Chapter 266 - Bigger mammal; Good?

Considering that their deep dive didn’t lead them to any nests of dragon eggs, the team had to reconsider their approach. After some brief theories, they decided to head back towards the surface of the sea.

On the surface, they could do two things. They could either explore the large patches of ice anywhere down to the one-hundred meter depth mark, hoping to find Frost Orc dens, or, they could stick to the surface itself, and explore the dry-ish land of snow and ice. Though these options sounded similar, they were actually vastly different, with the second one giving them a couple of advantages!

Considering that Frost Orcs couldn’t walk, they’d have a great advantage over any giant orc that would be protecting their nests! Sure it may take them longer to find nests this way, especially if the nest was hidden tens of meters within the ice, but they’d rather waste a few hours than be in the waters with giant sea monsters! It was much safer for them to explore the surface of the snow and ice, so that was exactly the option that they picked, and from that point onwards, they could only hope for the best.

In order to reach the surface, the team had shapeshifted into Gentoo penguins at some point, which guaranteed their safe passage to the snowy grounds. Ortana was relieved that the guys had latched off of her, because in her anglerfish form, she hadn’t been so keen on transporting three guys around.

Once they made it to the surface, they had to shapeshift once more! However, this part of their journey was a bit tricky, because there were only so many creatures that they knew of that could guarantee their survival in this harsh, cold environment.

“We could turn into those hairy goblins that we saw back in Valporovus, but that doesn’t sound so smart. We’d be far too visible to anything that wants to attack us.” Tim said.

Just like that, the second, brightest idea was for them to turn into Polar Bears. This species wasn’t as mobile as an upright walking goblin, or human, but it definitely was more mobile than a penguin, so they had to get used to walking on fours.

Since no one else knew what a Polar Bear looked like, Tim led by example once more. He shapeshifted into a stunning, seven-hundred kilogram bear (over fifteen-hundred pounds), and the team then followed accordingly.

Tim stood up on his hind legs just to see how tall he was, and sure enough, he was a stunning eleven feet tall, or nearly three-and-a-half meters! He was satisfied with the results.

“Haha! This is how we should all live!” He grunted, and then he slapped some snow around as to boast his size.

After twenty minutes of transformation, Gustav ended up being thirteen feet tall while standing on his hind legs, or nearly four meters tall, which in turn absolutely dwarfed his friend’s size! He was a stunning nine-hundred kilograms heavy as well (nearly two-thousand pounds). He was an absolute beast, and it was hard to imagine that any land lubber could challenge him around here!

Skendus wasn’t so far behind in terms of size, with his statistics being lower by a tenth, and Ortana ended up being the smallest one, again. She only weighed six-hundred kilograms, and was eleven feet tall while standing.

Anyway, once they transformed, the most important thing, like their magical arsenal, and their mana pool, had a significant increase! This was likely because of the fact that they were large mammals now, which in brief comparison had a greater importance than being large fish.

For example, as a goblin, Timothy’s blue mana pool could fit a little bit above three-million points, and around half a million dark mana points. However, as a Polar Bear, his mana pool could fit five-million points of blue mana, and the dark side of his pool could fit in over eight-hundred and sixty thousand points! It was simply marvelous.

With similar levels, his friends didn’t lag far behind. Ortana had the biggest mana pool of them all, even, because of her mana quality being at level eight. This was the one thing she could be considered bigger in, or stronger at, her mana quality level. She was at seven million points!

Anyway, it was fair to say that the team found great advantages for themselves. At this point, with their powers being amped in cooperation with their mana pools, they felt competent to fight adult Frost Orcs, and survive it too! With that said, they started exploring this land of snow and ice, and were hoping to find a dragon’s nest.

After an hour of aimlessly searching around, and not finding anything, they decided to take a different approach. They started melting through the ice.

Timothy and Gustav were the best equipped to do so. They started carefully melting through the ice, as to increase their odds of finding dragon dens.

If they melted enough ice, then they could see what was below ten or twenty meters of ice, at a radius of around a hundred meters. Ice was easy to melt, so it didn’t take them long to push through the ground, and at this rate they were bound to find at least a single dragon’s nest!

“Careful now, we don’t want to crush the eggs.” Tim said, after he noticed that his fire-wielding friend was getting a bit restless.

Gustav had gotten more and more impatient ever since he left his home city. He wasn’t used to such high-pressure tasks, so his frantic behaviour was excusable. Timothy understood him better than anyone!

“Trust me, I didn’t fly thousands of kilometers to sabotage the mission. The eggs will be fine.” Gustav expressed, and started melting the water that had accumulated within the huge hole that they had melted through.

Five minutes later, as they continued to work, a draconic creature suddenly leaped out of the water! This spooked them a bit at first, but they composed themselves, because they had been expecting this.

“That’s gotta be their mother, steer clear! We don’t want to get dragged down there!” Tim yelled out.

However, when the beast leaped out of the water again, the team made a horrid discovery. This legless, white-scaled dragon that looked as rugged as the arctic itself, had wings, and it was slithering frantically through the cold air! Its wingspan was a stunning fifty meters long (164 feet), surely intimidating!