Dragon Taming at Tiandao Academy

Chapter 26: Dragon Taming at Tiandao Academy

One man and four foxes clutched the rope as it carried them into the sky. After a moment, they landed atop a broken cliff. This side of the cliff was steep as a blade, while the other was a gentle slope, where a brook babbled down from the hillside.

At the foot of the mountain, this brook merged with streams flowing down from other peaks, becoming a river that ran from west to east toward the valley.

Su Yun had never been here before. He did not dare move at all and repeatedly asked, "What do you see? What do you see?"

He had never come here before.

For the blind, every blind person had a map in their mind. Only the area where they lived was illuminated on that map; everywhere else was darkness and chaos.

Dragon Burial Mound was steep and perilous, difficult to climb. It was Su Yun's first time here. Though it was clearly an autumn afternoon and daylight remained, his mind was surrounded by darkness, filled with the unknown.

He desperately opened his eyes wide, but he could see nothing.

All he could sense was some primeval colossal beast crouching within that unknown darkness—ferocious and terrifying.

Panic gripped his heart, and he asked several more times, but no one around him answered.

Su Yun asked again and again. After a while, Flower Fox was the first to come back to his senses. He muttered, "Little Yun, we saw a dragon... There really is a dragon here!"

Only upon hearing his voice did Su Yun's heart settle.

Flower Fox carefully described the terrain of Dragon Burial Mound, helping Su Yun swiftly construct its geography in his mind. The other fox demons listened quietly from the side without interrupting. Whenever Flower Fox missed something, Hu Buping could not help adding a few words.

It was a habit formed over many years.

Ever since Flower Fox and Su Yun became classmates, it had mostly been Flower Fox who told Su Yun about the geography around Tianmen Town, then led him through it once. Only then did Su Yun become familiar with the surrounding terrain and avoid getting lost.

Their friendship was the closest.

One man spoke and one fox listened. Before long, Su Yun understood the rough geography of Dragon Burial Mound, and the map in his mind had gained a general outline.

There truly was a dragon within Dragon Burial Mound. His earlier sense that a primeval colossal beast was crouching in the darkness had indeed not been wrong.

Dragon Burial Mound lived up to its name: a dragon was buried here. Yet there was also something misleading about the name, because there was no dragon tomb here.

Dragon Burial Mound was merely a long earthen slope, two or three zhang high and roughly a hundred chi long, overgrown with trees and brambles.

The dragon that had fallen from the sky had crawled here from Fallen Dragon Valley, only to die of wounds too severe to heal. The nearby residents had probably buried it hastily, without building it a tomb.

After who knew how long of weathering, the dragon's bones had emerged from within the earthen slope, most of them exposed to the open air.

The dragon's skull in particular was almost entirely exposed. It was enormous, and trees that took two people to encircle even grew from its eye sockets.

Though the trees of Dragon Burial Mound formed a dense forest, strangely, there were no birds or beasts here. Not even a single insect could be seen!

Walking here made one's heart prickle, as though some incomparably savage primeval beast might leap out at any moment and rip one open from belly to chest.

"There are houses beside Dragon Burial Mound."

Flower Fox continued describing the scenery of Dragon Burial Mound. "They are wooden and stone structures—seven rooms in two buildings. One building with three rooms lies east of Dragon Burial Mound, while the other, with four rooms, lies to the west. The houses seem to have been abandoned for a long time. They are badly ruined, and the wood has nearly all rotted away. There are also some stone tablets on the mountain, and on the surrounding mountains as well. Some of them have already fallen over."

"Thank you, Second Brother Hua."

Su Yun formed the shape of those seven rooms in his mind, then turned his head and said, "This place is rarely visited by people. Why would there be houses here?"

Flower Fox was also quite puzzled. "Forget human tracks—there are not even beast tracks to be seen. This dragon is reduced to nothing but bones, yet its aura is still so fierce. Why would anyone choose to live here?"

Su Yun's heart stirred. This dead dragon could not possibly have been buried beside someone else's village, so the houses could only have been built later.

And if they had been built near Dragon Burial Mound, aside from guarding the tomb, there was only one possibility.

"Someone wanted to steal the dragon's corpse. But the corpse was too large, and they could not dig it out in a short time, so they built houses here."

Su Yun pondered. "The nearby people had neither kinship nor connection to this dragon. Naturally, they would not guard its tomb for it. Therefore, they could only have come to steal its corpse."

Hu Buping blurted out, "The dragon's bones are right here. Why did they not steal them away?"

"Perhaps it was too large for them to move. Or perhaps they suddenly died while excavating the dragon's corpse."

Flower Fox pondered. "After all, Earth Lord said that a dragon's spirit flew out and rescued The Whole Village Eats. After the dragon died, its Spiritual Nature likely continued guarding its own body."

Su Yun nodded. Flower Fox's guess made a great deal of sense.

