite its enormous weight, the bear moved surprisingly fast.

Sam wasn't the bit intimidated by this show of force, which he honestly wasn't even proud of.

Mainly because on his journey that spanned over a week hunting a few beasts on each stop to fill his stomach, he found out from the system that the area he was in was just meant for mortals and ordinary humans, and each beast he killed was, in fact, an animal that had no cultivation base, which explained the reason why everything seemed effortless to Sam.

Sam swallowed the shame he was feeling when he learned about such a thing and went quiet, proceeding with his journey.

In the meantime, the bear had already reached Sam and swung its massive arm with claws at him.

Sam felt that the pure brute force behind the strike would tingle him a bit if it hit his body, considering his dragon scales and cultivation base compared to this ordinary bear.

Without much suspense, he leisurely used his own claw to cut the bear. His claws went through its bones like they were nonexistent, dismantling the bear into three cleanly cut pieces.

Disregarding the gore scene that just unfolded in front of him, ignoring even the fountain of blood that just burst out of the three pieces, Sam started eating the bear, filling his stomach before he retook flight.

After an hour of flying, the clouds began to darken, and the wind picked up, threatening to uproot trees at any moment. Purple lightning slashed through the dark sky in erratic zig-zags.

"Storm, that's what I need now."

Sam let out a sigh and searched for a sizable tree or potential shelter, but unfortunately, he was unable to spot any.

"It seems I need to go into the forest to take shelter."

Until now, he avoided the dark forest and kept flying without even resting his wings since he felt that the beasts beyond the mountain he just rested at were getting stronger, and given his cultivation at the infant stage, he could feel the strength of beasts clearly.

At this moment, he had no choice but to take shelter in the forest before getting struck by lightning.

The bare branches spiked into the sky - no sign of life was to be found anywhere. It was so dark, but it luckily posed no issues to him, given his dragon eyes.

There were only small sounds of rustling bushes and the howl of the wind. He didn't know what lay in this dark forest; all he knew was that it wasn't going to be a peaceful time walking into the forest.

Fortunately, when the downspout started, Sam found a big tree that had gigantic leaves and huge branches. Even with his massive frame, he still felt so tiny standing in front of the tree.

Since Sam lived a week and a half in the forest, he had no problem stealthily positioning himself on top of the tree; accordingly, he quickly took shelter on one of its branches that was able to support his weight.

"Hope there are no snakes in this tree."

Even though he was a dragon, he didn't drop his guard down, understanding the dangers of this world and that even a small creature like a snake might kill him in an instant if it had higher cultivation than him.

While Sam was recalling his assassin memories and proudly grinning about the reputation he had as shadow, he suddenly heard footsteps.

He quickly stuck his head between the massive leaves of the tree to check the ground beneath him since the sound of footsteps was coming from there.

As he was searching for the source, he saw a group of three strange-looking creatures dragging something. If he had seen these creatures on Earth, he would have been terrified to no end, but given his dragon body and a new mindset, he wasn't affected by it in the slightest.

Luckily, he could instantly recognize the three creatures beneath him without the need for knowledge about this world.

' Lizardman. Cool.'