Chapter 289 - 199: Choose One!

Long Yi and Mina accompanied Ai Lin to the Dragon God Temple, but strangely, the old black dragon Tyl was not there. A priest told Long Yi that Tyl had some personal affairs to deal with, so he wasn’t there. However, he had already instructed them to pick whatever they wanted.

Since they were told to choose freely, Long Yi wouldn’t be shy, leading Ai Lin to peruse around the great hall of dragon eggs. Bajie followed behind Long Yi, drooling at the sight of the dragon eggs. Xiaoyou rested on Bajie’s head, looking disdainfully at the surrounding dragon eggs. Xiaoyou utterly disdained these flying dragons that needed Dragon Knights.

Inside the Dragon God Temple, selecting dragon eggs wasn’t something to be taken lightly. The opportunity exchangeable with one hundred thousand academic credits was only applicable to ordinary dragon eggs. Of course, this doesn’t imply that ordinary dragon eggs aren’t good. The most suitable is always the best. However, in some advanced rooms, there are dragon eggs with particularly strong attributes. If chosen, they can significantly enhance the chances of success in future battles!

After a lap, Long Yi didn’t find the hidden room he had discovered before and ultimately gave up. After all, Ai Lin was making the selection, not him. It seemed like the previous intuition was no longer there.

Ai Lin walked amidst the group of dragon eggs, carefully sensing the responses of the eggs around her. As Ai Lin already had a Dragon Mark, almost no dragon egg was willing to respond to her. The translucent silver light fluttered around Ai Lin, occasionally emitting a sound, but still, no egg was willing to respond to her.

After making two rounds, Ai Lin smiled helplessly at Long Yi, "I’m sorry, Brother Long. I wasted your hundred thousand academic credits."

Long Yi shook his head and said, "Silly girl, how could this be called a waste? These damn eggs don’t know what a truly outstanding Dragon Knight is. If they meet as enemies on the battlefield and get beheaded, they will know their mistake."

"That’s right, a bunch of idiots!" Mina also echoed Long Yi’s words.

Long Yi’s disdainful behavior immediately drew the unanimous disgust of the surrounding dragon eggs, resulting in a feeling of rejection.

However, just then, a dragon egg rolled to Ai Lin’s feet.

It was not even as big as a fist, which should be considered miniature for dragon eggs. But the egg was covered with intricate runes, and as Ai Lin’s mana circulated, the runes kept flickering.

This egg hadn’t been seen before, and all the other dragon eggs stood on pedestals, none of which had been knocked down by anyone. So, what’s going on?

"This rune, is it a lock?"

Ai Lin was completely puzzled.

A lock?

Long Yi also came over and found that this was completely beyond his expertise. He was skilled in breaking magic, but he couldn’t crack rune locks. This was similar to a hacker who can sneak into someone else’s computer but can’t unlock a locked door.

Ai Lin looked down at the egg, touched a few runes with her finger and slid it a few times. With a soft click, the dragon egg cracked open a gap, and the egg grew a bit larger!

"Stop it!"

A priest hurried over. But almost at the same time, a sudden change occurred!

"Ahahaha! I have finally awakened!" A figure filled with black smoke soared into the sky, instantly covering the entire temple with its huge figure!

Ghost Dragon!

The Dragon Clan has a unique way of dealing with life and death. When each dragon is close to death, it will hear the call of the Dragon Tomb. The dragon returns to the Dragon Tomb, passively awaiting its death. The bodies of deceased dragons gradually disappear in the Dragon Tomb, their knowledge enters the Sky-top Library, and the Dragon Soul reincarnates into a new dragon. Therefore, theoretically, the death of a dragon is just a new beginning rather than a true demise.

However, there are exceptions.

If the knowledge of a dragon is not stripped from the Dragon Soul, it will become a free entity with the powerful strength of the Dragon Clan - a Ghost Dragon.

A Ghost Dragon is made up of Dragon Power and although it still shares the Dragons’ inability to release skills, mere emission of Dragon Power is enough to eliminate most enemies. However, without a body to recover Dragon Power, Ghost Dragons often occupy dragon bodies to replenish themselves.

Now, in the Ghost Dragon’s eyes, only Ai Lin remained.

The silver light merged with Ai Lin. The silver light voluntarily relinquished its body, staying within Ai Lin’s body in the form of a Dragon Soul. However, at this moment, the silver light was outside, leaving a spot for a soul in Ai Lin’s body.

This was practically prepared for the Ghost Dragon!

Therefore, the Ghost Dragon didn’t even bother looking at those nearby and dived directly at Ai Lin. The sky full of black shadows disappeared into Ai Lin. Ai Lin’s entire body turned black, her silver scales turned black, her eyes became pitch black, and she continued to emit black smoke.

"Ha! My new body!"

The hoarse voice roared, and the Ghost Dragon excitedly looked at its hands.

"Your new body?" Ai Lin’s voice sounded again. "This is Silverlight’s and mine!"

Ai Lin stood still suddenly, her body alternating between black and silver.

"Little Zi, help!" Long Yi called softly, and the eager Little Zi happily came to Ai Lin’s side, placing both hands on Ai Lin’s forehead.

