167: Dragon's Lair

The wind still howled in the canyon, and the smell of scorching sulfur lingered in the air.

In the clearing that had just witnessed a very lopsided "duel," the massive Red Dragon, Klaus Difan, was forced to lower its noble head, obediently leading the way like a tamed, oversized hound.

Floating behind it was that silver-haired demon who looked harmless but could actually shatter a mountain with a single punch.

"Um... Respected one, my humble abode is just ahead."

Klaus Difan carefully looked back and offered a fawning smile as it walked; the expression squeezed onto its scale-covered face was both comical and pitiful.

"Although it cannot compare to your palace in the sky, it serves as a place to keep out the wind and rain."

Ilya crossed her arms, floating in mid-air, her crimson electronic eyes scanning the surrounding environment.

This dragon lair was located halfway up the canyon cliff, its entrance cleverly concealed by several massive rocks. Without a heat detector, it would be difficult to discover that this place held such a hidden world from the air.

"Stop talking nonsense, lead the way."

As the human and the dragon entered the cave, the originally dim light did not become darker. Klaus Difan had embedded a type of phosphorescent stone that emitted a warm yellow glow into the cave walls, illuminating the passage quite brightly.

To Ilya's surprise, this was not the damp, cold, primitive beast den filled with bat guano and animal bones that she had imagined.

On the contrary, Klaus Difan's lair could even be described as tidy, dry, and well-ventilated.

The floor of the main passage was polished very flat and covered with a thick layer of hay and animal fur rugs. Regular grooves had been carved into the rock walls on both sides, holding some massive, unknown pottery jars and dried meat.

"I wouldn't have guessed you knew how to enjoy life." Ilya raised an eyebrow; her scanner showed that the air circulation system here was designed quite ingeniously, utilizing the air pressure difference inside and outside the canyon to create natural wind circulation.

"Hehe, well, a dragon has to have some quality of life." Klaus Difan scratched the scales on its body with its hind legs.

Moving further in, the space suddenly opened up.

It was clearly divided into several functional areas: a "dining room" piled with a large number of bones, a "bathroom" formed by diverting an underground river, and an area specifically for sharpening claws and scales.

This layout gave Ilya a sense of déjà vu—this was no dragon lair; it was clearly one of those human cave dwellings built into mountains, just a giant version.

Then Ilya noticed a stone chamber in a corner, and she floated inside.

Instantly, a burst of golden light dazzled her eyes.

In the center of this stone chamber, which was the size of a basketball court, a small mountain of gold glittered. Countless gold coins, crowns, goblets, and necklaces were piled up casually like trash, emitting an alluring luster under the phosphorescent stones.

This was almost the standard configuration for dragons in all fantasy stories—sleeping on a mountain of gold.

"It certainly looks the part."

Ilya flew above the treasure pile, her internal scanning module activated, and an invisible scanning beam swept across this pile of "treasure."

Two seconds later, the anticipation on her face turned into disdain.

"Copper-zinc alloy accounts for 85%, the gold plating thickness is less than 5 microns, high-lead glass accounts for 12%, inferior ironware accounts for 2.5%..."

Ilya casually picked up a seemingly enormous ruby from the treasure pile and squeezed it gently with two fingers.

Snap.

That "ruby," which looked worth a fortune, crumbled into powder just like a crispy biscuit.

"Is this your treasure?" Ilya brushed the glass shards off her hands with disgust. "A pile of gold-plated copper plates and dyed glass beads? You call this treasure?"

Klaus Difan's dragon face became ugly. It stammered in defense: "Um... Respected one, you may not know, but the economy outside is not doing well lately... Those human kingdoms and beast tribes are stingy as can be; the real gold and silver are all hidden underground by kings, so it's very hard for me to rob any..."

"Besides... Besides, it just looks good when it's shiny! I don't care if it can be spent, as long as it's pleasing to the eye!"

It tried to maintain its last shred of dignity, like a child caught using fake designer goods.

Ilya rolled her eyes, expressing deep doubt about this dragon's taste and intelligence.

However, although most of these "gold and silver treasures" were junk, some scattered weapons and armor at the edge of the treasure pile caught her attention.

She flew over and picked up a broken sword that was only half-intact.

"Hmm?"

The scan results showed that the material of this broken sword was not ordinary steel, but a specially treated alloy. Its internal crystal lattice structure exhibited a strange spiral arrangement, a structure that gave the metal extremely high energy conductivity.

"That is Thorium Steel." Seeing that Ilya was not interested in the junk but was interested in the weapons, Klaus Difan quickly leaned over and said, "It was left behind by those reckless adventurers. Although this stuff is hard, it is too brittle, and I bit it in half with one bite."

"Energy-conductive metal..." Ilya was thoughtful. "It seems the metallurgy technology of this planet developed to complement some kind of energy system."

She threw away the broken sword and searched through the cluttered collection.

Suddenly, her gaze fixed on something casually thrown in a corner.

It was a wooden stick that looked unremarkable.

It was about 1.5 meters long, dark brown and withered throughout, its surface covered with traces of time and cracks that looked like they had been scorched.

In this pile of glittering "treasure," it looked like a piece of firewood picked up from nowhere, appearing completely out of place.

