NOVEL NEXT Chapter 30: Chapter 30: The Space Gate
"Which design plan should I choose?" Muria looked at the two castle models in his hand, indecisively.
Three seconds later, Muria made his decision: "I won't choose. Let's build both castles. No problem, right?"
"As you command, Prince Muria." Upon hearing Muria's command, the cloud giant leaders exchanged glances and unanimously responded.
Thus, the construction of the castles began in full swing, with the numerically dominant cloud giants taking the lead, the storm giants overseeing the operations, and the mountain giants fervently producing the materials needed for the construction, White Jade Stone.
As for the tide giants, they were executing Muria's task, roaming the seabed to search for treasures from the deep sea to adorn Muria's future castles as decorations.
On the first day of the castle construction, Muria received the population census data provided by the storm giants.
Currently, the number of cloud giants who followed Muria to Tai Chi Island totaled 6,185, including 1,876 adult male cloud giants, 1,882 adult female cloud giants, and the majority being 2,427 underage cloud giants, both male and female.
There were 352 mountain giants, with an average strength of Gold Tier Three. Tide giants numbered 1,268, with average strength ranging from Gold Tier Three to Four. The reason these two types of giants were so much rarer than the cloud giants was that they mostly lived in solitude, seldom forming communities, and had very little interaction with each other.
The storm giants, the strongest among the four types of giants under Muria's command, were also the rarest, with only 97 members. Each had the strength of Gold Tier Five, capable of stirring up a small storm when fully exerting their power.
The large number of cloud giants, over six thousand, was due to three very important reasons. The first was the cloud giants' innate spell-like ability to fly, which meant terrain restrictions were minimal for them.
The second reason was the cloud giants' social structure. They lived together as families, though sometimes groups of ten or twenty cloud giants would live together.
The third reason was that cloud giants belonged to the lawful good alignment and produced a large number of mages, sorcerers, and priests. At least one in ten cloud giants was a spellcaster, thus establishing a vast information network among themselves.
These three factors combined led to a surprising number of cloud giants gathering around Muria.
It's worth mentioning that the news of Muria declaring his independence and willingness to accept the allegiance of giants had already spread, attracting a surprising number of cloud giants to the Titan Archipelago where Muria was located.
In fact, not only cloud giants but also many storm, mountain, and tide giants who heard the news began to converge towards Tai Chi Island.
But it wasn't just these four types of giants; other kinds of giants also began to find ways to cross the Thunderstorm Ocean to reach the Titan Archipelago. The lure of transcending their life limits was too great.
...Huge ancient trees, a hundred meters tall, were felled by the cloud giants, clearing large swathes of land. Then, the uneven terrain was leveled and compacted by the mountain giants in a well-coordinated effort.
Subsequently, on the leveled ground, the cloud giants began constructing two castles using White Jade Stone provided by the mountain giants at two different locations on the island.
As for the location of the two castles, Muria treated the entire Tai Chi Island as a Tai Chi diagram, placing the castles at the Yin and Yang eyes of the diagram. Of course, no giant could discern Muria's intentions for the placement, nor could they possibly understand.
With plenty of manpower and energy, the cloud giants began constructing the castles day and night upon Muria's orders, their speed so fast that the mountain giants providing the White Jade Stone were mostly anxious and exhausted from keeping up.
The pace of the mountain giants' material supply couldn't match the cloud giants' usage rate. After a discussion, while constructing the castles, the cloud giants also began the decorative carvings on the castles, slowing down the consumption of White Jade Stone and giving the mountain giants a slight breather.
The cloud giants carved exquisite patterns on every part of the castles and also a large number of murals depicting legends and stories about Titans from the continent of Erathia.
They polished the magic crystals and various gemstones retrieved by the tide giants from the seabed, refined gold and silver ores, and then inlaid them into the castle walls, infusing the nascent castles with a luxurious aura.
What the tide giants found in the ocean were not only magic-infused crystals, gemstones, and gold and silver ores but also colorful, vibrant, and uniquely shaped corals; round and full pearls, small as peas and large as meters in diameter, also colorful and emitting dazzling magic lights.
When Muria first saw these giant underwater pearls, he was slightly surprised. Such enormous pearls, even under the strongest midday sun, were very conspicuous. These pearls, if brought to his previous world, could easily be deemed priceless.
"If you few dare to cause trouble again, I wouldn't mind teaching you daily with thunder how to be a dragon!" Muria warned the six young dragons with a dark face, gold arcs of electricity jumping on his body and invisible blades of wind flying out with his breathing rate.
