Return to Dragon Court, Meet Green Dragon

The vastness and dangers of the primordial world lay clearly before Yellow Dragon.

Originally, Yellow Dragon had intended to travel through the sea in his dragon form, heading straight for the Dragon Clan Ancestral Court.

Yet after only a few months of travel, while crossing a deep-sea rift, he encountered a massive shadow passing overhead. The aura it gave off alone left his body rigid and his scales crawling.

Fortunately, the Pure World White Lotus concealed his aura and hid his form. Otherwise, Yellow Dragon would have had to call upon his ancestor for rescue.

After that, Yellow Dragon kept flying close to the sea's surface.

He recalled how, back at the Dragon Court, his ancestor had merely waved a hand to split open the void, and the end of that passage had led to the seas near Penglai Immortal Island.

Moreover, the battlefield at the time could not have been too far from the Dragon Clan Ancestral Court. Otherwise, Yellow Dragon could never have been injured by the tolling of the Chaos Bell.

Who could have imagined that that enormous immortal island was like a living creature?

Over these hundred-odd thousand years, it had crossed through the void several times, shifting silently and without pattern across distances unknown!

Had it not been for the warm Green Dragon scale in his hand, containing the power of bloodline guidance and unfailingly pointing toward the Ancestral Court, Yellow Dragon might truly have become a lost dragon.

Following the faint sensation emanating from that token and riding increasingly proficient escape arts across the ocean, he spent several hundred years on the journey.

At last, he returned to the Dragon Clan Ancestral Court.

The instant his body passed through the Ancestral Court's barrier, before his feet could even touch its faintly warm ground, an unnoticed force of suction descended without warning!

The surrounding scenery instantly twisted and stretched, becoming indistinct streams of light.

Yellow Dragon did not even have time for a thought to turn. His vision blurred, and his body had already fallen into another place.

He staggered a step, forcibly steadied himself, and looked up.

A pair of enormous golden pupils, like sun and moon, hung beneath the dim vault above, gazing at him without the slightest ripple.

That gaze seemed to pierce through flesh and blood, seeing directly into the depths of his Primordial Spirit.

Yellow Dragon's heart suddenly clenched, then relaxed again.

"Ancestor."

He let out a long breath of stale air, the tension draining from his muscles and bones. With a trace of helplessness born of reunion after a long parting, he said, "You still love frightening your juniors."

A deep, heavy laugh reverberated through the cave abode, like muffled thunder rolling through a valley.

As light and shadow shifted, a middle-aged man in an ancient green Daoist robe silently appeared before Yellow Dragon.

His face was resolute, his features sharply defined, and endless majesty showed upon his countenance. He was none other than Green Dragon Ancestor, one of the Dragon Clan's few remaining pillars.

Green Dragon's gaze was like an invisible carving knife, meticulously shaping its way across Yellow Dragon's body.

In the depths of those profound eyes, countless tiny, intricate golden runes flickered, endlessly arising, dying, and cycling through rebirth.

Beneath his wide sleeves, his fingers moved swiftly and soundlessly in calculation, deducing the drastic changes that had occurred in this little dragon before him.

"Eh..." A surprised sound escaped the ancestor's lips.

After more than a hundred thousand years apart, this little fellow's cultivation had actually reached the perfect completion of the Xuan Immortal realm. Such speed was truly not slow.

Yet Green Dragon could "see" clearly that Yellow Dragon's mana was exceptionally condensed and profound, while his foundation was incomparably solid.

What shook Green Dragon's mind most was that the karmic debt of heaven and earth—which weighed so heavily upon the entire Dragon Clan that they could scarcely breathe, making the clan's fortune flicker like a guttering candle in the wind—had utterly vanished from Yellow Dragon's body!

In its place was a pure, warm halo of merit, gentle as the rising sun at dawn. It radiated from the depths of his Primordial Spirit, separating him from the karmic debt enshrouding the Dragon Clan.

Since the Dragon-Han Calamity, when the Heavenly Dao had cast boundless karmic debt upon the Dragon Clan, Green Dragon had never again seen such clear, such abundant merit of the Heavenly Dao on any member of his clan!

"The karmic debt has vanished...!"

Green Dragon's voice was low and slow, but every word rang clear, stirring invisible ripples through the silent cave abode.

The light of the runes in his eyes grew ever brighter as they locked tightly onto that immortal gleam within Yellow Dragon's Primordial Spirit.

