Chapter One: The New World

Although he had not yet grown tired of his new room, after thorough preparation and fully armed, Mo Wen once again crossed the familiar threshold.

An azure sky, lush forests, rushing rivers, and a dragon's head emerging from the currents.

With antlers like a deer, a head like a camel, and flowing dragon whiskers, it looked just like the dragons from the legends of his hometown.

As usual, there were non-human entities near his crossing point, most of them immensely powerful. But unlike usual, this dragon showed no hostility toward him, merely observing him with curiosity.

Mo Wen could not help asking the dragon, "Do you not think I am some kind of evil being? Don't you want to finish me off right away?"

The dragon blinked in confusion, nodded, then shook its head, and spoke in a string of ancient phrases: "You, strange, ill-fated lone star, good, preaching sage. Heavens, don't understand, dragon, not involved."

Mo Wen could roughly grasp the dragon's meaning, but for the sake of smooth communication, he reminded it, "I can understand all languages. You don't have to force yourself to speak in ancient tongues."

Hearing this, the dragon's somewhat tense body suddenly relaxed. Slumping like a lazy man sinking into a waterbed, it casually spoke in the local dragon language, "Oh, wow! I never expected you to have such a miraculous ability. If there were more people like you, old brother, it would have been great if foreign languages had gone extinct ages ago."

"Human speech changes through several cycles in just a few thousand years. I was afraid I'd mess up when trying to speak the ancient language just now."

"Your fortune is absurdly bad, like some sort of ill-fated lone star or a doomed seven-kill destiny, but the 'aura of merit' on you is practically overflowing. You are obviously a good guy—I'm not an idiot, why would I fight you to the death?"

"However... your physical body and primordial spirit match each other, yet somehow they don't quite fit. You must be down here on a business trip, right?"

"I don't really understand that whole reincarnation-for-redemption, heavenly star descending routine up in the heavens, but it doesn't look like something I should get mixed up in."

"If you have nothing to do... Wait, can you come closer and let me take a closer look?"

Without a trace of fear, Mo Wen took a few steps forward.

The dragon's head drew near, and two eyes much larger than his own practically came right up to his face, enveloping him entirely.

As it looked, the dragon whiskers trembled, the dragon head jerked back, and its voice shook with a hint of awe: "Whoa! Impressive, old brother! You actually possess imperial destiny—you're capable of contending for the sacred vessels of the realm!"

"Old brother, are you here to overthrow the dynasty? Is there any way you can offer this little dragon some guidance? I'd love to land a gig as the state beast for a few hundred years just to show off to my friends."

Mo Wen spoke the truth: "I am an otherworldly traveler, not a local. I might even be targeted by the world itself, subjected to wave after wave of encirclement. If my luck is bad, I won't live long before being killed and driven out of this realm. If you stay too closely associated with me, you might die too."

Unlike in the past, when he might have been captured alive and had to conceal his identity, Mo Wen could now self-detonate with Tier 6 psionic energy simply by a thought or if he was controlled for too long. His confidence was vastly superior to before.

"But if you're willing to tell me about this world, I'd also be happy to sit down and listen."

"I'll owe you for the intelligence; I can repay you when the opportunity arises."

"You're a heavenly demon from beyond the realm?!" Hearing this, the dragon was startled at first, its whiskers flaring up. Then, after a moment of reflection, it changed its tune. "No wait, old brother, you really don't seem like a bad guy... I get it! It's just that your destiny is too terrible!"

"If you stay here in my grotto-heaven... No, when the great tribulation strikes, it wouldn't be good if it smashes my dwelling."

"How about this: when you walk the mortal world, count me in. I have a modest reputation; if it's just minor trouble, I can help mediate for you."

"As for any major calamities—heh, don't worry, I've been slippery since I was a kid. I guarantee I'll run the moment I see an enemy, and I'll never give you the psychological burden of dragging down everyone around you."

"But if you manage to seize the realm's sacred vessels and ascend the throne as emperor, that position of state beast won't pass me by, right?"

Mo Wen did not agree immediately: "I need to understand what you specifically want before I can decide whether to agree to your terms."

An ancient dragon that had lived for at least several millennia wouldn't be like the New Humans, saying one thing while doing another.

Treating it simply as a temporary ally should pose no problem.

After all, apart from growing stronger and staying alive, he had no specific goals.

The dragon laughed heartily: "Easy enough, easy enough. By the way, it's no fun just sitting out here. Come into my dwelling to chat... Uh, actually, let's not go into the grotto-heaven."

A dragon's dwelling naturally had a dragon's aesthetic—it had dragon-coiled pillars but no chairs for people to sit on, nor did it build some human-style courtyard like certain trendy peers of hers.

The things used to entertain dragons didn't seem very suitable for entertaining humans, either.

However, she knew a thing or two about the art of transformation, and turning into human form wasn't too difficult.

In just an instant, a young girl wearing animal skins, barefoot, with tender little horns sprouting from her head, carried two smooth, clean giant rocks over to Mo Wen's side.

She casually picked one, sat on it, dangled her fair, delicate little feet, and beckoned to Mo Wen: "Old brother, sit down. The story I have to tell is quite long."

A dragon at least several thousand years old, yet her human form looked so young, and female to boot!

Well, it didn't seem all that strange.

Yet the dragon noticed Mo Wen's momentary flicker of strangeness, and she immediately realized there seemed to be something wrong with her appearance.

The next instant, the petite dragon maiden was replaced by a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, eight-foot-tall rugged giant—whose waist was also eight feet wide, shirtless with a thick patch of chest hair, looking like a burly brute who could crush a ferocious tiger between his muscles: "What, old brother, you didn't like my previous appearance? How about this one?"

Mo Wen's mouth twitched slightly; this sudden transformation was far more startling than a normal appearance: "Aren't you a female?"

"Female?" The dragon paused for a moment, then immediately caught on. "Oh, old brother, you've never seen a dragon before and mistook dragons for human-like binary-sexed creatures?"

"True dragons like us can change size at will, possess infinite transformations, and can manifest all things with a single drop of blood. How could we be restricted to two genders?"

"Besides, my transformation arts are profound. Not to mention switching between male and female, I can even turn into a man with twenty chests and sixty legs, or a woman whose hair is made of snakes."

I see. It was just his preconception at work.

This transformation technique sounded very impressive, and while Mo Wen could keep a calm mind while cutting down such monsters and could make normal friends with things that looked like that, it didn't mean he wanted a shape-shifting dragon to intentionally turn into such a form just to talk to him.

Mo Wen said sincerely, "You're very impressive, but you'd better go back to your previous look."

The dragon maiden reverted to her original form, sitting cross-legged on the stone. Even though her toes were pressed beneath her fair thighs, they still twitched up and down unconsciously, though she herself remained completely unaware of any issue.

Fine, it was just a small matter.

Mo Wen ignored the dragon maiden's little habits and introduced himself first: "My name is Mo Wen."

The dragon also stated her name: "'The dragon born in the frozen snow river in the year of fluttering wind and snow, who scattered the ice and snow, stirred the rivers, spread thick fog, cut off from the world, and suppressed demonic entities...'"

The dragon's name was exceedingly long, encompassing her experiences and abilities.

Mo Wen managed to remember her name, but he still couldn't help asking, "Do you have a name more like a human's, or one that's easier to address you by?"

The dragon pondered for a moment: "Dragon Overlord, Dragon Hanyuan, Dragon Spitting Water, Dragon Gulas, Dragon Express... Hmm, let's just go with Long Yunshui. I like drinking Yunxiang tea."