Chapter 148: The Ecological Garden, a Super-Large Breeding Zone

Chapter 148: The Ecological Garden, a Super-Large Breeding Zone

In the northern woods of Ryan City.

What was once a desolate forest is now heavily guarded by fully armed troops, barring all unauthorized personnel from entering.

Deep within a cave, Su Nan's figure slowly materialized.

To avoid any trouble, he had not informed the lord of Ryan City and arrived here silently, without alerting anyone along the way.

The cave was dimly lit and eerily quiet, with only the faint sound of footsteps echoing.

After passing through the cave, a desolate hillside suddenly came into view.

Su Nan activated the levitation spell on his robe, causing his entire body to float upward as he flew toward the location of the Crystal Sword Dragon, as indicated by the intelligence.

As he flew, Su Nan's gaze roamed around.

Sure enough, as the intelligence had suggested, dragonkin footprints were visible everywhere.

In some areas, the footprints were so dense and intertwined that they formed a continuous pattern, with numerous signs of fierce battles between the dragonkin.

"So many different types of dragonkin; they must have escaped from somewhere."

"Without a doubt, there should be an ecological garden nearby."

An ecological garden refers to a large breeding zone.

Powerful wizards often establish a super-large protective barrier, transforming the area inside into a stable and self-sustaining ecosystem for the cultivation of specific species.

These species are often rare and hard to find in the outside world.

Thus, ecological gardens are also known as species breeding grounds or super-large breeding bases.

It's worth noting that ecological gardens are typically enclosed in a semi-dimensional space, isolated from the material world, accessible only to those who possess the key or the activation phrase.

Su Nan speculated that there might be a specialized ecological garden for breeding dragonkin nearby. However, this garden must have experienced some malfunction, causing it to connect with the material world, allowing many dragonkin to escape.

This was the only explanation for the sudden appearance of a large number of different dragonkin species in an environment that was not naturally suitable for their coexistence.

"A dragonkin breeding ecological garden, huh."

"If it's real, that's quite an investment!"

The cost of building an ecological garden is not much less than that of a wizard's tower.

Especially for a garden dedicated to breeding dragonkin, the cost would be astronomical!

It would be comparable to the cost of a medium to large wizard's tower!

Even among official wizards, few could afford such a grand project.

As Su Nan pondered, he arrived at the location of the Crystal Sword Dragon.

He was about to search for the dragon when a roar suddenly echoed from ahead.

In the next moment, a massive beast resembling a lizard, with a back covered in fiery red crystals, emerged from behind a mountain wall.

The beast was approximately twelve meters long and five meters tall, with powerful, muscular limbs and a tail tipped with sharp spines. Red crystals, resembling swords, stood upright on its back, and sparks could be seen dancing between them upon impact.

"Crystal Sword Dragon!"

Su Nan's eyebrows rose; this saved him the trouble of searching.

"Roar!"

Seeing Su Nan, the Crystal Sword Dragon let out a roar and charged at him without hesitation.

The massive body of the dragon created a violent gust of wind, the low, thunderous sound of its approach enough to make weaker individuals collapse in fear, losing the will to fight.

"Although it's weak, it has already developed a hint of dragon aura."

"The bloodline of this Crystal Sword Dragon must be quite pure."

Discovering a high-tier dragonkin, Su Nan's face broke into a pleased smile.

The Crystal Sword Dragon, oblivious to the threat before it, lunged forward and opened its massive jaws, sparks shining between its teeth. In the next instant, a sulfuric flame erupted from its mouth.

Boom!

The surging flames engulfed Su Nan's body!

The Crystal Sword Dragon roared in excitement, but then it froze.

For when the flames dissipated, Su Nan was nowhere to be found, leaving only a charred patch of ground.

At that moment, a sharp, whistling sound came from behind.

Sssss!

A barrage of silver spikes suddenly swept through the air, a torrent that engulfed the Crystal Sword Dragon.

The legendary two-ringed dragonkin let out a short, sharp cry of pain as blood blossomed across its body, and it crashed to the ground with a thud.

The dense silver spikes retracted back into Su Nan's body.

Looking at the nearly lifeless Crystal Sword Dragon, which had lost its ability to resist, Su Nan's lips curled into a smile.

