Chapter One: Born a Dragon, I Am Truly Sorry

If a dragon spent every day worrying about filling its belly, then perhaps it ought to reflect deeply—was it failing as a dragon?

Huang Ze, however, had no such awareness. What he felt was nothing but pent-up frustration and resentment.

After all, he had never intended to become a dragon.

About half a year ago, Huang Ze woke up to find himself transformed into a dragon of a fantastical world.

Thirty or forty meters long, weighing over a hundred tons, capable of flight and breathing fire—a true monster, the apex of the food chain.

At first, Huang Ze was excited. The metamorphosis from human to dragon brought him immense power and the gift of flight. The world, seen through this new perspective, was novel and fascinating, and he delighted in it.

But it wasn’t long before everything soured.

Perhaps because he had inherited this form halfway, Huang Ze had no memory of his predecessor, nor did he awaken any inherited talents or skills. Everything had to be learned from scratch.

Take hunting, for example.

His predecessor was likely a pseudo-dragon—dim-witted, without followers or servants, ignorant of storing food, and the lair was so clean not even a mouse remained.

So, whenever hunger struck, Huang Ze had to hunt for himself.

But herein lay the problem: Huang Ze had no idea how to hunt.

This was hardly surprising. Anyone suddenly changed into a dragon, with a body utterly unlike a human’s, couldn’t possibly adapt instantly. There must be a period of trial and error.

Moreover, hunting itself was a technical skill, demanding mastery of flight, anticipation, and stealth—not something one could pick up casually.

Huang Ze struggled to adapt to his new body. Even basic flight took ages to learn, and he endured countless crashes before barely managing it.

There was little he could do; the dragon’s sheer size was daunting. From the standpoint of physics and biology, it shouldn’t be able to fly at all—

How could a creature weighing nearly two hundred tons, armed only with a pair of flesh wings, escape gravity and soar the skies? Who would believe it?

Yet this was a world of fantasy. Even though Huang Ze was a staunch devotee of the Great Physics Faith, he dared not challenge the rules of this realm with the sword of his former world.

Of course, the laws here did not wholly negate the principles of physics; there were still many points of overlap.

For instance, though Huang Ze could fly, his speed was not fast. His massive size ensured he faced tremendous air resistance and gravity. Under normal circumstances, his flight seldom exceeded fifty or sixty kilometers per hour.

Only when he dived at full speed could he barely break a hundred.

But Huang Ze rarely dared attempt such feats, for his landing skills were poor. He could scarcely anticipate or brake, and at high speeds he was prone to crashing.

Besides, even if he reached such speeds, what use was it?

This was a magical world, where prey could run astonishingly fast. Their vision, hearing, and alertness were extraordinary, and Huang Ze's enormous frame made him impossible to ignore. Unless the sky was overcast, the moment he appeared above, every creature below would spot him.

As a result, hunting was extraordinarily difficult for Huang Ze.

At first, he found it hard to accept this reality.

After all, how pitiful and laughable was it that a majestic dragon could not sustain itself by its own strength?

But within a month, Huang Ze resigned himself. Cold, hard facts told him plainly: he was, without a doubt, a useless dragon.

Heaven have mercy—after a month of effort, he failed to hunt even once!

He could only, like a hyena or vulture, skulk behind other predators, swooping in to snatch a meal after their successful hunts, barely scraping by.

Frankly, it was disgraceful for a dragon.

So much so that Huang Ze often lamented, “Born a dragon, I am truly sorry.”

Yet scavenging could never be a lasting solution. Not only did other predators despise him for his opportunism, quickly learning to abstain from hunting whenever he was near—preferring hunger to letting this freeloading dragon profit—but the method was unreliable and yielded too little. Huang Ze was never full.

He was, after all, a dragon weighing over 160 tons—a true glutton, needing several tons of meat for a single meal. No predator would ever provide him with such bounty.

So, he often went hungry. Over half a year, he’d lost at least several hundred kilos.

Of course, Huang Ze wasn’t resigned to this fate. In fact, before even two weeks had passed since his transformation, he grew restless and began searching for humans or kin.

After flying hundreds of kilometers and scanning nearly ten thousand square kilometers, he found no humans, but did discover one of his kind.

A white dragon.

At that moment, Huang Ze was beside himself with excitement, roaring as he rushed forward, eager to offer a heartfelt embrace and, with sincerity and warmth, forge a partnership—perhaps an economic alliance, maybe even a military pact.

He failed to notice that the white dragon saw him as a dire threat. When he foolishly pounced, the white dragon responded with outright hostility.

This unpleasant encounter not only dashed Huang Ze’s hopes of teaming up with kin, but forced him to confront two harsh truths.

First, the language barrier.

In their brawl and exchange of insults, Huang Ze quickly realized that the white dragon possessed intelligence and could speak.

But he simply couldn’t understand.

Though a dragon in form, his mind could not translate the dragon tongue. His consciousness and language remained that of his former life as a member of the Xia people.

This disappointed Huang Ze greatly. If even communication with kin was impossible, it was clear his ability to connect with other intelligent races in this world was virtually nonexistent.

Second, he was a poor fighter.

Though Huang Ze was much larger than the white dragon, he gained little advantage in combat.

The white dragon was far superior in agility and battle experience, and crucially, it could wield magic—casting spells from afar that battered Huang Ze mercilessly.

Were it not for his exceptional physical and magical defenses, and the white dragon’s apparent innate fear of him—after failing to breach Huang Ze’s defenses, it promptly fled—Huang Ze could not imagine how much more humiliation he might have suffered.

This encounter taught Huang Ze that dragons seemed to be creatures with poor social instincts, strong territoriality, and little liking for interaction. With a language barrier, trust and friendship among dragons seemed improbable.

Thus, he had to settle for less—abandoning plans to partner with kin and turning instead to search for humans.

Huang Ze still held some hope for the East, so he flew toward the rising sun. After another thousand kilometers, he finally found humans.

He had arrived in a human kingdom.