chsdbacks Chapter 715 Elder
Chapter 715 Elder
However, to Jemin's surprise, this fat manager was much more cautious than the previous merchant dragon.
For the next two months, the other person lived a completely regular life every day.
To work.
Approval.
Inspection.
eat.
get off work.
It's as precise as a cyborg.
Jemin watched him from behind for a few days, and finally simply followed him using the Tai Xu Step while taking out two books from his inner world to study. Until one day in the second month.
After lunch, the chubby manager returned to his office.
After finishing with the documents, he glanced at the clock beside him, then suddenly bent down, took out a key, and opened the cabinet next to him where the energy crystals were stored. Seeing his action, Jemin's eyes lit up.
As usual, the supervisor went to the bar after get off work.
He sat in a corner of the bar for two whole hours, drinking three glasses of fermented fruit wine and playing several rounds of dice with some familiar coworkers. In the end, he lost more than a dozen copper coins, got up to pay the bill with a grumble, and as he walked out of the tavern shaking his head, he didn't forget to complain to the owner about how incredibly bad his luck was that night.
Everything was normal, just like every night for the past two months.
After the show ended, he walked home through the dark streets.
The moonlight was completely obscured by thick clouds, and the houses on both sides had long since turned off their lights, leaving only the cold, hard stone walls standing silently in the darkness. At the end of the street, he turned into a dark alley as usual.
This is a shortcut he often takes; going through here saves him time from taking a detour.
In the alley, a dragon-man was already waiting for him.
This dragon-man was tall and sturdy, with scales that were a deep iron gray, almost blending into the wall in the darkness.
Unlike ordinary citizens whose wings were tucked tightly to their backs, his dragon wings were slightly spread, the tips casting two narrow shadows on the alley wall. His vertical pupils shone with a pale golden light in the night, like two stars ignited by a cold fire.
The portly manager stepped forward unsurprisingly and handed over the bag containing purified energy crystals: "This is what we've gained recently. Also..."
After hesitating for a moment, the chubby supervisor finally said, "After you finish this, don't come looking for me again."
The overweight manager lowered his voice, but his tone betrayed a pain stemming from being cornered:
"I've repaid all the favors I owe you. You've probably heard, a new wizard has arrived, and many people have already been apprehended!" "The person who used to supply me with energy crystals has completely cut off contact recently; they've most likely been caught. I can't take any more risks!"
The iron-gray dragonman was silent for two seconds, then let out a short, cold laugh: "If it weren't for us, you would have died hundreds of years ago." He took a step forward, his pale golden vertical pupils leaving streaks of light in the darkness.
"What were you back then? A lowly lizard with less than five percent bloodline, someone even the lord's watchdog could trample on. Only a few decades have passed, and you're already planning to sever ties?"
The fat manager's Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and fine beads of cold sweat seeped from between the scales on his face.
The iron-gray dragonman stared at him, his tone growing increasingly icy: "And you think you're safe just because you've severed contact?"
"Don't forget, you signed a blood pact during the bloodline awakening ceremony. That pact is still in our hands; we'll die together."
The fat manager's face turned pale, and his vertical pupils contracted violently in the darkness, as if something invisible was choking him.
After a long silence, he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence through gritted teeth.
"...I can collect one more round for you at most."
"The final round!"
"After this round, return the blood pact to me, and we'll be even! Otherwise... I wouldn't mind cooperating with a wizard!"
The iron-gray dragonman looked at him and sneered, without answering.
He simply handed over the empty leather bag, then turned and disappeared into the shadows at the other end of the alley.
The fat manager stood there, gripping the leather bag tightly, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force.
A moment later, as if all his strength had been drained, his shoulders slumped, and he stumbled and disappeared into the other end of the alley.
As he remained in his ethereal state, Jemin watched the two part ways, his expression calm to the point of being indifferent.
He raised his hand and relayed the fat supervisor's information to the android via the magic network terminal.
This includes the location and time of tonight's meeting, the physical characteristics of the other party, and a complete transcript of the conversation in which the fat supervisor admitted to collecting energy crystals for the resistance for a long time.
After sending the message, Jemin didn't hesitate at all and immediately followed the iron-gray dragonman.
The other party did not leave the town immediately.
Over the next few days, he moved around the city like an ordinary caravan member: he went to the market to buy goods, haggled with several merchants, took a bath in the public bathhouse, and even went to the square in the city center to watch half of a forging competition by dragon craftsmen.
