Evolving by devouring from a young dragon

After walking for an unknown amount of time, Bru stopped.

He looked around and discovered that this was an ancient riverbed that had been abandoned for countless years.

The riverbed on the ground had long since dried up, leaving only a layer of sun-bleached pebbles and a cracked shell of silt.

Instead of walking along the riverbed, Bru walked down to the side of the riverbed, squatted down, and placed his palm on the exposed rock face.

The sense of the earth once again sank underground.

Ten feet, soil and gravel; thirty feet, weathered rock layers; fifty feet, a complete bluestone bed.

At this point, it should all be bluestone, but his senses touched a hollow layer eighty feet deep.

He scratched his head; this didn't feel like a natural cave.

The edges of ordinary natural caves are generally irregular in shape.

However, the hollow top and side walls are regular with neat angles, clearly showing signs of artificial excavation.

Blue opened his eyes and walked eastward along the rock strata.

He walked about two hundred steps, squatting down every fifty steps to examine the area.

The fire spirit jumped off his shoulder and landed on a protruding rock edge, tilting its head to look at him.

He stopped on the fifth attempt.

The sensory feedback did not return a complete rock stratum, but rather a vertical fissure with a fine runic structure attached to its surface.

He cleared away the surface gravel and dry mud at the location corresponding to the crack, and when he reached a depth of three feet, his fingertips touched a flat stone slab.

The edge of the stone slab was engraved with a circle of runes, and within the runes was a small groove that perfectly matched the shape of his core.

The patterns on the stone slab and the rock patterns on his chest were aligned in the same direction, with the lines, the curves of the strokes, and even the angles at the ends of the strokes being exactly the same.

It's so strange, it's as if it was all made by the same craftsman using the same template.

Below the stone slab is the entrance to a rock passage that slopes downwards.

The cleaned stone steps are flat and wide, with neatly arranged rune arrays carved on the walls on both sides.

Sensing the stone giant's presence in the darkness, the runes began to glow faintly, the light flowing slowly along the rune strokes, illuminating the entrance and extending deep into the passageway.

The fire spirit flew down from the stone edge and landed on the stone steps at the edge of the entrance to the rocky path. It peeked into the darkness and then let out a short chirp.

The sound was neither too loud nor too soft, as if it were confirming the location, before it flew back to Blue's shoulder.

Blue didn't rush in directly.

He crouched down at the entrance of the rock passage and placed his palm in the groove of the stone slab.

The groove perfectly matched the core shape of his chest, like a lock waiting for a key.

A pale blue light emanated from the edge of the groove, spreading outwards along the runic patterns on the stone slab, illuminating the dormant array of runes on the stone walls on both sides of the rock passage.

The light was not strong, just enough to illuminate the three-foot-square stone steps beneath my feet.

Further on, it sank into a thick darkness.

The fire spirit flew off his shoulder and landed on a stone edge at the entrance. It peeked into the darkness, let out a short chirp, and then flew back to his shoulder.

Bru stepped inside.

His body appeared excessively tall in the rocky passageway.

This rock passage was originally carved out for stone giants, but the designer clearly considered the normal-sized stone race.

After being fed with Alduin's magic crystals and having experienced inexplicable growth, Bru had grown to seven meters tall, a full head taller than ordinary stone giants.

He had to hunch his shoulders slightly to avoid his head hitting the top of the rocky path, but with each step, his knees almost touched his chest, which was very uncomfortable.

When he reached the first flat section, he suddenly stopped.

Fire Spirit seemed puzzled, tilting its head and staring at him with a questioning look.

Blue scratched his head, unsure how to begin.

Because when he placed his palm on the stone wall, the runes transmitted not only light through the rocky surface, but also a very subtle vibration, as if the stone wall itself was conveying a request to him: It's been too long, it's too dirty, help me.

Bru crouched down and gently brushed away the accumulated dust in the cracks of the stone steps with his fingertips.

His stone fingers were as thick and heavy as a pickaxe hammer, yet his movements were remarkably gentle.

The dust was gradually brushed away, revealing the complete stone steps below.

It was engraved with runes that he couldn't understand at all, but the strokes of the runes were exactly the same as the rock patterns on his chest.

Seeing his movement, the fire spirit chick tilted its head and then jumped off his shoulder.

It hopped down the stone steps, and with each step it landed, the tips of its wings gently swept across the surface of the steps, sweeping the fine dust to both sides.

It made low gurgling sounds, as if it was doing a very satisfying job.

Blue continued clearing the way.

When he encountered loose stones, he would hold the bottom of the stone with his palm, slowly lift it, and place it in the gaps on either side of the rock path, never casually tossing it aside.

When he encounters a withered vine, he pinches the root with two fingers and gently pulls it outwards in the direction of growth, never forcing it.

These withered vines have been growing in the rocky path for countless years, their roots embedded in the joints of the stone bricks. If pulled too quickly, they can easily loosen the stone bricks along with them.

After pulling out the stones, he would smooth the joints between the stones with his fingers to make sure they were not loose before continuing forward.

As he cleared the third bend, he came across a complete stone wall relief. The relief depicted a row of stone giants in various poses, some standing and some kneeling, and the core pattern on the chest of each stone giant was exactly the same as his.

The edges of the relief were covered with a thick layer of ash. He used his fingernail to gently scrape along the outline of the relief, peeling off the ash piece by piece to reveal the complete lines underneath.

When they reached the last stone giant, it was holding a hammer with a rune that the giant couldn't understand carved on the hammerhead.

He tried to reach out and touch the rune, and his fingertips suddenly felt a burning sensation.

An obscure image flooded his mind.

A stone city square, a hundred times wider than the rocky path before them, stood in the center of which was a colossal statue, its posture exactly matching that of the stone giant wielding a hammer in the relief.

Dozens of stone giants stood at the foot of the colossus, their cores beating at the same frequency.

Then the image shattered into fragments, like a stone slab being smashed by a hammer, falling apart.

Bru withdrew his finger.

The rune was still glowing faintly, but it was no longer hot.

He now knew the meaning of that rune; it wasn't called "Hammer," it was called "Forging."

He also knew that the entire relief depicted not a war or a migration, but a city-building ceremony.

He didn't know why he could understand it, but he just understood it.

As they continued clearing deeper into the rock passage, cracks gradually appeared in the ceiling.

Blue found a particularly loose ceiling panel, and as soon as he lifted it up, the panel suddenly sank down.

He quickly withdrew his hand, turned sideways and arched his back, tightly protecting the Fire Spirit between his chest and the stone wall.

Gravel rained down from the crack in the roof, pelting his back with a series of thuds.