Chapter 823: Ice Crystal Breathing Technique (Three in One)
Emmanuel seemed to be a bit sorry to have taken so much liquor, “So, Abel the blue dragon, if your lineage continues unopened, That’s going to be a problem. You want to receive the training routine designated for dragonkind, no?”
Abel wasn’t sure what was going on, “What is this lineage you speak of, if I may ask? And what conditions are there?”
“It’s the knowledge our ancestors pa.s.sed down through our genes. Usually, the descendants of the ancient dragons Have a grasp of it once they’re an adult .”
“By the way,” Emmanuel suddenly asked, “How old are you again, Abel the blue dragon?”
“I’ll be 18 soon,” Abel replied. Emmanuel’s eyes twitching quite fast. The nerves on its skin twitched when he heard that number. When it was eighteen, It could only remember playing with mud on the ground.
And not just that. Abel was a Frank fifteen wizard. That was way too impressive. While dragons were naturally stronger than wizards, That was only the case if they’ve pa.s.sed their childhood years of one hundred.
For the double-elemental head commander knight’s presence, that didn’t really come as a surprise. Abel already possessed the physical features of a dragon, so all that was needed for him was to perform the corresponding combat qi training. Still, being able to do so at such an early age was quite impressive.
The most impressive thing was the essence of the master alchemist. Like all other races, dragonkind had great respect for the master alchemists. The reason was quite simple. There were too few master alchemists around, and their works were essential for developing the right training resources.
Emmanuel spoke after pausing for a bit, “I think I understand why you don’t have a lineage.”
“Why?” Abel demanded an answer eagerly and very rightly so. The lineage of a dragon, if learned properly, could increase his physical traits to that of a giant dragon. This was exactly what the case was for Emmanuel, the giant blue dragon in front of him. Even if it Didn’t move, neither his super exploding ball nor his magic cannon would be enough to do any damage to it. That was the case if it was defending properly. If it wasn’t, say, there was still a slight chance that he could inflict some wounds on it.
Emmanuel smiled and replied, “You’re still too young Abel the blue dragon. The lineage of a dragon will only open at the age of one hundred.”
It replied with confidence. Emmanuel was certain that age was the main factor. It wasn’t sure why Abel had such strong blue dragon blood, though. The dragons never really bothered asking the cause. As far as they were concerned, they just hoped that the blood was true.
Still, Abel was just eighteen. There a lot that could be done at the age of eighteen. Giant dragons were supposed to live up to ten thousand years, so they still had a lot of time for waiting.
Abel murmured in disappointment, “I have to wait till I’m a hundred?”
If that was the case, he wasn’t sure if the lineage would be helpful at all. He thought that he could be a lot faster than that. With his current training speed, It would only take a few decades to surpa.s.s all wizards on the Holy Continent. After a century, he would become confident enough to win over Emmanuel.
Emmanuel smiled as it realized Abel’s disappointment, “Don’t be disappointed now, Abel, the blue dragon! There are still some things that you can learn as of now. Here, I’ll pa.s.s down the basics of our blue dragon training. Watch me as I teach you the ice crystal breathing technique.”
There really was no secret behind this. The blue dragon’s ice crystal breathing technique was not all that hard to learn because whenever a blue dragon was just born, it was usually the very first thing it was taught. In fact, Abel didn’t even have to ask about this. Emmanuel would’ve just taught him. While Abel’s lineage was too strange to transform into a real giant dragon, all that mattered was that he was genius enough to have the potential to learn from the best.
Abel bowed gratefully, “Thank you so much, Emmanuel!”
Emmanuel reached his fingers forward to touch the area between Abel’s eyes. That was where the world stone fragment was located. If Abel wasn’t trying to keep it closed, it would’ve activated by itself very easily. This was when a message entered his brain. There wasn’t that much to read about. The continent was just a breathing adjustment technique Used before sleep. The procedure was a bit complicated, so practicing would probably be quite tedious.
Emmanuel looked at Abel and spoke, “The ice crystal breathing technique is just for young dragons that were born because that’s when they were most curious about learning all there was about this world. If we start early, the breathing technique will become very natural to utilize.”
It continued, “That’s not necessarily the case for you, I’m afraid. In your case, it might just take years or tens of years to learn about it.”
Abel nodded in reply. After looking up the ice crystal breathing technique in his brain, he opened the world stone fragment’s acute vision and digitalization visual ability.
