Yue was a bit confused as he walked around a town near Fuyuan county. He wasn’t sure where to find the Azure Dragon temple. He was going to the East but he didn’t know exactly where he was supposed to go. He doubted that he would be able to feel any magic energy from the temple but he decided to stop and check anyway.
He closed his eyes and let his mana deep out. He was in the East now so he was not having any trouble with mana at all. He could see and feel practically everything and it felt so liberating. He didn’t sense much magic energy or any familiar energy as he sensed around him so he tried to focus a bit more. He then saw a tiny spot of pure magic energy that seemed to be made out of his own mana. It was around a kilometer away.
“Could it be a pearl? That’d be fitting.” Yue murmured and opened his eyes. He went in the direction of the dot of energy and found that it got bigger as he got closer to it. He walked into a forest and at that point, he could sense that the dot would reach to his knees, it stopped growing from then on and Yue figured that meant he was close.
He was nearing the edge of the forest when he could hear a waterfall. There were some thorned plants and flowers that had grown over what seemed to have been a path at some point, Yue followed the path and cleared the plants with his sword as he walked, he didn’t want his clothes to get ripped from thorns since he had only brought one set.
Through the overgrown greenery, there was a large lake. The lake was full of greenery but most of it looked more overgrown than it did beautiful, regardless, Yue immediately knew he had found the temple as he looked at the lake.
In the lake, there was a stone bridge leading up to a large stone pavilion. The pavilion was at the midpoint of the lake and connected to another bridge. That bridge led to a large palace at the edge of the lake near the waterfall. Everything seemed to have some sort of dragon motif and the people moving around the palace wore blue-green overcoats with dragon embroidery over their Hanfus. There were quite a couple of people, much more than Yue had expected from a temple that hadn’t seen their god in 20 or more years.
He felt a bit bashful and tilted his hat down as he walked onto the bridge and to the pavilion. He almost wanted to hope that they wouldn’t recognize that he was Azure Dragon but Huy had told him that they definitely would recognize him the second they looked at him.
He reached the pavilion and 2 people were there, they had been cleaning the pavilion and stopped to greet him.
“Welcome to the Azure—“
One of the two people, a woman around 40 years old started to greet him but cut herself off as she looked up at him. Yue was sure that his eyes weren’t visible but somehow the woman knew who he was. The other person was a young man around Yue’s age and he looked at the woman with a confused and worried gaze, he probably hadn't met the previous Azure Dragon and therefore didn't recognize Yue's aura.
“W-Welcome back, My Lord.” The woman said and bowed. She looked like she was going to cry with happiness.
The young man looked confused and Yue sighed and raised his head a bit, making his eyes clearly visible. The young man immediately bowed as he saw Yue’s eyes.
“Please allow me to lead you through the temple, My lord. It has been quite some time.” The woman said with a big smile.
Yue felt awkward about how she was referring to him but in a way it sort of made sense. He was technically the same “Lord” that she knew from the past. At least in terms of soul. He followed her as she led him to the place.
He wanted to stay silent but he couldn’t help but mention the plants.
“The plants…” Yue murmured and looked at the woman.
“The plants can only be cut by you, My lord. It has been a long time so they have grown a lot.” The woman said and smiled.
“Oh,” Yue murmured, he stopped walking and raised his hand up, and released his mana. The plants quickly shrunk to a more appealing size as his mana touched them. Yue tilted his head a bit as he watched them. That wasn’t an ability he knew he had. He was immediately curious about how he could use it in battle or if he could use it outside of this area at all.
He walked with the woman into the palace and spread his mana to get a grasp of the layout. He didn’t want to get lost and he was curious about the whole palace and what was in there.
“What is your name?” Yue asked the woman, turning to her.
“My name is Lin Jinghua…” The woman said and smiled, “I have been here for 30 years now.”
Yue was intrigued by her words, he wanted to know about the previous Azure dragon and how things usually worked in the temple. Jinghua kept leading him through the halls until they reached what Yue assumed was the furthest place from the entrance of the palace. He could hear the waterfall quite clearly so he assumed it was close by.
“We have kept your room as tidy as possible over the years,” Jinghua said and opened the large double doors in front of them.
Yue was a bit shocked as he entered the room, it was even bigger than his room in Viktor’s manor in Paris. The room was like the room of an emperor, but in a way, it was even more vast and luxurious. It was much more than Yue expected, the 4 Beasts’ religion was actually not very popular so he expected the temple to reflect that and be less luxurious.
The room had large bookcases which immediately intrigued Yue as he looked around the room. There were lots of paintings of places and people he didn’t recognize. There was a sitting area near a mural of a large blue-green dragon that Yue recognized as himself, or rather, his Dragon form. Across the room near a wall bookcases, there was a desk and in the back of the room, there was a large bed covered with teal sheets with intricate dragon embroidery. Yue felt sleepy just looking at it but he couldn’t sleep just yet.
At the very center of the room was the dot of magic that Yue had been following. It was actually a large pearl just like he expected. Yue kind of wanted to laugh at how he was instantly attracted to the pearl. It was a fitting and clear reminder that he wasn’t human. He didn’t mind it though, he had long gotten over his fixation with being human, he would’ve lost a lot more people to Li Chaoxiang if he was human.
“The elders will come to greet you soon so I’ll leave you to rest, My lord,” Jinghua said and bowed before leaving the room.
Yue just nodded and walked over to the pearl. There was a pattern on the floor near the pearl. It was surrounded by a few rings of water and on the ceiling, there was a similar pattern for the skylight. It was as if the pearl was causing a ripple effect on the floor and the moon was causing a ripple effect on the ceiling.
