Capítulo 97: Chapter 98: The Ancient Dragon Clan ( Part 2)
Alexander watched as the elves took out the dragon's blood and poured it into a large container. After all the blood was poured, the blood started attracting the dragon qi in the air, Alexander quickly raised a shield to keep out the dragon qi as he did not want any unexpected in the procedure. Alexander wanted to completely transform into a dragon first.
Alexander refined and awakened the blood and quickly drank all of it in one go. This time the pain was lot less when compared to previous advancements as 90 percent of his genes had already converted into dragon genes. Alexander habitually entered the lucid state to block out the pain. When Alexander regained his bearings, he found that major changes had taken place in his body. Now, he was a complete dragon, he no longer had a human form but he could transform into his human appearance by using magic.
Alexander examined his new body and found that his body had increased to the length of 400 metres and now had a thickness of 40 metres. His body had grown stronger in all aspects and he had gained a more intimate connection to the five elements integrated in his body. As Alexander was marvelling over the changes that had occurred in him, a ghostly appariation appeared in front of the assembled people. A very massive pressure descended on everyone present and Alexander felt an innate suppression originating from his bloodline. Alexander instinctively knew that the being standing behind him had a purer bloodline than him.
Alexander turned to look behind him and found a massive dragon standing behind him. The dragon was at least 10 kilometers long and had a very graceful and elegant build. Alexander instinctively knew that the dragon was a female. Alexander observed the dragoness and found that she had sky blue scale which were shining very brightly. Her eyes were filled with power and she had an air of wisdom around her. Alexander was inwardly bewildered as the only dragon spirit that was present in these ruins was The Dragon Emperor Ao Tianyi. Alexander came out of his observations when the dragoness spoke, " Little Fellow!!! You brought outsiders inside the clan grounds which is strictly forbidden. Tell me a good reason, why should I not punish you?"
Alexander thought, " This dragoness has misunderstood me as a member of her clan. This is good as I would be able to extract some benefits from her."
Alexander spoke out, " Elder!! I was born outside the clan grounds. These people helped me in finding the clan grounds as I am the only dragon in this world."
The dragoness asked, " How old are you?"
Alexander calculated the time since his arrival in this world and said in a proud voice, in order to showcase his youth and naviety, " I AM TEN YEARS OLD."
The dragoness laughed and said, " You are quite amusing, Child!!...You are essentially a newly born dragon." The dragoness turned towards Alexander's subjects and hissed in anger, " You took advantage of the young one to gain access to our sacred clan grounds. I should kill you for this but you didn't kill and refine him the moment he was born, has spared you from death. Now, BEGONE!!!" A massive black hole opened and sucked all the saint realm cultivators and elves away.
Alexander was alarmed as he didn't knew where the dragoness had send his men. Alexander mentally contacted his men and found that they were thrown in the same ravine from where they had entered. Alexander urgently spoke to them in their minds, " LEAVE NOW!!! Such massive blackhole must have caused quite a big disturbance, attracting the attention of all the nearby beasts. You all will be free food to these beasts. Fly straight out of the forest and return back to the kingdom. I am not sure what the dragoness wants from me but I will try to escape. Don't try to gather forces and rescue me. Advance to God Realm first and then, return. Nothing on this world would be able to harm you then. Also, Don't leak this news to the public as it will cause massive panic among them."
Alexander returned his attention back to the dragoness and said, " Elder!!! Where did you send them? Why did you send them away?"
The dragoness replied in a serious voice, " Child!! You don't have much experience. Don't easily trust anyone. Keep yourself vigilant against all. You cannot know the darkness hiding inside people's minds and hearts. As for those cultivators, I have send them out of this space."
Alexandra nodded and said, " Elder!!! Who are you? Why are you like this?"
The dragoness calmly replied, " I am the fragment of will left behind by the Grand Elder of this clan, when she ascended to the Divine World about 29 Million years ago. I was left behind to oversee the clan and choose suitable candidate for the position of the Grand Elder. Since, I am a will and not an avatar, I have a form like this."
Alexander asked in a curious voice, "What is Divine World?"
