“What?”

Gabriel must have blanked out. Instead of staring at the burdened and slumping back of the old Dragon God, the unlikely pair was seated on one of the decorative pillars near the edge of the [Sunken Shrine].

Compared to the elegant state of her golden white dress, which complimented her stature so nicely, from the beginning of her visit, it currently gave off a grey and dreary look, nowhere as spirited and fashionable.

The golden haired goddess collected her memories and checked whether or not a creature attacked her with a mental spell, after learning about the secret kept by Rasenth she suddenly missed several breaths worth of time and woke up sitting in a different place.

But no, it had not been a mind control attempt or anything similar, the shock rendered her so speechless that it almost knocked her out cold.

Who knew?

The dragon race, a widespread and often acknowledged as the most perfect and strongest beast race in many mortal planes and some places in the abyss, as a whole barely had those with about half pure bloodline as prominent members.

And most shockingly, at their roots a [True Dragon] did not just reach the peak of the five mortal realms by virtue of their inborn superiority, no, they actually were born as future gods!

Wondering whether Bael would react in the same way, Gabriel held the silence among the twilight lingering in the underground cavern.

She had to reinspect many of her memories, those involving dragons and other super peak beast clans, as much as these elusive species entered the stage, anyway.

“You did not hear wrongly. A complete and pure [True Dragon] bloodline exceeds the saint tier and allows any descendant to break into the god realm in the future.

No matter how thick a saint rank bloodline is, their descendants will still have to struggle at that bottleneck, and it’s next to impossible to make up for the difference by enhancing their own ancestry.

A strong king bloodline can advance to an emperor tier with enough accumulation and destiny, and so on, but a saint rank bloodline can never exceed the limit and transform into the god rank.

The difference is not only a matter of bodily quality and sufficient spiritual wisdom, the laws itself need to permeate a bloodline to accomplish that impossible step.

Among the original god beasts, some did not leave behind a clan or it was destroyed in wars long forgotten, so the purity of the few remaining ancient clans is rather faint too.

Whether it’s new or old heritages, god tier quality has almost disappeared from the world.”

Rasenth casually spilled major information, again, but Gabriel was numb to the shock already.

Thought began spinning in her head, clues and guesses coming together to pull the veil of mystery around some inexplicable matters around the ruling kingdom of Ator.

 

“Perhaps, Nisha’s bloodline purity is exceedingly high? Is she a [True Dragon] you are preparing to nurture?”

With the current direction their conversation was taking, the blonde goddess voiced her conjecture.

At least that way the care the old dragon was showing towards a junior still in the first realm of cultivation had a valid reason, and Nisha’s occasional astonishing miracles also explained themselves.

Chuckling, Rasenth denied that train of thought though.

“No, I have no idea what degree her bloodline has reached.

I was giving you some background information about the ancient dragon clan to put their prestige into perspective.

Very few influences can move their more powerful characters, and I was but a saint rank beast back then, with a pitiful connection to a power with nothing more than a tenth of their ancestors.

Nevertheless, I had no other avenue for help, my wife was dying as a result from the poison that had already advanced quite far.

Explaining the reason for my visit, I managed to find an elder in charge of the resources and pleaded with him to give me a medicine capable of healing Yfnera.

Although, without a treasure equal in worth to exchange for it, the clan did not really want to help me.

I begged, pleaded with them, swore to serve them in any manner necessary, whether they employed me as a doorman, servant or janitor, it did not matter to me as long as I could save my wife.

The elder seemed to pity me a small amount, but he could not freely give away the resources he was in charge of either. He had to answer the clan in the end too.”

In a seemingly simple manner, the old transformed dragon retold his experience, tapping the end of his staff on the ground every once in a while.

He made it out to be a trivial experience, yet Gabriel could imagine the long journey he went through, the humiliating and disappointing conclusion when he arrived at the ancestral home of his bloodline and how much the dragon god wanted to save his wife.

She found it tactless to make further deductions and waited for his story to finish.

“As it turned out, it was not all for nothing that I insisted on staying in the dwelling of the elder and and trying to get an opportunity.

Not long after I ran out of ideas to get a suitable medicine, the personal servant of a young master living at the [Ancient Dragon World], and it really made me realize the difference between our starting points, where even a servant exceeded my cultivation.

A random servant at the peak saint realm went around on errands, the master must be even more terrifying, right?

Fortunately, the follower of a genius has a different view on material goods, he was there to retrieve the allocation worth of training goods for about a moon.

