Refined Divine Dragon blood—no wonder...

Relief eased through Cerqin like a warm tide, and she kept talking as Silver Luan’s breathing steadied under a quiet moon of calm.

“So what does this stuff actually do?” Her voice flicked like a pebble across still water.

The Divine Dragon Elixir, or rather the refined Divine Dragon Blood, leaked a faint dragon’s might, like heat shimmering over desert sand.

Its breath felt almost the same as what Cerqin had sensed in the Phantom Dragon Ruins, like an old wind returning to a familiar valley.

Silver Luan’s blood sat at the core, yet the brew had clearly shifted, like ore turned to steel in a star-hot forge.

That shift brushed the mind, like a feather on still ink, which was why even Aileaf, with no dragon bloodline, felt it stir her thoughts like wind in reeds.

“Why would it touch the mind?” Doubt pricked Cerqin like sleet, and Silver Luan’s ears lifted like leaves after rain.

She’d come because Aileaf said the elixir was almost finished, and curiosity tugged her like a current toward a lighthouse.

Every visit, the bottle’s dragon aura roused her bloodline, like thunder waking a sleeping ridge of mountains.

And every time, Aileaf had smiled and said, wait until it’s fully done, like closing a fan before the dance.

This time Aileaf didn’t tease; her words fell clean as a blade through silk.

“The Divine Dragon Elixir, as the name says, is divine blood refined from a dragon bloodline, like dew distilled from a storm,” she said, steady as a metronome tide.

“If it were only pure refinement, you wouldn’t need so many rare materials, like you wouldn’t need incense for a bare candle.”

We can now make dragon’s blood almost without limit, like drawing water from a deep spring, so simple refinement is slower but easier, like simmering broth over low coals.

Plain Divine Dragon Blood does one thing well, like a whetstone on a blade.

It sharpens the dragon bloodline, makes it cleaner and truer, and lifts a Half Dragonkin’s potential like dawn lifting mist.

If its vein-pattern matches the Half Dragonkin’s lineage, it even purifies the race-blood, like sifting gold from river sand.

“But this bottle isn’t plain Divine Dragon Blood,” Aileaf said, eyes on the golden drip like a hawk watching sunrise.

“The mental sway isn’t an accident but part of the design, like a bell built to carry across fog, though it hit harder than I expected.”

The last golden drop trembled on the lip like a sun on the horizon, and Aileaf’s hands hovered, quick as swallows over a stream.

When it fell, the elixir would peak like a wave at full moon, so she had to seal it fast, like corking thunder in a jar.

She let Cerqin go, snapped the cap on in a heartbeat, and the hiss died like a snake in grass.

She tweaked the rig a moment, set a new bottle beneath, and this one would catch plain Divine Dragon Blood like rain filling a cistern.

Only then did she turn and place the elixir in Silver Luan’s hands, her gaze still dazed like a deer under lantern light.

Cerqin, her arm sore from that fierce grip, shot Aileaf a look, half helpless and half amused, like a cat caught stealing cream.

“Aileaf, you’ve picked up bad habits,” she sighed, a smile tugging like sunlight at a curtain. “Why not tell Silver Luan sooner?”

On the sea platform’s conference room, the tabletop projection bloomed like a pale lake, and Spring Tide frowned, fingers tapping like rain on wood.

“Can you really make contact?” Her question cut like a gull through wind.

“The odds are high,” Aileaf said after a breath, her voice low as tide under ice.

Among divine abilities, the Dragon Deity stands most bound to its god, like a root sunk deep into bedrock, best at piercing the sky to reach a deity.

“If even this fails,” she added, words flat as slate, “going to the Sanctuary headquarters may yield no answers, like climbing a mountain to find fog.”

Two decades aren’t long, but silence that long is a chill in summer, and if Heaven stays out of reach, the great churches might still not stir, like giants sleeping under snow.

Beyond the Four Pole Stars’ secret, Spring Tide most wanted proof that speaking with a deity was still possible, like striking flint and waiting for spark.

In the Imperial Capital, the emperor’s experiment failed, like an arrow falling short before the wall.

Even the most likely holder of a divine ability couldn’t connect, like a bridge stopping mid-river.

Prayers still draw faint replies, like ripples to a thrown leaf, so the gods live; otherwise the world would roar into chaos like a forest on fire.

