True Dragon Entering the Nest and Fate-Seizing Art Revealed
The Dragon-Qilin tried to spit out the Fire Essence Origin Pills he'd been hiding in his cheeks, but Quinn Shepherd gave him a gentle, almost kindly smile. Terrified, the beast gulped them all down with a loud, nervous swallow.
"Shame. I was hoping to serve you up for the New Year's feast," Quinn muttered under his breath.
The Dragon-Qilin shivered violently and obediently ran after them, while Lina the Spirit Fox stood on his massive head, cheering him on: "Fattie, if you run too slow, you'll be dinner by New Year's!"
Quinn relaxed. Mizu Pass wasn't far from Dragoncrest City, and according to the Great Ruins Geographical Map, Starsea lay just north of Dragoncrest at the Heavenly Dragon Star Palace—about two hundred li away. On the ancient map it's called Starsea, but the locals near Dragoncrest City refer to it as Starsea Lake.
Many ancient place names in the Great Ruins differ from their modern counterparts, likely due to the thousand-year break in civilization after the Pioneer Era.
From what Quinn had gathered, after the Pioneer Era ended, there was a massive gap in human history—over a thousand years with little record surviving. Only the three great holy lands and Carefree Haven have scraps of information from those lost centuries; all other sects and nations remember nothing of that time.
Quinn called over the ink-black flood dragon. The beast obediently opened its jaws, revealing the True Dragon Nest that the Dragon-Keeper Lord had refined down to a five-foot-square artifact.
Even so, the True Dragon Nest was massive. For a god like the Dragon-Keeper Lord, shrinking it to the size of a round table was already the limit; refining it smaller would require far greater power.
With the Dragon-Keeper Lord's cultivation, that was simply impossible.
"But the True Dragon Lord was refined into something like a jade pendant—doesn't that mean the person who made the Imperial Disc was far stronger than the Dragon-Keeper Lord?" Quinn mused.
Quinn paused, wondering: Who took the True Dragon Lord and refined it into the Imperial Disc? Why did they give it to the Ling family? What was their goal?
The ink-black flood dragon spat out the True Dragon Nest. Quinn reached out to catch it—and was instantly crushed by an overwhelming weight. He gasped, "Put it back—quick!"
Bang.
Both girls stared at Quinn—the Cult Master—his arms dislocated and pinned to the dragon's back by the crushing weight of the Nest, their faces a mix of shock and concern.
"This giant basin mountain weighs way more than the Cult Master's sword orb," Serena Yunxiang whispered, sticking out her tongue as she remembered forging swords for Quinn with Mysterious-Gold Essence and ending up burying him underground. She kept her voice low.
Quinn grunted, struggling to pull his ten bloodied fingers out from beneath the Nest. The Dragon-Qilin hurried over, eager to please: "Cult Master, want me to lick your hand?"
"No need," Quinn replied curtly.
Quinn shook his limp arms, circulated his yuanqi to forcibly reattach them, then, gritting his teeth, took out a bottle of Dragon Spittle Elixir and smeared it over his shredded fingers. He finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The moment the True Dragon Nest appeared, the Imperial Disc at Quinn's chest started writhing, growing hot and restless—stretching like a tiny dragon desperate to break free and fly home to the Nest.
This had happened once before—when Quinn was nearly killed by a swarm of flood dragons, the Imperial Disc revealed a tiny dragon head and instantly subdued the entire pack.
However, the True Dragon Lord has already been refined into the Imperial Disc. As the Dragon-Keeper Lord said, it can never become a true dragon again.
True dragons are born from qi and fortune; it is the convergence of qi and destiny that gives rise to a true dragon's flesh and form. The True Dragon Lord is, in essence, a Master Dragon Vein that has been forged into an artifact, forever losing the chance to evolve into a living true dragon.
Quinn removed the Imperial Disc from his neck. The moment he let go, he saw the Disc shoot upward, unfurling in midair and gradually expanding—though only to about a foot long—before whistling down into the True Dragon Nest!
Peering into the Nest, Quinn watched as the Imperial Disc settled into the ninth tier at the very center, coiling perfectly to fill the missing segment just like a dragon curling up in its lair.
As the True Dragon Lord entered the Nest, a world-shaking surge of dragon might erupted. All the flood dragons around Quinn collapsed, their bodies limp and trembling as they clung to the ground. Even the dragon carrying them dropped flat, motionless, unable to move!
Even the Dragon-Qilin froze, his fur and scales bristling all over, but he was no match for the terrifying pressure radiating from the True Dragon Nest. Flattened, he dared not even lift his head.
Quinn barely had time to process it all before he saw countless runes leaping and swirling across the surface of the Nest—these were the written characters of the dragon race, each one bizarre and ever-changing, with not a single repeat among them!
Each unique character contained different information. The runes appearing on the True Dragon Nest formed an impossibly intricate cultivation scripture!
True dragons are born from fortune, which itself arises from the Dao of heaven and earth. Thus, true dragons are innately close to the Dao, and every dragon, upon birth, naturally comprehends dragon language without ever needing to study.
Because dragons have no need to learn their language, there is no repetition—one dragon character might stand for a single word, a sentence, or even an entire treatise tens of thousands of words long!
That’s why, for other races, learning dragon language is unimaginably difficult.
The Dragon-Keeper Lord’s bloodline is extremely pure, but he’s still a flood dragon, not a true dragon. Although he taught Quinn much of the dragon language, there are still countless runes on the True Dragon Nest that Quinn can’t recognize.
Some of the dragon script the Dragon-Keeper Lord passed on to Quinn is so complex that a single character would require tens of thousands of human words to explain—and some characters can’t be rendered in human language at all!