The Dragoness smiled and said, " This whole universe is divided into four realms. This being the lowest and Immortal Realm being the highest. The quality of qi and laws increases exponientlly as one advances to higher realm worlds. Divine world is the immediate higher realm to us."
Alexander asked, " How do you know all this?"
The dragoness replied in a proud voice, " We Dragons have been in existence for a long time and have been recording the history of the universe since then. We are the most knowledgeable about the various realms and the treasures contained in them. We also hold vast amount of knowledge in all the subjects of study be it be alchemy, formation or techniques. Also, let me give you the first lesson in manners, you will address me as 'Grand Elder' or you will face heavy punishment."
Alexander asked, " Grand Elder, why did you appear before me?"
The Grand Elder replied, " I didn't appear before you especially. I was alerted to the presence of intruders. I was quite surprised at the amount of people I had sensed but didn't confront them as the bone dragon and the various formations imbedded in our clan city was more than enough to deal with them. I appeared before them when I sensed your aura. Why was I not able to sense you before?"
Alexander replied, " I was suppressing my aura to hide myself from others." Alexander, in reality, was decked in concealment and obscuring charms. The Dragoness looked interested and said, " Show me."
Alexander reactivated the charms and looked expectantly at the dragoness. The dragoness looked quite surprised amd said, " Little Fellow!!! You are good in concealing yourself. This is a good thing as it will be helpful throughout your life. Now, follow me."
Alexander asked, " Where are we going?"
The dragoness replied, " As the Grand Elder of the clan, it is my duty to see that all the young ones are given proper training so that they don't embarrass The Dragon Race before others. Come with me."
Saying this, the appariation took to the skies. As Alexander was not a saint level cultivator, he could not fly so he simply manipulated the wind to make himself fly. His connection to the elements allowed him to manipulate them as he wished, only his stamina was consumed in exchange. Alexander rapidly caught with the will of the Grand Elder.
The Grand Elder said, " So, you have a connection to the wind element and quite a strong one. Follow me." Saying this, the appariation increased it's speed and become a blur to Alexander's eyes. Alexander covered his whole body in wind element and created whirlwind at his tail end. Alexander used the whirlwind to propel himself as fast as possible.
A loud 'BOOM' resounded out as Alexander tore through the air. Alexander in a few seconds was able to see the silhouette of the will of the Grand Elder. Alexander increased the size of the whirlwind and tried to catch up with the Grand Elder's will. Alexander was not able to decrease the distance between them as the will again sped up. Alexander decreased the size of the mouth of the whirlwind and propelled himself even faster. Alexander knew that the will was testing him but as he didn't know the true motive of the will, he refrained from revealing all his cards.
A few minutes of chase later, Alexander reached the mountains behind the city. Alexander realised that the mountains were even bigger than he had imagined. The mountains were hundreds of thousands of kilometres high and millions of miles in length. The whole mountain range was covered with extremely dense forests. Alexander theorised, " May be the clan buildings are hidden in these mountains."
The Grand Elder said in prideful tone, " This is Ascension Mountains. The clan training ground lies beyond these mountains. In the past, the dragons aspiring to become the elites of the clan had to cross these mountains."
Alexander asked, " Are these mountains dangerous? Was being an elite a good thing?"
The Grand Elder continued in the same prideful tone, " These mountains are littered with formations starting from small illusions to formations capable of killing a Saint Realm human cultivator instantly. The forest is also full of traps both manual and formation traps. On top of all these, the forest is filled with extremely terrotorial demonic beasts who will attack anyone, who dares to enter their territory. These forests were prepared to stop any intruders from entering the real clan grounds but later on used as a rite of passage for the young dragons who wanted to become an elite of the clan.
Being the elite was a priveliege and also a duty. The dragon city is our first line of defence. It was the duty of the elites to lay down their lives to protect the lives of the fellow clan members and in return they were given more resources than individual adult dragons. Most of the clan resources were concentrated on the younglings in order to nurture future pillars of the clan. In ancient times, being an elite was a great honour but then everything changed."
