In a society steeped in class hierarchy, where people were constantly made to kneel and lives could be snuffed out on a whim, the idea of everyone becoming a dragon seemed utterly mad.
If everyone became a dragon, how could some people flaunt their superiority, enjoy real privileges, look down on the masses, and hold the power of life and death?
Westerners generally placed great importance on bloodlines, and the Douluo world was even more fixated on them—indeed, its hierarchy was even more rigid.
Those with royal blood, in particular, were treated with deference wherever they went.
As a result, marriages between nations were frequent. Princes from this kingdom and princesses from that one intermarried, their bloodlines mingling until people were always going on about royal blood or descent from eight kingdoms.
By contrast, the Central Plains taught you what it meant to ask, "Are kings and nobles born to the blood?"
Whose ancestors hadn't once been prosperous? Who was nobler than anyone else?
Someone surnamed Liu might be a descendant of Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han dynasty. Someone surnamed Li might have some connection to Li Shimin. Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants, whose dynasty began with nothing but a single bowl, could be sweeping floors in some corner of the world centuries later—not to mention the descendants of all those scholars, generals, and poets.
Though Martial Souls in the Douluo world divided people into classes with brutal efficiency, that was still in the era of feudal agriculture. Once modern firearms appeared, even the strongest Spirit Master would be nothing more than a target for a few extra cannon shells.
The idea of everyone becoming a dragon in this era was practically inconceivable.
"Could I do it?" Qian Renxue asked.
"It's only a matter of time," Li Pu said.