Yue put his hand on the pearl and felt immediately comforted by its warmth. He could feel that it was having an effect on him but he didn’t stop it. He liked the feeling until he felt himself involuntarily starting to change into his dragon form. He took his hand away immediately after feeling that and sighed. He didn’t want to ruin his clothes by transforming and it also consumed a lot of energy to transform so he didn’t really want to have to do it. He had only transformed into his dragon form a few times in his life and transforming into it was tiring enough but having to transform back into his human shape was enough to knock him out for a few days.
He moved away from the pearl and looked through some of the books on the bookcases. He froze as he looked at the first one he had pulled out. It was a super rare technique book that he had heard Fei Xiang mention at one point. He looked at another book and his eyes sparkled with glee. He had never read any of the books on the bookcases.
Yue was rather rowdy when he was younger. Really up until recently, he would never be caught dead being anything but a wild child. It was only natural, he grew up fighting monsters and fighting alongside strong fighters who left him without worry or restrictions. So since he was a child that was always so proactive and on the move, no one ever expected him to sit down for a second and read a book regardless of if it was about cultivation or magic.
Yue actually did really like reading, much to everyone's surprise. He mostly read magic books but he would also read the occasional novel or two as well. Asian magic books that he hadn’t already read were rare so he was glad the room was full of them, they would help him get much stronger much faster.
Yue picked the first book he would read and sat down on the bed. The bed was very soft and immediately made him feel sleepy but he knew there were going to be people coming to greet him so he made himself stay awake. He set his bag down on the bed and opened it, looking through it carefully. He sighed and pulled out the letter portal Viktor had given him, still no letters.
“Why won’t you send me anything…? Even just a ‘Hello’ or ‘I miss you’ will do…” Yue whispered and poked the letter portal.
‘Should I write to him first…?’ Yue thought to himself but quickly discarded the thought. He wouldn’t even know what to write.
“It’s just two months...” Yue sighed. He sat up after a while as he felt presences getting closer to the room quickly.
Some older men and women rushed in and the second they saw him they got on their knees and bowed. Yue felt awkward as he watched them but he didn’t tell them to stop.
“My lord, it has been a long time… W-We are so grateful for your return!” One of them exclaimed.
“Will you be staying for long?”
“Would you like anything to eat?”
“What about the treasury!? Would you like to visit the treasury?!”
“Ah, surely you must want a bath? Or do you want to sleep?”
Yue felt exhausted just listening to them. He was going to tell them to just let him sleep but the treasury intrigued him.
“Take me to the treasury,” Yue said and stood up from the bed.
The people quickly nodded and led Yue to the treasury. They didn’t actually bring him inside though, they just brought him to a large pair of turquoise double doors with a painting of a golden dragon on it. Yue was confused as he stared at it. When he used mana to get a feel of the whole temple he had thought this door was an exit. He was also confused about why they hadn’t opened it and just looked at him expectantly.
“Only you can access the treasury, My lord.” One of the followers said and smiled.
Yue didn’t know how to open it, but he felt like he would be able to figure it out without embarrassing himself. He tried just placing his hand on it, then he tried lightly pushing on it and when those two didn’t work he decided to use some magic and he almost fell into the room as the doors quickly opened. He was a bit embarrassed but the followers did not laugh at him or look disappointed.
He was taken aback as he looked inside the treasury. Somehow the fact that the multiple past incarnations of Azure Dragon were probably not just sitting around the temple all day had fled his mind when he had been creating his expectations for what would be in the room. He stepped into the room and used insight on some of the items. He could tell that a lot of the items were either from dungeons or made from Azure Dragon’s scales or similar rare materials.
He was a bit conflicted as he stared at the items in the room. He didn’t know what any of them did and judging by how his followers patiently waited outside despite looking curious about what was inside, they probably couldn’t enter and would be incapable of answering his questions.
“Oh…how pretty...” Yue murmured as he looked at a white jade waist pendant in one of the shelves of the treasury. Beside the waist pendant, there was a matching sword tassel as well. He picked both up and was frozen in place for a second as if he was having a prophecy.
He saw the pendant and the tassel being used by someone who was fighting a ghoul in an area full of negative energy when the pendant started to glow. The negative energy all got sucked into the white jade part of the pendant. It turned black before slowly turning back to white after a while. Another vision appeared specifically for the sword tassel, the waist pendant was full of negative energy so the sword tassel absorbed the negative energy that the pendant couldn’t absorb.
Yue placed the pendant and the tassel down, he’d have to remember to take them with him when he had to go back to the Academy in January. It would be useful for future expeditions and it would’ve been useful for Wolfsstadt and London. He’d just put the waist pendant on one of the belt loops of his expedition uniform and switch his current sword tassel out. His sword tassel was a very simple one at the moment since his previous tassel was destroyed when his old sword broke.
‘I’ll probably get a lot of questions about it though...it’s not exactly discreet..’ The waist pendant and the tassel were both a turquoise color except for the white jades on both of them so they would stand out against the uniform.
‘It’d be better to have it though…’
He looked through a couple more items but he didn’t take anything out of the treasury.
“Are you sure you’re not going to take anything, My lord?” A follower asked as Yue walked out of the treasury and the door quickly shut behind him.
“I just wanted to have a look around, I’m going to just be cultivating in seclusion for a while soon so I don’t need anything,” Yue murmured and started walking toward the bedroom.
"We'll set everything up." The followers said in unison and Yue felt kind of scared to find out what they would do but he didn't stop them and just kept walking.
Thank you for the chapter.
Thank you❤️❤️