The rest of the shells cracked and peeled away on their own, and just like that, the Ancient Divine Dragon was sitting snugly at the center of my palm. It was ten centimeters long, as thin as a lizard, and gray silver in color. It wasn’t even that much thicker than my finger. It blinked its sapphire blue eyes at me.

“OMG, is this… is this the Ancient Divine Dragon? It’s so, so cute…” Lin Yixin said with starry eyes.

He Yi carefully poked the dragonling’s tail with her forefinger before breaking into a smile herself. “Yes, it’s so cute…”

There were colorful clouds surrounding the Ancient Divine Dragon’s tail. Its head was shaped like a qilin’s and surrounded by a ring of soft, crimson fur. It had a pair of whiskers beside its nose, and it was clinging to my palm so tightly that it hurt a little. My new mount seemed to be glaring at the two beauties with hostility, but that was probably because a dragon’s sense of aestheticism was different from a human’s. To it, He Yi and Lin Yixin were probably average to below average–looking “dragons” at best.

On another note, it was a good thing Murong Mingyue hadn’t come with us. Knowing her, she would point at that dragonling, laugh like a madman and say, “This is your Ancient Divine Dragon? It’s smaller than a dick, hahahahaha…”

I didn’t even want to imagine that scene.

……

The smile on Lin Yixin’s face grew sweeter as she rubbed the dragonling’s head. “You’re a cute little baby, aren’t you? Aw… say, Lu Chen, is this an eastern dragon of China, or?”

I nodded. “Yep. According to the notice I just received, the appearance of the dragon changes according to the player’s nationality. For example, if Vienna had drawn it, then this Ancient Divine Dragon would probably look like a western holy dragon, also known as “a giant lizard with big wings”, just like your Ice Dragon Kris.”

Lin Yixin giggled. “That’s so cool! It’s a bit small though!”

I scratched my head. “I know. Even if it’s more powerful than it looks, how the hell am I supposed to ride something that’s only as long as my finger? The WEL committee can’t possibly have screwed me over and given me a useless dragon, right?”

He Yi replied, “Well, I don’t know, but it seems unlikely…”

Suddenly, the dragonling shuddered a little and let out a low growl. It almost sounded like it could understand me and was expressing its dissatisfaction. If this was true, then its AI must be pretty amazing. The dragonling then turned around, climbed up my forefinger and bit it with its sharp teeth!

Pssh!

A piercing pain erupted from my forefinger as blood sprayed from the wound. Most of it went down the dragonling’s throat though. I could almost mistake it for a house gecko if it wasn’t literally drinking my blood like a bloodsucking vampire. Not that I minded, but my blood was the blood of an Asura King. Was it really safe for consumption? What if the little thing poisoned itself and died?

Thankfully my worry didn’t last long—

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, you have successfully contracted the mount “Ancient Divine Dragon”. The Ancient Divine Dragon is currently at the infancy stage and will need to earn experience to grow stronger! As a Divine Rank mount, the amount of experience needed to level it up is 100 times higher than normal. We wish you good luck!

……

“Is the contract complete?” Lin Yixin asked.

I nodded with a smile. “Yeah. It’s now officially in the infancy stage!”

He Yi urged excitedly, “Well, what are you waiting for? Show us its stats now!”

“Mn mn!”

“Okay…”

I brought up its stats, but was immediately disappointed by what I saw.

Ancient Divine Dragon

Level: 1

Rank: Divine

Stage: Infant

Effect: Cannot be mounted

……

“It literally has no stats. I guess it’s way too young…” I said dumbfoundedly.

He Yi giggled. “OMG, it needs 100 times more experience than normal to level up? How long will that take? It doesn’t even say when it’ll grow into an adult!”

Lin Yixin consoled me. “It’s fine, this is just business as usual: grind, grind, and grind some more. It’ll turn into an adult eventually. Speaking of which, did the system give you any tip as to when you can ride it?”

I shook my head. “No, it barely told me anything at all. There is one thing though. Apparently, I can keep it around while still riding the Armored Ice Qilin Horse. This is all so unusual…”

“It really is…” Lin Yixin shook her head. “Anyway, let’s grind some mobs. Maybe we’ll learn more about your mount after it gains some levels.”

“Yeah!”

We restarted the cycle and grinded mobs for almost an hour or so. However, the dragonling was only Level 27! What the hell is this!? If it took this much effort to grind its level while it was still low-level, how much experience would it need when it got to Level 150? Is it trying to kill me?

In the end, we had to stop not only because we were tired out of our minds, but also because Rose had given us the final warning.

After I took off my gaming helmet, I glanced at the window sill of my hotel room. A golden trophy with the words "Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls" and our five player IDs imprinted onto its surface was sitting there. It was of course the WEL champion trophy. If our status as the number one guild of China wasn’t quite solid before, it was now. And even if it wasn’t, the next Nation War was right around the corner. We would prove that we definitely were the best shield of China!

