Chapter 194: Ascending to Dragon Bloodline

Chapter 194: Ascending to Dragon Bloodline

The Star Alliance has established spatial portals to the Dragon Forest in every city-state, connecting the vast territories of the Alliance with unparalleled speed for both resource transport and military mobilization.

On the day the battle in Talon City concluded, the corpses of the arachnid elves were delivered to Su Nan's laboratory.

After some effort, Su Nan successfully extracted divine energy from the corpses.

"Eight standard units of divine energy, much more than the Belltollers and the Many-Winged Beasts."

A satisfied smile spread across Su Nan's face.

After all, the arachnid elves were divine-favored beings, and the amount of divine energy in their bodies far exceeded that of ordinary divine creatures.

The only downside was that it was a one-time deal, unlike the Belltollers and Many-Winged Beasts, which could provide a continuous supply.

It had its pros and cons.

After the initial joy, Su Nan immediately synthesized the divine energy, purified the faith corruption, and absorbed it right away.

After digesting the divine energy, he checked his interface and found that his mental condensation had increased by 0.66%.

"Not bad, roughly equivalent to more than two years of cultivation."

A hint of a smile appeared at the corners of Su Nan's mouth.

If each arachnid elf could bring a similar yield, his rate of increasing mental condensation would undoubtedly accelerate significantly.

"It seems we can't capture the City of Spider Queens so quickly."

Ever since he learned about the arachnid elves, Su Nan had a vague idea of 'sustainable development.'

Now that he had confirmed the significant effect of arachnid elves on increasing mental condensation, he could put this idea into action.

Since the Spider Queen had specifically sent him these supplements, he couldn't refuse.

He would treat the City of Spider Queens as a treasure trove of divine energy, continuously harvesting it.

Back in his study, Su Nan immediately summoned Carolina.

"Send out orders to put pressure on the dark elves, maximizing their war potential, but do not capture the City of Spider Queens."

"Additionally, when encountering arachnid elves, ensure their bodies are intact and deliver them to the laboratory as soon as possible."

Carolina was taken aback, her mind filled with confusion.

Applying pressure without capturing the City of Spider Queens—why?

When she heard the last part, the wise noblewoman of the sphinx race realized the true intent and felt a pang of pity for the City of Spider Queens.

It had been designated as a resource point by her master.

"Yes, Master," Carolina replied respectfully.

"Where is the Red Widow?" Su Nan asked next.

"The First Legion has advanced to the northwest border. Lord Cole requires supplies, and the Red Widow is currently coordinating the logistics there," Carolina answered.

After expansion, the Star Alliance now had two medium-sized golem legions, named the First Legion and the Second Legion, led by Cole and Ethan, and Sheman and Attila, respectively.

The First Legion was advancing toward the northwest region, while the Second Legion was moving toward the City of Spider Queens.

The First Legion had largely cleared the indigenous forces in the southeastern and northwestern border areas and had officially advanced into the northwest region.

In other words, the entire southeastern region of the underground world, except for the City of Spider Queens, was now under the control of the Star Alliance.

For a thousand years, the underground world had never seen such a vast and powerful force.

Su Nan had even heard that the city-states in the northwest region had formed an alliance to resist the Star Alliance.

"What's the situation in the northwest region?" Su Nan asked.

Carolina respectfully replied, "Most of the city-states in the northwest region have united to form an alliance called the Fallen Star Alliance."

The Fallen Star Alliance?

Su Nan's expression was peculiar but quickly returned to normal. He thought for a moment and said, "Shift the focus of the war to the northwest region for now. We can slow down the campaign against the City of Spider Queens."

Since he had decided not to capture the City of Spider Queens for the time being, there was no need to station too many troops there. He could shift the focus to the northwest region and deal with the Fallen Star Alliance first.

"Yes, Master."

Carolina accepted the order and left.

Sheman and Attila soon received Su Nan's command.

The two looked at the words on the parchment, exchanging puzzled glances.

"Does this mean we are to besiege but not attack?" Attila's face was full of confusion. "Why do this?"

Sheman pondered for a moment and said, "It must be related to the arachnid elves. Perhaps they are very important to the teacher, and he hopes to obtain as many intact arachnid elf corpses as possible."

"But wouldn't capturing the City of Spider Queens and killing all the arachnid elves be better?" Attila asked.

