Chapter 44: Your Gentle Kiss

"Huh? This thing?"

Victoria pointed to a small pile of gritty red stone powder on the ground.

She couldn't understand why Linde's eyes lit up when he saw this stuff.

This kind of thing was very easy to get from the volcanoes near the red dragon settlement; as long as you mined a bit more red stone ore and ground it into powder, you could pile it up very high.

The only and greatest danger was making sure you didn't get caught by the whole family of red dragons.

Even though with so many red stone ores, all the red dragons combined wouldn't use up a fraction of it even in their next lives, they were just extremely possessive.

"I only brought out this much. This stuff isn't particularly precious anyway; I only packed this powder to fill the gaps."

Hearing the young dragon's words, Linde felt like she was somewhat like a rich landowner's foolish daughter.

Regardless of whether red stone ore and its derivative series of items were precious or not, just the special functions they could perform meant that hoarding as much as possible was never going to be excessive.

Mob spawners, iron farms, automated farms...

The most convenient aspect of red stone was that it could function similarly to electricity.

Just like in this world where generating electricity was difficult, a red stone torch (power source), red stone powder (wiring), and a red stone lamp (mechanical component) could form the simplest red stone circuit.

Among them, the power source, wiring, and mechanical components would use different materials and expand into more complex circuits depending on the specific application scenario.

Linde couldn't be considered a master of Minecraft; at best, he was a casual player who liked playing on the same server with his friends.

However, he had once studied simple red stone theory, so building something like an iron golem farm was a piece of cake for him.

If he had this stuff, he wouldn't need to search everywhere for mine shafts to dig for iron; he could directly achieve freedom of iron ingots.

Although the ideal was wonderful, reality was too harsh.

The amount of red stone powder Victoria currently provided might not be enough, by visual estimation.

Moreover, the pumpkin head required to make an iron golem was temporarily unavailable; autumn was the season when pumpkins matured.

Yet Linde was not discouraged. Everything is difficult at the beginning, but a good start had already been made, and things were going quite smoothly, weren't they?

Seeing that Linde remained silent for a long time, Victoria thought he was harboring resentment in his heart because she hadn't brought enough.

She drooped her head despondently and muttered in a muffled voice:

"I'm sorry, Linde. If I had known this red stone powder was so important to you, I would have packed a lot more back then."

Hirona couldn't bear to see Victoria taking the blame, so she shouldered the fault herself:

"It was me who rushed her and urged her to leave quickly. Victoria actually wanted to pack a few more alchemy materials for you to use. The mistake is mine."

"No, it's not. The time was already up anyway, it's not Hirona's fault."

Watching the two of them display such deep sisterly affection, Linde slowly formed a question mark in his mind.

Wait, I didn't even say I was going to blame anyone, did I?

If Victoria hadn't brought out the red stone powder, he wouldn't even have this pile right now.

And she didn't know in advance that this stuff was so important.

Besides, when packing treasures, she hadn't forgotten his instructions to pack some synthesis materials and the like.

Just this alone made Linde feel she had done well.

Dealing with young dragons required a method of encouraging education.

Facing the two dragons who were still shifting the blame onto each other, he walked into the middle and interrupted them:

"Neither of you is at fault here. If we really want to calculate who is at fault, wouldn't I be the one in the wrong? I failed to anticipate that there would be red stone-related materials in the treasury and didn't tell you in advance to pack more of these things."

"Therefore, the three of us don't need to argue over whose fault it is. We should appreciate each other more, praise who did right, and keep things harmonious—how wonderful would that be."

After that night of heart-to-heart conversation with Victoria, Linde was also trying to change his mindset and become more positive and optimistic.

"Victoria brought back an unexpected joy, which is truly celebratory. Come on, let me reward you with a kiss."

Facing Linde's tactic for coaxing young dragons, Victoria turned her head away with a proud huff and let out a snort:

"Just now, when I offered you a kiss, you turned your nose up at it, and now that I've pulled out what you wanted, you want to kiss me? Hmph, you super fickle, materialistic turnip!"

Linde couldn't quite hold it together.

Uh, what kind of nickname was that?

He could barely accept being called materialistic, but fickle...

He turned his head to look at Hirona:

"Shall I kiss your forehead first instead?"

"Hey, hey, hey! Do you understand the rules of first-come, first-served and keeping one's word, stinky Linde? I only said you're a turnip, I didn't say I didn't want a kiss."

Seeing her kiss about to fly away, Victoria hurriedly pulled Linde toward herself with her claws, terrified that he would go back on his word.

Seeing the young dragon lower her head, Linde pecked gently on the silvery-white scales of her forehead.

Even though it was such a trivial kiss in Linde's eyes, it was enough to make Victoria squint her eyes into slits and smile from ear to ear with unrestrained joy.

"Woohoo, obtained Linde's first kiss!"

"I must record this day properly in the World Book later, so that in the future everyone will know that King of Men Linde begged bitterly for a kiss from the Dragon King, and Victoria reluctantly nodded in permission—that's how history must be written!"

"You can't distort facts like that..."

Linde wanted to remind Victoria, but she had already hugged the World Book and scurried off to a corner to write furiously.

He sighed helplessly, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Hirona staring at him fixedly.

"You...?"

He asked tentatively.

"Hmph~"

Hirona silently looked away.

"Only a young dragon is this easy to coax. As for us mature butterfly dragons, we basically use our beaks to preen each other's feathers, or rub against one another..."

Linde glanced at her pointed beak and thought to himself that he wasn't a butterfly dragon.

From a human perspective and in terms of aesthetic appreciation, Hirona certainly looked quite nice.

She possessed both the ethereal grace of a crane and the majestic form of a peacock, while being slightly larger in build than the former and less ostentatious than the latter.

Her greenish-blue feathers were also a sight for sore eyes.

Presumably, among the butterfly dragons, she could be considered a rather pretty female dragon.

Linde was somewhat curious about what she would look like if she transformed into a human form.

Now his reputation level was only at 2; once the level increased in the future, unlocking new commands might bring about some kind of transformation.

Looking on the bright side, it wasn't just about turning dragons into humans—he might even be able to turn into a dragon himself.

He couldn't even imagine how wonderful those days would be.

The mere thought of soaring freely through the sky was extremely tempting. When the time came, he would grab Victoria and put her through ten or twenty rounds of 360-degree aerial spins.

Let's see if this fellow gets dizzy then.

It could also be considered payback for Victoria's prank during her first flight.

The young dragon, currently busy writing her notes, suddenly sneezed.

At this moment, Hirona was sorting the treasures piled high on the ground according to their different functions.

As a local dragon, she was more familiar with the specialties of this region, whereas two outsiders might not recognize all of them.

When she saw the yellow prism given to Victoria lying on the ground, she couldn't help saying:

"Put the yellow prism back in your stash first, Victoria, lest they get mixed up later."

"You can just slide it over across the floor."

Linde noticed that the yellow crystal sliding across the ground got close to the yellow crystal beside the young dragon and snapped tightly together with it.

An immature idea began to form in his mind.