The disguise was flawless.
Several days later, he set off slowly out of the city with a pile of goods on his back, riding a horned dragon.
Jemin followed him, traversing most of the central plains of the Dragonkin plane, until they finally arrived at a town that appeared to be several decades old. This town was about the same size as the previous one, but its style was noticeably more antiquated.
The modern wizarding architecture blends seamlessly with the old-fashioned dragonman stone towers. The streets remain paved with old stone slabs, but the drainage ditches along the roadside are newly built. As soon as the iron-gray dragonman entered the city, he greeted everyone around him familiarly, able to call out the names of every shopkeeper and neighbor.
He delivered the goods at the market, had lunch at a restaurant on the corner, and then went home.
Jemin floated above his rooftop, pulled up a map of the Dragonman plane, and compared it with the coordinates of this town.
The colors used to mark this location on the map are completely different from the locations of the previous dragon people.
This area is marked as a green safe zone on the map.
According to the definition of the Broadleaf Wizards, a safe zone means that this area has never been affected by the activities of the resistance, there has been no dimensional portal attack, and there is no intelligence record of any resistance stronghold.
Furthermore, there is very little flow of outsiders, making it a typical closed-off old town.
Jemin put away the map, a cold glint flashing in all three of his eyes.
interesting.
That's so interesting.
A key contact of the resistance actually lived in a place that had never been affected by the resistance's activities.
Moreover, there isn't much movement of outsiders around here.
In other words, the people in this town have probably long been accustomed to this "safe" environment.
So long that no one suspected that the always-smiling businessman next door was trading smuggled energy crystals with the factory manager in the alley late at night. Jemin didn't rashly use his mental powers to investigate.
Since the other party has been able to lie low here unharmed for so many years, it means that their methods of concealment are more sophisticated than expected.
While mental detection is covert, if the other party has specific defenses against mental fluctuations, then recklessly probing would be tantamount to revealing his location. He released the Stalkers from his inner space, allowing them to spread out a patrol network around the town and the surrounding hills.
He then used the Void Step to become invisible and silently sneaked into the home of the iron-gray dragonman.
From the outside, the house appears to be a rather spacious two-story stone house.
The first floor is a shop, and the second floor is a living room.
After returning home, the iron-gray dragonman first fed the horned dragon in the backyard, then went upstairs to talk to his wife for a few words, and then went to the children's room to take a look at the little dragonman who was already asleep.
After everything was settled, he leisurely walked to the first-floor storage room, opened the hidden door in the floor, and entered the basement.
The basement itself is nothing special.
A few old boxes, a few dusty tools hanging on the wall, and some old and miscellaneous items piled up in the corner—it looked no different from an ordinary resident's storage room.
The iron-gray dragonman walked to the innermost part and moved a brick that looked exactly the same as the surrounding stone bricks from behind a pile of debris.
He pressed his hand on it, and the scales on his palm became slightly warm. The brick then sank silently.
The entire wall slid inward like a door, revealing a staircase extending downwards.
He didn't stop and continued walking down.
Jemin followed behind, floating down the stairs for quite a distance.
The steps were carved directly into the rock strata, with rough but regular chisel marks. Each step was worn smooth by footsteps, indicating that this place was frequently used.
The air was filled with the damp, stoney smell unique to the depths of the earth, mixed with a very faint trace of sulfur.
Finally, at the bottom of the stairs, a bright and open view appeared before us.
It was a natural cave.
The dome is tens of meters high, with stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling and interspersed with stalagmites growing from the ground, forming an underground landscape.
However, the interior of the cave had clearly been artificially leveled, with polished stone slabs paving the floor and densely packed magic arrays carved into the walls. The patterns of the magic arrays emitted a faint, dark red glow in the darkness, like countless veins clinging to the stone walls, pulsating slowly.
Jemin only glanced at it before recognizing part of the structure.
But another part of the runes did not belong to any system he knew of at all.
The patterns were primitive and ancient, and the way energy flowed carried a strong sense of bloodline, more like some kind of totem mark inherited from ancient times. In the center of the magic circle, an old dragon-man sat cross-legged.
His size was similar to other dragonmen, but the condition of his scales was unlike any dragonmen that Jemin had ever seen.
