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Id responded to Spica.
“A hundred and fifty years is not that long for dragons who live nearly infinite lives, from a human point of view. The dragons’ standards cannot be applied to humans with a lifespan of less than a hundred years. I heard from my master that about three hundred years of a dragons’ hatchling period is used to build up their Dragon Heart and condense sufficient manna necessary for dragon hatchlings to awaken as a genuine dragon, during which the parent dragons protect their weak and vulnerable hatchlings without sleeping.”
“My Polymorphic Body is the same as a human body, so I’ll create a manna hall in my lower abdomen, too, and I’ll protect myself by learning swordsmanship from you. Let me tell you a secret of Vega.”
Seven hundred years before, three heroes, Icarus the Great, Grand Wizard Rigel and Magic Swordswoman Vega, had appeared in the Icarus Kingdom and established the Icarus Empire, having merged dozens of countries. There had been more than fifty small countries in the current territory of the Icarus Empire. The Icarus Kingdom, where the epic tale of the three heroes had been initiated, had been located in the northeastern region of the Empire, of which the territory had included the land of the Free City Greenhorn. It was a small Kingdom with a population of less than ten million. Icarus the Great had been the seventh prince of the Icarus Kingdom and later called a Sword Master. Grand Wizard Rigel had founded the Icarus Wizard Tower. The mysterious magic swordswoman Vega wearing magic armor and using a magic sword had been known to have contributed the most to the establishment of the Icarus Empire among the three but suddenly disappeared after moving the capital of the Empire to the current Icarus City.
“That mysterious magic swordswoman Vega was the gold dragon Vega who gave birth to me. As we shared her memory through her Telepathy you should already be aware, she looked down on humans too much, which resulted in her defeat. She had swordsmanship, magic armor and a magic sword to fight against the human Knights, but she did not use them.”
Watching Id nodding, Spica continued.
“Vega had two ways to defeat the humans. The first way was to fly up into the sky before the humans reached the basin, launching magic attacks from a distance beyond the human sorcerers’ reach. The other way was to wear the magic armor and return to being the mysterious magic swordswoman, who had been invincible seven hundred years ago and deal with the human Knights. However, being distracted by finding my whereabouts, she was caught off guard by a human wizard’s surprise attack. She had also overlooked that human swordsmanship has been developed further over the last seven hundred years.”
At the beginning of the Icarus Empire’s history, there had been a rumor that Icarus the great had been defeated by the mysterious magic swordswoman Vega in sparring, but the rumor had disappeared alongside Vega's disappearance. Spica, who was speaking objectively, was no longer sad but furious. Dragons, aged between two thousand and three thousand years, often transformed into other races and enjoyed a different life, just like Vega. The boredom of an overly long life span was why they enjoyed this kind of Entertainment from time to time. Some dragons immersed in their Entertainment too much, sometimes forgot that they were dragons during the play. However, dragon hatchlings were not allowed to interact emotionally with other species, especially humans. Spica was rapidly humanized while staying with Id’s party. Dragons, the strongest creatures, did not tend to search for revenge even if other species killed dragons. They just blamed the carelessness of the murdered dragon. However, the humanized Spica showed her burning vengeance against the Duke Cronos family. It was a separate emotion from her objective perception of Vega. After a simple breakfast, the party left the cave behind the waterfall and began moving south at a rapid pace.
************
Five people gathered in the Duke Cronos’ office. On the left side of Duke Cronos in the middle, William Cronos sat with his eyes closed. He could never be seen as an old man in his eighties. In his mid-fifties, William Cronos had fought Andrew Adelian, which had been more than thirty years back, but he looked almost the same as then. On the right side of Duke Cronos sat a six-circle-master mage Aldebaran from the Mudria Wizard Tower. On William Cronos’ left side sat Knight Commander Gabriel of the Pegasus Order. And on Aldebaran's right side sat a man in his late thirties with sharp eyes, looking over Willam Cronos’ appearance. Duke Cronos told Willam Cronos.
“Uncle William, I expect you to participate in tracking down the man who took the Dragon Heart. Obtaining a Dragon Heart is a crucial issue for the future of our family.”
William Cronos opened his eyes and asked Aldebaran instead of Duke Cronos.
“Did you claim that you can bring up dozens of Aura Beam Owners in a few years, using a Dragon Heart?”
Aldebaran responded to William Cronos.
“Yes, sir. After careful examination of the records left by Wizard Prometheus and Sword Master Alexandros, I was convinced that the important condition for producing Aura Beam Owners was not the concentration of manna in the magic diagram used for manna training but the purity of manna. If we extract highly purified manna concentrated in the Dragon Heart, I think we can raise a lot of swordsmen capable of wielding the Aura Beam in a short period of time.”
“The important thing is not the purity of manna, but the trainee’s innate affinity to manna. Manna’s purity accumulated in the manna hall can be increased through refining processes.”
“You are right, but the problem is that it takes too long to get through the refining process. Also, if you use a Dragon Heart, I believe even those with no particular inborn affinity to manna can become swordsmen capable of Aura Beam.”
“It’s a merely imaginative hypothesis, isn’t it? I don’t agree with you at all.”
William Cronos said, looking at Duke Cronos.
“I’m staying out of this, Duke. Why do you need my participation when you have that guy.”
As William Cronos added, looking at the man sitting next to Aldebaran, everyone watched him. The man asked William Cronos.
“Do you know me?”
William Cronos replied to him with a cynical expression.
“I don’t know your name, but I know you’re one of those who recently acquired Aura Beam at the Mudria Wizard Tower. I’ve heard rumors that the Duke is hiding some swordsmen who returned from the Mudira Wizard Tower after achieving Aura Beam. Now that the situation is urgent, it seems I’m seeing one of them here today.”
Willaim Cronos continued, looking at Duke Cronos.
“I think I’ve done my business, so I’m leaving. I advise you not to waste your time on useless things.”
William Cronos rose from his seat and left the Duke’s office. The relationship between Duke Cronos and William Cronos, who were at odds over the succession of the family’s title, has always been cold. William Cronos, who wanted his grandson to take over the Duke’s title, and the Duke, who tried to hand over the title to one of his sons, could not get along well.
As William Cronos said, Duke Cronos worked for decades to raise swordsmen with Aura Beam by sending children with innate affinity to manna to the Mudria Wizard Tower and has gained five Aura Beam Owners a few years before. He kept them secret, and Chris, sitting next to Aldebaran, was one of them.
The former Dukes of Cronos had vested small feuds in the Cronos Duchy in two Viscounts and four Barons. Chris was an illegitimate child of one of those nobles, Viscount Hamilton. Born to a serf’s daughter, Chris was found to have manna affinity at an early age and sent to the Mudria Wizard Tower at the age of five. He stayed there for more than thirty years, training to obtain an Aura Beam. He had witnessed many children sent to the Mudria Wizard Tower who had died by manna backflow, but he was lucky enough to survive and obtain an Aura Beam. Although Duke Cronos had paid him a lot of monetary compensation, he struggled to resist the desire to show his power and skills to the world.
After William Cronos left his office, Duke Cronos spoke to the three remaining men.
“This is a crucial matter for the Cronos Duchy, so I want all three of you to go to the Polermone Mountains. According to the information I received this morning, the man who stole the Dragon Heart has been moving south along the mountain range since entering the Polermone Mountains from Scandia. Take the Pegasus Knights and block his expected route to retrieve the Dragon Heart. On the way, keep in close contact with Antares, Fomalhaut and James to check his route.”
