The fire raged in the forger while Krune looked at the temperature on display that kept increasing. After some time, it stabilized at a certain point. Krune kept looking inside and sending his Godly Energy to fuel the fire. Suddenly...

*Crack*

​​

The sound of something breaking came from inside, and the saber he was crafting was lost. Still, Krune didn't seem unhappy.

'I see... So the purity of the Godly Energy affects the forging to this point. I'm very close to finding my own limit with my cultivation. Fortunately, my Godly Energy Meridians are also very good for this kind of thing. Should I start using Purple Flames now?'

So far, Krune practiced without using his Purple Flames. After all, what good would it make if he couldn't even create equipment with normal ones? Krune spent his last two months trying to find his own bottleneck with Godly Energy Forging.

'No, let's just spend a few more days to be sure where I'm standing. After that, I can start the Purple Flame forging.'

Krune took some more materials and immediately restarted his forging. Three days later, Krune came out of his workshop. From the looks on his face, he seemed very satisfied with the results of his practice. He then went to the counter and asked to take the Blacksmith Test.

Sometime later, Krune was asked to forge one equipment at the Stars Path Level or higher. The forging process went without any mishaps, and soon, a Three Stars Stars View Equipment appeared. Of course, it was just a piece of standard equipment made without Purple Flames. Still, that was more than enough to prove Krune's level.

Later that day, Krune received his Blacksmith Guild Badge as well as the access to the Blacksmith Network. He accessed it and went straight for the rare materials. At the moment, his Stars Path Shields are nothing more than Diamond Stars Level in the Godly Path Realm. He has to make new ones to use. Even if his Shields' level was not affected, the fact is that they were still too weak for his actual Cultivation Level now. One must remember that he had created them at the Divine Path Realm cultivation. His cultivation has gone an entire Realm above now.

Krune didn't come back into the workshop. Instead, he went back to his restaurant since it was almost time to began another week of work.

Back in the city, Krune arrived at his restaurant but noticed something weird. It was empty; no one was around, even his employees. It was supposed to be open at the moment, so he got confused.

'Perhaps they took a day off?'

He went outside the restaurant to take a look when suddenly, someone came running in his direction.

"Chef Krune! You are finally back."

Krune immediately recognized that person.

"Oh, Its senior Kylie. Did something happen?"

Kylie was the owner of the store in front of Krune's restaurant. Ever since Krune's business opened, his own business also improved. After all, it wasn't easy for a Spiritual Food Chef to appear. Krune's restaurant success obviously improved the movement in his store as well.

"Two days ago, the City Guards came to take your employees away. Since it was the week that you were off, I thought that perhaps you didn't know it."

"What?!"

Krune was taken aback. Why would the City Guards take his employees away? Everyone knows that he is a Sky Shifting Sect member; the City Lord is also an elder of the same sect. He couldn't understand what could have happened for such a thing to happen.

"Why didn't they contact me?"

Kylie shook his head.

"I don't know. Perhaps they didn't want to give you trouble. Anyway, you should go to their headquarters and take a look."

Krune nodded.

"Very well. Thank you, senior Kylie."

Krune didn't waste time and dashed away. He also contacted Iem, but the later didn't know anything about what was happening.

As one can imagine, the City Guards Headquarters was located in the City Center. Krune only needed to take a teleport formation, and he arrived there quite fast. He entered the build and went straight to the counter. The attendant then looked at him before asking.

"How can I help you?"

"The employees of my restaurant had been taken away by the City Guards two days ago. I was in the sect practicing, so I only found out about it now."

The guy checked about the incidents recently when his expression suddenly changed.

"Please wait here a moment."

Sometime later, a man with a golden badge representing the City Guards came to talk with Krune.

"Sir Krune, would you mind following me?"

Krune found the situation suspicious, but he nodded in the end.

He was soon guided to a closed room in the building. There, he found Bai and his other employees. However, Nina and Lino were nowhere to be found.

"Chef Krune!"

Krune's eyes narrowed, and he asked the man behind him.

"What is happening here? Where are Nina and Lino? I heard you guys took them away as well. As far as I know, no one in my restaurant has ever broken any City Laws. Also, why was I not contacted straight away after what happened? I'm the owner of the restaurant, you know?"

The man smiled and shook his head.

"There were no problems with your restaurant. But we had to take your other employees away. From the looks of it, their background is quite complicated."

"Complicated?"