They carefully walked down the slope toward Dragon Burial Mound. Su Yun cautiously followed Flower Fox, keeping his steps as steady as possible. "We must not try to dig out the dragon bones, nor can we take anything away. We are only going to inspect those houses. I heard Mister Shuijing say that some powerful people's Spiritual Natures can turn into Ghosts and Gods, and they are extremely vicious. But ghosts fear sunlight and do not appear during the day. Therefore, we must leave before the sun sets!"

The four demon foxes exchanged glances. Qingqiu Yue and Li Xiaofan hurriedly covered Hu Buping's mouth. Hu Buping made muffled noises as he thought, The Ghosts and Gods of Tianmen Town are fiercer than dragons. They even appear in broad daylight!

One man and four foxes arrived below Dragon Burial Mound and entered the first house.

This house had four rooms. Scattered bones lay on the ground, along with ornaments left behind after clothing had decayed into ash.

Su Yun crouched and felt around for a while, deep in thought. "Judging from the positions in which these bones fell, they must have suddenly encountered an unexpected disaster and hurriedly tried to flee outside. Yet the thing pursuing them was too fast. Before they could escape the house, they each died."

Flower Fox had made a discovery as well. "Their backs, ribs, and spines were severed. The cuts slanted downward, as if something extremely sharp had sliced them from behind. There were three such weapons, cutting down at the same time. The wounds were almost parallel. This person was cut into four pieces..."

Su Yun felt around and said, "There was no such weapon. These wounds were made by claws."

Flower Fox laughed. "Little Yun, how could a monster with incomparably sharp giant claws have appeared in the house together with these people? Though this cluster of houses is large, it could not possibly hold such a massive creature! Unless..."

"Unless it had no physical body."

Su Yun said, "A Spiritual Nature has no physical body. If it was a dragon claw, then that would be possible."

Flower Fox frowned tightly. "Let us look inside!"

What puzzled them was that the room was filled with desks, upon which lay scattered brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones. It did not resemble a grave robber's room at all, but rather the room of a Great Scholar steeped in books!

Regrettably, the brush tips here had all rotted away, while the paper had long since turned into mud.

"They did not come to steal the dragon's corpse!"

Su Yun suddenly said, "They were Scholars who came to Investigate Things to Gain Knowledge!"

Flower Fox froze, then came to the same realization. "Yes! When Mister Shuijing taught us Crocodile Dragon's Roar, he took us to Crocodile Dragon Pool to observe crocodile dragons—their forms, habits, and movements. We used the Great Furnace Transformation technique to drive our vital qi and blood, imitating the crocodile dragon, and used our self-awareness to visualize it. Mister Shuijing said this was called Investigating Things to Gain Knowledge: through observation and experimentation, one studied the essence and principles of things, thereby gaining knowledge."

The other three little foxes had also attended Mister Shuijing's lessons and immediately remembered.

Qingqiu Yue hurriedly said, "Mister Shuijing said that wealthy official academies often organize Scholars to find the divine beasts they need to visualize when studying a particular cultivation technique or divine ability, so they can observe, research, and learn from them. Could it be that Scholars came here to observe this dragon?"

Li Xiaofan looked at the bones covering the ground and frowned. "They came from Shuofang City? How did they die here?"

Su Yun felt a jade token beneath the rotted clothes of one skeleton. There was writing on it. He carefully felt over it once and said, "They came from an official academy called Tiandao Academy."

The fox demons crowded forward. Though the jade token was stained with dirt, it remained flawlessly white and untainted. It was clearly carved from priceless fine jade.

The front of the token bore the three words "Tiandao Academy," surrounded by Cloud and Thunder Patterns. The back was carved with a half-unfurled scroll, exquisitely detailed.

"There is an official academy in Shuofang City called Tiandao Academy? That is quite a grand name."

Flower Fox said, "The jade is of good quality. Perhaps it can be sold for a few Five Zhu Coins. Find a few more! We will certainly need money when we enter the city in the future!"

The fox demons searched everywhere and found several more jade tokens, all Tiandao Academy jade tokens. However, they were all damaged. Only the one Su Yun found was intact.

They found nothing else, so they left and headed for the second house.

That house stood on the other side near the dragon's tail. The two houses stood at its head and tail respectively, likely so they could observe different parts of the dragon.

A few hundred steps beyond the dragon's tail lay a sunken valley. Flower Fox leaned over to take a look and saw enormous claw marks on both walls of the valley!

Every claw mark cut several chi deep into the stone walls and stretched several zhang long. The stone looked as if it had been sliced by the sharpest blade, a shocking sight.

They had guessed correctly. The dragon that fell from the sky had landed in Fallen Dragon Valley. Using its final strength, it struggled and crawled all the way here, then breathed its last.

"What could have wounded such a divine dragon and caused it to die here?" Flower Fox muttered.

They arrived outside the second house and were about to enter when they suddenly saw a man in black limping toward them. The four foxes cried out together and each assumed a defensive stance.

"Senior Snake."

Su Yun's heart stirred. He bowed and said, "Senior invited us to attend the ceremony last night. We juniors observed for a long time and gained much from it. Thank you for looking after us."

Flower Fox was greatly startled and whispered, "Little Yun, are you saying he is The Whole Village Eats? Why has he changed his appearance?"