Soul of Searing Steel
chapter-177

Right after noon, the sunlight shone across the cold air, shining upon the people with a slight warmth. The frosty season was fading away like dust flying away along with the winds, slowly disappearing without a trace.

Being led by Ying, Joshua went over to the stable.

Right in the stable by the backyard of the mansion, a black horse was living there. Currently, the horse had its legs bent down, coiling itself up, quietly lying on the haystack, sleeping deeply. Its huge body was moving up and down along with the rhythm of its breathing. Hot streams of air were flowing out of its body, causing the air in its surroundings to become as hot as summer.

"From the very beginning, Black's body became very hot. It's even like touching real fire when you're touching its body."

Ying then put away the brush in her hand and roughly described where the problem seemed to be. After that, she asked as she had an odd feeling, "Black has been acting normal recently. When it woke up, it did not eat anything strange as well. So why is there so much change happening to Black?"

It seemed that the girl could not understand this kind of thing.

Joshua did not say a word at all. He stared at the horse and his gaze swept across the entire body of the horse.

Shortly afterward, he let out a breath, shook his head and said, "Nothing, this is not a big problem. Black is just going through the first step of the awakening process of his bloodline. His body has begun to spontaneously draw in magic power and elemental power."

Joshua seemed to be in a good mood at the moment. He continued to speak, "I did not expect to see Black awaken naturally. Other than me as the reason, it seems that the bloodline of Black's ancestors is not weak as well. However, the changes that happened this time is not that huge. That would mean that the density of the bloodline is a little thin this time."

"Bloodline?" Ying whispered to herself, "Will Black become even stronger after this 'awakening' thing happens to Black's 'bloodline'?"

"You are made of steel—Divine Armaments do not have a bloodline, or even blood to begin with. So you can't become stronger by relying on this." Without looking at the girl's expression and listening to her tone alone, Joshua already knew what Ying had in her mind. So he immediately ignored the girl's sighing which was filled with regret. He swept his eyes across the warhorse, looking clearly at the slightest change in the flowing movement of the energy deep within its large body. Upon doing so, he muttered to himself, "In such a way, we don't have to distribute the potions so early anymore. What we need to do now is to identify what type of daemon is in the bloodline of Black's ancestor. Is it some sort of dragon, maybe? After that, we just have to intensify the density, the thickness of this bloodline."

After determining his next plan, he called Ying to look up for Ling back in the study room to get a crystal test-tube from the room. Well, the test-tube would then be used for the purpose to extract some of Black's blood as a sample for them to study it. When they were extracting the blood from the warhorse, the horse woke up for a few seconds. However, the moment when it realized that Joshua was just right beside it, it bent down its head and continued to sleep.

Putting away the crystal tube filled with the horse's black blood, Joshua looked at the black warhorse which was gathering dense and powerful fire element energy all around its body. He seemed to be looking forward to what would come next.

Having the ability to gather such a dense bloodline of the fire element… So where does the source come from?

In the middle of the city, a gentle and warm wind blew over making people feel a touch of warmth. The beginning of April was approaching and the weather began to get warmer day after day. The strong winds that rose from the center of the Dark Forest had swept over the entire forest, blowing over the mountains, passing through the most prosperous areas of the Imperial City. With the warm scent of spring coming in the way, everything came back to life. The grass and the trees were sprouting. The wind continued to whisper across the flatlands and the mountains bloomed with flowers and flourished with green grasses. This wind also made its way to the Mount Great Ajax in the North.

Without the slightest break, the warm wind went on its way. It seemed to have melted all the snow and spread the warmth throughout the uninhabited lands of the North as well.

However, the Lost Sea in the North that was closer to Mount Great Ajax remained a white icy land without boundaries. Even after the winter was over, the ice and frost across the icy land remained hard as iron. The translucent ice crystals looked like precious crystallized that would reflect colorful lights upon being shone upon by the sunlight.

