[Heads-up: The setting for Soul Beast cultivation ages is based on Baidu Baike: Soul Beasts are divided into seven levels—ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years, a hundred thousand years, Ferocious Beasts, and a million years—according to their actual cultivation age (cultivation age ≠ lifespan).]
Year 30 of the Levant calendar.
The Female Water Dragon had been a little troubled lately. Based on her experience, when she had been twenty years old back on the Old Continent, her cultivation age had only been a little over three hundred years. She had been so weak she couldn't even beat the fish in the water. So, naturally, her five offspring should have been just like her: still unable to live independently in their twenties.
But the rich natural energy of this New Continent had completely overturned her understanding.
"This doesn't make sense. Why are they growing so fast?"
Thalassa, in human form, sat in the courtyard outside Ravenna, the capital of the Elf Kingdom, sipping juice. She had a newspaper she'd picked up that morning in her hand, but with the kids around, she hadn't been in the mood to read it.
Perhaps she simply couldn't stand listening any longer. Xingyue, the Dark Night Dragon, had also overcome the hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Tribulation with Rus Wang's help. The third strongest in the Nanshan Rainforest, she had taken human form years ago. Now, lounging on another deck chair, she spoke up.
"Come on, Sis Thalassa. Isn't it a good thing that the kids are growing up?"
"The problem is, none of my five kids are even thirty, and they've already got cultivation ages of over three thousand years. That growth rate isn't normal, is it?"
"Oh."
Xingyue's reaction was mild.
"You're just going to say 'oh'? Xingyue, at least say something."
Thalassa felt that her best friend had no idea how serious this was. Wasn't it a big deal that her kids had cultivation ages of over a thousand years before they'd even turned thirty?
"Thalassa, when I first came here, my cultivation age was only a little over sixty thousand years. After a decade or so, it shot up by over thirty thousand years, and I broke through the hundred-thousand-year mark. You'd been here five years when you went from over eighty thousand years to over a hundred thousand. Compare your kids to us, and you'll react just like I did."
As she spoke, Xingyue picked up the newspaper Thalassa had bought from the table beside her. She unfolded it and began to read, stretching out on the deck chair.
"Folded Ear Continent really is a place that raises dragons. I'd say your kids are growing at a snail's pace. It took them twenty-six years to reach a cultivation age of just over three thousand years. Though, considering they can speak Elvish without having taken human form, maybe their growth is just heading in the wrong direction. They're developing their brains instead."
Xingyue paused.
"Thalassa, there's something I'm not sure I should say. Shouldn't your kids be driven out of the Core Circle of the Nanshan Rainforest by now? They've got cultivation ages of over three thousand years. When my mother drove me out of the Douluo Continent Forest Mixed Zone, I was already over fifty, but my cultivation age was only a little over two thousand years."
"I haven't decided yet. Their cultivation ages may be high, but they're nowhere near mature. My husband's too carefree, letting them run around with the elves."
"What's the big deal? Elves aren't humans. These days, elves all over the place have cultivation levels around ten or twenty, and they got there just by eating, drinking, and having fun without a care. Besides, Sis Thalassa, have you ever seen them obtain Soul Rings? I've been watching in secret, and I haven't seen it happen once. Even when their army goes out to exterminate Hundred-Year Soul Beasts that haven't developed their intelligence, and Soul Rings emerge from the corpses, the elves can stand right beside them and the Soul Rings still won't enter their bodies."
"That happens?"
Xingyue's words eased Thalassa's worries about the elves harming her children.
"Rus appointed Youlan, the Fear Demon Dragon, and me as Eagle Eye Guards. We're responsible for secretly monitoring the officials, which naturally includes the military. Do you think I'd make that up? Besides, your kids have cultivation ages of over three thousand years. The iron weapons in the elves' hands can't even scratch them. So don't worry."
Looking at Xingyue, who no longer seemed to have a shred of concern, Thalassa thought back over the past twenty-six years. Her five kids had wandered into the Elf Kingdom whenever they pleased, only for her and her husband to roar at them and drag them home.
"I suppose you're right."
If the elves had really wanted to harm her kids, they could have done it when they were vulnerable, between one and five years old. But they hadn't. Even during the year the elves broke out into civil war, they'd made no move against her children.
"In that case, Xingyue..."
Thalassa seemed to have made up her mind.
"What?"
Xingyue still hadn't realized how serious this was.
"It's time to put our plan to expand the Dragon Race into action."
Thalassa said it with a straight face, though she couldn't possibly have been serious.
"Wait, Thalassa. You were just worried about letting the kids go. Now you're trying to trap a wolf?"
"Then let me ask you this, Xingyue. In all the years you've been on Folded Ear Continent, have you met any other male dragons besides Rus?"
"...No, I guess I haven't."
