The two castles built by the Cloud Giants for Muria belonged to different types. The pure white castle before Muria's eyes, with rows of crystal windows, had a vast interior space. Even the Storm Giants, the largest among the giants, could feel the spaciousness inside.
This castle's style was somewhat similar to the Kremlin in Muria's previous life in Russia, a large complex primarily for living. Its defensive capabilities were relatively weak.
However, its scale far exceeded that of the Kremlin. It covered an area of 360 hectares, with spacious and towering buildings that could accommodate giants freely walking around.
This grand castle, which Muria would never have built in his previous life, had a tall, perfect octagonal city wall. There were 72 towers on the wall, evenly distributed around it.
Within the walls, there were evenly and regularly arranged large and small, ancient yet grand pure white palaces, exuding a solemn and majestic atmosphere.
As for the other castle, its area was not as large. It covered only 128 hectares, but this castle was not composed of scattered buildings; it was a unified structure.
This type of castle was far more defensive than residential. It should have been located in a strategic zone between two countries at war, serving as an impregnable fortress, rather than on Taiji Island, where its aesthetic appeal outweighed its practicality.
However, Muria's decision gave this strategic defensive fortress a new purpose. This castle would become the hatching ground for the evil dragon eggs gifted by the legendary Titan Ansoel.
At the same time, Muria also intended to turn this castle into a comprehensive fortress responsible for feeding and "educating" the evil dragons, rather than allowing it to become a mere decorative fortress.
"Thirteen red dragon eggs, sixteen blue dragon eggs, twenty green dragon eggs, twenty-two black dragon eggs, and twenty-four white dragon eggs. A total of ninety-five dragon eggs." Muria carefully counted the dragon eggs on the ground, then ordered the Cloud Giants to transport all the dragon eggs to the fortress he named the Five-Colored Dragon Fortress.
At the same time, Muria instructed the Tide Giants to prepare some materials for setting up the hatching arrays for the dragon eggs. The resources of the sea were no less than those on land. What could be found on land could also be found in the ocean.
The most commonly used material for setting up the hatching arrays was the magic crystals that provided smooth elemental energy. All types of elemental crystals could be found in the ocean.
Even the fire-elemental crystals were no exception. The numerous underwater volcanoes could also give birth to abundant deposits of fire elemental crystal veins.
As for earth and water elemental crystals, they were even more abundant, and as for wind and lightning elemental crystals, the production in the ocean was somewhat lamentable. However, on some wild islands in the ocean, veins of these magic crystals could still be found.
The rarest were the light and dark elemental crystals, but Muria didn't need these two types of elemental crystals now. Even if he obtained them, he would only use them as decorations after polishing.
It's worth mentioning that the walls of Muria's castle were smooth and tidy white marble walls without a single unpleasant crevice.
This was thanks to the Concrete Stone talent of the Mountain Giants. After the Cloud Giants built the castle with uniform-sized white marble bricks, the Mountain Giants came in and used their talent to meld these bricks together into a whole. Therefore, there were no visible seams in Muria's castle.
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For Muria, who had a long lifespan, time was not precious. Whatever he did, he had plenty of time to do it. For Muria, who had lived through the Information Explosion Age in his previous life, his current life should have been quite boring and dull.
However, Muria was not bored now because he had something to keep him busy for a long time, like now, he had to set up hatching arrays to provide abundant and stable elemental energy for nearly a hundred dragon eggs.
Originally, Muria could have let the talented Cloud Giant sorcerers and Storm Giants help or even replace him in setting up the hatching arrays. But Muria felt strangely reluctant to let the Giants do this for him.
The next time, Muria, in different rooms of the Five-Colored Dragon Fortress, personally set up hatching arrays for the ninety-five dragon eggs. Since there were so many rooms in the Dragon Fortress, it was difficult to count them, so Muria assigned one room to each dragon egg and arranged Cloud Giants to guard them at the door.
During this time, Muria even moved into the Five-Colored Dragon Fortress with his personal maid, Mia, choosing not to reside in a more comfortable environment or a more luxurious decoration, naming the castle "White Jade Divine Palace" due to its massive architectural complex.
Incidentally, Muria also dragged the six nagging young dragons that insisted on going to the White Jade Divine Palace to live, one by one, into the Five-Colored Dragon Fortress. No matter how they struggled, pleaded, or said good things, Muria had already understood the greed of evil dragons very clearly.