But no full link could be made, which the high clergy must’ve sensed like wolves smelling smoke in the dark.

The most likely remaining line is the Radiant God of the Radiant Sanctuary, the only remaining incarnate deity, like a lone star in city haze.

“Fine, handle this yourselves,” Spring Tide said, her tone cool as steel, “and when are you coming back?”

“In a bit,” Aileaf said, easy as wind over grass. “Once things here settle, we’ll return. Heh, what, do you miss me?”

Cerqin caught the thread and grinned, her joy bright as a lantern on a river.

Spring Tide rolled her eyes in the light like a moon rolling behind cloud, then nodded without flinching.

“Yeah, I miss you. Be back within a month, or you’re dead,” she said, smiling like a knife in velvet.

“Uh…” Cerqin winced, the sound small as a pebble in a well.

Spring Tide tilted her head, switched tracks like a swallow mid-flight, and looked at Silver Luan.

“I thought about bringing you back to Eastern Sea City for the rite, but you look impatient, like an arrow on a taut bow,” she said, calm as rain. “Communing with a deity isn’t risky. Have you decided what to ask?”

“Intel on the false world, and on the Four Pole Stars?” Silver Luan’s voice fell like beads on string.

Even if all four of them reach the Seventh Rank and awaken, and the world shows new faces like ice breaking in spring, it’s better to prepare early if you can, like packing before a storm.

“We don’t yet know what you learn once all reach the Seventh Rank, or how the world shifts, like tectonics underfoot,” Aileaf said, steady as a plumb line. “If you connect, keep your questions around that.”

“No problem.” Silver Luan answered crisp as frost, and raised the golden elixir, its glow like a small sun cupped in her palms.

She glanced at Cerqin and Aileaf, then up to Spring Tide in the light-screen, their gazes meeting like oars crossing water.

She twisted the cap, and dragon magic burst out like a geyser, while the array carved into the room lit by itself like constellations waking.

Silver Luan didn’t hesitate; she tipped her head back and drank it all, the gold pouring like molten dawn.

The moment it hit her belly, both Cerqin and Aileaf felt her aura shift, like a storm front rolling over warm fields.

Her Seventh Rank pressure carried a wild dragon force, like a river swollen with meltwater, yet it didn’t break banks.

Silver scales climbed her skin, their lines turning gold like sunrise edging frost, and her silver-white hair and eyes flared into brilliance like stars rinsed by rain.

Golden light gathered around her like a cloak, yet her mind blurred, like a boat drifting into fog.

Her vast spirit condensed into a sphere, like a pearl forming around pain, bearing her soul as it swam upward like a fish toward moonlight.

When Silver Luan came to, she stood with not a stitch on a cloud’s back, with auspicious clouds piled like mountains all around.

She floated with the ease of breath, and the feeling was cloud-dragon and wind-serpent, like riding mist along a ridge.

Heat flushed her cheeks like peach bloom; she curled in on herself, then willed silver scales with gold flecks to cover the secret places like leaves over water.

“Is this the Godrealm above the firmament?” Awe rang in her chest like a bell under ice.

Bolstered by the strengthened Divine Dragon Elixir, her will had pierced the divine barrier like a spear of light through storm, and that elixir-born hunger for bloodline had faded like tide ebbing.

Wonder and excitement tangled in her like vines, because speaking with a deity is a right reserved for popes, like keys to a sealed gate.

Divine ability holders only hear the god’s voice at the edge of death, a glimpse like lightning on a far horizon.

Yet with one bottle, she had pierced the sky’s veil, like an arrow slipping between clouds.

“Then… where’s the deity?” Her eyes roamed a beauty with no foothold, like a lake with no shore, and her body floated by thought like a leaf in eddies.

The link might fade any time, like dew before sun, and she wondered how to find her deity in this boundless scene like sea without stars.

“No… with the Dragon Deity’s help, the link should drop me right before the god, like a courier at the door,” she thought, unease coiling like smoke.

“Don’t tell me… the gods really can’t be reached now.” The thought bit like frost across a window.

Just then, a soft voice brushed her ear like a cat’s tail.

The Dragon Deity’s power flared warm, like a child finding its mother, and it bounced in her chest like a mischievous sparrow.

[Oh? We actually have a guest…]