[Note up front: Thanks for the correction. I took another look at the Peerless Tang Sect manga, and He Caitou's getup really doesn't count as the kind of mecha seen in Legend of the Dragon King. It's more like powered armor.]
By the time Rus Wang and Ximing successfully reached Dragon Valley Continent, a month had passed since the Giant Mountain Golden Ape and the Turquoise Dragon had held their meeting.
"This journey was brutal. It was only a few thousand kilometers, but it felt like we'd entered a maze and were going around in circles. Back then, Yanjin had to carry me and tough it out at the same time. It's a wonder he didn't eat me."
Ximing looked back at the route they had taken, still shaken by the memory.
Dragons—even those under a hundred thousand years old—sometimes preyed on their own kind. And Ximing and Yanjin belonged to different Dragon Race species. That made Yanjin's determination back then all the more terrifying.
"All right, Ximing. With me here, you don't need to worry about any of that. Just rest easy."
Rus Wang took out his homemade Soul Guidance drone and tablet, and reassured Ximing as he settled down to rest. Today, Rus Wang had decided to let Ximing take the day off while he kept watch.
Once dawn came and Ximing had rested, Rus Wang would take a quick nap himself, using the Seer Elf stamina-bar recovery mechanism to get back in shape.
"Then I'm counting on you, Rus."
"Mm."
Ximing lay down beside Rus Wang. His heavy eyelids could no longer be held open by sheer willpower, and soon closed. Within minutes, he was snoring.
Beneath the night sky, two dragons were together.
"Ah-choo!"
Thalassa suddenly sneezed so violently that she nearly blew all the annual summary reports off the desk in front of the Elf officials.
"Sorry, I lost control, Elena."
Looking at the reports scattered all over the Throne Hall, Thalassa sheepishly helped Elena gather them up with Soul Power.
In the Elf Kingdom, where the monarch was often offline, the prime minister wasn't chosen through party elections. Instead, senior civil servants were selected through examinations, and then voted to choose the prime minister. In other words, the position went to a highly experienced civil servant, so the prime minister was exceptionally qualified.
Later, Osuen suggested extending the prime minister's term from six years to eight. The change gave the prime minister's office more policy continuity. Previously, a prime minister had only one year to devise new policies, another to test them in selected regions, and a third to review and correct any flaws. Two years were then spent rolling them out nationwide, leaving only the final year to focus entirely on winning reelection.
Of course, having civil servants choose such a capable prime minister also brought out a certain bureaucratic talent for going through the motions. The prime minister, several senior officials, and the chief justice made up the Permanent Secretariat, which dealt with Rus Wang, who was often offline, and Queen Thalassa, who only occasionally helped Rus review the annual summary reports.
In short, the Permanent Secretariat sorted the annual reports submitted by lower-level departments, and offered Rus Wang and Queen Thalassa expert recommendations to help them decide what to approve and understand how the kingdom was developing overall.
"Oh no, this is a mess. The secretaries had already organized the annual reports so neatly, and now they're all jumbled up. Elena, have them sort everything again."
Thalassa looked at the reports that had been mixed together—the Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Defense, among others. Her head began to ache, so she asked Elena to take them to the prime minister and have them sorted again.
"Of course, Aunt Thalassa."
Before long, the Permanent Secretariat had resorted the mixed annual reports and brought them back to Thalassa. She quickly read through the documents, which would otherwise have taken several hours to process. The secretaries had thoughtfully attached a briefing to each sorted report, summarizing its key points and offering professional recommendations.
Thalassa only had to read the first page to understand the report's full contents. Unlike Rus Wang, she didn't go to such lengths as holding a report down for days while the Elves of the Grey Feather Division cross-checked the officials' claims against what they had observed over the year.
Thalassa gave the reports the secretaries had sorted a quick approval stamp, without giving the matter another thought.
"Work's done. Come on, Liana, let's go play mahjong."
In a single day, Thalassa finished the annual reports that usually took Rus Wang a week or two to review. Fortunately, the strongest member of the Grey Feather Division, its Grand Mentor, also belonged to the Permanent Secretariat. Even so, the prime minister and chief justice wouldn't dare falsify too many reports under her watch.
But the king and queen of the Elf Kingdom were both dragons. Surely the Elf Soul Masters and officials below them had some complaints?
As it turned out, they didn't. As the older generations of Elves passed away, Rus Wang's original protection of the Elves should, in theory, have lost much of its influence. But after the Elves had gone through a Soul Master revolt of their own making, they had come to understand what it meant to have dragons as their king and queen.
Rus Wang truly had the power to govern, and was a spiritual leader among the Elves—not a figurehead. But he rarely interfered in Elf affairs, leaving the Elf officials to handle things themselves. He was a king who only read the annual reports they wrote.
After all, the nationwide revolt had gone on for almost a full year. If the Soul Masters of the Grey Feather Division hadn't gone into the Nanshan Rainforest to tell Rus Wang how badly the prime minister was neglecting the Elves, he really might have waited until the annual review to visit Temple Mountain in Ravenna and hear the prime minister's report. The Grand Mentor of the Grey Feather Division had been added to the Permanent Secretariat as a rule born from that painful lesson.
Everyone knew that when the Elves' affairs were neglected, it was the civil servants' fault—not the king's. Even Elf children knew that.
What's more, Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts had all taken human form and settled in Elf cities, while Mental Contract Law had spread among the Elves. They had come to understand Soul Beasts thoroughly.
Soul Beasts with low cultivation levels were not much different from wild animals like Allosauruses—top predators of the Jurassic period and native to Folded Ear Continent, which Elves had often fought against in tribal times and still fought today. They had emotions and thoughts to a degree, but could only communicate with difficulty through a Mental Contract. Soul Beasts with higher cultivation levels were entirely different from wild animals. Their minds truly developed over time, and as their cultivation increased, communication through the Mental World grew more and more like a conversation between Elves.
But comparison made all the difference.
The Elves' verdict was clear: when it came to Mental Contracts, they preferred the king's descendants over ordinary Soul Beasts.
Even when Rus Wang's children were only ten years old, they could speak fluent Elvish (Chinese). Their intelligence then developed gradually, just like that of an ordinary Elf child. After thirty-odd years, aside from their bodies, they were no different from a grown Elf. Ordinary ten- or hundred-year Soul Beasts—and even some thousand-year ones—were no different from household pets in either their thinking or their behavior.
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