However, these were just extras. Asterion didn't spend so much life energy evolving wings for combat—could wings be sharper than his sword-tail?
After roughly shaping his wings, Asterion began to worry again—was the strength of these eight wing bones enough to carry his body in flight?
Although Valstrax also possessed abnormal wings, they weren't eight independent frames. Instead, the left and right sides each grew three thick, column-like wing bones with sharp wing talons. These were Valstrax's thrusters. Merged together, every wing bone presented a hollow structure, with nozzles at the very tips, connected to a special organ in Valstrax's lungs that produced Dragon Energy.
If Valstrax's physiological structure was a masterpiece of natural selection, a super-suit created by Tony Stark with maximum black technology, then what Asterion was doing right now was cobbling together the Mark-1 by hand out of scrap copper and rotten iron in a dark cave in Afghanistan.
It really highlighted the word "struggle." He was completely following the Valstrax settings in his memory to make his wings lean as much as possible in that direction. Pure knock-off, the especially bootleg kind.
First, and most importantly, Asterion didn't possess Valstrax's most precious special organ—the one capable of mixing air with Dragon Element energy to produce Dragon Energy. He couldn't spray Dragon Energy at all—forget Dragon Energy, even spraying large amounts of air was difficult. Essentially, he had just added eight heat dissipation channels.
Second, Valstrax used hollow wing bones for jet propulsion, while Asterion had grown fleshy pipes along solid bones. They were a notch lower in strength and heavy beyond measure.
So... uh, since even a naturally adapted and evolved dragon like Valstrax didn't choose to keep the wing bones independent, should he reinforce or merge his?
Anyway, this was just laying the foundation for future flight.
From his past life to his current one, riding airplanes didn't count; Asterion had never truly flown, let alone broken the sound barrier to fly at supersonic speeds. He had no idea how cold it was thousands of meters up in the sky, or how hot it got during high-speed flight.
One had to realize that even Valstrax's shell would peel off due to air resistance during sustained supersonic flight. The falling shell fragments would smash out massive craters upon hitting the ground, and the Dragon Energy-imbued shells would cause local ecological instability. This could be considered the manifestation of Valstrax's status as an Elder Dragon—a living natural disaster.
Asterion didn't know if the strength of his scales, shell, or skeleton could withstand the cold and heat of high-speed flight. Or if the pressure brought by the air during high-speed flight would alter the injection angle of the wing bones, resulting in the tragic state of eight wing bones spraying in eight different directions...
After thinking it over, Asterion decided to play it safe.
Some problems could be made up for with subsequent evolutions later, but some problems were better solved as early as possible.
The interrupted evolution resumed. This time, Asterion expanded the thickness of the roots of the eight wing bones. Divided into four on the left and four on the right, interlocking bones grew between each wing bone, allowing the four wing bones to merge into a single unit like a cohesive whole.
This way, he only needed to consider the angle of the nozzles in two directions during flight, while in combat, the eight wing bones could unlock themselves to launch attacks.
To be honest, even Asterion himself didn't know if his evolutionary direction was correct. All he could do was try, discover deficiencies or errors, and then change them.
The original heat dissipation channels weren't abandoned. Asterion could finally open and close the heat vents to charge up for a blade strike as he had originally envisioned, without worrying about the heat generated in intense combat having nowhere to release and causing a chamber explosion.
This time, even if Nergigante's spikes shot into his body again, Asterion wouldn't have to worry about the heat dissipation channels rupturing and high-heat steam destroying his internal organs.
But the project to knock off Valstrax had only just begun. What Asterion had done previously was merely build a basic framework.
The most precious thing on Valstrax was that organ capable of producing Dragon Energy. Hmm, and the Dragon Energy Orb within its body. These two things were the source of Valstrax's Elder Dragon power.
Asterion... he didn't know how to replicate these two things. He really couldn't do it without having eaten one before. All he could rely on were the setting books he had read in his previous life, which contained only a few scanty sentences.
If he couldn't fly, he would never be able to catch up to Valstrax. Even if he did catch up, he couldn't kill it; Valstrax could just take off and run away. Even if it crashed after flying a short distance, Valstrax's speed wasn't something a land-bound dragon could catch up to.
Even Flying Wyverns skilled in flight like Rathalos, Astalos, and Seregios couldn't catch up. The two sides weren't even on the same level.
Valstrax was actually the most frequently sighted Elder Dragon. The crimson meteors that occasionally streaked across the sky were Valstrax in flight, though humans had always regarded them as comets trailing red tails, believing them to be natural phenomena.
Even Asterion had seen it a few times after coming to this world, but he could only watch. He would raise his head and look longingly as the comet disappeared into the horizon.
After moving around a bit to confirm that the newborn wings wouldn't hinder him from swinging his sword-tail or performing other strenuous actions, Asterion began the second step of this evolution.
Even if he couldn't fly as fast as Valstrax, as long as he wanted to fly, he had to have his own "Dragon Energy."
The air sac that had once protected Asterion for a time, helping him overcome obstacles and cheating death against who knew how many monsters, returned to his body once more. But unlike before, this time the air sac wasn't combined with his shell, but appeared in his body as a separate organ.
Located behind the front chest shell and in front of the lungs. Thanks to his body being massive now, Asterion rummaged around and cleared out a space in his abdominal cavity that could accommodate the expanded air sac.
This was Asterion's Dragon Energy sac, though this name was only tentative since he didn't have Dragon Element energy at all. The Teostra Gem allowed Asterion to manipulate a portion of Fire Element energy and spontaneously generate flames.
But Dragon Element energy mixed with air and sprayed out versus Fire Element energy mixed with air and sprayed out were two completely different situations.
How should he put it? Asterion was actually quite scared. After all, based on the scientific knowledge he possessed, when fire and air—or accurately speaking, fire and oxygen—mixed sufficiently, it usually resulted in full combustion. If he inhaled a large amount of air and mixed it with Fire Element energy inside the air sac, uh, was that really safe?
Asterion thought about it for a moment. Theoretically speaking, it seemed safe... S-Safe?
His stomach was unique, but even an ordinary Glavenus's stomach could burn at temperatures of at least 1,500 degrees Celsius, covered with a layer of heat-resistant crystals sufficient to melt ore.
However, that was a stomach. As for an air sac... could it withstand highly compressed air being ignited?
Especially under the condition of mixing in the supernatural power of Fire Element energy.
All along, Asterion's attitude toward evolution had been to evolve first and deal with it later; at worst, he could devolve if problems arose. But this time, even he didn't dare to do that.
He prepared to do a simulation experiment first. Even if it really exploded, he wouldn't be too heavily injured.
He would rather spend extra life energy to temporarily devolve the shell and scales on his chest, allowing his newly evolved organ—the compression sac—to be exposed to the air as much as possible. To be honest, this scene was really a bit grotesque, like some Cthulhu-style monster.
There wasn't any blood flowing out, but a milky-white air sac covered in thin pink muscle fibers glaringly squeezing out of Asterion's chest cavity was still a bit too terrifying. It could scare any Grimalkyne into insomnia.
Asterion took a deep breath. Following his movement, the air sac began to expand rapidly. Then came a succession of deep breaths. Asterion was like a bottomless pit, inhaling mouthful after mouthful of air into the sac.
If not for the fact that a Glavenus couldn't sweat, Asterion felt he would be sweating profusely right now. It was like a person desperately blowing up a balloon; the balloon was constantly expanding and could explode at any moment—but the problem was that no one knew when it would explode.
This sense of tension and crisis became increasingly tormenting.
Of course, just filling the air sac wasn't enough. Asterion wasn't actually blowing up a balloon. Taking Valstrax as an example again, a single breath from Valstrax was enough to fill the mysterious organ in its lungs with a large amount of air.
And after mixing with Dragon Element energy, as long as no intense combat occurred, the air inhaled by Valstrax in one go was enough to support flight over extremely long distances, as well as high-speed dives from high altitude into the sea to capture prey and other strenuous movements.
This meant that the amount of air Valstrax inhaled at one time was immense, and it had to be compressed and stored in the body for planned use. Otherwise, it would swell up like a Paolumu into an immobile giant balloon.
So, Asterion also had to compress the air inside the sac. This was the first operation, so he didn't even dare to compress it too much. He stopped after inhaling an amount of air roughly sufficient to fill this small nest—probably about ten cubic meters. It took quite a while to inhale.