Just a moment ago, he had simultaneously cast Mirror Image and Invisibility, making himself invisible.

The dragon's breath had only hit an illusion.

Chapter 149: The Ecological Garden, a Super-Large Breeding Zone

"Instant casting combined with compound spells is indeed very useful!"

Su Nan smiled, took out a metal cage, and stuffed the Crystal Sword Dragon inside. He then summoned ten stone golems and one elite stone golem, ordering them to carry the metal cage to the entrance and wait for his return to bring it back to the base.

With the Crystal Sword Dragon taken care of, Su Nan followed its tracks and continued flying forward.

He didn't encounter any other dragonkin along the way.

It seemed that this area was the Crystal Sword Dragon's territory, and other dragonkin dared not intrude.

Before long, a thick, solid mountain wall appeared at the horizon.

The path ended here.

Su Nan didn't panic; instead, he felt a surge of excitement and began to search the surroundings carefully. After a moment, he discovered something behind a massive rock.

The rock was about twenty meters tall, almost like a small hill. From the front, it looked unremarkable, but the back was pitch black.

Not the kind of black that comes from color, but a darkness that seemed to devour everything, like a black hole.

Upon closer inspection, the darkness was slowly rotating, but due to the dim light and its color, it was hard to notice unless one looked closely.

"A spatial portal, huh." Su Nan's eyes gleamed.

It was clear that for some reason, the back of this massive rock was connected to a dimensional space, forming a spatial portal.

And on the other side of the portal, there was a high likelihood that it was the source of the dragonkin.

After some thought, Su Nan summoned a stone golem and ordered it to enter the dark portal.

Almost instantly, the connection to the stone golem was severed, and he could no longer control it.

This only happened when entities were on different dimensional planes.

Confirming that the other side of the darkness was indeed a dimensional space, Su Nan wasted no time. He activated his Magic Core to cover his entire body, followed by his Ring of Ultimate Protection, casting both "Elemental Shield" and "Shield" on himself. He also used a High-Earth Rune Gem to add an extra layer of defense.

With all his preparations in place, Su Nan took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness.

An intense sensation of weightlessness enveloped him.

It felt as if he had passed through an invisible curtain of water. When his consciousness returned, he heard the crisp chirping of insects.

Opening his eyes, he was greeted by a breathtaking and magnificent scene.

Before him was a dense forest of towering trees, each several dozen meters tall, shading the sky. The ground was covered with lush vegetation, and even the shrubs were two to three meters high.

Above, the thick canopies of the trees interlaced, forming a canopy that blocked out the sky.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting dappled golden patches on the ground.

In the distance, the sound of flowing water could be heard, and strange noises echoed from deep within the forest, making it feel like he had entered a mysterious tropical jungle.

"Indeed, it's an ecological garden!"

Looking at the scene before him, Su Nan was certain that he had indeed entered an ecological garden.

The stone golem stood quietly by his side, and Su Nan returned it to his Cube. He then turned to look at the portal he had come through.

Behind him, a faint purple haze stretched upward, disappearing into the dense canopy. The black entrance was embedded in the purple haze, as noticeable as a black dot on a white sheet of paper.

Su Nan flew upward, passing through the canopy and reaching the treetops.

As expected, the sky was also purple, stretching to the far horizon, as if the entire forest was enveloped in a purple aura.

In fact, this purple layer was a massive protective barrier, isolating the ecological garden from the outside world and maintaining the internal ecosystem's balance.

However, due to some reason, a leak had formed, allowing the dragonkin to escape.

Descending back to the ground, Su Nan flew deeper into the forest, ready to explore the ecological garden thoroughly.

Typically, ecological gardens were filled with a variety of rare magical plants, maximizing the use of the garden's special environment.

These rare magical plants alone were a significant treasure.

In addition, there were the dragonkin living within the garden, each a walking collection of valuable materials!

"If I can control this ecological garden..."

Su Nan felt a surge of excitement.

A complete ecological garden required a massive amount of energy to build initially, but once operational, it could sustain itself, recycling most of the energy it needed, requiring only a small amount from the outside.

However, this "small amount" was relative and still a considerable amount of energy for a single wizard.