So each breath of the ice crystal breathing technique could be divided into eighteen parts. Every beat was different, and after the eighteenth round, the user had to switch to another breathing method. This was a lot of work. There was something else that Emmanuel didn’t explain, by the way. Among the blue dragons, many young ones took many years, or several decades, even, to really have a grasp of the ice crystal breathing technique. Only the most genius could learn it within a year, and pretty much all of them became really strong once They were adults. Emmanuel was one of the geniuses. When it was young, it took only one year to master the ice crystal breathing technique. This was its proudest achievement in its whole life.
After switching on the world stone fragment’s ability, Abel could start to see the training routine as numbers that were a lot easier to interpret. He could estimate how many seconds each breath could last. He could also figure out how many seconds it would take to switch to another type of breathing method. After getting the gist of it, he tried to make some attempts through simulation inside his head. His main spirit began to enter into a state of deep slumber when the ice crystal breathing technique started functioning.
Within an instant, the druid spirit replaced the main spirit and took over control of the ice crystal breathing technique. Emmanuel smiled the whole time as it watched Abel making all sorts of attempts. Abel was like the baby dragons it saw back home. They would practice the same technique over and over again. After that, their ice crystal breathing techniques would be disrupted as they fall asleep from exhaustion.
There was something different about Abel, however. When he fell asleep from repeating the same routine too many times, shreds of ice crystals started circling his body and spun around him.
“Pfft!!!”
Emmanuel spat out the very, very expensive grandmaster’s wine. Instead of Lamenting over the liquid, it suddenly staired intensely towards Abel. It just wanted to test Abel’s potential, but praise the spirits, Abel activated his lineage at the ripe age of eighteen. If it knew that this would occur at such a ridiculously early time, it would’ve asked Abel to do body strengthening training beforehand.
So what was happening? Emmanuel just taught Abel the breathing technique, but Abel was already using it like he grew up practicing it. It didn’t know what to say, so it just stayed quiet without drinking any more of the liquor. It was old; it knew to be patient about things.
There weren’t many ice crystals that Abel brought. He didn’t think that ice crystals would be very much effective on the water. Actually, if he was on land, he wouldn’t even have the chance to activate it. This ice crystal breathing technique required blue gemstones, yes. This was why the giant dragons used different magic stone resources based on the element categories that they were in. Since the beginner stones did not affect and the advanced gemstones were too few, the intermediate level gemstones were pretty much what they used most of the time.
Dragons with fewer resources relied on the proper geography instead. The fire dragons would choose either the entrance of a volcano or the earth fire pit’s training ground. Blue dragons would choose a clean water source for their training, and the other giant dragons would use geographical locations relevant to the types of energy they were connected to. This was a sign as to how unique the Dragon Depth was. Most giant dragons could find places that were suited to their training.
Five hours pa.s.sed. The inside of Abel’s body was just done channeling the entire set of the ice crystal breathing technique. His main spirit was just woken up. Of course, if he was to reuse the ice crystal breathing technique again, then he would have to spend another five hours repeating the same routine.
When Abel opened his eyes, he saw that Emmanuel watching him. It was a bit embarra.s.sing, to be honest.
“I’m so sorry, Emmanuel the blue dragon,” he bowed, “I didn’t know when I got into the meditation mode.”
Emmanuel gave advice, “Don’t be like that, Abel. You have real talents. The lack of a magic gemstones stopped you from making further progress. I suppose you should pay a visit to the Dragon Depth. Once you’ve entered your information, the dragonkin will offer you one magic stone for every progress that you’ve made each year.”
Abel was a bit hesitant. Emmanuel was a good talker, but who knew if the other dragons were just like it? Besides, he was a human in human form. He wasn’t sure if they were going to accept someone like him entering into their territories. Besides, he wasn’t all that short on mana gemstones, to begin with. He had plenty for himself, and if he was giving some of it out to Emmanuel as he did to Flying Flame, maybe Emmanuel would ask Abel to be his summoned creature instead.
Abel explained himself, “Thank you for the kind offer, but I can supply enough for myself. I am a ruler of a duchy back in the human world, as you know. Besides, I’m also a grandmaster blacksmith and a master alchemist.”
“Grandmaster Blacksmith ?”
Emmanuel was speechless once more. It was already hard enough to think of Abel as a master alchemist, but to know that he was also a grandmaster blacksmith, it was hard to keep a straight face while hearing all of this. Emmanuel thought it was a prodigy, but it got beat in every single way.
Abel had to be his good friend. Emmanuel had that thought in mind. The dragonkind didn’t long for much of the worldly goods, but they would always be interested in being on good terms with those that were strong—those who would become strong, especially. Abel had proven himself to be resourceful, and he could be of tremendous help if he was willing to.