Xingyue fell into thought, then became conflicted, and finally admitted the painful truth.
Since settling on Folded Ear Continent, her life had been peaceful without humans hunting her. But she was still a dragon, after all. With the deadly threats gone, she could no longer hold back the urges she'd once been forced to suppress.
"That's more like it."
Thalassa turned to look at the isolated peak surrounded by the city. Its slopes held many magnificent marble buildings. It was the most important administrative center of the Elf Kingdom, whose people were steadily migrating and clearing land across the Central Plateau of Folded Ear Continent.
Her husband, Rus, was somewhere in one of those buildings, listening to the prime minister—who managed the kingdom on her behalf—report on the kingdom's governance over the past six months.
At that moment, in the Throne Hall of the royal palace, which also served as the prime minister's office, a dragon and an elf were going over the Elf Kingdom's year-end report.
"This year, national tax revenue totaled 1.4 million silver coins and 549,200 copper coins. We also collected 41,000 sheep, 38,000 pigs, and 3.12 million tons of various grains, spices, and salt. Including the elves you sheltered from the southern part of the continent, the country's total elf population is 2.8342 million."
As the kingdom's second prime minister in sixteen years, Light had approached this task with tremendous enthusiasm. He had once been the chief of a tribe back in the tribal era. Though his current work kept him busy, it was still a comfortable life.
As prime minister, he also had more opportunities to meet Rus Wang, which was a rare privilege.
"So the average elf produces more than a thousand kilograms of grain?"
As a Seer Elf capable of using Soul Power, Rus Wang could take human form. But he felt that doing so would cost him his dignity as a dragon, so he usually reduced his size to two meters and sat on the throne to hear his prime minister's reports. This time was no different.
"Yes, Your Majesty. Thanks to the state-owned cattle farms planned and built by former Prime Minister Evans, as well as the government's policy of distributing heavy iron plows to every farming household for free, agriculture has become our most outstanding achievement."
"Excellent, Light. Now give me an update on entertainment."
Rus Wang looked over the impressive figures on the page and compared them with the values on his system screen. After confirming they matched, he asked about something that wasn't covered by the system but was just as important.
"Yes, Your Majesty. Thanks to your suggestion, we've used large-scale events that require organized management, such as football and horse-racing leagues, to increase movement between regions. Small games like Monopoly and Reversi are also gradually spreading to the bathhouses in every city-state and town."
"Good. They'll help keep some bored young people occupied. If they go looking for thrills in the Nanshan Rainforest every day and pick fights with Soul Beasts that haven't even developed their intelligence, they're just throwing their lives away."
Suddenly, someone knocked on the door of the Throne Hall. Rus Wang and Prime Minister Light looked over.
"Come in."
At Rus Wang's permission, the guards opened the door, revealing Lingyi, the Azure Abyss Holy Dragon. A few years earlier, she too had overcome the hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Tribulation with Rus Wang's help. Now in human form, she held a document and had come to report something to him.
"My king, this concerns your private affairs."
At that, Prime Minister Light glanced at Rus Wang. Once he saw the king's permission, he hurried out. The door closed, leaving only Rus Wang and Lingyi in the Throne Hall.
"Go on. What trouble have my kids gotten into this time?"
Rus Wang didn't even need to guess. It had to be his five children sneaking over to his friend Osuen's place to play with his kids and accidentally wrecking the house again.
"Not quite, Your Majesty. More precisely, it concerns you."
"?"
"Lady Thalassa says she has a cat in the courtyard and would like you to come have a look."
Lingyi spoke with a perfectly straight face, showing no emotion.
"A cat? What's there to see? Still, all right. I'll head over now."
Rus Wang flew to the courtyard outside the city, where his wife, Thalassa, had already been waiting for quite some time.
"Xiao Ta, Lingyi said you got a cat? Did you learn that from the elves?"
Seeing that his wife had been waiting for him, Rus Wang didn't ask why her best friend was missing from the courtyard. Instead, he asked about what Lingyi had told him.
"Actually, it's right inside. Come and have a look, Rus."
"Of course."
Rus Wang didn't suspect a thing. He and his wife had been together for twenty-seven years. Surely she wouldn't trick him over something this trivial.
As Rus Wang walked into the room on all fours, he saw the usual furniture—and an unusually large bed meant for several people. He also saw Xingyue and Youlan, who had gathered there for some reason.
"So where's the cat?"
Before Rus Wang could realize something was wrong, Thalassa and Lingyi, who had just told him in the Throne Hall that his wife had a cat, blocked his way out. Together with Xingyue and Youlan, they surrounded him.
"Meow~"
The four humanoid female dragons meowed in unison right beside his face, releasing their pheromones. Rus Wang immediately broke into a cold sweat. He knew that unless he came up with some way to save his dragon life today, he might not live to see tomorrow.
Before you continue