Alexander asked, " What happened?"
The Grand Elder said in a sad voice, " It started when an elite dragon asked for permission to keep his child with him in the city. The Council of Elders allowed it as the child was born in an environment with less qi and was not capable of withstanding the strain of eating Dragon Fruit. The main reason behind such allowance was that the child's mother had given her life for the clan and the elite had also done great service to the clan.
The child grew up quite well in the city and arrived at the training grounds. We never told in detail, the children about the clan city so that they could wholly focus on their cultivation and not get distracted. The child was not allowed to speak of the city but a few nuggets of information was leaked during conversations. Moreover, the child longed to return to city as he had grown up there.
His longing and desperation to return ignited the curiousity of the other children and one day in his melancholy, he described the city to the young ones. The young ones also wanted to now go to the city and started taking the rite of passage in great numbers. We dragons believe in independence, we never interfere in the actions of young ones and only guide them when required. Quite a few of them, got injured quite badly, some of them died also. But, there were some extraordinary little fellows who successfully crossed the mountains and arrived at the city.
We had to promote them to elites as they had passed the rite, this was the ironclad rule of the clan. They were quite young and didn't have much experience outside the clan. In the past, the young ones were send outside to gain exprience and when they returned, they would undergo the rite if they wanted. The newly promoted elites became arrogant and started viewing the trainee dragons as inferior. Slowly, a line was drawn between the two groups and no one from the either decided to mingle with each other.
The elders didn't interfere as they were in closed door cultivation attempting to break through the Divine realm. It's very difficult to advance for the dragon race so the elders tended to remain in seclusion for hundreds of years."
Alexander asked, " Grand Elder!!! Why did you not interfere?"
The Grand Elder said, " My aim is to make the clan strong. The difference in opinions ignited a fierce competition between the two groups. Many young geniuses came forward during that period from both the sides. The clan became extremely strong in that period. You should know that the difference in opinions didn't mean that the dragons would not band together to fight an outside threat.
Everything was going great and I was going to personally step forward to quell that nonsense feud but something terrible happened for the clan happened. The two top geniuses of both sides had a wager that they would fight and the losing side will leave the clan. The elite lost but he didn't leave and framed the winner for cheating. The elders were called and they sided with the elites. The lost genius left and all the trainees and their also left with them. In one instant, the numbers of clan was halved.
I was very angry at the elders and the so called 'elites' and closed down the real clan grounds for 100,000 years as a punishment."
Alexander interrupted, " What happened to those who left?"
The dragoness laughed and said, " They all were holding themselves back from advancing to the Divine Realm as they were afraid that their juniors would be mistreated after they left. Dragons have hundreds of thousands of years of lifespan and have the same natural cultivation speed throughout their lifespan so they was no idle age for starting cultivation as in the case of humans and other beasts. This ability was the cause of great envy that various races had towards our race but in exchange each breakthrough was more difficult than climbing the heavens.
The dragons who left went into hiding and waited for the last one of them to become capable of advancing and ascended to the Divine Realm together. I don't know what happened after that but I am sure that their descendents still exist in the Divine world."
Alexander asked, " How did the dragons left behind died off?"
The Grand Elder snorted and said, " They died off by inbreeding and participating in needless conflicts. During the punishment period, the remaining clan members tried to forcefully enter the clan grounds and were thrown out for their efforts. Slowly, the clan grounds were forgotten as the remaining dragons started getting indulged in merriment. The only reason that they bothered to cultivate was to gather mates.
Slowly, the bloodline started declining. I didn't interfere as I already knew that these fellows were doomed. Over the course of millions of years, they degraded so much that they lost the innate ability of unhindered cultivation unique to our race. Foolish people considered a dragon emperor as a legendary existence. That Ao Tianyi was just a small child who managed to somehow awaken the progenitor's bloodline."
Alexander asked, " What is progenitor's bloodline?" While Alexander was asking this, a different thought entered his mind, " This is not going according to the script. Did I enter a wrong world?"
______________________________________________
For advance chapters go to P A T R E O . C O M/novicewriter
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder