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Deep underground.
When Mai Shutoku and Zero followed the direction of the light and came to the depths of this strange tomb-like building, they finally understood the source of the light.
"Dong——"
The ground seemed to be shaking slightly, and the terrible pressure made Mai Shutoku hold her breath and swallow.
What was in front of her at this moment was a huge sphere wrapped in countless blood threads. From the shape, it looked like a developing 'egg'.
This is undoubtedly what they are looking for - dragon eggs.
At this moment, the dragon egg was beating like a developing embryo, and every beat seemed to affect the entire space.
Mai Shutoku looked nervously at the 'blood threads' wrapped around the eggs. They were not simple threads, but hollow tubes in which a crimson red liquid like blood flowed. The strangest thing was this crimson liquid. It is exuding a suffocating light.
This beating 'dragon egg' is like a strong heart growing deep in the earth. Every time it beats, it absorbs a large amount of nutrients from the earth, and the light underground is the light flowing from the earth's veins.
But what puzzled Mai Shutoku was...the leyline lava should be extremely hot, but the surrounding temperature was horribly low, as if all the heat had been absorbed by the dragon egg in front of her.
A flickering light revealed the terrifying shadow hidden within the giant embryo.
The shadow curled up into a ball, like a sleeping baby.
But Mai Shutoku didn't think this was a cute creature like a baby. What was sleeping among them should be the most violent and ruthless terrifying species in the world. 'Cocooning' is not a 'power' that all dragons can possess. The person in front of them at this moment is at least a dragon noble of 'third generation' or above.
"Potato chips... I think we have found our target this time." Cold sweat broke out on Mai Shutoku's forehead.
"What did you...find?"
Hearing the nervousness in Jiude Mai's tone, Su Enxi swallowed her saliva subconsciously.
"Dragon eggs."
Before Mai Shutoku could answer, Zero gave a rare answer, "And it's a dragon that is in the process of transforming into a cocoon... It looks like it's at the last moment."
Zero's voice was as cold as the surrounding air, stating the facts that Mai Shutoku was unwilling to face.
When dragons transform into cocoons, they will produce a large number of these 'blood vessels', which absorb and devour everything around them, including nutrients and various elements, to build their huge dragon bodies.
Re-condensing the dragon body from the 'human form' requires an extremely large amount of energy, and their recovery is an extremely long process, perhaps hundreds of years, perhaps thousands of years.
This is almost a new reincarnation from 'death' to 'life'.
They gave up their past human-shaped 'life' and re-condensed their embryos to become giant dragons. Just like the development of a baby embryo, the more complete it is, the more active it will be, and the more active it is - it proves that it is closer to awakening.
No one can predict the exact time for the dragon clan to revive. Judging from the current situation, it may take decades or it may wake up in the next second.
However, this is not good news for Mai Shutori and Zero who are here. There is nowhere to escape here. If this unknown dragon wakes up at this moment, then the only way to wait for them is death.
In short, Mai Shutoku didn't dare to move at all now.
She was afraid that if she wasn't careful, she would wake up the sleeping dragon baby in advance.
But unfortunately...the boss gave them the task of coming here to wake up this noble.
"So what do you think we should do now? Potato chips."
"Um...this..."
Su Enxi pondered for a moment, "Maybe you should look for a way to get out of there first?"
"Oh...I think so..."
Mai Shutoku sighed.
A mission is a mission. Although the boss may not care about their life and death, they are on the front line after all. As long as they are not fools, they will probably want to go back alive. Before awakening this giant dragon, you must first find a way out. ?
But soon she understood a little bit why the boss insisted on asking Zero and the girl followed suit.
"Hey hey hey! Sanwu, what do you want to do!?"
Seeing Zero stupidly preparing to walk towards the dragon egg, Mai Shutoku quickly stopped him.
"On mission."
Faced with Mai Shutoku's question, Zero answered calmly.
"Well... of course the mission must be carried out, but you should prepare first, right?"