The two did not understand the process of the arachnid elves' creation, so they couldn't grasp the significance of this order.

Fortunately, there was no need for them to understand.

"Since it's the teacher's order, we'll follow it."

Xie Man took out a military map and laid it on the table.

This was a map of the southeastern domain of the underground world.

The Star Alliance had invested considerable manpower and resources to create this detailed and comprehensive map of the southeastern domain.

During the Star Alliance's expansion, this map played a significant role.

The map used colors to distinguish between two territories: one representing the Star Alliance and the other the Dark Elves.

Compared to the vast territory of the Star Alliance, the Dark Elves' territory occupied only a small corner.

Xie Man traced a circle around the outer edge of the Dark Elves' territory and said, "Even if we can't capture Spidersilk City, we can start by taking over the city-states on their periphery. This will reduce the pressure we face in the future and make the Dark Elves feel a greater sense of crisis."

Artur recalled the part of the teacher's order about "squeezing the Dark Elves' war potential" and nodded in agreement.

"Also, the teacher wants us to allocate some of our forces to support Cole."

"The city-states we've captured are mostly stabilized now. Apart from the garrison troops, the rest can be redeployed. We'll send that part of the army to support Cole."

After a brief exchange, Xie Man and Artur quickly finalized their plans.

As orders were issued, the massive war machine began to mobilize, advancing toward the Dark Elves.

In the year 1272 of the Starlight Calendar, during the month of Spring Dawn (March).

After nearly two decades of bloodline refinement, Hidden Dragon finally crossed the final step, evolving into a true dragon bloodline.

In Dragon Forest Zone 3, Su Nan watched as Hidden Dragon soared and circled in the sky, a joyful smile spreading across his face.

After the bloodline ascension, Hidden Dragon's body had grown even larger, now exceeding fifty meters in length, and it had grown a pair of massive wings.

When it perched before him, it resembled a small mountain.

Additionally, its head had fully transformed into a dragon's head, with curved horns standing atop it, and its scales had turned a fiery red.

However, unlike most dragons, Hidden Dragon retained its lizard-like crawling habits and didn't have the shorter front limbs and longer hind limbs that made most dragons stand upright.

What delighted Su Nan even more was that Hidden Dragon had awakened two new abilities.

The first was a unique ability exclusive to magical pets—Spell Sharing.

As the life level of a magical pet increases, it gradually awakens various unique abilities.

For example, when Hidden Dragon evolved from a dragon lizard bloodline to a proto-dragon bloodline, it awakened the ability of Vision Sharing.

The Spell Sharing ability allows the owner to choose, within a certain distance, for the effects of spells cast on them to also affect their magical pet, until the spell's duration ends or they exceed a certain distance from each other.

For instance, when Su Nan casts the Lightness spell on himself, he can also apply the Lightness effect to his magical pet.

This ability can enhance the magical pet's combat effectiveness to a certain extent and is quite practical.

The second ability was the expected Flame Mastery.

Ever since Hidden Dragon awakened the Flame Breath ability, Su Nan had guessed that it would likely awaken Flame Mastery when it evolved into a true dragon.

And indeed, his guess proved correct.

Now, Hidden Dragon possessed three spell-like abilities: Invisibility, Substance Shift, and Flame Mastery.

All of these were highly practical abilities.

Combined with the dragon's high spell resistance, robust physical strength, flight capability, Dragon Aura, and Dragon Breath, Hidden Dragon's combat power was on par with that of a formal wizard.

Just a moment ago, Su Nan had a sparring session with Hidden Dragon.

Without using Imprinted Gems or magical artifacts, Su Nan could only barely suppress Hidden Dragon.

This was still under the condition that Hidden Dragon had just broken through and hadn't fully adapted yet.

Once it fully stabilized its realm, without using any trump cards, Su Nan estimated that he could only fight Hidden Dragon to a fifty-fifty draw.

"Dragon bloodline is truly unparalleled."

Su Nan marveled inwardly.

Unfortunately, after evolving into a true dragon, Hidden Dragon's bloodline concentration could no longer be improved.

Like most dragons, it would primarily grow stronger through the passage of time.

Even while sleeping, dragons could grow stronger, though the process was excruciatingly slow.

However, this would be offset by their long lifespans.

Even lower-tier dragons like the chromatic dragons had lifespans exceeding a thousand years.

The longer a dragon lived, the stronger it generally became—a consensus across the multiverse.