Dragons are known for their greed, a fact Muria was well aware of. So, when he received gold and silver ores retrieved by the tide giants from the seabed, refined by the cloud giants, Muria generously gave each young dragon an amount of gold equal to their body weight, hoping to satisfy their avarice somewhat.
But Muria underestimated the allure of treasure to dragons. For those shiny lovelies, the young dragons could temporarily forsake their pride and sneak into the construction site as thieves, prying crystals, gemstones, and gold and silver already inlaid in the walls.
After receiving several eyewitness reports from cloud giants about the young dragons' thefts, Muria stormed into the temporary dragon den to "educate" them properly.
This was an underground cave excavated by the young dragons, filled with a faint sulfur smell from dragon breath, very dry without a trace of moisture.
The six young dragons cooperatively dug a huge cave underground and then excavated individual dragon dens based on this cave. Now, the young dragons had their private dragon treasures and no longer cohabited.
"Muria, I didn't steal..." Albert, who was lying in his nest counting his loot from the previous night, looked up to see the black-haired, golden-eyed little boy entering the "hall" and trembled in fear, hastily trying to hide something.
"Then
, what is this?" Albert's cave was directly opposite the hall entrance, so Muria walked straight in, bending down to pick up a transparent sky-blue rhombus crystal from the corner.
"Albert, can you explain what this is?" The black-haired boy played with the rhombus crystal, the size of his head, interrogating the fearsome dragon lying before him.
"This..." The young dragon looked awkwardly at Muria, now in human form, holding the rhombus crystal, which shimmered enticingly with intense water elemental fluctuations, "I found it."
"Found it?" Muria's eyes narrowed, "Where did you find it? Such a perfectly shaped water elemental crystal, I remember, is only found in the castle I'm currently building."
The cloud giants, despite their large size, also possessed dexterous hands. The crystal in Muria's hand had been cut by cloud giants into sixty-four perfect facets.
"..." Young dragon Albert was speechless. Red dragons among the chromatic dragons are known for their strength, not intelligence. Coming up with an excuse to cover a mistake had already surprised Muria.
"Move aside!" Muria, holding the crystal, came before Albert, looking at the red dragon's belly scales lit up in rainbow hues, and commanded coldly.
"Prince Muria, I…" Albert, sweating coldly with fear, began calling Muria 'prince' like maid Mia. The young dragon was already scared by Muria and had a premonition of what was about to happen.
"Not moving, huh?" Muria, witnessing the scene before him, was furious.
He had been living in a wooden hut with maid Mia, eagerly anticipating his future castle residence. But now, dragons were secretly holding them back.
As Muria reverted to his true form, the light of dispelling the transformation spell illuminated the room, and he grabbed young dragon Albert by the neck, revealing a cave lit in multicolored lights from various magic crystals.
The colors also cast a darker shadow on Muria's face, the young hybrid Titan with dragon wings looked down at the young dragon Albert in his hand, "You should know, right? How should dragons treat creatures that steal their treasures?"
The young dragon, grasped by Muria, widened its eyes in terror, struggling desperately. Dragons never show mercy to those who steal their treasures, inflicting the most painful punishments on thieves.
"Don't worry, I won't kill you." Muria, seeing the young dragon relax and stop struggling in an instant, smiled, "After all, I'm not a true gold dragon. But though death may be spared, punishment is necessary."
Following that, wretched screams emanated from the young dragon's temporary cave, followed shortly by five distinct tragic dragon howls...
When all was said and done, Muria, with a ring full of "loot," left the dragon den, leaving behind six twitching dragon-shaped charcoals.
Even young female dragons Renata and Cynthia didn't escape Muria's punishment this time. The greed of dragons is not just talk.
The construction of the castle, with the relentless efforts of thousands of cloud giants, progressed rapidly. Less than a month later, the cloud giant leaders announced to Muria that the main structure of the castle was completed.
As Muria followed the cloud giant leaders to one of the grand, majestic white castles, ready to tour his new residence, an unexpected event occurred.
Golden lightning tore through the space before Muria, and black spatial rifts intertwined, forming a towering space gate hundreds of meters high. Behind the gate, a Titan over a hundred meters tall with black hair and golden eyes strode forward, dragging something...
"Today I'm in a good mood, so here's an extra update, but just this once, as it's from my emergency reserves. Normally, it's still one update a day.