But Ilya's sensors read a completely different signal from it.

"High-energy reaction? Abnormal radiation levels?"

Ilya floated over. Instead of picking it up by hand, she controlled the biomimetic body's magnetic field to levitate the stick in front of her.

"What is this?" She turned to ask Klaus Difan.

The Red Dragon glanced at the stick, and a trace of fear and lingering dread flashed in its eyes.

"That... That is an unlucky thing."

Klaus Difan shrank its neck, its tone becoming somewhat heavy.

"That is the wand of the court Archmage of the Rocasia Kingdom. That old man... what was his name again? Anthony, I think?"

"That was five years ago." The Red Dragon recalled. "I was out hunting that day, and I happened to run into that old man rushing into my territory covered in blood, with a bunch of pursuers behind him."

"I originally wanted to take advantage of the chaos, but I didn't expect that even with only half a breath left, the old man was still incredibly fierce!"

Klaus Difan pointed to a patch of noticeably lighter-colored scales on its chest. "This was blasted by the lightning he released with that stick! It almost cooked my heart at the time!"

"If he hadn't already been seriously injured, his magic power exhausted, and he had to be distracted by dealing with the pursuers behind him, I suspect I would have been the one to die that day."

The Red Dragon said with lingering fear: "In the end, his magic backfired, and he blew himself up, leaving behind only this stick. I originally wanted to throw it away, but I felt that since this thing had hurt me, it might as well be kept as a souvenir."

"Mage? Magic power? Spells?"

Ilya's eyes lit up instantly; it was a gaze more fanatical than when she saw any gold or silver treasure.

It was the excitement of a scientist discovering a new subject.

"Sure enough!" She stared at the levitating wand. "Navigator, perform a deep scan on the target immediately! I want to know its internal structure and residual energy characteristics!"

"Scanning... Analyzing."

A few seconds later, the Navigator's voice echoed in Ilya's mind.

"Captain, scan results indicate that the main material of this wand is a high-density carbon fiber biological tissue, but a microscopic, unknown component transistor line is embedded in its core."

"This line has extremely high energy conduction efficiency, and residual energy highly overlapping with the psionic energy bands described in the Faleim Civilization database has been detected in the surrounding area."

"Conclusion: This so-called wand is essentially a psionic amplifier."

"So, the so-called mages are individuals on this planet who can sense and manipulate psionic energy?"

"Yes."

Ilya snapped her fingers and spun around in the air excitedly.

This was a huge discovery.

Now, a sample with a complete magic (psionic) system was laid out before Ilya.

"If we can analyze the operating principle of this wand and analyze the frequency patterns behind those spells..." Ilya's eyes became incomparably scorching. "Perhaps humans can also master this kind of magic? Or we can create scientific instruments capable of releasing magic?"

"This is definitely a more interesting topic than the Warp Engine!"

She turned around abruptly, looking at the bewildered Red Dragon, and a smile that made one's heart crawl appeared on her face.

"Hey, big lizard."

"Wh... What?" Klaus Difan instinctively shrank back.

"Your home has been requisitioned." Ilya declared domineeringly.

"Ah? But..."

"No buts!" Ilya didn't give it a chance to refute. "I am going to renovate this place into my laboratory! I am going to study the magic of this planet here!"

She contacted the Navigator again.

"Navigator! Bring the ship over! Hover right above this canyon!"

"Airdrop a set of modular laboratory components for me! I want the full set! Biological analyzers, high-energy physics detectors, geological scanners... I want them all!"

"Also, prepare a few engineering robots for me. I'm going to do some renovations in this cave! Clear all this junk out for me!"

"Understood, Captain. The Wanderer is entering the atmosphere, expected to arrive at the target airspace in 5 minutes."

...

Five minutes later.

A massive shadow shrouded Kalamo Canyon.

Klaus Difan looked up in horror. Through the entrance of the cave, it saw a silver giant ship that blotted out the sky slowly pressing down like a floating mountain of the gods.

The terrifying pressure from the creation of a higher civilization made this Red Dragon completely abandon any thoughts of resistance.

Immediately after, several huge metal cargo containers were pulled by anti-gravity beams and slowly landed in the clearing of the canyon.

A group of strangely shaped engineering robots swarmed out of the containers.

They rushed into the dragon lair, ignoring the Red Dragon's heartbroken gaze, and moved that pile of "treasure" to a corner outside like clearing trash.

Then laser cutters began to roar, and nano-printers began to spew materials.

The original, rugged, primitive dragon lair underwent a world-shaking change in just a few short hours.

The rock walls were covered with white composite material panels, the floor was laid with anti-static flooring, and soft shadowless lights replaced the dim phosphorescent stones.

Various precision instruments full of sci-fi aesthetics were installed and debugged, and complex data streams began to scroll on the holographic projection table.

Klaus Difan shrank into the farthest corner of the cave, hugging its pile of "junk" that had been thrown out, watching its cozy nest turn into a white room full of strange smells and buzzing sounds, unable to cry even if it wanted to.

Its nemesis—that silver-haired little demon—was currently standing in front of a massive instrument, carefully placing the wand into the analysis slot.