To the current Dragon Clan, burdened by karmic obstacles and scattered fortune, with no clansman having broken through to Daluo for countless kalpas, this faint glimmer of merit was like a streak of dawn suddenly lighting up the endless night!

Ever since Ancestor Dragon had led countless Dragon Clan elites to suppress the sea eyes, transforming the spiritual energy of the primordial seas in exchange for merit from the Heavenly Dao and preserving the Dragon Clan's fortune from extinction—

This was the first time Green Dragon had so clearly touched upon an opportunity for the clan's fate to change!

"I know you have your own destined opportunity, and it cannot be forced."

Green Dragon Ancestor's voice regained its calm steadiness, though the fervor within it remained unmistakable. "But merit from the Heavenly Dao is far too important to the Dragon Clan as it now stands...!"

Before Green Dragon could finish, Yellow Dragon already understood what he meant.

Yellow Dragon scarcely hesitated before immediately bowing and replying, "This method came about when this disciple saw Penglai Immortal Island's earth veins severed by the battle between the Demon Race and the Celestial Court, its spiritual energy dispersed and all life extinguished."

"This disciple was transformed into a dragon in harmony with the earth veins, so I conceived the idea of restoring Penglai Immortal Island's earth veins and recreating its vitality."

"Using my own pure vital essence to resonate with the earth veins, I cleared their blockages and purified the accumulated fierce, baleful, turbid qi, restoring clarity to the shattered spiritual workings. I then scattered innate spiritual plants, and used the Sweet Dew Technique you taught this disciple to draw upon the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to nurture them... Thus, after expending more than a hundred thousand years, Penglai Island's vitality finally reappeared."

"Moved by this, the Heavenly Dao bestowed merit. This junior used ninety percent of it to cleanse the karmic obstacles I bore."

As Yellow Dragon spoke, he watched his ancestor's reaction.

Green Dragon Ancestor listened with utmost focus. Runes flowed ceaselessly in those eyes that could see through all origins, while the fingers calculating and deducing before his chest moved so quickly that even Yellow Dragon could no longer see them clearly.

When Yellow Dragon finished, the radiance of the deductive runes in the ancestor's eyes gradually receded, leaving only deep contemplation and a trace of weariness that could not be concealed.

"Clearing the earth veins, purifying filth... recreating the vitality of heaven and earth..."

Green Dragon repeated the key point in a low voice.

The results of his deductions told him this method was feasible. It accorded with the fundamental laws governing the workings of the Heavenly Dao, reducing the loss of the primordial essence of the prehistoric world.

Yet to repeat such tedious, draining, slow-yielding hard work day after day for hundreds of thousands of years? A deep sense of helplessness quietly spread through him.

Even he himself would likely struggle to endure such solitude, where dripping water wore through stone—let alone those restless younger dragons still immersed in the Dragon Clan's former glory.

"This method... can allow my Dragon Clan to regain the recognition of the prehistoric world!"

Green Dragon's voice was solemn and steady, carrying an unquestionable force—though it sounded even more as if he were convincing himself.

Yellow Dragon read his expression, and a thought stirred in his mind.

He stepped forward and extended his right hand. A piece of translucent, lustrous azure jade, within which countless tiny spiritual lights seemed to flow, hovered quietly above his palm.

"Patriarch."

Yellow Dragon respectfully held up the jade. "This is a small collection of this disciple's insights from repairing the earth veins on Penglai Island, purifying filth, and planting innate spiritual vegetation. Though crude, it may perhaps serve as a reference for our clan's fellow cultivators."

Green Dragon's gaze fell upon the jade that embodied Yellow Dragon's painstaking effort, deep as an ancient well.

He fell silent for a moment, then slowly extended a hand. The jade lightly flew into his palm.

Green Dragon's fingers gently rubbed the jade's smooth surface, sensing the countless subtle streams of information contained within.

Yellow Dragon waited quietly, though he could not help feeling somewhat uneasy.

Handing over these "insights on obtaining merit" meant that those long, lonely years he had spent restoring Penglai could help ease, if only by a thread, the pressure of the world's karmic burden upon the Dragon Clan.

After a long while, Patriarch Green Dragon finally raised his eyes, his complicated gaze settling on Yellow Dragon.

There was approval in that look, relief as well, and—above all—a trace of resolve.