After Victor finished drinking all the wine in his cup, the mithril staff in Peter’s hand—representing the Pope’s authority—trembled slightly.
A soft glow emanated from Victor’s body, eventually spreading to envelop him completely.
Then, wisps of gray-black gas began to rise from Victor’s body, soon dissipating into the holy light.
“Even your body has been tainted by demonic energy. Looks like the situation over there isn’t good.” Seeing this, Peter’s expression darkened.
“Who says it isn’t? I went to find that little dragon hoping to analyze the kind of soul power she once possessed. Maybe it could help us reclaim that space…”
After expelling the demonic energy, Victor’s complexion relaxed considerably. He leaned his back against the chair, slumping down in the middle.
“But it turned out that the silver dragon’s effect came from a blessing of the spirit realm. Not everyone has that kind of luck.”
“And it’s extremely unstable,” Pope Peter added.
Seeing Victor close his eyes without responding, the Pope sighed softly and continued, “You didn’t come to me just for this. At this level of demonic energy, John and the others could remove it easily. Tell me, what is it you came here for?”
Victor opened his eyes and smiled awkwardly, sitting up straight with a dry chuckle. “I promised that silver dragon I’d tell her the whereabouts of the Sky Fragment if she satisfied me. Although the result didn’t please me in the end, I didn’t expect to be defeated… But I only know that you have a piece of the Sky Fragment, and since you know me…”
“So that’s what this is about… Our previous plan has already failed. The rules you can acquire from the Sky Fragment are incomplete; it’s useless to us now.”
Pope Peter smiled lightly, showing little concern for his old friend’s thoughts.
“I happen to have a task that’s a bit inconvenient, which also aligns with their goals. Maybe I can hand it over to them… Enough of that, Victor. It’s been years since we last met. Why don’t you tell me where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to lately?”
*****
After the fierce battle, Lu Qiuchen leaned pale against a tree, while Zhang Cheng nervously clutched a small seed beside her.
With a weak hand, Lu Qiuchen opened the small box containing the Sky Fragment and gazed at the dazzling, fractured crystal under the sunlight.
From Auduin’s narration, Lu Qiuchen learned that the Sky Crystal had been split into nine pieces after the dragons’ struggle. Its value to pureblooded great dragons diminished greatly, so the dragons bestowed these nine rare fragments as tokens upon the royal families of the races under their dominion.
However, after a hard-fought victory over the Archmage and his explanation, Lu Qiuchen understood that the Sky Fragments—of little use to dragons—had a slow effect of enhancing mental power and could help humanoid beings break through their limits by mastering incomplete rules, offering a faint hope of advancing to the Stellar tier.
Perhaps because Auduin was a dragon himself, he didn’t think it necessary to explain this to Lu Qiuchen, another dragon; or maybe he had other plans, only mentioning the fragments’ mental power boost and never the incomplete rules mastery.
The discovery of such miraculous effects naturally attracted the covetousness of various forces. After a period of chaos, these subordinate races saw that the dragons did not intervene in their plundering. A common idea took root: whoever possessed the Sky Fragment was king of their race.
But from Lu Qiuchen’s perspective, this was simply because the dragons couldn’t be bothered. Dragons, by nature, do not meddle if these races don’t threaten them.
This turmoil surrounding the Sky Fragments lasted hundreds of years, eventually subsiding with a crucial discovery—creatures who used the Sky Fragment to master incomplete rules and reach pseudo-Stellar tier would, within 50 to 100 years, fall into mental madness, with few exceptions.
Although these pseudo-Stellar tier beings were stronger than ordinary legendary tier warriors, the gap with true Stellar tier masters was enormous. Moreover, the type of rules gained was random and dependent on luck; if the rules didn’t match one’s direction, progress would be minimal—just a superficial understanding.
Those who reached legendary tier were the elites of their races. Realizing the unknown forces within the fragments could threaten their lives, no one dared to risk it for the slim chance of power gain. The craze quickly faded, and the Sky Fragments were treated mainly as mental power boosters; some races even sealed them away after suffering harm.
After countless generations, the age of dragons faded. The once-hot Sky Fragments gradually faded from public interest. During this long period, the Halfings and Giants became extinct, leaving the fragments held by their races lost to history.
According to Victor, the Sky Fragment belonging to the elves was stolen by the Drow during the demon race’s invasion of the Eternal World. Since then, no elf has seen the fragment again. But Lu Qiuchen knew the piece the Drow possessed was now in Zhang Cheng’s hands.
After clashing fiercely with the “Archmage,” Lu Qiuchen realized Victor was indeed only pseudo-Stellar tier and asked how he had acquired such power.
“When I was young, I ventured to the Southern Continent and joined an adventuring party. During one expedition, we were fortunate enough to find a Sky Fragment in a Halfling ruin.”
The Archmage did not elaborate further on why he risked using the fragment to obtain incomplete rules, only telling Lu Qiuchen that the fragment was now in the hands of an old friend and, given their current strength, they no longer needed its effects.
“That fragment is in the hands of Pope Peter of the Theocracy,” Victor said, ignoring Lu Qiuchen’s shocked expression. He then turned toward the rushing Zhang Cheng and tossed him a plain-looking pea seed.
“Take this. It’s my token. Give it to the guards of the Elven Forest—they’ll understand your intent. But be careful, if you make extra demands, they’ll expect to see…”
Zhang Cheng, however, didn’t reach out for the seed but instead warily circled around Victor. The “Archmage” let out a bitter laugh, drew his mithril staff, and with a flash of white light, disappeared before their eyes.
