Chapter 48.2

Unless... Let the Dragon Appear on its Own (2)

Shi An steadied himself with difficulty.

He looked around the circle and spoke with slight confusion. "Speaking of which, what are you guys doing?"

Zhao She raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Don't you know?"

Shi An replied honestly, "... I don't know."

"Every academy in the continent will conduct an academic exchange yearly. The exchange path will be different each time and the place it is held changes. It's coincidentally the strength system's turn this year." Zhao She sighed. "Although it is by turn, the importance level isn't the same as usual. After all, the strength system relies mainly on physical stamina and defense, which is not very exciting to watch and not as important as the other abilities in tactics. So you see, there's not much publicity for this year..."

Shi An suddenly had a bad feeling about this.

He slowly looked down at the still-lit screen in his hand. Although his progress in learning the human language was still sluggish, he had learned quite a bit then. Shi An struggled to distinguish a few words in a pile of text.

"Participate... strength system... chosen... competition..."

Hold on? Wait a minute? It wasn't what he thought it was!

Shi An was dumbfounded at the spot as if there was a bolt from out of the blue that was punishing him.

Was this what he got for disguising himself as someone with strength ability this whole time?

He had nothing to do with the strength system at all!

After turning into a human, his body was slender and weak and his physical strength was still poor. The reason he could break the shell of the rock-armored beast with one punch last time was not because of how strong his physical strength was but because he had mobilized his magic power and covered his fist with an impenetrable layer of dragon scales.

Zhao She suddenly thought of something and added, "Oh, right. Speaking of it, it's very coincidental. The conductor this time will be the academy from Aiwen District."

Aiwen District.

Aiwen District.

These two words awakened memories that Shi An could not stand to look back on.

It had been bitterly cold and difficult to survive there two months ago, so now...

Shi An shuddered.

I won't go! Absolutely not going!

"That's right. You seem to be afraid of the cold..." Zhao She scratched his head.

The same tall student who had just started a conversation came over and said, "Afraid of cold? Hey, you might need something like the fire gem. If you have one, you don't need to be afraid of the cold, even if you have a weak constitution. Speaking of which, several fire gems had appeared at the auctions over in the Aiwen District. Unfortunately, they're extremely expensive, and we shouldn't be able to get our hands on them at our level..."

... Several?

Shi An was a little doubtful.

The mineral resources of fire gems had pretty much been extinct in the time of his existence, and he only had so many of them even in his collection, so how did humans -

Shi An's eyes snapped open.

Hold on?

***

Inside the Aiwen District.

Mu Heng was clad in black, his eyes icy.

He sat in his office, looking down at the papers on his desk.

During this period, Mu Heng had been tracking down the movements of the mercenaries and his men had destroyed several of their dens. Although the other group's leader was cunning and had not yet been traced, they had caught many of the mercenary group's high-ranking members. They had been able to piece together bits and pieces of information to get a good idea of what exactly was happening.

He had also noticed the fire gems that had recently appeared in auctions.

This kind of gemstone was so rare that it hadn't appeared on the market for at least a hundred years and now it was circulating so intensively and in such large quantities at this critical moment, which was rare.

Mu Heng sent someone to buy a piece and send it to Zhuo Fu for research.

In the report given by the other side, there were remnants of poisonous Abyssal mist in the subtle patterns on the surface of the fire gem, which should all have come from the Abyss.

Linked to the Dragon's Lair in the Aiwen Canyon and the old human traces in the lair...

The answer was almost revealed.

The dragon's treasure had come along with the cave from the Abyss to the continent. The dragon had emerged from that gap in the Abyss within the school this time, probably after its treasure.

The dragon's existence had already leaked out and many high-rank officials had already learned of it.

Those humans who had once hijacked the dragon's treasure and were now afraid of retribution from the dragon were naturally eager to encash what was in their hands and destroy the evidence in case they were found out.

A fervent, dark light swept across the bottom of Mu Heng's eyes.

The dragon must have had a reason for not showing itself for so long.

Now that the continent was covered with human traces, hiding in some wilderness was not easy, and the dragon's absence had instead verified his other suspicion.

Dragons could take on human form.

In fact, most fantasy species were recorded in the relevant books as having this ability, only that they preferred to remain in their original forms out of pride.

To find the dragon's human form on the continent would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Unless...

Let the dragon appear on its own.

"Chief, the news has already been spread." Wen Yao knocked gently on the door and reported briefly.

Mu Heng nodded his head.

Wen Yao's expression was a little hesitant. "But...will the dragon come out?"

Mu Heng said indifferently, "It will."

— Dragon's obsession with treasure was almost written deep into the soul of this species. Since it had left the abyss to come to the continent in search of its lost treasure, it would not be able to ignore the news with such a clear direction. It would not be able to control its urges to come here, even if it knew it was a trap.

Treasures for dragons were like dragon hunting for him.

It was an irresistible instinct.

Wen Yao turned to walk out the door but halfway through her walk, she seemed to think of something suddenly, turned her head to look over, and cautiously asked, "Speaking of which, was the gift sent by the Aiwen District's leader for you a fire gem?"

Mu Heng's vision faltered for a moment.

A familiar figure appeared in his mind. Things had been so busy for some time, coupled with his deliberate dismissal, that Shi An's form had almost stopped appearing in front of his eyes. He had finally returned to his normal state, calm, efficient, and untouched by any emotion.

And now, the feeling of being disturbed reappeared without warning.

"Mm."

However, the expression on Mu Heng's face remained stoic and restrained and it didn't seem to fluctuate for even a little bit.

However, the man's long, slender knuckles curled up slightly and tapped on the tabletop.

This was a subconscious tic of his whenever he got annoyed.

"Then... if that fire gem is also a dragon's treasure as we guessed, will Shi An..." Wen Yao asked hesitantly.

Mu Heng's movements stopped.

A dead silence fell in the office.

He raised his eyes, the color of his eyes obscure, and although his voice was still smooth and calm, it took on a bit of unnoticeable impatience.

"Call the Ability Academy."