The third time-this is the current [Scholar] advancement quest. (Continued)

A Celestial Dragon alive and a Celestial Dragon dead were two entirely different things.

With the former, there was at least some room to maneuver.

The latter could bring someone far beyond the usual scale down on his head!

That was right. Adrian had never feared the Celestial Dragons or the World Government.

He feared the god seated upon the Empty Throne—Imu!

So far, every powerful opponent Adrian had encountered, including Whitebeard before old age caught up with him, had triggered a challenge rated S.

Only two quests had exceeded S-rank difficulty.

The first was the SS-rank quest [God's Slumber], which required him to keep harming Celestial Dragons.

And after his torment of Saint Mjosgard, along with the widespread news of the "Celestial Dragon Slave" incident, the quest's progress bar had jumped straight to 5%!

It was still climbing as time passed.

Presumably, the news was spreading farther and reaching more people.

Adrian had a theory about why it had risen so much at once.

It wasn't because of how badly he'd treated one Celestial Dragon.

It was because the "Celestial Dragon Slave" incident had dragged the once-lofty Celestial Dragons down to earth—

No, it had kicked them straight into the mud!

Once people across the seas realized, Oh, so a Celestial Dragon can be a slave too. They can be put on a shelf and sold to the highest bidder, the authority the Celestial Dragons had built over centuries was badly damaged.

People in the World Government could see how dangerous that was.

But with Saint Mjosgard pinned beneath Adrian's foot, no one had been confident they could rescue him. They'd had no choice but to swallow their objections and allow the auction.

As for the second quest to exceed S-rank difficulty...

That was [Empty Throne], rated all the