Such a beautiful scene could only exist at a temperature so low that it was enough to freeze flesh and bones of men. Being in such an environment, there can be no existence of any creature that could enjoy the beauty of the scene.

Except for one type of creature.

The dragons.

One of the Pentashade Dragon species, the gathering spot of the white dragons in the North, was right over there.

The Pentashade Dragons consist of the red dragons, black dragons, white dragons, green dragons, and blue dragons.

The red dragons had the strongest and hardest bodies and scales. They lived in volcanic or underground magmatic areas, breathing flames and bathing in magma. The black dragons were born with the negative energy that normal creatures could not get in contact with. They inhabited themselves in the depths of swamps and the abyss of the seas. Their scales made them immune to most elemental spells.

As for the green dragons, they lived in the mountains and the forests. And they could naturally communicate with the earth, the woods, the grasses and the rocks, letting the plants to battle against daemons for them. Their breaths could melt most of the substances ever existed.

Meanwhile, the blue dragons would stay flying almost their entire lives. The younglings of the blue dragons would be born onto the backbones of their fathers. They could harness air and thunder, flying in the sky without having no rest in between. The moment they landed would be the moment they met their own deaths.

As for the white dragons, they had snowy white scales that could control the flow of water and frost. They were used to building nests in high mountains or in the frost, enjoying the extreme cold that ordinary creatures could not have survived.

In a corner of the northern ice land, right on top of the peak of an iceberg, along with a solid ice wall as smooth a mirror, there were countless giant pits all over the place, deep and lots of twist and turns. There seemed to be no end to those pits.

That would be the lair of the white dragons.

A fraction of the white dragons in the North originally resided on the snow-capped mountains of Great Ajax. However, due to the awakening of the Ancient Dragon [Alatreon] that shook the dimension, which caused the Great Ajax Volcano to erupt all of a sudden, the white dragons had to leave their old lair in order to survive. Meanwhile, afterward, the elder dragon had suddenly vanished without a trace. However, the humans had settled into the lands of the North. As the humans were growing more prosperous and stronger day after day under the cutting-edge power of the Empire, the white dragons dare not to move back to their old lair. So they could only rebuild a new lair for themselves in a corner of the northern icy land.

Right above the dragon's lair, there were layers of snow clouds. The sun lights were shining onto the ground through the gaps between the clouds. One could faintly see that there were gigantic shadows moving back around, arriving from afar.

The flapping winds drew in some wind. The violent flow of air had dispersed the clouds in the sky. White dragons were flying in from afar, one after another. It only took tens of minutes for more than thirty gigantic dragons to fly from the clouds all the way into the lair.

The fully-grown dragons basically had their own inhabited area. Some of them could even turn themselves into humanoid forms. In the human world, they would work hard to build a career and networks of connections with other beings all across the world. In any case, they would generally prefer not to live in their lair. Only the younglings and the elders who were responsible for educating them would stay and live in the lair for a longer time.

If one was acquainted with the dragon species, they would certainly be amazed upon seeing such a scene presented before them. Well, it was because such a scene was almost impossible to happen. Upon departing the dragon's lair, these colossal dragons would no longer be under the care of their elders. They would become independent, having their own fates and destinies. They would no longer be under the jurisdiction of the master of the dragon lair. Unless the female ones were impregnated, they would never have returned to the lair where they were born.

However, the truth was indeed like that. In a brief period of time, another few white dragons had landed back at the lair as they entered the lair again.

Countless giant dragons were gathering in one spot. An enormous amount of energy was colliding with each other, causing impacts all around, stirring up waves of magic energy. A blurry mist was rising up into the air from among the snowy clouds, concealing the existence of the dragon lair that was located by the iceberg.

Not just the land in the North.

Across all lands of Mycroft, countless Pentashade Dragons were gathering.

Truth to be told, they did not know why. They just felt that they needed to do that. It felt like the calling from the deepest part of their Bloodline. It felt like a prophecy was delivered to them by the gods.