……

The next day, I woke up super early in the morning, refreshed myself, packed my belongings and the trophy, and went downstairs to eat breakfast. When everyone was ready, we entered the bus and departed for the airport. The WEL had prepared four trophies in total: a golden trophy for the champion, a silver trophy for the runner-up, and two copper trophies for the third and fourth places. That was why there were two trophies in the bus right now, and why there was a stark contrast in mood between Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls + Snowy Cathaya and Soul Battle Robes + Candle Dragon.

A frowning Candlelight Shadow had taken the backmost seat and stared at the sceneries outside the window. The twilight of a Heavenly King’s career was never pretty.

As expected, most of us fell asleep on the plane. Beiming Xue’s seat was next to mine, and she was currently sleeping with her head-on my shoulder. When Lin Yixin looked back from her seat, she let out an involuntary giggle and said, "Beiming Xue’s saliva is dripping on your shoulder…"

I shook my head and chided her, "You should be catching some ZZzzZZZzzz too. Now shoo!"

"Fine, fine…"

I followed my own advice and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I noticed that four hours had passed. Unfortunately, the end was nowhere in sight. Sigh.

Beiming Xue had woken up as well. She asked me, "How long have we been flying, big bro?"

"Six hours, give or take…"

"We should be arriving soon then…"

"Hell no, there’s another six hours to go…"

"What? Didn’t it take only 10 hours to fly to Los Angeles?"

"That’s because we were traveling against the Earth’s rotation at that time. Now it’s the opposite…"

"Is that so? Oh well, I guess I’ll sleep some more…" Beiming Xue giggled and lay down on my lap this time. Then, she fell asleep like a lazy little kitty.

I looked to the back and noted that He Yi and Murong Mingyue had fallen asleep as well. The whole competition had been one giant stack of activities forcefully cramped into a tiny window of time, so we were all tired out of our minds to say the least. It wasn’t like things would slow down too much after we returned to our homes. We still had to manage the guild, grind, go to war and some more. That being said, we would never have been able to grow Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls into a king of guilds without our persistent efforts. Now that we had taken the WEL by storm, we had officially taken the first step into cementing our status as the new king of China.

Winning the WEL and the MVP title were especially critical to our climb to the top. The next time CGL’s Guild Ranking was refreshed, I was almost certain that Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls would surpass Candle Dragon completely. I said almost, because Candle Dragon’s war contributions during the latter half of Spirit of Grief carried a ton weight. As the saying goes, a camel that starved to death is still heavier than a horse. That was fine though. Our Dragonlight Cavalry and Dragonlight Archers were growing more and more complete everyday. When the next Nation War arrived, it would finally be our turn to become the true god of Heavenblessed. I couldn’t wait.

……

Due to time zone differences, it was fucking daytime again when the plane landed in Shanghai. Because we already had our fill of sleep and food on the plane, we took the bus to Suzhou almost immediately after. Stranger of Three Lifetimes joined us, but took the time to travel around and even grind for a bit in the game because she was "bored", or so she claimed. I bet her reliability would come under fire if a member of her guild could see her right now.

After we returned to Suzhou, the first thing we did was to deposit the champion trophy at the Lenovo e-sports club. It was a collective honor shared by everyone in the club after all. That being said, we were taking it with us the day we left the team. For one, I heard that the trophy was made of pure gold. Two, it was one of the conditions I made them agree to when they asked to store it in the club. The trophy was the symbol of our hard work and glory. There was no reason for us to give it away to another party.

I didn’t log into the game because winning the WEL had boosted me to Level 195 for free, meaning that I had the leeway to do some meaningful activities such as accompanying the girls to lunch, shopping and so on.

We spent the afternoon walking around the streets and shopping for a bit. I bought a set of spring clothes for both He Yi and Lin Yixin because it was spring. Sensing blood, Lian Xin and Beiming Xue pounced onto the opportunity and forced me to buy clothes for them as well, ones that cost over ten thousand RMB no less. Still, there was a reason why fashion was so important in human society. If the girls weren’t beautiful before—and they absolutely were—the new clothes made sure that they were positively irresistible.

In my opinion, true beauty was the kind of beauty that evoked a sense of deep protectiveness; the kind you couldn’t bear to sully with your presence. It wasn’t like sexually exciting attires weren’t beautiful, but that was a different kind of beauty altogether.

……

We held a celebratory feast at the guild base as we said we would. Lenovo’s Rose and a couple other people had joined us as well. Most of us also drank the living daylights out of ourselves, exactly like I had threatened them to during the final match, although Chaos Moon, Yu Tong and He Yi respectfully declined. And thank god they did, because the rest of us were in no condition to defend Dark Moon City if someone had tried to ambush us.

It was midnight when I awoke from my drunken slumber. My head felt like a hot mess to say the least. I was in my room, so the girls must’ve carried me into the car and driven us home. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve sworn that Li Chengfeng, Gui Guzi, Yamete and the rest of the fuckers were trying to drown me in alcohol. Not that I minded. It was a very special occasion...

I took a pee, drank some water, and went back to bed.

When I woke up, I heard Lian Xin calling out to me before I even opened my eyes. "Wake up, Lu Chen! A new patch just launched this morning, and it’s that Fury of the Goddess of Death! Sophie will be attacking every main city in the world with her undead legion, Space 7!"