Coiling Dragon_Book 1 of the Coiling Dragon Saga

by Wo Chi Xi Hong Shi

  The Stoneater Rat had formidable defense, sharp teeth, and sharp claws.

  The Shadowmouse had high speed, sharp teeth, and sharp claws.

  If a swarm of thousands or tens of thousands of Shadowmice or Stoneater Rats attacked, even an army might be totally devoured, much less the ten of them.

  “We’re going back now!” Without hesitating in the slightest, the dark-garbed leader issued his order.

  Amidst towering mountains and ridges, Linley continued to run, winding his way atop a mountain peak. After having run over a hundred kilometers at once, Linley believed that his pursuers would no longer be able to catch him.

  “Boss, hurry up and open the backpack and see what’s inside!” Bebe immediately urged.

  Linley’s heart was filled with anticipation as well. The more powerful an opponent was, the more magicite cores he should have in his backpack. The original assassin had left behind 15,000 gold coins’ worth of magicite cores and magestones. How much would this second assassin, who had been addressed as #2, have on him?

  He opened the backpack.

  “Two more sets of clean clothes.” Linley glanced at the clothes in the backpack, then withdrew two bulging pouches from within the backpack. This “#2” had been in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts for a month longer, and was a bit stronger than the original assassin, so logically speaking…

  Seeing how many magicite cores the pouches contained, Linley couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath.

  “So many? And most of them are magicite cores of the fifth rank. There’re plenty of magicite cores of the sixth rank as well.” After having seen so many magicite cores, Linley was now capable of recognizing the general rank of a magicite core at a glance. Linley immediately began to do a careful accounting of the cores.

  “Nine magicite cores of the sixth rank. Fifty-six magicite cores of the fifth rank. Twelve magicite cores of the fourth rank. Seven magestones. The total value, all together, would be roughly…. 20,000 gold coins. Adding this to the 50,000 gold coins’ worth that I already have, means that I should now hold at least 70,000 gold coins’ worth of magicite on me.” After tabulating his total wealth, Linley couldn’t help but take a deep breath.

  70,000 gold coins!

  If he placed this prodigious sum in front of his father, his father would most likely be stupefied.

  Over the course of the 51 days he had spent in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, that assassin’s organization alone had ‘donated’ 35,000 gold coins to him. The other attempted killers he had run into had ‘donated’ a further 30,000 gold coins, while he himself had killed enough magical beasts to earn 5000 gold coins’ worth of cores as well.

  Doehring Cowart appeared from within the Coiling Dragon ring, laughing as he watched the look on Linley’s face.

  “I finally understand why so many people in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts like to try and kill other humans. After spending a full month working so hard, I only earned a few thousand gold coins, but when I killed someone else, I gained the fruits of their two months of labor.” Linley placed the two pouches into his own backpack, then tossed the extra backpack into the grass.

  “Of these 70,000 gold coins’ worth of magicite, only 5000 came from me killing magical beasts. The rest all came from assassins and killers.” Linley shook his head and sighed.

  Doehring Cowart stroked his white beard while chuckling. “Looks like your youth actually helped you. If you looked just a bit more mature and experienced, there probably wouldn’t have been so many killers trying their luck against you.”

  “Hehe.” Linley couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Grandpa Doehring, just now, based on the words being exchanged by the people in that squad, it seems like they were on a training mission here in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts?” Linley was rather curious.

  Doehring Cowart smiled faintly. “Linley, every single one of the major powers of the Yulan continent has to have its own base of martial power in order to maintain its strength. But martial power has to be trained and cultivated. Many of the larger powers will often send groups of their subordinates out to the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts to train.”

  Linley nodded.

  “Linley, this continent has many powerful organizations which you don’t have a clue about. To be honest… even I don’t know about them. In the past five thousand years, all of the powers that existed in the era of the Pouant Empire have most likely collapsed,” Doehring Cowart said self-deprecatingly.

