Beneath the dark eaves of the courtyard roof, Snake Lance Douluo She Long hid in the shadows and watched the scene inside the room through a gap.
For a moment, even he felt alarmed.
"Was this kid trying to boil himself?"
As a true Titled Douluo, he might not understand medicinal principles, but everything the boy had put together was a thousand-year heavenly treasure.
Even someone with four rings would not dare casually absorb the power in that medicinal liquid, would they?
She Long's heart rose into his throat. Now he understood why his young mistress had insisted that he come to stand guard.
Had someone else been sent, they probably would not have been able to rescue the boy in time if something went wrong inside.
Inside the room, Meng Chen had already stripped off his clothes.
"Here goes!"
Meng Chen vaulted into the medicinal bath barrel, then immediately picked up the Dragon Scale Fruit beside him and bit into it.
As the flesh entered his stomach, a warm current surged forth.
Meng Chen settled firmly into the wooden barrel, leaving only his head above the medicinal bath.
Within mere seconds, the warmth brought on by swallowing the Dragon Scale Fruit turned into searing heat.
It began burning in his abdomen like a flame.
Meanwhile, the thick medicinal slurry in the barrel, blended from Blue Vein Vine, Earth Dragon Tendon, and Sea Dragon Marrow, turned into thousands of cold, invisible steel needles.
Two utterly opposing and exceptionally violent forces collided inside his body.
"Urgh!"
Even with a will as hard as iron, Meng Chen could not suppress a low growl of pain.
Yet he dared not delay for an instant and immediately began attacking the second seal.
A pale golden, dragon-shaped divine marking abruptly appeared at the center of Meng Chen's smooth forehead, visible to the naked eye.
Then the dragon marking seemed to come alive, transforming into countless tiny dark-gold veins that spread down his neck and into his limbs.
As the golden dragon markings spread,
Meng Chen's entire body began trembling violently beyond his control.
To him, it was nothing short of torture.
She Long was already preparing to rush down from the roof and save him, but before he could push open the door, he suddenly noticed Meng Chen's expression beginning to settle into calm.
He could tell that the meridians inside Meng Chen's body were being torn at violently.
Yet a strange golden light firmly protected his heart meridians and internal organs. There were no signs of a true collapse that would make his body burst and kill him.
He was enduring it through sheer grit!
Inside the room, the physical pain was merely the first layer of torment.
A far more terrifying crisis was crashing down upon Meng Chen's mental world.
Rumble!
The Golden Dragon King's residual origin power, left over from the ancient God War in the Divine Realm, became a storm that battered Meng Chen's core consciousness.
A violent wave of dizziness struck him. Deep in his mind, it felt as though ten million steel saws were dragging across his soul at once.
One moment of carelessness, and this pure, destructive bloodlust would devour his will entirely, turning him into a mindless ferocious beast that knew only slaughter.
Back when Tang Wulin had opened his seals, Old Tang had guarded him in secret, constantly encouraging him and showing him the way forward.
Meng Chen, however, had no mighty being from the Divine Realm to protect him.
All he could rely on was the indomitable soul he had tempered over two lifetimes.
Endure it!
I have to endure it!
Meng Chen roared amid the endless darkness and agony, his will holding fast to the core of his sea of consciousness.
His rationality as an adult in his previous life and his yearning to control his own destiny in this one became an immovable boulder.
No matter how wildly that overwhelming draconic nature battered and scoured him, he clung desperately to the last thread of clarity in his mind.
Time passed, second by second, beneath the cruel torment.
One day, two days, three days.
For three full days and nights, Meng Chen sank completely into a deep meditation of stillness and extinction, oblivious to the rising sun, setting moon, and shifting winds and clouds outside.
As time passed, the dark-brown medicinal slurry, once steaming hot and rich in medicinal power, gradually became clear and transparent.
Every trace of the spiritual medicines' essence was devoured by that small body, which was like a black hole.
Until night fell once more on the third day.
Meng Chen, who had settled into stillness, suddenly opened his eyes.
The human black and white of his eyes had vanished completely, replaced by two pools of scarlet-gold divine light that seemed almost tangible.
The medicinal liquid in the barrel, long since reduced to plain water, was abruptly forced apart by an invisible blast of air and shot upward.
"Hah, hah."
Meng Chen gripped the rim of the wooden barrel with both hands and gasped for breath.
In the first instant after awakening, he felt none of the lofty pride of mastering a divine art and looking down upon heaven and earth. Instead, he felt an intense hunger.
"Grrrrumble!"
A tremendous noise, like muffled thunder exploding, came from his stomach.
Three days and nights of inhuman transformation, bloodline awakening, and bodily reconstruction had been nothing short of a miracle.
They had consumed every last bit of energy previously stored in his body.
Right now, he felt as though he could devour an entire roast ox in one sitting.
But Meng Chen cared more about the changes in his body than his hunger.
He lowered his head to look at his hands. Outwardly, he was still that tender young boy with red lips, white teeth, and golden rabbit ears atop his head. He had not even grown much taller.
Yet beneath his seemingly young flesh lay a vast, dormant strength so terrifying it defied belief.
His bones were as tough as divine metal, his meridians had widened more than threefold, and their resilience surpassed even that of an ordinary Soul Ancestor.
Within three days, his physical toughness, strength limit, burst speed, and every other measure had increased dramatically beyond all common reason.
Meng Chen willed it.
He merely focused his mind slightly and mobilized the controllable bloodline power that had just been fully released within him.
In an instant, a brilliant golden Blood Essence Soul Ring rose from beneath his feet-the Blood Essence Soul Ring unique to the Golden Dragon King.
As the Golden Soul Ring pulsed,
Golden light abruptly burst from within him, and a low dragon's roar echoed from his body.
His frame expanded slightly at that moment as well. A golden membrane of light enveloped his entire body, his skin gleamed pale gold, and dragon markings flowed through his flesh.
The might of his Golden Dragon Claw had increased far more than twofold, and it would no longer place any burden on his soul power.
"Break!!"
Meng Chen swung his Golden Dragon Claw fiercely, forcibly sweeping the air in the entire secluded chamber into a vacuum and producing a deep, thunderous sonic boom.
Before his wild joy could fully spread, Meng Chen's heart suddenly tightened, and his expression shifted slightly.
Oh no!
Only then did he remember that he was still in the Crown Prince's Residence.
With such a tremendous disturbance, coupled with the bloodline power emanating from him, those outside would certainly notice.
Almost at the very instant Meng Chen withdrew his Golden Dragon Claw,
Bang!
Someone smashed the bedroom door open from outside!
"Little Chen! Are you all right?"
Qian Renxue's anxious shout came from outside the door.
With a flurry of footsteps, Meng Chen saw Qian Renxue and a hooded figure rush in from outside.
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