In the current energy-scarce environment, even if another wizard obtained this ecological garden, they might not be able to supply the energy needed to keep it running.

However, Su Nan was different. He had magic stones!

If worse came to worst, he could just manufacture more magic stones to keep the ecological garden running.

After all, the cost for him to produce magic stones was extremely low.

As long as he could find a way to control this ecological garden, he would have a breeding ground that could produce a steady stream of rare materials.

This was far more valuable than cultivating a hundred magic plant gardens or raising dozens of lesser dragons!

"But to build an ecological garden like this, the wizard must have been incredibly powerful. It could only have been one of the wizards from a thousand years ago."

"But if that's the case, why didn't the builder move the garden?"

"It can't be that they were being kind and left it for future generations, right?"

Su Nan chuckled at his own speculation. No matter how benevolent a wizard might be, they wouldn't be that extravagant.

That's an entire ecological garden!

He was more inclined to believe that the builder had died before the wizards' great expedition, leaving the garden behind.

But this raised a new question: Where did the energy come from to keep the garden running for a thousand years?

Could there be someone else supplying energy to the garden?

Or did the garden have a unique energy supply system?

The more he thought about it, the more questions he had.

Su Nan shook his head, deciding not to dwell on it. With the limited information he had, it was impossible to draw any conclusions. He would explore further and gather more intelligence before making any guesses.

For now, he needed to focus on collecting materials.

In just a few hundred meters, Su Nan had already discovered at least ten different types of magic plants.

Dragon Saliva Grass, Jade Frost Flower, Mutated Devil Vine, Golden Thorn Grass—many of these were materials for second and third-tier potions!

Materials that were rare in the outside world were abundant here.

"These magic plants must have been planted initially and have been sustained by the garden's energy, allowing them to survive and thrive to this day."

Su Nan didn't hesitate, gathering all the magic plants he saw along the way and storing them in his spatial ring.

Creak! Creak!

Suddenly, some strange noises came from the bushes ahead.

Su Nan immediately stopped, his gaze wary as he looked in the direction of the sound.

The noises grew more frequent, as if many creatures were approaching.

Soon, a group of creatures burst out of the bushes.

These creatures looked like small, slender miniature dinosaurs, about a meter long, with sharp teeth in their mouths, two curved fingers for arms, and much more muscular and powerful legs.

"Fine-jawed Dragons."

Su Nan relaxed a bit.

Fine-jawed Dragons were a type of small dinosaur, a low-tier lesser dragon.

An adult had only the combat strength of a low-level knight, not particularly strong. The only thing to be cautious about was that Fine-jawed Dragons often moved in groups.

If you saw one Fine-jawed Dragon, you could be sure that dozens more were following close behind.

Creak! Creak!

These Fine-jawed Dragons, which had never seen a human before, paused for a moment when they spotted Su Nan. They opened their dull yellow eyes and curiously examined him, then let out excited calls and charged at him with surprising speed.

Clearly, they saw him as some new and interesting food.

Su Nan smiled coldly and raised his hand, firing a spell missile.

Seven missiles instantly shattered the heads of seven Fine-jawed Dragons.

Since he was inside the ecological garden, it wasn't practical to capture lesser dragons. Given that Fine-jawed Dragons were among the weakest of the low-tier lesser dragons, with little value in captivity, Su Nan didn't hold back.

In no time, over thirty Fine-jawed Dragons were all wiped out.

After quickly collecting some materials, Su Nan activated the invisibility spell on his robe, and his figure vanished.

The priority was to explore the ecological garden and find the core that controlled it, not to hunt lesser dragons. If he could avoid combat, he would.

While the invisibility spell couldn't fool all lesser dragons, it was enough to evade most mid and low-tier ones.

But just as Su Nan was about to leave, he noticed a very faint red light escaping from the Fine-jawed Dragons' bodies. The light converged and formed a thin beam, which shot off into the distance.

Su Nan paused, then quickly followed the beam.

However, the red beam moved extremely fast, and despite his best efforts, he couldn't keep up. As he hesitated about whether to use a high-tier rune gem, the red beam vanished from sight.

"What was that?"

Su Nan stopped, a look of confusion in his eyes.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end