  Linley didn’t ask too much. At this moment, Linley felt enormous pressure. The Yulan continent was far more complicated than he had imagined.

  After organizing his possessions, Linley put on a shirt before continuing on his way. Making his way agilely through the mountain forests, sometimes skipping over fallen rocks, sometimes crawling over fallen trees, Linley pressed onwards. But after Linley crossed a particularly large mountain…

  He saw that this mountain was hundreds of kilometers long. There were many trees here. Standing at the peak of the mountain, Linley could tell that it was hundreds of kilometers from here to the next peak, if he wanted to fly directly across the gap.

  “What a bizarre canyon.”

  Linley noticed that the canyon walls of these two mountain’s cliffs drew closer and closer to each other at the edges. Linley immediately began to jog down from the mountain peak. The farther down he jogged, the closer the canyon walls appeared to be. After jogging for five or six kilometers, the gap between the two mountains was only a meter across. One could cross it with a single step.

  “It’s like this on this side. What is it like on the other side? The same?”

  With one foot on each cliff, Linley peered across. Off in the distance, he seemed to see the two cliffs draw even closer, then become one.

  “Bizarre. Bizarre.”

  Having been in these mountains for some time, Linley had seen many things, but he had never encountered such a weird canyon. Looking down through the canyon gap, Linley only saw a white fog, so blurry that he couldn’t see anything at all.

  “Immeasurably deep.” Linley felt extremely curious, but was also rather wary of what lay within the belly of this mountain gulch.

  Making his way along the edges of the canyon, Linley continued peering down, as though hoping he could see what was hidden by the white fog. Aside from how close the canyon walls were, there was another oddity to this ravine.

  It seemed that the farther down the ravine was, the farther apart the canyon walls drew again.

  For example, towards the top of the ravine, the distance between the canyon walls was perhaps a hundred meters or so, but from what Linley could tell, towards the bottom, the distance was perhaps a few thousand meters, or even tens of kilometers.

  “Hrm? That’s…”

  Linley looked as though he had been struck by lightning. He carefully stared at a small patch of grass that was hidden in the fog beneath him. The small patch of grass growing along the cliffside was dark green, but the patch of grass emanated a faint blue aura.

  “Blueheart Grass. It’s Blueheart Grass!” Linley had seen a picture of Blueheart Grass at the Ernst Institute’s library, and he remembered it clearly. His eyes shone. That ultra-rare, precious grass growing from the cliff was able to counteract the harmful effects which live dragon’s blood would have on the body. Blueheart Grass!

  41

  The Foggy Gulch

  If one desired to train using the ‘Secret Dragonblood Manual’, one must rouse the dragonblood in one’s veins. But there were only two possible ways by which one could agitate the dragonblood in one’s veins. The first was to have a certain minimum level of dragonblood density in one’s veins. The second was to drink fresh blood from a live dragon.

  But drinking blood from a living dragon was very dangerous.

  Dragon’s blood, even when applied topically, would cause terrible pain, to say nothing of drinking it. However, everything in the world has its equal opposite. Blueheart
Grass, when paired with dragon’s blood, made for an extremely potent mixture. But Blueheart Grass was extremely rare. Linley had previously asked about the price.

  A single patch of Blueheart Grass was worth tens of thousands of gold coins. What was more, it was a rare item that often couldn’t be bought even if one had the money. Doehring Cowart had once said: “Live dragon’s blood is incredibly powerful. Usually, a single patch of Blueheart Grass is insufficient. If you are going to drink a large amount of live dragon’s blood, you will need even more Blueheart Grass.”

  A single patch of Blueheart Grass was already that expensive. How could Linley afford it? Perhaps his entire fortune of 70,000 gold coins, acquired over this month, would only be enough to buy a single patch.

  “Blueheart Grass, Blueheart Grass! Heaven is being so kind to me.” Linley felt unspeakable joy.

  Linley energetically leapt down directly, falling several dozen meters before landing against the cliff on the other side. And then, he immediately began to mumble the words to a spell. In a short time, Linley’s entire body was surrounded by flowing air elemental essences, and flows of air began to surround him as well.

