"Awake."
Who knew how much time had passed.
By the spring, the middle-aged man in the rocking chair held a palm-leaf fan, waving it casually as he said absentmindedly, "Don't move too quickly. Your dragon scales were just stripped clean—they're probably still hurting."
The Black Dragon woke groggily in the spring. He instinctively looked over his injuries, and only after seeing that they had nearly healed did a faint glimmer of excitement flash through his eyes.
He had bet right!
But he quickly froze where he was. At some point, his dragon body had once again become covered in pitch-black scales. He could feel that these scales were even tougher than before.
Yet he clearly remembered all his dragon scales being shattered.
Why had they grown back so quickly, and why were they stronger than before?
But he soon understood.
It was probably because of the spring beneath him. He could sense the dense vitality contained within the water. Then, unable to contain his excitement, he rolled around in the spring several times.
Only then did he look toward the middle-aged man reclining in the rocking chair by the spring, his eyes brimming with fighting spirit.
"Senior."
"I'm ready already. Let's begin the second trial!"
"The second trial?"
The middle-aged man lying in the rocking chair on the bank shook his head and laughed. "What second trial? The first trial was everything."
"To tell you the truth."
"The first trial was never about defeating me. It was merely about enduring the pain of having every dragon scale shattered. As long as you endured it, you passed."
"And thereby obtained this Dragon Race Inheritance."
"Who would have thought that you, little fellow, really came charging at me with the intention of defeating me? How did an immature dragon dare imagine it