Emmanuel hurried to speak, “So when can I become your guest, if I may ask? Under rules in the Dragon Depth, I am not usually allowed to travel abroad for too long. If I can have your invitation, however, that’s a different story.”
Constant visits were a must between good friends.
Abel said in a rea.s.suring tone, “I’ll send you an invitation when I get back to the duchy of Carmel.”
“A token of our friends.h.i.+p, here,” Emmanuel placed a thin scale in Abel’s hands, “This is a scale taken from my body. If you need to contact me any time, just activate your power of the Will, and I will be able to find your rough location. As long as you are at the Holy Continent, it will not take me more than half a day to get to you.”
Abel placed a contact card in Emmanuel’s hands, “I’ll exchange my contact card for that, then. You can use it to activate any teleportation circle that you could find. My tower spirit will know immediately when you activate it, and I’ll know that you’ve come to find me. I’ll take a bit longer to get there, but if you need any help, I’ll come to your aid as soon as possible.”
The contact card was an identification tool. It was designed so any teleportation circle connected to it could contact Flora, the tower spirit. Whoever had it would have the privilege of contacting Abel at any point in time. While Abel always had it with him, he never gave it out to anyone due to his special ident.i.ty, but this was a giant dragon that he was encountering. Not only was Emmanuel a good friend, but he could also tell how beneficial it was if they could continue to talk to each other. he would really like it, actually, if he could call for a giant dragon’s aid anywhere as long as he waited for half a day.
The conversation had been great between Abel and Emmanuel. When they were done, Emmanuel took two barrels of the grandmaster’s wine, leaped into the air, returned to its giant dragon form, and said farewell to Abel. Abel held the blue dragon scale in his hand as he thought about what had just happened. What he gained in the journey had far exceeded his expectations. It was like he’s already learned so much before he even reached his destination.
Abel said to White Cloud, “Back to the original route, White Cloud.”
The map he envisioned showed that he had gone too far away from the route, so he sat back in his chair after sending to the destination again to White Cloud and decided to check that everything was in place. He started checking his body status. His overall bodily stat changed from 55 to 55.01. It was a very insignificant increase, technically, but the fact that it happened was significant enough. This was because it had already far exceeded the limit of a human, 50 for a vast majority of human head knight commanders. Due to the various experiences that he had, he rose to 55, which was unbelievable enough by itself. Anything other than that, he just thought that it was going to happen.
More ridiculously, this was just his first ice crystal breathing technique. He didn’t even absorb a lot of energy for this stat increase. If he did this in the long term, maybe even his power of agility would change. These two basic attributes didn’t change much just then, but the world stone fragment’s digitalization ability made it very clear that he was, indeed, getting a boost. He couldn’t see the increase in numbers, but he could feel it.
He was planning to replace his knight’s breathing technique with the ice crystal breathing technique. However, he wasn’t sure if he could pa.s.s it onto the others.
Abel turned to the resting Flying Flame, “Can I teach this to Other races?”
Flying Flame replied through the soul chain, “Unless they have dragon blood, they will die the moment they try. Perhaps Master’s offspring will be able to .”
That made sense. Abel would’ve died just then if it weren’t for his dragonkind lineage. Still, Emmanuel never told him about that when it decided to teach. Maybe it already saw through him, so it felt confident enough to carry on. that was not to say that Flying Flame’s explanation didn’t mean anything. If anything, he didn’t think that it’d be appropriate to teach this to his other family members.
This was when he looked at the sky. It was getting dark. He would usually enter the dark world, but entering the dark world here would risk falling into the ocean right away. So, by taking out a small-sized mana gathering circle and putting it on White Cloud’s back, he began to get to work.
He took out two hundred perfect gemstones to start practicing the blue dragon ice crystal breathing technique. The conditions were nowhere as good as back inside his own magic tower, of course, but this was about the best that he could come up with. Of course, if Emmanuel knew that this was what he was actually thinking, it would’ve spat ice frost on his face for thinking that two hundred gemstones were “not that good.” The giant dragons lived longer than most beings but discovered perfect gemstones once every so often.
The good thing was that there was still enough s.p.a.ce on White Cloud’s back. Abel wouldn’t have been able to set up the small-sized mana gathering circle otherwise. Once he went in, Flying Flame and White Snow joined him. For Flying Flame, Abel got it a few hundred perfect redstone. For White Snow, since it was just promoted, it needed more time to stabilize its bodily functions and get used to its current power.
The routine of the blue dragon ice crystal breathing technique quickly reappeared in Abel’s brain. He slowly closed his eyes, relaxed his thoughts, and entered into sleep completely. His druid spirit quickly took over to replace the main spirit’s job. He let the blue dragon’s ice breathing technique continue to run on itself.