  Wind-style spell of the fifth rank – Floating Technique.

  At his current level, Linley was only able to allow his body to float, rather than actually fly. Floating meant allowing himself to float up or down vertically. Taking a step forward, Linley stood in mid-air before slowly beginning to float down, gradually descending into the deep, foggy canyon. Bebe stood enviously on Linley’s shoulder as they descended. Although Bebe was rather powerful, he wasn’t capable of flight. He wasn’t a flying-type magical beast, thus he would only be able to fly upon becoming a Saint-level magical beast.

  This canyon was filled with white fog, which roiled about. The deeper Linley went, the greater the distance between the canyon walls became. Quite soon, Linley landed near the Blueheart Grass.

  “Blueheart Grass is deep green in color, but emanates a faint blue light. Blueheart Grass is cool to the touch. When the blades of grass are torn apart, they will leak out a dark green fluid which is very cool when drunk.” Linley remembered this explanation about Blueheart Grass that he had read in the Ernst Institute library quite well.

  Staring at the Blueheart Grass growing out from the cliff, rustling gently in the wind, Linley took a deep breath, then carefully uprooted it.

  “It really is cold.” When he touched the Blueheart Grass, he felt as though he had touched a piece of ice. He immediately placed the Blueheart Grass into his backpack, and then looked all around. “I wonder if there is any more Blueheart Grass here?”

  A place which was capable of giving birth to one patch of Blueheart Grass was capable of giving birth to a second.

  Using the Floating Technique, Linley continued to drift downwards into the roiling white fog. At the same time, Linley kept a close eye out, despite the fog making everything blurry. He could make out countless vines twisting about the cliffs.

  “That’s huge!”

  The farther down into the canyon he went, the more Linley realized how enormous this place truly was. At the top of the canyon, the distance between the two walls was perhaps only a few hundred meters, but by now, Linley was certain that the distance was absolutely at least several thousand meters. He continued to float close to the wall. Using his vision, his flotation speed, and his angle against the wall, he was able to approximate this distance.

  “Roar…”

  “Grrr….”

  All sorts of low-pitched growls emanated from below, occasionally sounding out. They came from all over the place. Just judging from the sound alone, there had to be over a hundred magical beasts below. Linley couldn’t help but feel his heart quail. “Magical beasts. There are many magical beasts below!” Just from hearing the sound, Linley could tell.

  Linley fixed himself against the cliff walls while gripping onto the vines with his hands as he descended more slowly and more carefully.

  “Boss, I can sense great danger below,” Bebe suddenly said to Linley through their mental link.

  Linley also felt as though his heart was tightening. The further down he went, the clearer the growls of the magical beasts became. Those low growls were powerful. Clearly, they were coming from magical beasts of a large size. Generally speaking, large magical beasts were not weak. Powerful magical beasts weren’t necessarily large, but large magical beasts were generally powerful.

  “Blueheart Grass!”

  Linley suddenly saw that directly below him, far away, was another patch of Blueheart Grass. Surrounding the Blueheart Grass were many green vines and shrubs. As Linley was not a fearful person to begin with, upon seeing the Blueheart Grass, Linley began to float down while keeping his hands gripped to the rattan vines.

  But at this point in time, Linley totally failed to notice something…

  Coiled up amidst the green vines surrounding the Blueheart Grass was a giant green python snake, at least twenty meters long and thick enough that it would take two men to put their arms around it. That giant python was very green and also coiled up like a rattan vine. Given that it was also covered slightly by the fog, Linley didn’t notice that it was there at all.

  As he descended, Linley drew nearer and nearer to the Blueheart Grass.

  “Boss, careful! That’s a monstrous python!” Bebe suddenly, urgently said to Linley through their link.

  “Python?” Linley was startled.

