Above the deep forest, a black shadow swept past at extremely high speed.
The airflow rushed past his ears, making his windbreaker flutter noisily.
The blue and green bird stood on the dragon's back, occasionally pecking curiously at the glittering scales on its back, and sometimes briefly floating on the wind currents, having a great time.
Sitting on the dragon's back and feeling the magic flowing around him, Evans squinted and looked at the green wings that occasionally flapped beside him.
Compared to the Norwegian Ridgeback's body, these wings were really too small. He had always been curious about how dragons' such small wings could support such massive bodies.
But now, truly sitting on a dragon's back and feeling the air currents and magical radiance, he roughly understood the answer to this question.
For dragons, wings weren't the key to their flight. They were just tools for adjusting balance and steering.
What really supported their flight was the magical radiance gleaming from each of their scales.
The principle of this magic was very similar to the Levitation Charm, but compared to the Levitation Charm, it could also provide dragons with forward momentum. Each scale could increase speed a little, and all the scales combined created the dragon's current flying speed.
However, this flying speed increased bit by bit. It took over half an hour for Norbert to take off and maintain its current speed. Perhaps adult dragons could cut this startup time in half, but the wind-up was still too long.
Shaking his head, Evans turned his attention back to the map in his hands.
On the map, the red dot was advancing forward at an extremely slow pace. Wherever the red dot went, the mist slowly parted, automatically filling in the surrounding terrain.
This place was already very far from Hogwarts. Even considering a dragon's range of activity, it would be impossible for anyone to witness it.
Looking at the terrain on the map, Evans rubbed his chin and gazed at the trees speeding past below.
This was a forest he had never been to before. Compared to the Acromantula nest, it was relatively brighter here, but still darker than normal woodland.
Such dim places would spawn many dark creatures, or rather, it was because of some dark creatures' presence that this place had become so dark.
However, those dark creatures were nothing to Norbert. Rather, they were good food sources. The only issue was that this woodland was too flat, with no suitable places for dragons to nest.
Dragons' habits dictated that their lairs must be built in cliffs or mountain caves, because it was very difficult for them to take off from flat ground. Only by nesting in such places could they fly freely at any time.
After pondering for a moment, Evans patted the dragon's back beneath him and spoke softly:
"Circle around this area and see if there's anywhere suitable for nesting."
"Roar!"
With an excited cry, Norbert slowed down slightly, tilted its body left, and maintained a slight banking angle.
Hagrid gripped tightly to one of the protrusions on Norbert's back, looked around, and said: "You want Norbert to live here?"
"This location is pretty good. If there's a high point, it would be a very suitable place for it to survive," Evans said softly.
"But wouldn't it be dangerous here?"
Looking at the surrounding environment, Hagrid's expression showed some worry.
"It's a dragon, Hagrid."
Before long, as the dragon turned, Evans noticed a hazy mountain peak appearing in the distance.
The dragon's vision was obviously better than his. Without waiting for Evans to remind it, Norbert flapped its wings, sped up, and charged toward that peak.
More than ten minutes later, jumping down from the dragon's back, Evans observed the surroundings and nodded with satisfaction.
This was a cliff that wasn't particularly high but was quite adequate. With just a little polishing, it could serve as Norbert's lair.
The young dragon excitedly landed on the cliff, curiously looking at the endless dark forest stretching in all directions. For it, this place was much more comfortable than that cramped box.
Seeing the young dragon's satisfied appearance, Evans said: "Study the structure here. Let's modify the cliff into a suitable shape."
"Mm." After reluctantly hugging the young dragon's neck once more, Hagrid moved close to Evans to study together how to make Norbert live better here.
A silver-white arc flashed as Alice jumped down from the young dragon's back and began searching nearby for any tasty little insects.
But before long, a rustling sound from beside the grass caught Alice's attention.
"Rustle~"
Curiously looking toward the grass patch beside her, Alice gently hopped to the edge of the grass, stuck out her head, parted the surface weeds, and peered inside.
"!"
"Coo!"
Startled by something in the grass, Alice instantly vanished as a silver streak and appeared on Evans's shoulder, holding his neck with lingering fear as she looked toward that grass patch.
"What's wrong?"
Evans, who had been studying renovation plans with Hagrid, turned to look at the grass where Alice had been and met a pair of frightened eyes.
What was that?
Curiously waving his wand, the surrounding weeds disappeared, and a cute-looking little beast appeared before Evans.
It had a lion's head and a body that looked like a goat's but with a dragon's tail. Although both the lion head and dragon tail should have been quite imposing, scaling these organs down countless times gave them an inexplicably cute feeling.
The moment he saw the little beast, Hagrid's eyes shot out two extremely bright beams of light.
"Chi... Chimaera?"
"Mm, from the looks of it, it should be a cub less than half a year old." Rubbing his chin, Evans also observed the little beast slowly backing away.
Chimaera, generally translated as 'Chimera', is an extremely dangerous magical creature.
Their dragon tail tips could spray flames several times more terrifying than Fiendfyre, the lion head's teeth could bite through any material they could get their mouths around, and their goat hooves could traverse obstacles that normal creatures couldn't cross.
However, unlike dragons, Chimaeras had very long growth cycles. A half-year-old Chimaera was still purely a cub, and these characteristics only provided some comfort at best when applied to cubs.
When you're small enough, even being angry looks cute.
Looking at that adorable little thing, Evans couldn't help but smile.
Fearfully backing up two steps, the little beast put on a fierce appearance and opened its mouth at the two humans.
"Hiss-ha!"
It wasn't to be trifled with! Mom had said their species was one of the strongest in the world!
Although one of these humans seemed to emit a very pleasant scent, the other tall one definitely had ulterior motives! It had to protect Mom! It couldn't run away!
Thinking this, the little beast's expression became even fiercer. A black-red flame flickered at its dragon tail tip as it warily watched the two humans.
But seeing the little guy's defensive actions, Evans laughed even more happily.
"Oh? Hissing?"