Krune looked at Bai, Jilin, and the others. Still, they all shook their heads, not knowing what was happening either.

"We found out that they are spies of the Three Peaks Sect, so we head to apprehend them. I hope you can stay here for the time being to help with the investigation."

Krune's expression changed at that moment.

"Bullshit! When Nina was under the Divine Soul Realm, I had her use a blood contract. The contract stated that she should not lie to me. After that, I asked a few questions to guarantee her story was true. The blood contract disappeared right after, showing that she was not lying."

"Nina and Lino are orphans, they have no parents to speak of. First of all, if they were spies, why didn't you come after me? I'm their employer and the restaurant's owner. Apprehending me should have been your very first action! Are you messing with me?"

The man shook his head.

"There was no need for that. We found no proof that you were involved in this incident. But the two of them were different."

"How different? Didn't you hear what I said about the blood contract?"

The guard shrugged his shoulders and continued.

"Let's leave aside whether you really used a blood contract or not. After all, there is no way to prove that now. However, Nina and Lino's bloodline can not lie. There are descendants of the main lineage of the Three Peaks Sect Master, Agaran Dianol."

"What?!"

Not only Krune, everyone else in the room was taken aback by those words.

"There must be a mistake there. How come two orphans who barely had something to eat during their early lives are descendants of the Three Peaks Sect Master? If that was true, they should have been receiving the highest treatment in their ancestor's sect. Be it cultivation resources, techniques, training, everything would have been several times better than even me. First of all, how do you even know that they have that sect master bloodline?"

The City Guard nodded and explained.

"First, I will need to tell you a little about their Sect Master."

"The Three Peaks Sect Master isn't a human, but a Pure Blooded Earth-Dragon. However, he did marry a human in the end. Back then, the Three Peaks sect was, in fact, three different sects occupying the same region. As their territory increased, conflicts began to appear more and more. Unlike our Sky Shifting Sect or the Flower River Sect, those three sects were really near each other."

"In the end, they noticed that if their conflict continued, they would all lose. Soon, their forces would be too debilitated to protect the three peaks. As you can imagine, the three peaks have very good Godly Energy Veins, so they would definitely be desired by other powers."

Krune could more or less understand what happened after.

"So they formed an alliance and fused together, forming the Three Peaks Sect, right?"

The guard shook his head.

"Not really. The problem here would be the chain of command. Who between them would be the Sect Master? There was only one way to tie the sides together, which they believed to be marriage. However, how will you make a marriage between three forces? In the end, two peaks joined forces against the weakest one and absorbed it. As you can imagine, those two had a secret marriage between their two top descendants, Agaran and Okalia."

"Today, Agaran is the sect master, while Okalia is his wife. As for the third peak descendants, most of the upper echelon was killed while the talented young ones were offered to join the two other peaks. Well, that's basically it. I believe you can guess the rest now."

Krune couldn't help but ask.

"Are you telling me that Nina and Lino have Earth-Dragon bloodlines, and you used that to ascertain their identities?"

The man nodded.

"Correct."

Krune found it strange.

"That doesn't make sense. They are complete humans. There are no Dragon Features in their bodies. As you know, intermarriage of humans and demon beasts will give birth to a mixed-race. Wait, could it be..."

Bai and the others got curious about Krune's sudden pause.

Krune then took a deep breath and continued.

"I see... This marriage between Agaran and Okalia happened thousands of years ago. No doubt their offsprings married as well. This intermarriage probably continued for several generations. The purity of the Earth Dragon's Bloodline dropped with each new offspring. Considering the pride of the Dragon Race, those mixed-blood offsprings were not allowed to marry other pure-blooded dragons. Agaran was only allowed to marry a human because it would bring a lot more benefits than problems."

"In the end, the mixed dragon bloodline got more and more diluted as they married other humans. Obviously, their dragon features disappeared little by little until they didn't have enough dragon bloodline to show any dragon traces anymore. However, as diluted as the bloodline might be, it is still there. That should be more or less it, no?"

The guard nodded.

"Yes. Agaran has fought our Sky Shifting Sect Master several times in the past. Obviously, we got some of his blood because of that. We used it to create a piece of Godly Equipment that can detect anyone with his bloodline. To our surprise, we found some of them, and they were Nina and Lino that you talked about."

Krune couldn't help but sigh. His intuition told him that the guard wasn't lying. However, he also knew that Nina and Lino didn't know about that either.

'What should I do?'