Mai Shutoku was a little embarrassed.
Fortunately, part of her attention was always focused on this girl, otherwise this problem would be really big.
Should I say she is worthy of being the boss’s good girl? You can carry out any task without any worries, even if there are mountains of swords and seas of fire ahead.
She even suspected that the boss had directly ordered this girl to die, and the other party would cut off her neck with a knife without hesitation.
This cold personality and no-nonsense approach to action are simply a perfect 'tool'.
"what to prepare?"
Zero asked calmly, "We have nothing but the dagger in our hands now. Is there anything else we need to prepare?"
"..."
Mai Shutoku was silent.
She asked why the boss wanted them to travel lightly. Was that the original idea?
There is no equipment, there is no so-called insurance, and naturally there is no need to make any preparations.
If all this is in the boss's plan, then they actually have only one way to go from the moment they dive.
"He said someone would pick us up."
Zero motioned to Mai Shutoku, who was standing in front of him, to step aside, "So now we should do what we should do."
"well……"
Mai Shutoku sighed.
Among the three of them, this girl is probably the only one who can believe what the boss says without hesitation.
Of course, it's not that she doesn't trust her boss, it's just that people's lives are at stake now.
Deep in such a place where she doesn't know where she is, should she also place her hopes on the boss's illusory 'guarantee'?
Will someone come to pick them up? Who?
She couldn't think of anyone who could pick them up from a real dragon after they awakened the guy in front of them.
After all, this is the first time she has seen a real dragon egg. As for how powerful the being in this embryo is after it wakes up? At least in the hundreds of years of history when the Dragon Clan did not exist, no one could know about it.
"What should we do now..."
Mai Jutoku complained to Su Enxi on the other end of the intercom.
She actually wanted to stop Zero's movements, but was there any difference between stopping and not stopping in this place? A fight in front of this embryo would also wake up this terrible guy.
No, it should be said that from the moment they came in front of the embryo, there was no question of whether to wake it up or not.
From just now, she has been feeling that the dragon blood in her body is boiling uncontrollably.
This is an influence that comes from the bloodline, and there is no way to escape it.
The beating embryo in front of me might have already noticed their arrival.
"What else can be done?"
Su Enxi sounded helpless, "Did you try to find the exit on the way here?"
"I looked for it, but it's not there." Mai Shutoku replied angrily.
In response to this, Su Enxi could only spread her hands, "Then this is the only way. Even if you don't do anything, you will be trapped in it."
"Who wouldn't want to live a little longer?" Mai Shutoku complained.
"Three nothings." Su Enxi gave the answer without hesitation.
"tnnd, if I had known I would have come down alone."
Mai Shutoku covered her face.
As a ninja, she is actually better at acting alone, but her boss said that this task was very difficult, so he sent her a helper.
She thought that it would be easier to work with one more person, which was better than having one person squeezed out of the labor force, so she agreed without thinking.
In the end, I didn’t expect that guy to have such an idea!
"I hope everything goes according to the boss's plan..."
Now Mai Shutoku can only place her hopes on the boss who is so "knowledgeable".
"If you don't give me a salary increase after this mission, I will run away."
"You'd better think of a way to come back first..."
Su Enxi's tone suddenly became serious, "I feel like we may have made something wrong from the beginning."
"What?"
Mai Shutoku followed Zero and cautiously approached the embryo.
She couldn't think of anything worse than her current situation.
"It is said that this is the place where Zhengzhang Daoling made alchemy, but that is just a legend after all. Now think about it carefully..." Su Enxi's restless voice tapping on the table came from the other end of the headset, "According to your description, this embryo was perfectly preserved and hatched. It went extremely smoothly and even reached the last moment, which shows that no one has ever used it for anything, let alone used it to 'make elixirs'..."
"That's right...making something into elixir...it sounds cruel." Mai Shutoku also frowned, "But it seems to be quite normal in terms of human greed. If that right person is really He is about to become an immortal, so it may not be impossible to use dragon embryos to make elixirs. After all, in order to pursue the legendary realm, who knows whether the Taoist priest can maintain the bottom line of mankind? And after all... humans and dragons are mortal enemies. , after practicing it, that’s the right path, right?”
