Chapter 601: The Friendship That One So Desired (I)

Chu Liang thought sarcastically,

Help me take back the Dragon Orb from the forbidden ground in the imperial palace and regain my strength, and you will gain my friendship... Yeah, not even a village fool would fall for that!

"Ehhhhhhhhhh????? Hey, hey, hey!" The Little Golden Dragon watched Chu Liang roll up his sleeves and began to panic. He then pouted and scolded loudly, "Foolish human, do you even understand what it means to earn the friendship of a True Dragon?"

"What does it mean?" Chu Liang asked, casting him a sidelong glance.

"It means," the Little Golden Dragon began, "you will earn the honor of speaking with me as an equal, the chance to dine at the same table with me, and the privilege of addressing me without honorifics..."

He listed them one by one.

Chu Liang couldn’t be bothered to listen any longer. He glanced around the hall and decided that he’d better summon Tuntun to solve the issue.

But then he remembered—if this was a hidden realm, Tuntun wouldn’t be able to leave either.

"Along with my great friendship," the Little Golden Dragon said loudly once again, "I will also provide a few trivial gifts to assist you in retrieving the Dragon Orb."

So the great reward was sharing a meal?

Chu Liang couldn't help but scoff, having already given up on this poor kid. He lazily raised his eyelids and replied, "What is it?"

"I’ll teach you the method us dragons use to refine Dragon Orbs, so you can harness the full power of the Blue Dragon's Orb," the Little Golden Dragon explained. "It’s just a small technique, but it might be of use to you. I can sense an unrefined Blue Dragon's Orb in you..."

The Little Golden Dragon paused, muttering to himself, clearly struggling to think of anything else to offer.

"Hmm?" Chu Liang frowned, his gaze sharpening as he scrutinized the Little Golden Dragon with renewed interest.

"I..." The Little Golden Dragon froze, blinking rapidly as he stammered, "I really don’t have anything else. As soon as I was born, that evil Yao Dengxian stole my teachings of Dao, and he suppressed my dragon orb... I—"

"The method you mentioned for refining Dragon Orbs is indeed trivial," Chu Liang said thoughtfully, slowly sitting back down. His expression grew more serious as he added, "But upon further consideration, the friendship of a Golden Dragon is truly something desirable."

"Right?" The Little Golden Dragon grinned widely. "In ancient times, it might take a thousand years for even one person to earn this honor, and this honor would be celebrated by their kin and remembered for generations."

"So, this method for refining the Dragon Orb—what exactly is it?" Chu Liang asked.

Though Chu Liang had been accepted by the Blue Dragon's Orb as its master, true control remained out of his grasp because he hadn’t refined it. Each time he sought to use the orb, he had to pour an immense amount of foundational qi into it. Yet, he could never tap into the inherent spiritual energy within the Blue Dragon's Orb.

If he could refine the orb, there was a chance he could then unlock its spiritual energy and powers linked to this authority. If this could be done, he would then be no different from a True Dragon.

The method to refine a Dragon Orb was something that the Little Golden Dragon had inherited directly from the memories left by its mother. This was the dragons' standard way of passing on cultivation legacy. Chu Liang, however, didn’t have a dragon mom to teach him such critical knowledge.

The Little Golden Dragon wasn’t dumb. Seeing the friendly smile on Chu Liang's face, he hesitated for a moment before saying, "You have to promise to help me first. Otherwise, I won’t teach you."

In truth, Chu Liang had been contemplating whether he could help the Little Golden Dragon or not.

𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

He had to first consider the current situation.

Yao Dengxian had taken away the teachings of Dao that belonged to the Golden Dragon, and the imperial family had turned a blind eye to it. Now, the Little Golden Dragon had escaped. None of these matters directly concerned him, nor could he do anything to change them.

He didn't have the ability to drag the Little Golden Dragon back to suppress the Yu Dynasty’s fate. Instead, he was the one trapped here by this little dragon.

It would be even more difficult for him to force Yao Dengxian to relinquish the Great Dao of Cloud Dominion he had already claimed. If he had that kind of power, it would be far easier to simply capture the Little Golden Dragon and return it.

