Dragon Blood

This was a little girl of about ten, with beautiful golden hair that was rather messy. Her clothes were covered in patches, and her face was smeared black with soot, making her look like a tomboy.

Yet if one looked closely at her face, one would find that the girl was exquisitely beautiful, almost unearthly. She seemed to have inherited the finest traits of both her parents, born with an air that inspired trust.

This tomboyish girl was Isabella and Jacques's daughter, Nara Dacmi.

Chris stood at a distance, observing the mother and daughter. He wore a hat and had a scarf wrapped around his face, hiding his scar-covered features. A thick cloak also concealed the medals on his body.

After watching for a while, Chris suddenly frowned. He lowered his scarf and began breathing in an extremely regular rhythm, sensing the rhythms around him. His entire body seemed to merge with the air. Then he let out a deep breath, as though expelling something from his body.

"Negary." Chris covered his nose and mouth with his scarf again, minimizing his contact with the surrounding air. I need to notify Austin quickly. I never expected this Evil Spirit to have developed this far.

"He actually expelled it from his body?" Wang Yuan watched Chris's actions through the infected person's eyes and could not help but admire him.

All of Reastmia was Wang Yuan's territory. Although it had taken in a large number of outsiders, with Wang Yuan's personality—one that sought to dominate everything—how could he possibly have failed to plant a few hidden schemes here?

"Pathogen: Diffuse. This pathogen's infectivity is not particularly strong, nor does it possess any special power. Its only commendable traits are its reproductive ability and stability."

Now, the Diffuse pathogen had spread into every corner of Reastmia. Anyone living here was as though living in an ocean of pathogens. Every breath they took, every meal they ate, every sip of water they drank brought them into contact with the Diffuse pathogen.

The Diffuse pathogen was not highly infectious. A human had to live here for one or two weeks before becoming thoroughly infected, and even after infection, there would be no serious problem. At most, the pathogen made one tire more quickly; it caused little harm to the human body.

In contrast, the Diffuse pathogen's adhesion was formidable. Once infected, it was exceedingly difficult to remove these pathogens. Upon infection, they would swiftly adapt to the host's constitution, then spread into every corner of the host's body and form a symbiosis with them.

To completely clear away this pathogen would be like scrubbing a person clean from head to toe, inside and out. By then, that person would not be far from death. Yet in this environment filled with Diffuse pathogens, Chris periodically expelled the Diffuse pathogens that entered his body.

"That breathing method... was that the so-called Breathing Method?" Wang Yuan recalled Chris's strange breathing frequency and pondered the nature of this power.

The so-called Breathing Method was a vaguely existing power in this world. Even the information Wang Yuan had gathered over the years merely mentioned its existence.

Only a few nobles or royal families still retained methods for cultivating this power. By sensing the rhythms of all things and using different patterns of breathing to attune themselves to those rhythms, their perceptions would be strengthened beyond anything they had previously known while in that state of attunement.

Otherwise, Chris was merely flesh and blood. How could he have sensed such minuscule pathogens and expelled them completely from his body?

Of course, it was said that the Breathing Method possessed other powers as well, but that was all the information Wang Yuan had obtained. This was also the first time he had seen someone use it. This low-magic world truly was low to the extreme.

So far, Wang Yuan had discovered only three supernatural powers. The first was the Divine Grace Church. Its members claimed to be bathed in divine grace and thus possessed all kinds of abilities beyond ordinary people. Wang Yuan had once encountered a Divine Grace Church priest who came to Rea, and the man indeed carried a faint air of the extraordinary. The second was remnant souls, the so-called Evil Spirits. The third was the Breathing Method Chris had displayed earlier.

Of course, among the information Wang Yuan had gathered over the years were clues to many other supernatural powers. For instance, the Spirit Warlocks of the Kexi People claimed to have awakened the "Kexi" spirit, allowing them to communicate with all things, invoke the divine names of all things, and borrow their power. Wang Yuan's righteous man, Noah, had grasped a little of it.

Then there was the Kingdom of Roas. This country was said to possess a supernatural power called Ancestral Spirit Armor. According to records, it could allow one person to fight a hundred on the battlefield, though Wang Yuan had never seen it.

Beyond that was the most widely circulated supernatural power of all: witchcraft.

According to the information Wang Yuan had collected, witches could cast spells using all manner of materials. Quite a few of them seemed little different from parlor tricks in Wang Yuan's eyes, merely techniques that exploited chemical reactions—for instance, breathing fire or creating smoke.

Yet some were unmistakably displays of supernatural power. Wang Yuan had once obtained, from a mercenary's memories, an image of a witch casting a spell. That witch scattered something into the air and turned a living person into a toad.

There was still much information about supernatural powers throughout the world, but some of it was born of imagination, while some had not appeared in the world for a very long time. Perhaps their inheritances had long since been severed.

"I need to get my hands on this Breathing Method." Wang Yuan thought. The Breathing Method involved sensing rhythms and making use of them; it had little to do with the Root True Spirit. Though Wang Yuan could not use the Breathing Method, he could still gain knowledge from it and lay a foundation for future strength.

"The research on Nara must also be accelerated." This had been Wang Yuan's main research subject over the past few years.

Nara's mother came from the Tagule Family, which possessed the "Dragon Child" bloodline and was said to be capable of awakening Dragon Blood. Perhaps Wang Yuan's pathogens had stimulated it, or perhaps the fusion of Kexi and Tagule bloodlines had produced some effect, but the Dragon Blood that the Tagule Family had failed to awaken for generations was gradually stirring within this little girl's body.

During her fetal stage, that Dragon Blood had already undergone a partial fusion with Wang Yuan's pathogens through her mother, Isabella. As a result, Wang Yuan could not control those pathogens.

Yet precisely because of this, Wang Yuan could use the pathogens to sense and study the Dragon Blood within Nara's body.

Over these years, Wang Yuan's analysis of Dragon Blood had already yielded considerable results. The Diffuse pathogen from before, for example, was a variant that Wang Yuan had obtained by deliberately controlling pathogens and mutating them toward that structure.

Compared with Wang Yuan's true design, the so-called Diffuse pathogen was merely an accidental byproduct. His ideal pathogen had yet to be truly cultivated, and this little girl, who possessed Dragon Blood and had partially fused with the pathogens, was the finest possible culture dish.

"Mother, I sold quite a lot of cloth again today. I'm amazing, right?" Little Nara tilted her head up as she coquettishly sought praise from Isabella. A flash of gold flickered through her pupils and vanished.