"But the current situation is that this embryo developed normally and has no trace of any influence, let alone being used to make elixirs." Su Enxi said, "So that legend is simply not true."
"Legends are just legends after all. If it's fake, it's fake. What's so surprising?" Mai Jiude didn't understand what Su Enxi was worried about.
"Do you still remember what I mentioned when I told you about that legend?" Sun Xi asked.
"Which sentence?" Mai Shutoku rolled her eyes. There were so many sentences in a story, how could she know which sentence this girl was referring to?
"When the elixir is completed, the dragon and tiger appear."
A rustling sound came from the other end of the headset. It seemed that Su Enxi, who was outside the battlefield, was not idle either. It was obvious that she was looking through various ancient books to find clues.
"boom--"
The sound of book pages closing sounded, and the channel suddenly became quiet.
"What's wrong?"
Mai Shutoku was stunned.
"I suspect... this sentence may not refer to the result of the alchemy produced by Zhengtao Taoist at that time." Su Enxi's tone was extremely solemn, "but a 'fable'."
"What's the meaning?"
"Hypothesis, I mean hypothesis..." Su Enxi put forward a hypothesis with some hesitation, "If the legendary 'alchemy' is not the 'alchemy' we understand, what else do you think 'alchemy' can mean..."
"I didn't know this..."
Mai Shutoku was about to say that she didn't know much about these things and it was impossible to know, but she paused.
It wasn't that she recalled something, but that the things in front of her couldn't help but make her think a lot.
Her attention had been focused on the beating embryo, so when Su Enxi mentioned what else could 'alchemy' mean, a terrible thought popped up in her mind for no apparent reason.
"Cocooning."
"Yes..." Su Enxi agreed, "If the legend is reinterpreted in this way... the Zheng Taoist who made alchemy may be refining himself..."
"Shit!"
Mai Shutoku couldn't help but curse.
Without the other party's explanation, she has probably figured out the truth of the legend.
Is there anyone making alchemy here? From beginning to end, there are no 'people' here! Some have only one dragon, a giant dragon in human form!
Then maybe it's time to change the explanation of 'becoming an immortal'.
The legendary Zhengdao man may not have been a human in the first place. He was just a dragon who practiced as a human. However, his practice reached a bottleneck, so here he turned into a dragon again!
What does this mean?
This means that the giant dragon in front of them is not forced to form a cocoon due to 'defeat' or other special reasons. In other words, if this dragon wakes up, what they will face will be a powerful ancient dragon!
"When the elixir is completed, the dragon and the tiger appear, it is a prophecy. When the elixir is completed, it means 'breaking out of the cocoon', so 'the dragon and the tiger appear'..." Su Enxi's voice was trembling.
"It means 'return'!"
Mai Shutoku looked at the huge embryo so close and felt that her heart was about to stop beating.
They should indeed wake up this dragon here in advance.
Because if a 'third-generation species' or even a 'second-generation species' is allowed to fully hatch and return in full bloom... Longhu Mountain is now a scenic spot!
"So the boss wants us to be 'heroes'? I feel like this is completely overestimating us..."
Mai Shutoku's face was full of helplessness.
"It's not enough for small-framed women like us to wake up a sleeping dragon. It's simply not enough to send it up and stuff it between people's teeth!"
"No, no, no, maybe this is the prelude to 'Dragon Quest' in the boss's script?" Su Enxi responded with a wry smile, "'Her Royal Highness' fed the dragon with her own body in order to prevent the dragon from causing harm to the world, and the 'brave' Maybe you’re on your way now?”
"Which one of us do you think looks like a princess?" Mai Shutoku asked angrily.
"Anyway, you don't look like..." Su Enxi said helplessly, "Anyway... all you can do now is pray that the brave man will come soon..."
