From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 602 The Golden Dragon Reborn
In the underground laboratory, which was shimmering with a faint glow, a golden dragon floating in a giant petri dish suddenly opened its eyes.

He possesses dazzling scales and majestic horns, and the facial whiskers hanging down from his chin add a touch of sage-like composure and wisdom to this enormous beast.

Ivy blinked. As a true dragon, the golden dragon was adapted to amphibious environments, and being underwater didn't bother his breathing. Similarly, the nictitating membrane covering his molten gold-like eyeballs was enough to protect his vision from the nutrient solution.

He was awakened by the faint cheers coming from above.

Having been resurrected in the form of a golden dragon, Ivy exhaled a series of bubbles in the petri dish, and the enormous golden dragon body was magically teleported outside the exorbitantly priced experimental facility.

Ivy wouldn't choose to destroy his experimental equipment just to show off the power of the newborn dragon. Creating these devices for performing cloning had taken Ivy a great deal of effort; most of them were handcrafted by him with unparalleled skill.

As the strongest metallic dragon in the D&D world, the Gold Dragon possesses uniquely advantageous physical conditions. As long as it has sufficient nutrition and a suitable living environment, it can continuously grow stronger even without moving.

In just a thousand years, they can grow into powerful creatures capable of dominating a region.

Now that Ivy has used magic to transform her body into a golden dragon, she can truly appreciate just how much the world cherishes true dragons.

Sparks appeared around the golden body, the fiery aura of the golden dragon taking effect. Magic pumped from its heart surged into the massive body, and the scales, coated with nutrient solution, immediately began to heat up. In a short time, the underground laboratory was enveloped in rising steam, and Ivy's golden dragon body had become dry and clean.

Manipulating the wind element to accelerate the airflow in the basement, Ivy gently tapped her claws, summoning the Grimoire of Destruction amidst the swirling, shimmering blue light.

This artifact, created by Ivy's ultimate, unreplicable magic, automatically sized to fit the golden dragon's form, relieving Ivy of the hassle of squinting while reading comic books.

Ivy flicked out a claw to turn the page. The golden dragon's front claws were very flexible, enough to make grasping motions, so turning the pages of a book that matched its own size was a piece of cake.

With a new body form, it's natural to take a good look at the attribute panel.

First, the race has changed from a variant human to an elderly golden dragon, and even the gender has changed from male to male, emphasizing Ivy's current inhuman attributes.

Looking down, there are six basic attributes, and the first one, Strength, made Ivy gasp.

That was a bright "46", a full 18 points of attribute adjustment value, which, when added to melee attacks, far exceeded the expected damage of two longswords.

Thinking about his melee class [Sword Saint], which is mainly built around agility, Ivy suddenly felt that the legendary weapon Beast Bite Sword wasn't so appealing anymore. If he could get a weapon that could be used by a dragon, he could also switch to a two-handed Mighty Warrior.

However, the Golden Dragon possesses an innate ability to transform, allowing it to freely transform into any creature no higher than its own level while retaining its original health, spirit attributes, and class benefits. Transforming back is also not difficult. Furthermore, the Golden Dragon's life dice are d20 monster life dice, far exceeding the severely damaged life of the magic-based classes that Ivy possesses. Even in human form, the Golden Dragon can maintain its vigorous vitality.

Next is Agility. Since the Beastbite Sword is an elven curved sword suitable for medium-sized characters, the Golden Dragon obviously cannot equip it. Therefore, the Agility bonus from the Beastbite Sword disappears. However, the Alchemy bonus from the Magic Stone, the intrinsic bonus from the Prayer spell, and the attribute boosts from the class still take effect.

Therefore, even though the Golden Dragon's base attribute was only 10 points, just like Ivy's original attribute, it was boosted to 21 points with these bonuses.

Needless to say, his physique is 25 points in the base value, plus alchemy and intrinsic value, totaling 32 points.

However, his intelligence, perception, and charisma, which are spiritual attributes, have been reduced, mainly due to the change in race. The four attribute points from the mutant human and wizard races are no longer applicable, making the latter three attributes 29, 19, and 28 respectively, which reduces Ivy's spellcasting ability in dragon form.

However, compared to the massive advantages brought by the Golden Dragon Body, this small discount is negligible.

After Ivy became a divine being, her defense rating had already reached 40 points without using any additional spell boosts. In D&D 5e, where numerical values ​​don't inflate, this was already an extremely terrifying number.

