Chapter 43: A Kiss for Each of You as a Reward

Feeling Linden's gaze upon her, Victoria proudly pulled out the space gem, dangled it before his eyes, and then abruptly snatched it back.

"Stinky Linden, shouldn't you care about my special form just now first?"

"Uh..."

Linden massaged his temples in vexation.

How did this little dragon's mindset end up like an angler catching a prize fish, just bursting to show it off? Even if no one asked, she just had to bring it up herself.

"What kind of expression is that! Didn't I save face for you just now, didn't I look really cool?"

"Cool, super cool. In my heart, you're the coolest baby dragon in the entire world."

"That's more like it. Answer me, didn't I look just like the Gem Dragon King?"

"More than just looking like, you practically were one."

Linden cast his gaze aside, uttering words that went against his conscience. Anyway, he had just called down so many thunderbolts; surely, heavenly retribution wouldn't strike him down immediately for telling a little white lie.

His words greatly satisfied Victoria's vanity. The baby dragon turned her head toward the quiet butterfly dragon, signaling her to chime in as well.

Cyrona immediately unfurled her wings and said respectfully, "Long live the Gem Dragon King, may you live for ten thousand years."

"Wahahaha! (≧∇≦)ﾉ"

"I shall bestow heavy rewards upon the both of you."

Victoria grabbed the red carpet spread across the ground and draped it over her shoulders as a dragon king's cloak. Puffing out her chest with an imposing demeanor, she declared, "Come forth, step forward, and receive a kiss from me each."

"Ugh..."

Linden and Cyrona wore troubled expressions. What kind of reward was this?

Seeming to sense their dissatisfaction, Victoria protested indignantly, "When I was little, whenever I found a super rare gem, my mom and dad would happily kiss me on the forehead. Now I'm taking the initiative to kiss your foreheads and you're unhappy about it? Other dragons would beg for this and I wouldn't give it to them!"

You just said that was when you were little, Linden thought silently to himself. Exactly how old was Victoria anyway? Then again, it was hard to draw an equal sign between human ages and dragon ages.

He shook his head, rubbing his fingers together in front of the baby dragon to signal:

"Can't you give us a more tangible reward?"

"How materialistic! You materialistic Linden, that's minus ten favorability points for you."

"However, if you listen carefully to what I'm about to say, I'll consider adding them back."

Victoria's words made the corners of Linden's mouth twitch. The prototype of handing out a big stick followed by a sweet date had just been born. Oh no, she was actually starting to grasp the art of imperial rule. Three years from now, Victoria might just break into a crooked, evil smirk...

At this thought, Linden coughed twice and quickly said, "Please enlighten us, Your Majesty the Dragon King."

According to Victoria's explanation, not every gem dragon was capable of morphological transformation. Only those with a five-color lineage or higher could achieve it.

At her current tier-three strength, activating the multicolored form of her lineage enhanced all her attributes evenly without any single one being overly prominent. However, she could lock herself into a specific colored gem form to achieve peak performance in a corresponding aspect. Being a five-color dragon, she was capable of shifting into five different gem forms.

Limited by her current tier, she could only manage transformations into ruby and sapphire forms—one specialized in strength, the other in agility.

"If I turn into the ruby form, spitting a lava ball roughly the size of that red dragon is entirely possible, provided it doesn't advance to tier seven."

"Then why didn't you transform?" Cyrona asked curiously.

"Because activating the lineage takes time, and you can't be disturbed mid-transformation. What would happen if I got interrupted?"

As soon as Victoria finished speaking, Linden nodded heavily in deep agreement. A villain who doesn't know how to seize the timing of a transformation is no true villain.

"Besides, as you saw earlier, I'm still just a low-tier dragon, and the gem forms can't be sustained for long. Once I advance in tier, my endurance and power will improve dramatically."

"Sigh, a true god dragon for just five seconds... That really is short," Linden sighed leisurely.

"It's twenty seconds! Please show some respect, Linden," Victoria retorted angrily.

"Alright, alright. Since you've finished explaining, let's hurry up and start dividing the loot."

"Don't you have any thoughts or impressions to share?"

"How about we distribute items that help with tier advancement to you first, so you can last a little longer?"

"Hehe, that's more like it."

Seeing Victoria's cheeky smile, Linden suddenly realized something. He understood why Victoria hadn't just emptied out all the treasures right away.

She probably wanted him to take the lead and determine how the division should be handled. In their future journeys, more companions like Cyrona might join them. If every piece of treasure found in the future was split evenly, or if everyone deferred to one another in polite hesitation, it would inevitably hurt efficiency and make it hard to ensure fairness.

However, if the distribution was entrusted to a leader capable of commanding respect, the other members would accept the outcome without dissent. Victoria was setting him up to be the one who cut the cake, thereby elevating his prestige.

Perhaps this was also a transfer of power from the Dragon King to the Human King, a subtle form of favoritism from Victoria toward him?

Linden couldn't help but look at Cyrona: "I remember you're at tier two. How about we let Victoria advance first, and then tilt the resources toward you afterward?"

"I'm fine with whatever..." Cyrona glanced back and forth between him and Victoria with no objections. "You two are the ones who excel at fighting, so you should use the treasures that boost strength first. Combat isn't my forte anyway; I'm here to support you guys."

The atmosphere within the team remained quite harmonious, setting Linden's mind at ease.

"Alright, let's settle on that plan for now. As for me, I'm mainly looking for rare materials suitable for synthesis; things that boost dragon mana don't really do much for me."

Looked at this way, the dynamic among the three of them was genuinely stable.

Having finalized the treasure distribution scheme in advance, Victoria and Cyrona began dumping all sorts of precious items from the space gem into the refuge.

Taking the opportunity, Linden glanced at his system interface and was surprised to discover that the 1140 prestige points from shortly before had now risen to 1170 and were still slowly climbing.

It seemed that his previous action of knocking the red dragon down into the canyon had triggered a ripple effect. The surrounding circle of witnessing dragons had not only provided him with a massive amount of prestige at the time, but as they subsequently spread the name Linden to other dragons they knew, he continued to gain prestige from those new connections as well.

It could be described as an endless stream.

Even so, there should be an upper limit; it wouldn't grow indefinitely. Just like how his points had hit a bottleneck during his daily interactions with Victoria and Cyrona earlier, he would eventually need to achieve a breakthrough to advance further.

Just as Linden was quietly pondering his strategy for subsequent actions, his peripheral vision caught a flash of red among the items Victoria had poured out.

A look of joyful surprise crossed his face, and he hurriedly asked, "Victoria, do you have more of this stuff?"