The elder wanted to chase me away and continue with his duties, there was nothing he could or wanted to do for me anymore, but I got lucky and the servant happened to be interested in my circumstances since I was a new face and was about to leave without anything from the material department.

Since I failed in my goal and had to think about an alternative to save Yfnera, I briefly explained my story and thought about taking on a dangerous mission to earn enough in order to purchase a rare medicine.

Suddenly, he picked out one of the goods he just retrieved and placed a seal on it to prevent the efficiency and energy leaking out of it, so fast that I had failed to get a good look at the item itself.

Confused why he gave me part of the share he retrieved, the servant only smiled at me once and said, ‘his young master would not mind if there was one more or less of them’, and hurried off.”

 

Rasenth displayed both sadness and humor together with his story. Whether or not these incidents from the past were common or uncommon in an ancient clan, Gabriel had no way of telling. Since he brought it up, though, it should have been rare to receive random kindness.

“Can you imagine? I wagered everything I had and prepared to put my life on the line when the servant of a young master decided to gift me one of the dozen items he carried back.

Not only that, it allowed my wife to completely recover when I brought it back, the medicinal efficiency from a single item so strong that it was far too much for her alone, and I had to step in as well to completely absorb it. Otherwise, the accumulated energy might have blown her body to smithereens.

And that one miracle medicine also boosted our cultivation as a side effect from curing her, straight to the peak of the saint realm.

Something unattainable for me, and any random young genius in a peak clan can enjoy dozens of them every moon.

No matter how prosperous the dragon kingdom may seem on Ator, or how powerful I appear on the surface as the ruler of a plane, in front of the ancient clans the mortal planes are nothing more than dust, which they can blow away with a random gesture.

If it was not for the joy of surviving a major disaster together with my wife, maybe that crushing disparity would have destroyed my ambitions to struggle for more in life.”

The dimensions of the worth assigned to these items had long since eclipsed the scope of the goddesses understanding.

While her sister and herself also had some lucky encounters and rare materials to break into godhood after leaving Ator for the Abyss, the price tag of anything precious enough to push someone to the peak of the saint realm was worth more than some of the items in their possession currently.

Towards the peak, it always got harder for external items to influence cultivation.

“I never learned who that servant worked under, or even his name, but I engraved that kindness into my heart and will hopefully become strong enough one day to repay his grace.

With the increase in our power, Yfnera and me combined our power to fight for our own plane back then, and successfully obtained one when I took the final step towards godhood.

Perhaps you sisters were around in the early turns after the land got reformed, and my wife and I oversaw a region personally.

There was no kingdom of dragons yet and other influences from other planes often sourced expeditions into our space, eager to raid the little resources that began flourishing with a god overseeing the plane, but not strong enough to repel all invaders.

War never ended, and many foreign species came to Ator as a result of failed campaigns or were left behind when the victors fled with their ill gains.

From my position today, I can understand their motivations and why the elder from the ancient clan denied my request in the past, since struggling to support your own force is an affair where mercy and pity have no place.”

 

Gabriel indeed recalled some of her earliest memories as phantoms of the endless fighting between humans, monsters and beasts.

With the incursions from other planes, the barbarian tribe that worshipped their place of birth might have perished in one of them, or the remnants left behind by the invaders sought to carve out a place of their own and ended them.

That past happened millions of turns ago, though. It took a long time for the twin goddesses to gain awareness, even with the assistance of a portal leaking energy from the Abyss.

And the two had cultivated for even longer than that, since they lacked an outstanding heritage like the dragon clan and even so obtained godhood in the end.

She had a feeling, though, that she was about to learn of the strings of fate connecting Nisha to the story.

And Rasenth did indeed not disappoint her.

“The mortal planes, or the middle realm, has a limit on the general population in regards to cultivation as a warrior or a magician.

Some planes might have a different amount of layers and the experts can indeed advance to the realm of god, but resources are much more sparse than in the Abyss.

And returning from there is prohibitively expensive enough to cut off any trade between that place and us, aside from the occasional returnee that brings along a batch of high tier materials, skills and equipment.

Yfnera and me had dreamed of our own plane after reaching the echelon of true experts in the myriad dust worlds, but others also had the opportunity to reach the peak.

Plundering resources from other worlds in a planar war can accelerate the development of your own place by countless times and has next to no downsides as the fighting force and experts of the attacker can also sharpen their skills and improve their cultivation through a war.

My own power had barely arrived at the lower boundary of godhood when the invasions started and I had no energy left to cultivate further.

That’s when I headed out to seek help and encountered that little one.”