Zhang Cheng watched from across a mountain as the two suddenly clashed, his heart filled with worry. Knowing his own weakness meant he couldn’t help Lu Qiuchen—the residual energy alone from their fight could kill him—he waited until the battle ended before approaching.
As he neared, something was thrown at him by the enemy. Zhang Cheng saw Lu Qiuchen’s pale face and naturally frowned at Victor. Full of concern, he rushed to Lu Qiuchen’s side and only relaxed after seeing she was unharmed.
Once the “Archmage” had left, Zhang Cheng let down his guard and finally registered what had been said—after Lu Qiuchen requested the Sky Fragment, it was handed to her, then he hurriedly searched the scorched earth for the pea seed.
Lu Qiuchen found this amusing. She wanted to use mental power to help him find it, but the intense magical and mental energy exerted in their earlier contest had left her dizzy, so she gave up and leaned against a tree that had just been split by lightning to rest.
After some effort, Zhang Cheng retrieved the seed and jogged back to Lu Qiuchen, who was staring blankly at the little box.
Standing before her, Zhang Cheng looked at her with worry, instantly triggering her empathy.
“Zhang Cheng, don’t put this box in your backpack. I’ll create a space in your armor with spatial magic. From now on, carry this little box on you like Laity does.”
Lu Qiuchen hesitated but finally said it.
Since yesterday, she’d been torn about whether to do everything possible to help Zhang Cheng improve.
On one hand, she was uneasy that his growing power might worsen her own situation. On the other, despite her legendary-tier peak strength allowing her to do as she pleased most of the time, their current dealings were on too high a level—she’d already encountered a Stellar-tier powerhouse and could not survive a single move, let alone be distracted protecting Zhang Cheng.
Over the years, she had seized many opportunities, rapidly advancing her power, but a bottleneck was approaching. Further progress would be very difficult. She urgently needed new strength.
If Zhang Cheng reached Epic tier, he could quickly make up for this weakness. Because after successfully contracting with a dragon and becoming a Dragon Knight, the benefits to the contractor are immense. Historically, all Dragon Knights who contracted dragons quickly ascended to legendary tier.
Conversely, the requirements to become a Dragon Knight are extremely harsh. Zhang Cheng, however, was free from this trouble.
The rarity of the Dragon Knight profession lies in the dragons’ incomprehensible pride—a universally accepted truth. But most knights don’t know the real reason dragons refuse to contract with them, preferring death over partnership.
Simply put, it’s partly pride. From birth, dragons—including wyverns—are rulers of their territories, used to a life above all others. They cannot tolerate the humiliation of being mounts, especially for a lowborn race.
But there is another reason: a mental imprint called Memory Legacy, present in all adult dragons, varying by bloodline purity. Unfortunately, only adult dragons are eligible to contract as mounts.
This creates a strange phenomenon: more Dragon Knights have contracted great dragons than wyverns, even though wyverns outnumber great dragons greatly. In both number and ratio, pureblood great dragons lead by far.
Lu Qiuchen speculated this might be because great dragons are generally more powerful and have a higher chance of breaking free from the Memory Legacy.
Although many great dragons have been contracted, in the grand timeline, this is very rare—sometimes a single Dragon Knight appears once every ten thousand years. Thus, Lu Qiuchen, who merged a human soul and actively contracted to survive, is an oddity among dragons.
But oddities are common these days. Gelf is another, perhaps even stranger. He didn’t contract for survival reasons—though that can be excused as love clouding his mind.
Back to the point, Lu Qiuchen’s decision now reflects a glimmer of hope for Zhang Cheng. She wants to see if he is truly trustworthy.
She is confident in Zhang Cheng’s three pledges for now, but truly worries whether he can uphold his heart after gaining sudden power.
That requires more verification. Luckily, Lu Qiuchen still has the ultimate method of entering Zhang Cheng’s mental space to inspect his thoughts.
But she suddenly recalled the saying: “The human heart cannot withstand constant tests.” The story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf illustrates the same.
Zhang Cheng has already opened his heart, so suspicion would be too cruel and might push him toward extremes. Therefore, Lu Qiuchen decided against presuming guilt and postponed mental inspection until there was genuine cause.
After recovering enough to fly, the two set out again for the Golden Dwarf kingdom.
Zhang Cheng was thrilled by Lu Qiuchen’s subtle change in attitude, which dispelled his earlier worries upon learning the Eternal Group’s true purpose.
Seeing Zhang Cheng grin foolishly just because she showed him some care, Lu Qiuchen felt that her safety wouldn’t be in jeopardy anytime soon.
“So foolish! Although this helps control him better, I really fear that when he learns the truth later, it will backfire on me…” Lu Qiuchen watched Zhang Cheng’s expression, feeling both joy and sorrow, and decided to ignore him for now.
She focused back on the matter at hand: the Sky Fragment held by the Dwarf Kingdom. How could they acquire it?
Should they tell them the hiding place of the Gray Dwarves in exchange for the Sky Fragment? But that seemed excessive… Although dragons lack human morals, she still had some herself.
Moreover, judging by the Golden Dwarves’ attitude, they probably see the Gray Dwarves as barely surviving traitors who would soon perish without intervention. They likely considered them insignificant.
However, Lu Qiuchen was mistaken here. To the dwarves, hatred is forever etched in their hearts. Their language contains no word for forgetting a grudge.