The current situation was that the Golden Dragon had fled, and the Yu Dynasty had lost the celestial beast that suppressed the fate of the nation.

This was an undeniable fact.

The task before him was to help the Little Golden Dragon retrieve the old Golden Dragon's Dragon Orb. For the imperial family and Yao Dengxian, the orb was of little use, and taking it wouldn’t have much impact.

If he could get the method for refining a Dragon Orb by accepting this task, it would be a worthwhile deal.

The only question was...

"Can I even do it?" Chu Liang asked doubtfully. "Yao Dengxian has been the Dragon-Keeping Eunuch for over a hundred years and is a powerful monster at the eighth realm. You’re asking me to steal something from his doorstep?"

"The Dragon Orb isn’t in the Dragon-Keeping Pool," the Little Golden Dragon said indignantly, seemingly outraged by the shameless act. "It's suppressed beneath the imperial palace’s Spring of Virtue so that people can drink water infused with dragon aura."

"I see." Chu Liang nodded slightly.

He had heard a little about the Spring of Virtue, reputed as a famous landmark within the palace.

Coincidentally, he would be feasting at the Qinghong Banquet in the palace tomorrow. He could find the chance halfway during the feast to steal a dragon orb. This didn't seem like a very difficult task, as long as no one was watching him closely.

Given his current status and his relationship with the imperial family, even if he were caught, it probably wouldn’t cost him his life.

As the saying went, "Good fortune favors the bold..."

"Let me be clear upfront: I’ll do my best," Chu Liang said. "But if I fail and get caught, they’ll interrogate me about you. I won’t let them have the chance to torture me—"

"You’d rather commit suicide?" the Little Golden Dragon asked, a bit surprised.

"I’ll spill everything about you to negotiate a lighter sentence," Chu Liang replied ruthlessly. "So, before that happens, you'd better hide somewhere even I don't know. It might keep you a little safer."

The Little Golden Dragon pouted, unsure of whether this human could be trusted or not.

...

Meanwhile, a storm was brewing deep within the imperial palace.

An elderly man, draped in a heavy white sable cloak, his hair like that of a crane yet with youthful features, strode leisurely into the Night Dragon Hall.

"Your servant greets Your Majesty," he said, bowing deeply.

"Rise quickly, Warrior Yao," the emperor said at once.

The man before him was none other than Yao Dengxian, the chief eunuch and the Dragon-Keeping Eunuch.

Back when Yao Dengxian had seized the Great Dao of Cloud Dominion, he displayed no arrogance and continued to regard himself as a servant, maintaining absolute loyalty to successive emperors of the Yu Dynasty. This might be why the Dragon-Keeping Eunuchs held such an unshakeable position.

"Something chaotic happened in the Dragon-Keeping Pool, and the Golden Dragon escaped. The fault is mine," Yao Dengxian said as he rose. "I beg Your Majesty to punish me."

"That Golden Dragon has barely over a hundred years of cultivation. How did it manage to escape?" the emperor asked in a deep voice, not in a rush to accuse Yao Dengxian of anything.

"Because of this," Yao Dengxian replied, raising his hand to reveal a jade pendant.

The pendant was intricately carved in the shape of a fish, with a small "Luo" character engraved on its back.

It was the given name of the Thirteenth Prince.

Aside from the exquisite craftsmanship, the pendant appeared unremarkable. However, the emperor, being a seventh-realm cultivator, activated his foundational qi and focused his gaze. His eyes glowed with divine fire, and he immediately noticed something unusual.

Deep within the pendant, hidden beneath its surface, was a vast and intricately concealed spiritual energy inscription.

"This is..." the emperor muttered, his voice tinged with slight astonishment.

"I remember this one night eighty years ago, I was fighting with a member of the Celestial Charm Sect. His cultivation was higher than mine, and his methods were bizarre and unpredictable. The injuries I got that night have kept me healing in seclusion ever since," Yao Dengxian said slowly. "I recognize the spiritual energy in this pendant very well. It’s that man’s handiwork."

Yao Dengxian continued, "Members of the Celestial Charm Sect call him the Celestial Master."

"The Celestial Master of the Celestial Charm Sect?"

The emperor fell silent.