"Come on, little dragon, let’s see whose mental power is stronger!" Little Zi said, launching a mental blast directly at the Ghost Dragon inside Ai Lin’s body.

If it’s a simple matter of mental strength, the Ghost Dragon would undoubtedly be stronger. However, the Ghost Dragon inherited the Dragon Clan’s perennial misfortune – it couldn’t employ any techniques. Although Little Zi’s mental power was weaker, she could make up for it with techiques.

With Ai Lin’s resistance, Silverlight’s effort, and Little Zi’s mental bombardment, Ai Lin’s body turned back to silver in an instant!

"Get out! Of my body!"

With a loud shout from Ai Lin, a semi-transparent black dragonet was ejected from her body. Little Zi reacted quickly, following up with a Spirit Cage to trap the Dragon Soul.

At this point, this Black Dragon had completely lost all its Dragon Power, and its mental power was in shambles. It looked confused for a moment, then began to scream, "My Dragon Power! My mental power! Give them back to me!"

Dragon Power? Mental Power?

Long Yi glanced at Ai Lin, only to see black marks appearing on her face, like spider webs!

"Damn it!" Long Yi roared. "We need to go!"

With that, Long Yi grabbed Ai Lin and charged towards the secret chamber of the Dragon God’s Temple.

Tyl had taken Long Yi here many times before. This place had excellent defenses, capable of withstanding the Dragon Breath of a Black Dragon head-on without any problems.

Once the door of the secret chamber was shut, Ai Lin began to shudder with pain!

Ai Lin was beginning to evolve!

Yes, evolve. That’s the only word Long Yi could use. Because the Dragon Power inside Ai Lin now far exceeded what her body could handle.

All of this was because of the Ghost Dragon.

The Ghost Dragon was indeed a dragon, its body condensed from Dragon Power, which entered Ai Lin’s body. It instinctively treated Ai Lin’s body as its new host, not destroying her body but rather merging its own Dragon Power with Ai Lin’s.

However, a problem arose.

Ai Lin’s Mana was only at the nineteenth level, while the Ghost Dragon was an old, dead dragon, its Dragon Power immense. The influx of Dragon Power pushed Ai Lin’s own Dragon Power to startling heights.

So now, Ai Lin, who was already a Half-Dragon, had been forced by external pressures to cross a Rune of Mana threshold, beginning her evolution.

Long Yi wasn’t sure what Ai Lin’s evolution would be like. Dragon Clan members evolved with dramatic special effects and considerable destructive power. Some dragons would go through a period of disorientation immediately after their evolution, attacking those around them aimlessly. Therefore, Long Yi had no choice but to bring Ai Lin to the secret chamber of Tyl, the Black Dragon. The place was robust enough to prevent significant damage even if a fight broke out.

"Mina, if anything looks off, find a place to hide. Golem, if she goes berserk, help subdue her. Little Zi, prepare a calming spell. Bajie, you need to stop eating and focus, we’re dealing with serious business here."

As Long Yi gave his instructions, Ai Lin curled up in agony. A set of tiny wings suddenly sprouted from her back, transforming into a pair of massive dragon wings that enveloped her. Then, black air flowed out of her, wrapping her up like a cocoon.

Sounds came intermittently from within the cocoon, sounds of pain, sounds of pleasure, and sounds of crystals breaking. Suddenly, two gaps opened in the cocoon, and two fist-sized Crystal Cores were thrown out.

It seemed that during the evolution, the Crystal Core armaments were rejected as foreign objects.

However, the two Crystal Cores contained traces of fresh blood, suggesting that they weren’t completely severed from Ai Lin. Long Yi picked them up and watched carefully. On the whole, Ai Lin’s transformation seemed to be under control.

But the process was slow.

A member of the Dragon Clan would usually seek an open space when they evolved because they grew from a dragonet to an adult dragon, a change in size that required the absorption of a large amount of elements from the surroundings. The most common way was to find a spot with mountains and water, which would be somewhat drained once the dragon finished evolving.

Unlike them, Ai Lin’s body size hadn’t changed much during her transformation, which was different from a typical evolution.

"The evolution has paused. Little Zi, put that Dragon Soul inside the cocoon," Golem suddenly said.

"What? No way! That Dragon Soul will cause trouble!" Long Yi worriedly retorted.

"Rest easy, in its current state, the Dragon Soul and even a Giant’s soul would be considered food!" Golem insisted.

Little Zi promptly threw the Spirit Cage at the black cocoon; as soon as the cage struck the cocoon, the Dragon Soul was sucked inside.

Suddenly, the Dragon Soul tried to escape from the cocoon, exposing half of its body!

"No! Don’t absorb me! No! Take my Dragon Power! Take my mental power! Please don’t!"

However, the Dragon Soul couldn’t escape and disappeared into the black cocoon.

Finally, the cocoon began to writhe.

The surface started to melt, turning into black, sticky fluid that flowed down. Slowly, Ai Lin’s white body emerged from the cocoon.

Her black hair and pale skin looked virtually unchanged.

Except for the two pitch-black dragon horns on her forehead. (To be continued. If you like this work, please vote and donate on qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users can access m.qidian.com to read.)