This efficiency of inhaling air naturally couldn't compare to Valstrax, but it wouldn't be too late to evolve targeted air-intake efficiency after verifying the safety of the Dragon Energy mixture.
Right in front of Asterion's eyes lay an air sac about the size of his head. At the end, there was still a lot of muscle tissue connecting it to his body. He was starting to sweat!!! He really was going to...
Let's put it this way: many people know not to poke a truck tire with a sharp object. Once punctured, the exploding truck tire could even kill a person on the spot. But a standard truck tire only needs about 2.5 cubic meters of atmospheric air to be full.
In other words, if this air sac exploded, it would be equivalent to Asterion taking the force of four truck tires exploding in his face simultaneously. He couldn't even reduce the amount of compressed air; this was already the minimum amount to ensure the experiment could proceed normally.
Asterion already knew what Fire Element energy looked like when mixed with atmospheric air; he just had to spray it out of his mouth. There was air everywhere outside. Breathing fire—it was a common tactic for monsters.
But what he wanted was Valstrax-style Dragon Energy. Could highly compressed air safely mix with Fire Element energy inside the air sac? Could the ignited, mixed Dragon Energy be sprayed out along the heat dissipation channels to generate thrust? That was what Asterion wanted to know.
He hadn't even filled the entire compression sac to its limit. Asterion could feel that the outer wall of the sac still had plenty of resilience; there was no feeling that it couldn't hold on and was about to explode.
He was going to light it!
He was really going to light it!!
After mentally preparing himself and relying on his thick hide and flesh, Asterion took a deep breath and steadied his mind. Suddenly, a spark flashed inside the milky-white air sac—BOOM!!!
It exploded.
How should he put it?
Uh, Asterion wasn't even the least bit surprised by this explosion. It happened too fast; his eyes didn't even register what had happened. He only knew that the moment he channeled Fire Element energy into the air sac, it exploded instantly.
Blown to smithereens. Tattered muscle and air sac fragments drooped over Asterion's head and chest. There was blood flowing this time, but it wasn't a problem. Asterion directly bit off the tattered air sac and ate all the scrapped minced meat, completing a cycle of energy recycling.
"W-What happened, meow?!"
"Are you okay, Boss, meow!!"
The explosion in the small nest where Asterion was lairing naturally attracted the attention of the Grimalkyne Guard Squad guarding the entrance. But with Asterion's prior orders, they didn't dare enter rashly. They could only shrink their heads and shout from the outside, not daring to even peek inside.
"Roar!!" (It's fine! Don't come in no matter what happens!)
Asterion's command was quickly relayed by the Old Shaman. Asterion didn't care about the Grimalkynes' fear; he continued his experiment. At this moment, Asterion's brain was already occupied by the desire for flight.
He saw hope.
Just like when he bravely challenged Kushala Daora out of a desire for evolution back then, Asterion couldn't refuse this hope.
Spending a bit of time and life energy, soon, another air sac was placed in front of Asterion. But unlike the previous air sac, this one wasn't translucent; it was as if something was blocking the view inside.
Through verification, Asterion confirmed that even if he used the toughest cell structures in his body to shape the air sac, it could hold a lot of purely compressed air—ten cubic meters was far from the limit—but once Fire Element energy was added, the air sac couldn't hold up.
Rather than saying it was blown up by the expanding combustion air, it was more like it was roasted into nothingness by the blazing Fire Element energy.
Asterion only recycled some tissues close to his chest and abdomen; the outer parts had been burned directly to ash when the explosion occurred.
But it didn't matter. This time, Asterion started adding ingredients. He generated a layer of crystals inside the compression air sac—the same heat-resistant crystal layer that appeared on the inner surface of a normal Glavenus stomach.
This layer of crystals gave the air sac a fixed shape. It would no longer expand or shrink with the amount of air pumped in; instead, it resembled a bottle.
Start adding air!!
Just like some old bellows, Asterion inhaled continuously. The Grimalkynes guarding outside heard only the sound of one breath after another, as if there were a monster inside devouring everything.
————
Supporting me on Pa-treon to gain early access to advanced chapters and enjoy expedited updates. Your support is greatly appreciated.
pat-reon .c-om/Dragonhair
(Just remove the hyphen - and space, to access Pa-treon normally.)