"Is that the heart of Dragon Island?"
Lanno stood beside Wang Xuan, her white robes snapping in the mountain wind.
She followed his gaze toward a stretch of forest darker than its surroundings. Ancient trees towered there, their canopy so dense that even sunlight could barely penetrate it.
"Yes." Wang Xuan nodded his dragon head, his golden eyes fixed on the forest. "That's where the Heaven-reaching Divine Tree once took root."
"The Heaven-reaching Divine Tree?"
"The Xiantian Ancestral Dragon was born there. It's also the Dragon Clan's Sacred Tree." Wang Xuan offered no further explanation and started down the mountain. "Keep up, and don't stray too far from me."
Lanno hurried after him.
She had recovered seventy or eighty percent from her injuries, but this deep into Dragon Island, she knew her strength was nowhere near enough.
They descended from the summit in single file and headed toward the vast forest.
The farther they went, the denser the dragon qi in the air became.
Lanno could feel it burrowing into her skin as though it were alive, leaving her uncomfortable all over.
"The dragon qi here is too dense," Lanno said quietly.
"That's only natural where dragon veins converge." Wang Xuan did not look back. "The Xiantian Ancestral Dragon could be born here because the dragon essence and Ancestral Dragon vital essence left by generations of fallen Dragon Clan members flowed here through the earth's veins and were absorbed by the Heaven-reaching Divine Tree."
"So that's how it works." Understanding dawned on Lanno. "Then wouldn't the Heaven-reaching Divine Tree be like an enormous vessel?"
"Uh, you could think of it that way. Without the Heaven-reaching Divine Tree, that dragon essence and Ancestral Dragon vital essence would remain scattered across Dragon Island. They could never gather to form the Xiantian Ancestral