After being resurrected in the form of a golden dragon, Ivy's defense level has increased again. Even though the skill bonus from [Smart Defense] cannot be triggered when Ivy is unarmed, and her massive body suffers additional size reduction, and the agility bonus is also reduced because the attribute bonus from the Beast Bite Sword is ineffective, her natural armor of 28 points still raises Ivy's total defense level to 52, making it even more difficult for ordinary creatures to break through her defense.

Although golden dragons cannot use human weapons, their sharp teeth and claws are not just for show. A golden dragon's teeth, claws, tail, and wings can all be used as natural weapons in battle. If it launches a full-round attack, it can increase the number of hits in a round to six. In addition, these natural weapons can also deal extra damage equal to the strength modifier.

Jinlong's melee combat ability is not only limited to these natural weapons, but also includes using his strong and resilient body to perform some special attack moves.

For example, the dragon can use its massive size to crush enemies. When the golden dragon flies or leaps to its ground, all units completely covered by its landing point will suffer crush damage. The amount of damage depends on the size difference between the two units, and enemies who fail to save their save will be suppressed, have their defense level reduced, and will be unable to move. If the golden dragon does not intend to leave after completing its suppression, it can continue to suppress enemies in the next turn. Enemies who fail to save their save will not only still be unable to escape, but will also suffer the full crush damage again.

The golden dragon's tail, longer than most dragons', is also a powerful weapon. Its special attack, Tail Sweep, deals blunt damage to all enemies within a 45-foot radius, and units of medium size or smaller are knocked away from the dragon's body. Most medium-sized creatures have a base movement speed of only 30 feet; if hit by Tail Sweep, they need to expend one and a half turns of movement speed before they can re-attack the golden dragon.

Therefore, without special equipment, it is almost impossible to defeat Jinlong by sheer numbers.

As the most magnificent and elegant true dragon aviator in the world, the golden dragon possesses powerful and resilient wings, capable of unleashing terrifying storms around it as a means of attack. This wing-beating attack not only inflicts blunt damage on units within a 15-foot radius but also knocks them down. After attacking in this manner, the golden dragon will take to the air and fly up to half its normal speed for the remainder of the turn.

A move that combines attack and mobility, if coupled with a hovering breath attack, would be a fatal blow. Yes, aside from these special attacks that rely on physical strength, the golden dragon's breath is the most threatening weapon.

As an elderly golden dragon, Ivy's breath weapon has a 75-foot cone range and a DC of 31 points. Moreover, the golden dragon has two breath weapons. In addition to the fire breath with a damage of 16d10, there is also a weakening breath that can deal strength damage. The weakening breath deals elemental damage based on the golden dragon's age. The elderly golden dragon can deal a total of 8 points of strength damage.

Attribute damage is a very powerful ability because once a creature's six major attributes reach zero, it will immediately enter a near-death state. If it is unlucky and fails to save the attack, it will die on the spot.

Eight points in Strength isn't particularly high, but for some spellcasters who max out their stats, it's enough to pose a deadly threat.

The Golden Dragon's final special ability is awe-inspiring majesty, commonly known as Dragon's Might. This is a 120-foot radius aura that inflicts panic on those who fail to save it. Whether hunting in the wild or negotiating in human form, awe-inspiring majesty can be quite effective.

As for the golden dragon's spellcasting ability, it's not particularly outstanding. The old golden dragon is considered a natural seventh-circle sorcerer, capable of wielding spells equal to the Charisma modifier, and casting each spell once a day. For Ivy, it's not of much use except for expanding the spell table.

As a true dragon, a gold dragon can also acquire special dragon feats. The total number of these feats depends on the gold dragon's age group. Ivy can choose 10 dragon feats, and since older gold dragons have already entered the legendary realm, this also includes a legendary dragon feat.

Originally, as a template creature for shape-shifting, Ivy's golden dragon body should have been fixed and familiar. However, the "paradox of possibility" granted this new body infinite possibilities. Ivy could rely on the power of the Grimoire of Destruction to erase all the specialties under the standard template and then select them again according to his own ideas.

In Ivy's view, her spellcasting abilities were already strong enough, and she could gain further opportunities as her class advanced. Therefore, she didn't need to continue enhancing her spellcasting abilities with these dragon feats. Instead, using them to amplify the advantages of her golden dragon body would be a better choice.