In front of the sparkling gemstone crystals, even the most obedient young female dragon, Lenata, would disregard Muria's warnings, not to mention the other young dragons.
So, during the construction of the castle, Muria spent most of his time keeping a close watch on these six thieving dragons, not giving them any chance to act. After the castle was built, Muria, after some thought, brought the six young dragons into the Dragon Fortress.
On the first day of the Cloud Giant guards entering the castle, Muria issued a meaningful order to the six Cloud Giant leaders: "Without my permission, no dragon is allowed to leave the Dragon Fortress."
After issuing this meaningful order, Muria began to focus on hatching dragon eggs. After maintaining the hatching arrays and replacing the magic crystals regularly for more than a month, Muria discovered something interesting.
"The same type of dragon egg absorbs the energy contained in the crystals at completely different speeds." Muria sat on a chair with a faint fragrance, comparing twenty-two water elemental crystals of the same size but different colors in front of him.
The hatching arrays for these dragon eggs all used magic crystals that were cut, and their elemental energy content was almost equal. It was hard to see any differences before they were used.
But today, after Muria replaced the magic crystal that was almost depleted for one black dragon egg, he naturally assumed that the other black dragon eggs needed to be replaced as well.
However, when Muria took out another black dragon egg from the hatching array, he was surprised to find that the elemental energy on the magic crystal of this egg was still half remaining.
At this moment, Muria suddenly realized that he had fallen into a misconception. The six red dragon eggs he had hatched before were all born from the same pair of red dragons. Their differences were very small, and their hatching times were consistent, which made Muria think that all dragon eggs were the same.
But the twenty-two water elemental crystals of different shades in front of Muria told him of a problem he had overlooked. These dragon eggs came from different evil dragons, and they had very obvious differences.
Just as there couldn't be two identical leaves in the world, there couldn't be identical dragon eggs either. This was the real world, not a virtual world in a game. Every life, every dragon, was a unique individual.
These ninety-five dragon eggs came from different evil dragons, so the time they spent inside their eggshells would be different for each.
Therefore, some dragon eggs might take several years to hatch, while others might only take a few months.
"The arrays I set up are all copied from books, and the elemental energy they provide is the same." Muria murmured to himself with closed eyes, "But different dragon eggs require different amounts of energy at different stages. Perhaps, the high-concentration elemental environment provided by the hatching array for some dragon eggs is too much, but for others, it's too little."
"In that case, I'm keeping some dragon eggs in a state of semi-starvation." Muria opened his eyes and clenched his fists, "This won't do. I need to adjust the hatching arrays. I'll try to make the hatching environment provided by these arrays the most suitable for them."
However, Muria was somewhat distressed and tapped his head, "But, I don't seem to know how to modify the arrays yet."
Muria's level of setting up arrays remained at the level of copying others, and he was ignorant about array-related knowledge.
"Do I need to learn about arrays?" Muria hesitated, then he saw the blue water elemental crystals of different shades on the table, and Muria made up his mind, "Let's learn. It's just a way to pass the time."
Shortly afterward, Muria came to the Eagle's Nest in the castle, a very spacious building with a high arched dome, more than 120 meters above the ground. The creatures living inside were not the ferocious eagles raised by the Cloud Giants, but powerful giant eagles that only qualified Storm Giants could raise.
The giant eagle was a type of bird with a very large body, with a wingspan of nearly eighty meters. It could prey on giant elephants and carry sturdy Storm Giants. It was an excellent mount.
According to common sense, these arrogant creatures like the giant eagle would not allow anyone other than the Storm Giants they recognized to ride them. Even other Storm Giants would not be allowed. However, this iron rule was nullified when faced with Muria.
The moment Muria entered the Eagle's Nest, the giant eagle, whose Storm Giant owner was unknown, bowed very obediently and even spread its wings, placing them in front of Muria, allowing Muria to step on its back and ride it.
Caw!!!
The cry of the giant eagle resounded through the sky as it soared into the sky with Muria on its back. Just a few breaths later, five Storm Giants rode their own giant eagles and quickly caught up.
Leaving behind a Storm Giant on the platform with a complicated expression, the giant eagle taken away by Muria was his. But he wasn't alone; there were more than twenty Storm Giants on the platform, all looking at him with envy. They didn't have their own giant eagles.