The Cub Caused Big Trouble (Part 1)

[Author's Note: There is an interesting phenomenon in the Douluo world: transformation grass can become human, transformed rabbits can become half-grass/half-human, and even their offspring can produce descendants with the Silver Dragon King, completely ignoring reproductive isolation. To rationalize this, this book establishes that after a soul beast of 100,000 years of cultivation transforms, its genetic level changes as well, allowing it to mate with any creature without the existence of reproductive isolation.]

When Rus Wang first learned that his wife, Thalassa, had laid five eggs for him, both Rus Wang—who was experiencing fatherhood for the first time in both his past and present lives—and the Female Water Dragon were exceptionally excited. Rus Wang was thrilled that his family would soon be complete, while Thalassa rejoiced that she was becoming a mother for the first time and could produce so many offspring.

In the current Dragon Clan, it is undoubtedly a major event for a pure-blooded male and female dragon to produce more than one egg after mating. In the past, those male dragons who only cared about territory, strength, and reproduction would temporarily set those things aside to accompany the female dragon who had laid multiple eggs, helping to care for the hatchlings for a year or two before leaving. (According to the author's note, soul beasts with dragon bloodlines or degenerate dragon species under 100,000 years of age cannot communicate with the Dragon Clan and suffer from reproductive isolation, so they are not considered dragons in the eyes of the Dragon Clan. Even if they break through the 100,000-year threshold and achieve verbal communication through human language, they are still not considered part of the Dragon Clan. Since the case of Rus Wang mating with the Female Water Dragon—who was only over 90,000 years old at the time—and producing offspring came first, female dragons like Xingyue naturally assumed that Rus Wang was a fellow dragon species from the Folded Ear Continent that they had never seen before.)

At first, Thalassa also thought that Rus Wang would choose to spend more time with her because she had laid multiple eggs, but Rus Wang's subsequent behavior of staying by her side for many years without seeking other female dragons broke the typical patterns of male dragon behavior. He had learned the concept of family from humans and elves so thoroughly that it had become an extreme obsession; he chose to stay with her constantly.

Although, from Thalassa's perspective, such behavior by Rus Wang was extremely wrong for the entire Dragon Clan on the Folded Ear Continent, which currently only had ten adult dragons and only him as a male, she was emotionally overjoyed as an individual. No female dragon would refuse a male who was willing to stay and accompany her after the hatchlings were born.

After all five eggs hatched, Rus Wang gave his three sons the surname Ba and his two daughters the surname Yi. His eldest son was named Barus, his second daughter Iyuda, his third daughter Ilian, and his fourth and fifth sons were named Bakus and Bazel, respectively. During the time the offspring were growing up, whether it was because his friend Osuen had disciplined them too well or because he had been too lenient, the cubs were easy to get along with whenever they encountered elves who were friendly to them.

However, being easy to get along with and being mischievous are two completely different things. For example, right now, in the fortieth year of the Levant era, while Osuen was away at the city-state council meeting, Rus Wang's eldest son, Barus, had once again snuck off to find Osuen's second daughter, the twenty-six-year-old Elena (whose physical growth was equivalent to less than nine years old for a human), to go play at the large waterfall in the core area of the Nanshan Rainforest. The lively and active pair had perhaps naively bypassed the watchful gaze of her guardian, Liana.

Little did they know, at the second-floor window of the courtyard, Liana was already squinting her eyes, holding a Soul Tool given to her by Rus Wang, and had begun calling him.

In truth, Rus Wang remained supportive of the development of Soul Tools. After all, this was something that human Soul Masters—who made up only a small fraction of the total human population—dared to popularize throughout their entire society. Since every elf on the Folded Ear Continent possessed soul power by the age of twelve, there was no reason for Rus Wang not to utilize Soul Tools.

Although he still could not understand how the humans of the Douluo world managed it during the development of Soul Tools, taking ten thousand years from the manned aircraft in Huo Yuhao's timeline to finally produce airplanes in The Legend of the Dragon King.

It was now the fortieth year, and there were still one thousand nine hundred and sixty years left before the protective barrier disappeared. Ten years was not a very long time for elves, who generally lived for over three hundred years, provided they were well-fed, clothed, and kept a normal routine. But having experienced it firsthand, it was still a very long period, enough to change an elf's way of life.

