Chapter 218: The soul of a dragon.

Meiling lifted the sleeve to her pyjamas to reveal a bright mark that travelled up her arm. The mark looked like it was actually a burn mark and it had only been done recently.

"Did you get burned? How did that happen?" Haru asked. He couldn't quite understand how she could have been hurt that badly in a place like this. They had healers and even if they were busy they could have at least wrapped it in bandages.

But the burn was untreated. Like she didn't seek treatment for it.

"It was the teacher…" Meiling looked down to the ground and spoke in a soft tone.

"The teacher did it? How? Were you sparing against him?" Haru asked, confused. From what he understood. The cultivators association were trying to raise cultivators to be on their side. Why would they injure them purposely?

"No. He meant to do it. Last night when I was coming back from the classroom I saw him spying on a few of the older girls while they were changing in their rooms.

I tried to sneak past him but he noticed that I was in the corridor so he grabbed me and said if I ever told anyone he would kill me…

He said that the mark on my arm was a fire curse and it will spread to my heart if I told any of the other teachers." Meiling spoke in a hushed tone while still looking down at the ground as if she was in the wrong.

"Lao, come here for a minute," Haru called Lao over to take a look at the wound on Meiling's arm.

"Is this a curse?" Haru asked as Lao looked down at Meiling's arm.

"A curse? Not at all. It just seems to be a pretty bad burn. I guess he was just weak and wanted to scare her into keeping quiet about what had happened." Lao spoke and then held out his hand over her arm. Green light filled the air as the burn on Meiling's arm began to fade until eventually there was no sign of it ever existing.

"Does that feel any better?" Lao asked in a caring tone. It was unlike anything Haru had heard before. Lao was usually full of energy and the only emotion he spoke with was anger. It was out of character for him to be talking like that.

"Yes, it doesn't hurt anymore," Meiling said with a look of excitement on her face. She could feel a sense of familiarity coming from Lao.

Suddenly Meiling's eyes sparkled with a hint of blue light. Her jaw dropped open as she looked up at Lao who was still smiling. She raised her hands to her face and then took a few steps back out of fear as she looked at him in shock.

"Meiling? What is it?" Haru asked, confused.

"Tha- That man… He is a- He's a dragon." She still spoke in a hushed tone being mindful of the other children that were still sleeping but the moment that her eyes had flashed with a shade of blue she saw Lao's true form.

"It's okay. Like I said. This man was the teacher of the man who taught me how to cultivate. He would never hurt you I promise.

But there are a lot of secrets that I can't tell you right now. Unless you decided you wanted to come with us." Haru tried his best to calm her but she couldn't take her eyes off Lao who was now staring back in shock also.

"The Eternal Eyes of truth… That is unbelievable. Not only is she the descendant of the snow feathered ancestral dragon. But she is also the successor to The Eternal Eyes of truth." Loa spoke quietly. He couldn't believe the luck of this girl.

Haru was gifted and had the bloodline of a mysterious breed of phoenix but Meiling's natural gifts were simply amazing. The Eternal Eyes of truth was a power that was thought to have been lost thousands of years ago.

It was a power that not even Lao had seen before and was something that only his grandfather had encountered when he was a young dragon. It came from a race similar to humans but from a place far above the upper realm. He thought it was only the tales of a rambling elder but upon a single glance, he could feel the power that her eyes held within.

He couldn't wait to rub it in Li Jun's face just like he had done when he first found Haru.

"You feel it don't you?" Lao said and then slowly walked towards Meiling.

"Feel it? What is it?" Meiling asked, confused. She had no idea what Lao was talking about as his imposing aura grew stronger when he walked toward her.

Meiling looked at Haru for help but Haru was too interested in what was happening. He had never seen Lao act like this so he knew that it must have been something important and didn't dare to interrupt him even if it did scare Meiling.

"You came out from your room just as we had made it here. How did you know that we were here?" Lao asked as Meiling backed up against the wall of her bedroom.

"I don't know… I felt like something was pulling me outside so I went to see what it was." Meiling replied with panic. She couldn't explain what it was that she felt but it was something that she had never felt before.

"Do you know how to manipulate your Qi?" Lao asked her and then knelt down in front of her.

"I- I do…" Meiling responded.

"I'm not going to hurt you, don't worry. I just want you to try to make your Qi flow to your eyes." Lao explained and then put his hand on her shoulder.

Meiling flinched at his touch. She was still afraid of what she had seen when his true form had flashed into her vision. But she did as he asked and tried her best to make her Qi flow into her eyes.

A few seconds went by until suddenly Meiling gasped in as much air as she could and gave it all to make her Qi travel to her eyes. Her eyes flickered with blue light for a moment before a constant glow of faint blue light held her eyes open.

"That's good. You can control it at will. Don't stop. Keep holding your breath and look right here." Lao instructed her and then pointed to the left side of his chest.

Meiling's eyes widened as she looked at Lao's chest and saw what he was pointing at.

It was like her eyes had turned into an X-ray machine. Everything around her had faded to black apart from what looked to be a beating heart that was surrounded by a bright green flame.

"That is what a dragon soul looks like. It is the reason you were able to sense that we were here. And it is what you felt called out to you." Lao said.

"Why don't you take a look at your own chest?" Haru hinted to her and just as he had said Meiling decided to look down at her chest to see that her heart was too surrounded by a bright green flame.

"You see it don't you. You also have the soul of a dragon within your body. That is how you could sense me. And if you look at your stomach you should be able to see the size of your dantian." Lao said but curiosity got the better of her and she looked back up at Haru who was still watching on.

She wanted to see if Haru was also a dragon.

As she looked at Haru she noticed that along his body were hundreds of veins that were glowing blue. The blue glow seemed to emerge from a small ball of light just below his belly button.

'Is that Qi?' Meiling thought before looking up at his heart.

Haru's heart was different from Lao and her own as it didn't have a green fire surrounding it. Instead, there was a black glow that blocked out the shape of his heart completely.

There was just a void that surrounded his heart. But on top of that void, there was what looked like a small fire in the shape of a bird.

As she looked at Haru more her eyes became locked to the void where his heart would have been. She couldn't look away no matter how hard she tried and for a reason unknown to her the black void was expanding.

"No, don't look at Haru! Look at me!" Lao shouted as loud as he could.

Meiling's eyes had been glowing a solid blue for a few minutes already and she hadn't taken a breath since she started. Suddenly the light in her eyes flickered and then vanished as her body fell limp and she began to fall to the ground.

Lao was quick to catch her in his arms before she hit the ground and as he did she gasped for air.

"What happened?" Haru asked, confused by what had just happened. The last thing he had seen was Meiling looking toward him with glowing eyes before Lao began to panic.

"I think it is about time that we awaken that power within your soul ocean before it kills somebody…" Lao sighed and looked back at Haru.

"Power in my soul ocean? Do you mean it is time to visit the mansion?" Haru asked, surprised. He thought that he would have to wait until he was stronger until he could go to the mysterious mansion within his soul ocean.

"Yes. She is lucky that she collapsed or else her soul would have been ripped from her body." Lao said with a worried tone and then his eyes locked onto the door of one of the rooms as the door handle came down quickly and the door creaked open.

His panicked scream had made the children wake up…