Thanks to its enormous size, the old golden dragon could fly at a speed of up to 260 feet, which was incomparable to the flight speed brought by the [Wind Element Summoning]. Moreover, this kind of flight was a special ability that could be used even in places without air.

At top speed, long-distance travel is not a problem at all. Moreover, the golden dragon's scales and nictitating membrane are designed for high-speed flight, so there is no need to worry about excessive flight speed causing an uncomfortable travel experience.

Therefore, Ivy decided to enhance the golden dragon's flight mobility, so that her golden dragon body could become a high-speed cruising aerial magic turret.

First, there's the three-piece set of [Lingering], [Turning], and [Mastery of Maneuverability]. These allow Ivy to perform more difficult maneuvers in the air, overcome the poor maneuverability caused by his massive body, and further improve his land and air movement speed.

Next are [Flying Attack] and [Mastery of Flying Attack]. The former gives Ivy the ability to launch attacks and cast spells while in flight, while the latter further enhances the flexibility of [Flying Attack], allowing Ivy to change direction or target in mid-air while performing such actions, and this action will not provoke an attack.

Then there's [Power Ascent], which allows you to increase your flight altitude at full speed. As long as you fly high enough, enemies below can't hit you. Combined with some special long-range magic, this feat can even allow Ivy to launch attacks from inside the clouds.

With ascent comes the need for a powerful dive, and it should be paired with a powerful charge. This combination transforms Ivy's dive attack into a crushing finisher, perfect for a stylish entrance after a long-range strike.

Besides fighting smaller creatures, Ivy also needed to consider the possibility of fighting creatures of similar or even larger size. The feat of "Large Size Control" came into his view. This feat's effect relies on an opportunistic attack; a successful opportunistic attack grants a bonus to the size difference and the damage dealt, increasing the value of subsequent strength checks. If Ivy could win the check, he could force enemies hit by the opportunistic attack back to their original positions, rendering them unable to move. For Ivy, who possessed an extremely high number of opportunistic attacks, this feat gave him control over the battlefield when surrounded.

If the spatial teleportation ability is blocked, Ivy can use her [Large Size Control] to maneuver the enemy and calmly achieve her tactical objectives.

As for the last legendary dragon feat, Ivy chose [Ferocious Charge], which allows for a full-turn attack after the charge, further enhancing the finishing ability after the dive. Moreover, this feat isn't limited to dragon form; human form charge attacks also benefit from it. Combined with the [Swordmaster]'s high hit count and critical hit damage, the result is simply unimaginable.

Having completed the attribute check of the Golden Dragon Body, Ivy couldn't wait to experience this new body; at the very least, she definitely wanted to try out the enhanced high-speed flight.

A large event was currently taking place at the Straihaven Arena above them, and appearing directly above them would obviously disrupt the competition. However, Ivy had no intention of concealing herself; she simply changed her flight path away from densely populated areas and headed towards the Wasteland Archaeological Isle of Hengjian Academy.

The land was spacious enough that he could even test the two types of golden dragon's breath if he wanted to.

With a high-pitched dragon roar, Ivy flapped her wings and stirred up a huge storm, sweeping up the vegetation and dust on the ground above the laboratory, adding a lot of new work for the gardening golem for no reason.

The high-speed airflow that swept past his cheeks created a whistling sound. Ivy's flight speed was 280 feet, which is about 14 to 15 meters per second in metric units, roughly equivalent to a gale-force wind. It's not surprising that he could make such a commotion.

The wind at high altitude was undoubtedly cold, but the golden dragon's thick scales completely blocked the transfer of heat. Combined with the sunlight shining down from the sun overhead, Ivy, cruising at high speed, only felt a sense of leisurely comfort and even began to feel a little sleepy.

The contraction and extension of strong muscle fibers created a circulation of gale-force winds beneath the wings. Ivy slightly raised one wing, and the golden dragon's flight posture immediately changed, causing the entire world to tilt and tumble. Thin clouds swept past beneath the wing membranes, bringing a cold and damp sensation.

Ivy let out a satisfied sigh, gazing down at the vast crimson plains belonging to Hengjian Academy.

This observation led Ivy to discover something unusual. As a demigod of the sun, he was exceptionally sensitive to the aura of undead creatures, and in an inconspicuous archaeological excavation site below, a large number of elephant-like undead were constantly emerging across time and space.

Just when I was about to doze off, someone brought me a pillow. Ivy was just thinking of finding a place to test the power of dragon breath.

(End of this chapter)