Chapter 8: The Dragon Returns to Its Nest
Just past noon, sunlight filtered through the frigid air, casting a faint warmth upon the body. The cold season of freezing ice, like windblown dust, quietly slipped away and vanished from sight.
Under Ying's guidance, Joshua arrived at the stable.
In the stable behind the manor's rear courtyard, only one warhorse, Black, resided. Its limbs were now bent, its body coiled as it lay quietly on a pile of hay, sleeping soundly. Its massive frame rose and fell with the rhythm of its breathing, while waves of heat surged from its body, making the surrounding air feel as hot as summer.
"Since just a little while ago, Black's body has become very hot. Touching it feels like touching fire."
Ying put away the brush in her hand and roughly described the issue. Then, with a hint of confusion, she asked, "Black has been perfectly normal lately. When it was awake, it didn't eat anything strange. How did such a big change happen all of a sudden?"
The girl seemed unable to comprehend this situation.
Joshua said nothing. His eyes focused intently as he carefully scanned his warhorse's body.
After a moment, he let out a breath and shook his head. "It's nothing. Not a major problem. It's just an initial awakening of its bloodline, beginning to spontaneously absorb arcane power and elemental force."
Joshua appeared to be in a good mood. He continued, "I didn't expect it to be a spontaneous awakening. Aside from my influence, it seems Black's ancestral bloodline isn't weak either. But since the change isn't significant, it means the bloodline concentration is still a bit shallow."
"Bloodline?" Ying murmured to herself. "If it awakens, will it become stronger?"
"Divine mechanisms don't have bloodlines. You can't get stronger that way." Without even looking at the girl's expression, just from her tone, Joshua knew what Ying was thinking. Ignoring her faint sigh of regret, his eyes swept over the energy flow within the warhorse's massive body, perceiving every subtle change deep within. The warrior muttered to himself, "This way, I don't need to prepare the potion so soon. What I need to do now is figure out what kind of magical beast or dragon Black's ancestral bloodline comes from, and then increase that bloodline concentration as much as possible."
After finalizing his plan, he told Ying to find Lin and bring a crystal test tube from the study. He then took a small blood sample from Black. The warhorse briefly woke for a few seconds during the sampling, but upon seeing that the person beside it was Joshua, it simply tilted its head and went back to sleep.
Storing the crystal test tube containing Black's blood sample, Joshua looked at the black warhorse, now radiating a dense concentration of fire element, and felt a sense of anticipation.
A bloodline capable of gathering such rich fire element... where did it originate?
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In the city, the wind blew, carrying a hint of warmth. The month of Shallow Reflection was approaching, and the weather grew warmer day by day. A strong wind rising from the Central Black Forest swept through the forests, skimmed over the mountains, and passed through the most prosperous regions of the empire's heartland, reviving all things and causing plants to sprout. This wind crossed plains and mountains adorned with blooming flowers and green grass, arriving at the Great Aias Mountains in the northern lands.
Without stopping, the warm wind continued its journey, seemingly intent on melting all the snow and delivering its warmth to the uninhabited Extreme North Icefield.
Beyond the Great Aias Mountains, closer to the northern Sea of Bewilderment, lay the seemingly endless white icefield. Even though winter had passed, the ice on the icefield remained as hard as iron. Translucent ice crystals sparkled like gems, refracting a spectrum of colors under the sunlight.
This beautiful scenery could only be born in temperatures cold enough to freeze flesh and blood. In such an environment, no creature capable of appreciating its beauty could possibly exist.
Except for one kind of creature.
Dragons.
One of the Five-Colored Dragon Clans, the northern branch of the White Dragons, had their gathering place here.
The Five-Colored Dragon Clans were the Red Dragons, Black Dragons, White Dragons, Green Dragons, and Blue Dragons.
Red Dragons possessed the strongest, toughest bodies and scales. They lived in volcanoes or underground magma zones, breathing fire and bathing in lava. Black Dragons were born with the ability to command negative energy, which ordinary creatures could not touch. They dwelled in swamps and the depths of ocean abysses, their scales granting immunity to most elemental spells.
Green Dragons lived in mountains and forests, naturally communicating with earth, wood, grass, and stone, commanding plants and magical beasts to fight for them. Their breath could melt most substances.
Blue Dragons spent almost their entire lives flying, with even their young being born on their father's back. They could control the atmosphere and lightning, flying day and night without rest. Their descent meant their death.
As for White Dragons, they had snow-white scales and could command water and frost. They habitually built their nests on high mountains or within ice, enjoying the extreme cold that ordinary creatures could not endure.
At one corner of the Extreme North Icefield, atop a towering ice mountain, the smooth, mirror-like ice walls were covered with countless densely packed, massive openings, deep and winding, with no end in sight.
This was the White Dragons' nest.
The northern branch of the White Dragons originally lived in the snowy mountains of the Great Aias Mountains. But four hundred years ago, the awakening of the Primordial Realm Ancient Dragon [Albertlein] shook time and space, pushing the Great Aias Volcano to the brink of eruption, forcing these White Dragons to abandon their nests. Later, the ancient dragon disappeared, but humans moved in. Under the increasingly powerful edge of the empire, the dragons dared not return, and could only build a new dragon nest in a corner of the Extreme North Icefield.
Above the dragon nest, layers of snow clouds piled up. Sunlight fell through the gaps in the clouds, and massive shadows could be faintly seen shuttling back and forth within the clouds, arriving from afar.
Wings beat against the wind, and turbulent air currents scattered the clouds. One white dragon after another flew in from the distance, emerging from the clouds and descending upon this place. In just over ten minutes, more than thirty dragons had entered the nest.
Adult dragons generally had their own dwellings. Some could even transform into human forms, building careers and connections in the human world. Regardless, they usually did not live in such nests. Only young dragons and the clan leaders and elders responsible for their education resided here long-term.
Anyone familiar with dragons would be astonished to see this scene, as it was almost impossible. Once dragons left the nest, it meant they had become independent from the care of their elders, possessing their own destinies and missions, no longer under the jurisdiction of the nest's master. Unless they were pregnant, they would never return to the nest where they were born.
Yet here it was. In a short time, several more White Dragons landed on the nest and entered.
Countless dragons gathered in one place, and immense power clashed, stirring up waves of arcane energy. Misty fog rose amidst the churning snow clouds, concealing the massive iceberg dragon nest within.
This was not just in the northern lands.
Across the Mycroft Continent, countless Five-Colored Dragons were gathering together.
They did not know why, but they felt they had to do so. It was a call from the deepest part of their bloodline, a divine oracle from the gods.
(To be continued.)