Therefore, after confirming on the system panel that the cultural level of the elves had basically moved beyond boredom, with the national literacy rate reaching at least 25%, Rus Wang slowly began to reveal information about Innate Soul Power, soul beasts, human Soul Masters, and Soul Tools among the elves he trusted.

When Evans, Osuen, and Light learned that the hundred-year soul beasts that frequently ran out of the Nanshan Rainforest to wreak havoc on villages and towns belonged to the same category as Rus Wang—soul beasts, Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Mammalia, Order Carnivora, only diverging at the family level—their expressions were only slightly surprised.

While Rus Wang was still wondering why their reaction was so muted, Osuen spoke up.

"Your Majesty, you remain our protector and our faith. We, as those who have experienced it firsthand, truly and deeply feel that you have helped us escape suffering and ignorance. This has nothing to do with whether you or the Queen are soul beasts."

Evans even asked this question:

"But speaking of which, Your Majesty, your children have been able to get along with our children since they were young. Why can't those hundred-year soul beasts do the same?"

This left Rus Wang at a loss for how to answer. He couldn't exactly reveal that he was actually a Seer Elf and that the children were half-soul beast, half-Seer Elf, which was why they developed sentience faster than soul beasts, could he?

However, the most radical of them all was the Prime Minister, Light, whom he had asked to extend his term. He displayed the true colors of a nationalist.

"Your Majesty, those humans, most of whom live less than a hundred years, have already dared to hunt your kin to extinction and dissect them for research. There is no reason they wouldn't have designs on us elves, who generally live over three hundred years. I believe we should leverage the advantage that all elves possess soul power and that soul beasts can live for ten thousand years if their cultivation is high enough. We must hold the Folded Ear Continent to prevent the humans, who already occupy three continents, from coming to covet it in the future. After that, we should vigorously develop Soul Tools, while not neglecting the development of basic physics and chemistry. Also..."

Light said much more afterward, but there was one point on which he and Rus Wang were in complete agreement: the practice of Soul Masters, where the upper and lower limits were tied to Innate Soul Power, should not be spread to the grassroots elves yet. At the very least, they had to wait until all the elves who had lived through the tribal era had passed away before slowly popularizing it. Therefore, Soul Tools and Soul Master cultivation could currently only be initiated among a very select few in the upper echelons.

Otherwise, the Elf Kingdom would immediately descend into the kind of chaos seen in Sea Tiger or Wu Shen 300, where the strong bully the weak. Not only would the old elves like Evans and Light—who were determined not to let the populace return to a tribal era where the strong ruled—suffer heart attacks, but Rus Wang would also have to lead Xingyue and the others to stage another large-scale, indiscriminate massacre.

At this moment, Barus, who did not yet know that his father, Rus Wang, was coming to catch him, led the cheerful Elena toward the large waterfall in the core of the Nanshan Rainforest like an enthusiastic big dog. The drop of this waterfall was like the Niagara Falls from Rus Wang's past life. In order to ensure the safety of his offspring, Rus Wang had cleared the reefs beneath the waterfall and leveled the lake bottom, creating a massive, flat lake bed twenty meters deep. This place had become the favorite daily playground for the five siblings.

Under Rus Wang's tutelage, the five siblings knew why their mother, Thalassa, had been accompanying them less and less in recent years. Before their mother deemed them mature and drove them out of the territory, they needed to spend as much time as possible with their father, who was still willing to accompany them, to learn various survival skills.

This time, it was rare for Barus to be gathered with his four younger siblings at the waterfall, so he naturally cherished these increasingly rare days of reunion. Thinking of his elf friend, he decided to bring her along to play as well.

Although his father had punished him many times by pinning him onto a large rock and spanking him under the watchful eyes of Aunt Xingyue and the others because he kept taking Elena, the child of his elf friend, deep into the Nanshan Rainforest, he remained stubborn and refused to change. This was because Barus believed that he shared a mysterious resonance with Elena, and that together, they would create a feat that would make even his father sit up and take notice!