Unlike what blue dragon Emmanuel showed since Abel had the small-sized mana gathering circle and two hundred perfect gemstones with him, countless ice crystals quickly appeared as soon as he went to sleep. The concentration was purely spectacular. These ice crystals continued to grow larger over time. Eventually, they coalesced into one giant ice crystal that covered his entire body up. He looked as though he was dead if one could not see him breathing through the crystals.
The pure freezing elementals continued to enter his body as the blue dragon’s ice crystal breathing technique continued to run. If any other person was doing this, even a head knight commander would’ve been injured by The pure the freezing element. However, Abel’s body welcomed such purity. Every one of his cells absorbed it as time went by. Yet, when the real blue dragon continued to use the ice crystal breathing technique, this would have been a much more subtle process. Abel was different. He was more of a human than a blue dragon, so his body might be inferior to a real dragon, but he was clearly benefiting from the boosting effect that it provided.
Five hours pa.s.sed as the first round of training was completed. Just when he was about to start the second round, he discovered his senses sending him a warning. He woke up in a shock. He had to pause the ice crystal breathing technique. He opened his eyes, but surprise, surprise, his senses just stopped alerting him about the danger. It was probably telling him not to have a second round.
To be sure of it, he scanned his entire body with his power of the Will. So it seemed that one session was enough to boost up his stamina, power, and agility. It was difficult to do this when all his traits were already increased to their peak. More importantly, his body already became saturated. According to his a.n.a.lysis, it’d take him five days for his body to completely recover.
During this time, he would not be able to use the blue dragon ice crystal breathing technique because his body would’ve had to sustain a tremendous amount of damage if he did. Yes, that was the case even if he had the “full-recovery vitality potion.” He didn’t plan to use it during his training because while the full recovery vitality potion was extremely effective, he wouldn’t know what it could do to his body when he was practicing a new ice element technique learned.
As he felt the increasing elements inside his body, he continued to hit the air to test if he could maneuver it properly. As for the road up ahead, he didn’t have to pay attention. White Cloud had the invisibility ability, and sometimes, he wood actively unleashed his dragon essence to scare away any spiritual beasts that might be in the way.
After five days, when he tried the second round of his blue dragon ice crystal breathing technique, he realized that it was no longer as effective as the first time. All the increase he got was .5 in his stamina, power, and agility. He had thought through this situation already. No matter what training method he was using at the start, there would be a dramatic effect that would persist and eventually stop at a balance point. When he could reach that balance point, he thought that this would take quite some time to notice.
On the sixth day, Abel got close to the mark on the map that dwarves gave him. he had spent two of these days wandering in this area, and although he didn’t think the dwarves would play a prank on him, it still took some effort. He didn’t know what the island did to survive in an ocean full of oceanic spiritual beasts, but he did think about the kind of possible things that it had.
This was the world of the oceanic spiritual beasts, by the way. Many of them were extremely powerful. According to Emmanuel said, anything beyond the dragonkind’s territory was where they would reside. He didn’t think he was enough to beat the giant dragons, so naturally, he didn’t think that he was good enough to match the top-level spiritual beasts.
Abel spoke to the battle command spirit through his power of the Will, “Open your scanning, battle command spirit. Find an island for me.”
“Yes, Sir Elder,” the battle command spirit replied.
The battle command spirit took a lot of energy to scan. Even if it was from ancient times, it would only do this during combat. Abel was a unique case. It was almost like he was opening it at all times whenever he wanted to find something. He did not care about energy, and that was his biggest advantage.
At the same time, Abel let Flying Flame and White Snow leave White Cloud. They were all flying around at low alt.i.tude. At the same time, he completely unleashed his dragon essence. It wasn’t that strong, per se, but compared to before he met Emmanuel, his dragon essence was boosted several times. This was the wonder that the blue dragon ice crystal breathing technique was capable of achieving. It transformed his body to become stronger, and the dragon essence that he emitted became more noticeable.
Another day had pa.s.sed. Abel and his summoned creatures had searched the nearby ocean as hard as they could, but they couldn’t find the small island.
Abel thought of one possibility, “Is it below the water, by any chance?”
He was not good at underwater searching. It was not like his summoned creatures were capable of doing this. White Snow and White Cloud were flying birds, and while the dragons could technically swim, Flying Flame was a fire element young dragon not suited for this role. If it went into the water, not only would it be weakened by water, But it also couldn’t use the fireball, and worse, it couldn’t move fast at all. It wouldn’t be capable of moving at the same speed as the other local creatures.