“But that being said, this system does put race as the prefix. Why not try making contact with other races?”
Ailaira Green licked her lips, a greedy glint flashing in her eyes. Although she hadn’t been prepared for the reward this time and suffered a loss in the process, she was already thinking ahead.
In the future, as long as she prepared herself properly, she could continuously develop more races, and then the rewards fed back to her by the system would eventually stack up to a terrifying amount.
“As for Andrea, I’ll help her speed up her growth progress for now and see how much the development progress rises.”
“I really am a little curious about what the future rewards will be.”
Once Ailaira had made a preliminary plan for her future schedule, the next day arrived. Early in the morning, she dragged Andrea out of bed, half-carrying the drowsy girl to the courtyard.
The chilly breeze of morning brushed Andrea’s neck, clearing her foggy mind a little. She hunched her shoulders and complained reluctantly, “Dragging me out here so early, what for? I’m still in my pajamas!”
Ailaira eyed Andrea’s pink silk pajamas, embroidered with a cute dragon’s head. “You’re adapting to Humanity’s life pretty fast. No need to change—these will get torn to shreds soon anyway.”
Huh? Are we playing that rough?
Andrea quickly crossed her arms over her chest, her bare white feet digging into the dewy grass as she retreated. “You pervert, you’re really going to do that?!”
“Don’t think just because I agreed to cooperate, you can use me to satisfy your wicked desires! I am the Great Red Dragon—I would never submit to anyone!”
Andrea was just huffing out of habit, but even she realized she might have misunderstood. What chilled her was that Ailaira didn’t respond with her usual sarcastic jibes—she fell into a strange silence.
The sunlight burned away the mist, but it couldn’t disperse the cloud over Andrea’s heart. She stared at Ailaira, who looked away, her voice trembling.
“Hahaha, I was just joking, Ailaira. There’s no way you’d be that kind of person, right? You wouldn’t make up some story about eating forbidden fruit to become stronger, right?”
Ailaira: Only silence.
“You wouldn’t… right?!”
Ailaira: Still silent.
Andrea quietly got up, tidied the skirt of her pajamas, brushed off some grass, and then turned to run. Unfortunately, she didn’t get far before Ailaira’s Touch snaked around her waist, forcefully dragging her back.
Seeing the Touch that had tormented her to the brink before, Andrea became even more agitated.
She struggled desperately, even trying to use Dragon’s Lethal Bite—except she was in human form now. “Ailaira! If you dare do that to me again! I’ll take you down with me!”
Ailaira massaged her forehead, organizing her thoughts before saying, “Alright, what I meant was, return to your Dragon Form—I need to do some experiments.”
“You could’ve said so earlier, I knew you—”
“But you weren’t wrong just now.” Before Andrea could breathe a sigh of relief, Ailaira’s next words stopped her short. “You felt it too, didn’t you? After that night, you did grow a lot. That was you going through a Growth Phase.”
The “kind” witch lady certainly disdained lying, but sometimes she would hide the truth—especially when words like Heat were too blunt to mention.
Cursing the Mother Goddess as an uncultured perverted deity in her heart, Ailaira chose her words carefully, half-revealing the truth to the dazed Andrea.
“You should know every race on the Mainland has its own patron god. If you have too much contact with a foreign god, you’ll inevitably be affected.”
“This so-called ‘Growth Phase’ is the Mother Goddess’s call to other races. Any non-human who’s been in contact with Humanity for too long will reach a point where their emotions are heightened. Through special means of relief, their bodies and magic power will be enhanced in many ways.”
After listening, Andrea stared up at the sky, her lips moving in a silent rant. Ailaira guessed the curses were pretty filthy.
Once Andrea had vented her wordless rage at the gods, she turned her fury on Ailaira—this time not only yelling, but actually stomping on her!
Andrea kicked her bare foot at Ailaira’s shin, like a virtuous maiden deceived, crying out in grief and anger, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner! You hid it from me on purpose, just waiting to devour me when the time was right!”
Ailaira dodged Andrea’s dirt-stained foot, and helplessly used her Touch to grab Andrea’s arm, lifting her off the ground.
“I only found out that night too. And honestly, it’s a long process—there’s an Elf who stayed with me for two years and never had anything like this happen.”
“Besides, it’s also because you stole and used the Prototype Perfume. That triggered you into the Growth Phase ahead of time, so really, you brought this on yourself.”
Andrea’s face went red-hot, her cheeks puffed out as she stammered, unable to retort. All she could do was mutter, “This is too weird…”
“It’s not just you. You saw what happened to me yesterday—I thought it was strange too.” Ailaira took a Potion from her pocket and tossed it to Andrea.
“If you don’t want to be toyed with by the Divine Rule, you have to be able to fight back.”
“So, we have to seize every opportunity.”
Andrea caught the bottle with both hands, looking at the murky black liquid inside with a disgusted expression. “What is this? It looks gross!”
“Based on how fish shed scales and snakes shed their skins, I made this Potion. It’ll help you shed your old scales and quickly grow New Scales.”
“Why do I have to grow New Scales anyway? That sounds terrifying.”
Ailaira waved her silvery, sharp Touch in front of Andrea, like rows of knives. “Because it’s useful to me. If you won’t drink it, I’ll just pull them out myself.”
Andrea shook her head frantically, popped the lid, and downed the Potion in one go. While the medicine took effect, Andrea scurried into the nearby bushes.
After some rustling, a pair of pale arms reached out, removed her nightdress, and folded it neatly on the ground.
A massive shadow grew from behind the bushes, soon occupying almost half the courtyard. The Red Dragon’s scales fell away like snow.