Dragonmen typically live for over a thousand years, but the scales of this old dragonman before me have lost all their luster, turning into a withered grayish-brown, as if time has squeezed out the last drop of nourishment.
The gaps between the scales are extremely deep, with the edges curled up, revealing the shriveled skin underneath.
The lines on his horns are so dense that their original appearance is almost impossible to discern; they are the rings left by the repeated polishing of his bloodline purity over the years.
He closed his eyes, placed his hands on his knees, and his dragon wings wrapped around his body like an old cloak. His breathing was so shallow that it was almost in sync with the pulse of the surrounding magic array.
The iron-gray dragonman stopped outside the magic circle, knelt on one knee, its dragon wings pressed tightly against its back, and its forehead almost touching the ground.
"Elder, the item has been brought back."
The old dragon slowly opened his eyes.
His vertical pupils no longer possessed the fiery, molten light of his youth; only two dim, dark red spots remained. Yet, deep within his pupils, something that refused to be extinguished still burned.
He nodded.
The iron-gray dragonman straightened his upper body, then put his hand into his throat and made a few low retching sounds.
His chest heaved violently a few times, and he vomited out dozens of energy crystals the size of a thumb from his stomach.
The surface of the crystal was still covered with gastric juices, which refracted a crystal-clear luster under the red light of the magic circle.
Each one was incredibly pure, completely unlike the inferior raw ore that circulated among the middlemen in the Ironspine Mountains. The old dragonman casually picked one up, not caring at all about the slime clinging to it.
He raised the crystal, carefully sensed it for a moment, and then slowly exhaled.
That sigh was long, as if the weariness that had been building up inside him was finally released through that one breath:
"Truly... terrifying level of technology." His voice was very slow. "Such purity would have been enough to be passed down as a national treasure back then. It would have been placed on the altar of the Elder Council, with ten elders working together to apply a bloodline seal. It could only be used after an approved ceremony." He casually put the crystal back on the ground, piling it up with the other crystals.
"But now, a factory can purify those low-quality crystals with disordered energy in batches."
The old dragon man chuckled softly, but the laughter carried a hint of bitterness:
"Wizards... are truly awe-inspiring beings."
His gaze shifted to the iron-gray dragonman kneeling beside him, his eyes holding no reproach, only a calmness that seemed like a farewell.
"Judging from my bloodline perception, recently, all but me of the original ten elders have disappeared." The iron-gray dragonman suddenly raised his head, his vertical pupils suddenly contracting.
"all?!"
His dragon wings twitched violently behind him, the wingtips striking the ground with a crisp sound.
"How is this possible? Each of the ten elders has a bloodline concentration of over 90%, and they also possess the Elder Council's inherited Judgment Secret Technique..." "In the face of a wizard, 90% and 3% are no different."
The old dragon interrupted him, his tone as calm as if he were stating a perfectly ordinary fact.
"You don't know. After being ruled by wizards, we elders learned some things from the ancient memories of our bloodline... things we shouldn't have learned." He slowly closed his eyes.
"The art of judgment is only one aspect. We were able to organize a resistance army because of these ancient legacies unearthed from our bloodline memories." "But even with such power, the other nine elders still disappeared one by one."
A low, almost whimpering sound escaped the iron-gray dragonman's throat: "Are wizards... really that terrifying?"
Old Dragonman was silent for a moment.
Then, he tugged at the corners of his chapped lips, revealing an extremely bitter smile.
"No, it's not terrifying. It's advanced."
He spoke softly, but the weight of his words was palpable: "Guardian Dragon, do you know that?"
The iron-gray dragonman was stunned.
The old dragon slowly opened his eyes, his gaze falling on the patterns of the magic array in the distance, as if recalling a history that was too far removed from the past.
"That is the guardian deity left behind at the source of our dragon bloodline, the foundation of our entire race's existence. It was once the strongest being in this plane, and according to that wizard... it should have been a peak level eight being."
"When the Broadleaf Wizard arrived, the Guardian Dragon exchanged three blows with him."
"Three moves!"
The old dragonman couldn't help but repeat it, his tone still filled with terror: "Then, the guardian dragon was defeated, utterly and decisively defeated head-on."
"Since then, it has never appeared in the bloodline dreams of any dragonman again."
He paused, a sigh escaping his lips: "Those wizards, they must be beings of a higher order than us."