Quinn concentrated, committing the dragon runes on the True Dragon Nest to memory.
Lynn Ling and Serena Yunxiang crowded closer. Serena asked in confusion, “What kind of writing is this?”
“Dragon language characters,” Quinn replied.
Lynn Ling’s eyes widened. “These are all dragon script. I learned a little from my father, Emperor Evan, but I can only recognize a handful of characters.”
Quinn thought for a moment, then suddenly asked, “Lynn, do you have the Ling clan’s original version of the Nine-Dragon Emperor Art?”
The Nine-Dragon Emperor Art was nothing special at first, but through generations of refinement by the Ling clan’s masters, it became a top-tier technique. Quinn figured the original version must still exist, or else Emperor Evan couldn’t have taught Lynn dragon language.
Quinn suspected the earliest Nine-Dragon Emperor Art was written in dragon script, and Emperor Evan taught Lynn dragon language so she could read that ancient form.
“How did you know I’ve seen the original Nine-Dragon Emperor Art?” Lynn Ling asked in shock.
Lynn Ling was stunned. "The Ling clan’s oldest Nine-Dragon Emperor Art is written in dragon script. I really have seen it. My father made me memorize it before teaching me his own version of the Nine-Dragon Emperor Art."
Quinn grinned. “Try reciting the oldest Nine-Dragon Emperor Art in dragon language. I’ll give you a great benefit afterward.”
Lynn Ling shook her head. “I can’t recite it aloud, but I can write it down.”
Quinn fetched paper and brush. Lynn Ling wrote several bizarre dragon characters. “That’s it. The Nine-Dragon Emperor Art is recorded on the Imperial Disc, but sadly, the Disc vanished—stolen by some hateful thief.”
Quinn blushed, pretending not to hear, and instead studied the dragon script she’d written.
So that’s it—the Nine-Dragon Emperor Art is actually just the opening section of the vast cultivation method blooming across the True Dragon Nest and True Dragon Lord core.
He compared the original Nine-Dragon Emperor Art to the flashing dragon script on the Nest, and finally traced out the structure of the True Dragon Lord’s method.
With the structure mapped out, Quinn continued to study, and the grand, intricate cultivation scripture grew richer and more complete in his mind.
The Ling clan’s Nine-Dragon Emperor Art is only the starting form, not much by itself. But the clan used it as a foundation, perfecting it into a top-tier method that rivals the suppressing scriptures of the three great holy lands. The full scripture inscribed on the True Dragon Nest is even more astonishing!
Quinn decoded it bit by bit, growing more and more shocked. This was the Fate-Seizing Art the Dragon-Keeper Lord had mentioned, but it was more than just fate-seizing. By cultivating it and drawing on the True Dragon Lord’s dragon qi, one could become the new True Dragon Lord!
The strength of this art lies in its ability to grant the practitioner boundless mana and true-dragon-like power. Of all the arts Quinn had ever seen, only the Overlord Three-Core Art could match it at the same realm.
But when it comes to sheer power and body-refinement, this art leaves the Overlord Three-Core Art far behind!
Quinn’s own body-refinement was impressive, but the Overlord Three-Core Art required a powerful supplementary method for the body, which he didn’t have. The Grand Fostering Heavenly Demon Sutra’s body arts, after all, weren’t truly top-tier.
But the method recorded on the True Dragon Nest could refine the flesh to the level of a dragon king!
“What a technique... truly incredible... Emperor Evan was remarkable!” Quinn couldn’t help but praise.
He marveled as he deciphered more than half the method, but was eventually stymied by many unrecognizable characters. Looking up, he let out a long breath. “Your Majesty was truly extraordinary! To create a peerless technique from just the opening form—his talent is nearly on par with the Imperial Preceptor! Lynn, when did your clan first receive this art?”
“About seven hundred years ago, I think.” Lynn Ling replied.
Lynn Ling recalled Emperor Evan’s words: “Father said that back then, a Ling ancestor met a god who gave him the Imperial Disc and taught him dragon language. But our ancestor was frivolous and didn’t take the lessons seriously. He was infatuated with a woman—my clan’s ancestress—and when he finally wanted to learn, the god was gone, and he’d forgotten almost all the dragon script. In the end, he only managed to extract the original Nine-Dragon Emperor Art from the Disc.”
“Grandpa Blind was right!” Quinn agreed.
Quinn thought, 'No wonder Grandpa Blind always says women are a distraction—Butcher says women are too much trouble, and Old Ma keeps his distance from them. Now I see why! I can’t let myself get sidetracked like the Ling ancestor. Still, Lynn is really pretty, and Serena, although a bit thin, is quite lovely too…'
Startled by his own wandering thoughts, Quinn quickly suppressed them and retrieved the True Dragon Lord from the Nest. The dragon-shaped vein shrank back into a jade pendant, its head and tail connected.
Lynn Ling watched, puzzled. “This jade ring looks a lot like the Ling clan’s Imperial Disc... but it’s not quite the same. I heard the Imperial Disc was a jade pendant, but this one is a jade ring with a gap.”
Quinn smiled. “I promised you a great benefit, didn’t I? Now I’ll teach you the Nine-Dragon Emperor Art I’ve reconstructed.”
Lynn Ling giggled, “My father taught me the perfected Nine-Dragon Emperor Art. How could yours possibly be better?”
Quinn began to recite the Nine-Dragon Emperor Art he’d reconstructed. At first, Lynn Ling was amused, but her expression soon grew solemn. She realized Quinn’s version started with their clan’s original forms, then extended into deeper, more powerful layers—even surpassing Emperor Evan’s perfected Nine-Dragon Emperor Art!
[End of chapter]