Yinlong naturally inherited these advantages.

However, Su Nan didn't plan to let Yinlong rely solely on natural growth to enhance his power.

Although the concentration of his dragon bloodline couldn't be increased further, using dragon blood for biological enhancements could still boost Yinlong's strength.

He could synthesize dragon blood and use it to reinforce Yinlong, accelerating his growth.

While synthesizing dragon blood required a substantial amount of lesser dragon blood, this was something Dragon Grove had in abundance.

Su Nan turned his gaze toward Sector 2.

The transformation and bloodline enhancement plan for Dragon Grove's Sector 2 was already underway, and the preliminary work had been completed.

Sector 2 had been reactivated and now housed nearly a thousand high-tier lesser dragons.

Since they weren't true dragons and the number of creatures was relatively small, the energy consumption for Sector 2 wasn't very high.

The optimal energy cycle ratio was only 28.33%.

Currently, Dragon Grove had less than 10% energy surplus, but Su Nan didn't plan to use it, as it might be needed for future experiments.

Every day, high-tier lesser dragons were brought to the laboratory for bloodline refinement surgery.

Although the progress wasn't significant, the overall bloodline concentration of the lesser dragons in Sector 2 was steadily increasing.

Su Nan estimated that perhaps in four to five hundred years, one of them might evolve into a true dragon.

Compared to the slow progress of this transformation, another recent event had drawn much of Su Nan's attention.

Just three days ago, the Starlight Empire declared war on the neighboring Snow Lion Duchy, launching a large-scale invasion across the border.

This action immediately drew strong reactions from the surrounding countries.

Even though the Starlight Empire was attacking only the Snow Lion Duchy, it was like poking a hornet's nest, triggering resistance from almost all the countries in the southeastern domain.

These nations united without hesitation to resist the Starlight Empire.

A war that would affect the entire southeastern domain of the continent thus erupted.

The scale of this conflict was even larger than the previous war between the Azure Empire and the Starlight Empire, with almost every country getting involved.

After all, it was clear to anyone with eyes that the Starlight Empire's goal was the entire southeastern domain.

If allowed to conquer each nation one by one, the Starlight Empire would eventually annex all of them.

No country was willing to see that happen.

They understood the principle that if one's lips are cold, one's teeth will suffer.

However, there was one exception.

As the war broke out, the Briarflower Duchy announced its allegiance to the Starlight Empire, becoming another ducal territory within the empire's vast domain.

This move by the Briarflower Duchy took many by surprise, but Su Nan had a thoughtful expression when he heard the news.

"Is Rose pushing this from behind?"

Only Rose could have persuaded the Briarflower Duchy to surrender.

Perhaps after joining the Star Alliance, she recognized the vast resources and strength of the alliance and convinced the Briarflower royal family to surrender to preserve their lineage.

Only someone who was truly part of the Star Alliance, with a certain status and access to deeper information, could understand the terrifying power and potential of this massive entity.

Su Nan had asked Rose about this, and her response was that she had simply made the right choice.

"Indeed, it was the right choice."

Su Nan smiled.

The current Starlight Empire already possessed enough strength to no longer need to borrow the Golem Legion from the Star Alliance. It had the power to sweep away all obstacles and unify the southeastern domain on its own.

From the moment this war erupted, its outcome was already determined.

"Roar!"

A loud dragon roar interrupted Su Nan's thoughts.

Looking up, he saw Yinlong soaring through the sky, swiftly passing over the academy.

The loud roar and the large shadow quickly drew the attention of many students, causing a wave of excited exclamations throughout the academy.

After circling the sky in a show of pride, Yinlong seemed finally satisfied. He left the academy's airspace and landed beside Su Nan, raising his head and calling out a few times.

Su Nan smiled and said, "I know you're happy, but take it easy. Otherwise, it will take a long time to recover."

As a high-tier lifeform comparable to a wizard, Yinlong was naturally affected by the environment of the Starlight Continent. Not only was his strength noticeably reduced, but his recovery was also very slow after excessive exertion.

Even in the relatively energy-rich Dragon Grove, the effects were not eliminated, though they were slightly less severe than outside.

Yinlong let out a low call, indicating his understanding.

Su Nan smiled but didn't say more, teleporting back to the laboratory in the Dragon Skeleton Tower.

Calculating the time, the new spider-elf corpse should have been delivered by now.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end