  Virtually all python-type magical beasts were exceedingly powerful. Even the weakest Trihorn Python was a magical beast of the sixth rank. Linley immediately surveyed his surroundings carefully. By now, Linley was roughly around a hundred meters away from the giant python. After carefully searching for it, he quickly located the giant python.

  “Whoah.” Linley sucked in a deep breath.

  That thirty-meter long python, as thick as a water barrel, made Linley’s heart quail. “Green Tattooed Python. A magical beast of the seventh rank – the Green Tattooed Python.” The information he knew about this type of Python immediately sprang to mind.

  By now, Linley also realized why it was that this canyon had so much white fog.

  “The Mist Technique is just a water-style technique of the first rank. A single Green Tattooed Python, a magical beast of the seventh rank, can generate enormous, almost unlimited amounts of white mist in its surroundings. With this canyon having so much mist of such density, there’s definitely more than one Green Tattooed Python here.”

  Linley immediately came to this realization.

  The canyon had a depth and width of around ten kilometers. For such a huge canyon to be totally covered in white mist, one could only imagine how many Pythons were here. That Green Tattooed Python which lay hidden amidst the vines suddenly moved. Its enormous head turned to stare at Linley, and its two cold eyes stared death at him.

  “Grrrr….”

  A terrifying sound rumbled out from the Green Tattooed Python’s maw, and at the same time, it shot forward at high speed.

  “Rawr!” “Hiss!” “Grrr!” The entire canyon began to fill with the calls of various beasts. At the same time, loud, sonorous sounds of movement could be heard. Glancing below, Linley saw that over ten enormous creatures were moving towards him. And Linley could tell that these ten made up just a tiny fraction of the creatures in this gorge.

  “Flee!”

  Faced with the attack by the Green Tattooed Python, Linley immediately began floating up at maximum speed. Controlling the force of the wind, he was able to make the flotation pressure exceed his body weight, causing him to rocket upwards at an astonishing speed. While flying upwards, Linley could already see a monstrously large Green Tattooed Python crawling up after him along the cliff walls, its cold, serpentine eyes staring at Linley, promising death while the serpent itself hissed nonstop.

  “Screech! Screech!”

  A high-pitched bird cry split the air, and from below, dozens of giant birds suddenly charged forward in pursuit of Linley. />
  “Dragonhawks! Those are Dragonhawks!” Linley’s face immediately turned paper white.

  Over ten Dragonhawks, each larger than a Griffon, were flying in fast pursuit of Linley. Through the Coiling Dragon ring, Linley immediately expended his mageforce to make himself rise even faster, while at the same time beginning to mumble the words to the Earthguard spell.

  “Whoosh!”

  Only the roaring wind could be heard. Linley had long since left the Green Tattooed Python behind, but the Dragonhawks flew at an amazing speed, and were drawing closer and closer to Linley. Even after Linley flew out of the canyon, those ten Dragonhawks continued in hot pursuit, following him outside.

  Running at his maximum speed, Linley made his way through the forest as quickly as possible, but no matter how fast his legs were, how could he compare with the speed of the winged Dragonhawks?

  “Screeeech!” The Dragonhawks issued piercing cries.

  The wingspan of a Dragonhawk, at maximum extension, was over twenty meters long. These ten-plus Dragonhawks blotted out the sky as they all flew directly at Linley. Linley felt as though the entire world was growing dark. As the Dragonhawks descended upon Linley, they all opened their beaks and belched forth plumes of flame at him, immediately turning the surrounding trees into blazing pyres.

  Fortunately, the Earthguard armor which Linley had summoned continued to protect him, covering his entire body.

  “Crackle, crackle.” The fires roared and blazed against the Earthguard armor. Earth-colored elemental essence swirled all around Linley.

  Amongst the dragon-type creatures, Dragonhawks and Landwyrms were the weakest of their kin, but even they, the weakest of dragon-type creatures, were magical beasts of the sixth rank. What was more, Landwyrms and Dragonhawks were pack-type beasts. Faced with an aerial assault from over ten magical beasts of the sixth rank, even a warrior of the seventh rank would flee.