Chapter 31: Courage and Legacy (Seeking Followers!)

Time passed, and the leader battle of the first stage ended quickly.

Lai Ang, who had just defeated two young dragons, stepped down from the platform and stopped in front of the white dragon Pana.

"Leader." Pana said somewhat timidly, her voice tense.

It was unclear why the leader had suddenly come to find it.

It only wanted to be an invisible dragon, not noticed by any existence.

"You go fight too." Lai Ang didn't beat around the bush.

"I just fought" the white dragon wanted to explain and make excuses, but under the black dragon's gradually cold gaze, it still lost morale and walked toward the platform with its head down.

Behind it, the black dragon's voice sounded again,

"If your rank isn't within the top eighty, leave the Black Dragon Fortress."

As the white dragon was pondering how to fight in muddy waters, it staggered and almost fell.

It turned its head, wanting to say something, but the black dragon ignored it completely and had already left.

This left the white dragon feeling at a loss.

Not knowing how long of an internal clash had passed, White Dragon Pana gritted its teeth, as if with the resolve to face death, and found a green dragon hatchling.

The green dragon hatchling looked at the white dragon's arrival, somewhat puzzled, uncertainly pointing at itself with its dragon claw, "What's up?"

"No" the courage that had been mustered shrank back again, but thinking that retreating would mean returning to the river to eat fish again, Pana stopped herself mid-sentence and said, "I challenge you!"

"Challenge me?" The green dragon hatchling glanced sideways at the already-departing Black Dragon Fortress Leader, its dragon eyes narrowing slightly, sizing up this white dragon with a scrutinizing gaze.

Pana, who had entered the juvenile dragon stage, had grown rapidly in body length, being slightly larger than Lai Ang.

Naturally, it was also larger than the green dragon hatchling before it.

However, the white dragon's timidity was still "quite famous" among the little dragons of the Dragon Fortress.

"You idiot, who gave you the confidence to challenge me!" The fearless green dragon hatchling snorted coldly, feeling angry.

Being challenged by the timid white dragon—doesn't that show its strength is lacking?

Damn it! The green dragon hatchling felt as if the surrounding gazes carried a faint mockery.

"I'll give you a good lesson, you worthless white dragon!!"

Being scolded with a finger pointed at its head by a green dragon slightly smaller than itself, White Dragon Pana inwardly felt a bit uncomfortable.

After these discomforts accumulated to the limit——

"Enough, do you think you're the leader of the Green Dragon Fortress?! Clearly you look weaker than me!" Pana glared at the green dragon hatchling.

"What?" The green dragon hatchling looked in astonishment at the suddenly erupting white dragon.

Its anger was also ignited.

The two mother dragons tangled together in a melee.

In the battle, at first the white dragon still couldn't let go, unable to exert its full bodily strength, but each time the pain from its scales came, it reminded Pana——

If it lost, this comfortable, pleasant life would leave it, and it would return to being alone, a solitary dragon as before.

"No, absolutely not!"

The white dragon growled, the power bursting from its claws gradually increasing, suppressing the green dragon hatchling.

Finally, after a somewhat difficult process but ultimately harmless battle, the white dragon gained victory.

After a brief rest, the white dragon found its next target again.

It had to reach the top eighty.

Time passed, dusk arrived.

The biannual Dragon Fortress ranking battle also gradually came to a close.

Lai Ang led the little dragons of the Black Dragon Fortress, looking at the rankings under the black stone.

Its position rose from seventeenth place half a year ago to ninth place.

Ai Di rose from a previous hundredth place to ninety-fourth.

Sai Jia rose from seventy-eighth place to sixty-sixth.

Pana rose from a previous ninety-ninth place to seventy-fifth.

Seeing this, Lai Ang glanced unexpectedly at the white dragon, not expecting it to erupt with such potential. The number of little dragons in the Dragon Fortress is not constant.

Basically, each year a small portion over ten years old enters the juvenile dragon stage and leaves here.

Likewise, each year some newly hatched dragon hatchlings come to the Dragon Fortress to receive education.

The strong leave, the weak arrive.

Under these circumstances, actually staying a bit longer will naturally raise one's ranking.

So although it seems their rankings have risen quite a bit, in reality it's not that exaggerated.

However, Lai Ang is already quite satisfied with this.

"Let's go back."

After returning to the Black Dragon Fortress,

"The prepared dog-headed humanoid maid "Peisituoya" brought up the steaming magical beast meat."

After Lai Ang finished eating to his heart's content, Peisituoya, with one hand holding soft magical beast fur and the other holding a tool resembling an iron brush, began to cleanse Lai Ang's draconic body.

The broken dragon scales and dragon blood cleaned up were carefully collected by Peisituoya, treating them as treasures.

Lai Ang merely turned a blind eye to this.

These broken dragon scales and bits of dragon blood were, to it, merely discarded bodily tissue.

But to the dog-headed humanoids and some low-bloodline monsters, they were treasures.

Just consider it as a reward for their hard service. Lai Ang thought to himself.

Before, it was also Peisituoya who cleaned and took it away. However, there's something odd: Lai Ang seemed not to sense any dragon aura from them.

After the cleaning was finished and another half-hour of massage, Peisituoya was somewhat fidgety, nervously saying, "Your Highness, these precious dragon scales and dragon blood, how do you want to handle them?"

Lai Ang came back to himself from the comfortable massage, slowly opened his dragon eyes, and said in surprise,

"How did you usually handle them before?"

"Your Highness, the dragon scales and blood you shattered in battle, as well as the scales shed during growth, have all been collected by me and placed in the Black Dragon Fort's treasury. Other belongings of yours have also been gathered by the maids and placed together in the treasury." Peisituoya replied somewhat nervously.

"I see." Lai Ang understood.

No wonder it felt a bit strange, why it didn't sense the dragon aura on Peisituoya's body.

Before, it hadn't paid attention to these trivial matters.

"It seems the training of the Black Dragon Fort maids is still quite strict." Lai Ang remarked.

Faced with the dragon's legacy, they could actually resist the temptation.

What Lai Ang did not know was that it wasn't that there were no maids who couldn't resist the temptation.

Rather, those who couldn't resist have already died.

Unregistered monster maids and monster attendants, once they emit the aura of dragon blood, will be captured and killed.

Behind any seemingly cruel and strange regulation, there is always a reason.

Behind this regulation, it was that years ago, a maid serving the Red Dragon Fort, in order to escape her servile status, could not restrain her inner greed, and directly killed a red dragon hatchling.

Then, using a stolen ritual, she consumed the corpse of the red dragon hatchling, transforming herself into a half-dragon monster, and fled the academy.

It was precisely this incident that caused the previously indifferent Jade Dream Realm to establish strict regulations specifically for this.

"Keeping it in the treasury is useless, so I'll grant it to you." Lai Ang said casually.

Lai Ang's idea was simple: make use of waste.

Moreover, even servants need to be given some positive feedback; they cannot be constantly exploited.

Otherwise, don't blame them for later being disloyal to you, or even betraying you.

"Thank you for your grace." Peisituoya exclaimed excitedly.

It subconsciously touched its own back, where there was a scar.

The scar came from the previous leader of the Black Dragon Fort, 'Huo'er'.

That person was not as merciful as Your Highness Lai Ang.

(End of chapter)