Chapter 48: Where the Little Azure Dragon Dwells

"What?" Boqi, still inside the soul-nurturing formation, suddenly grew agitated and struggled to break free. "How is this possible? There is clearly still vitality left in its body."

"Fellow Daoist Boqi..." Seeing that it was about to break out of the formation, Qi Hong hurriedly spoke up to stop it. "Calm down first. Since the Senior has said so, there must be a solution. Your remnant soul cannot withstand such turbulence." If it thrashed about any longer, its soul would truly scatter into nothingness.

Only then did Boqi calm down. It looked at Qiu Ci pleadingly, "Exalted One..."

"There is indeed no soul left in its body. The reason it has been able to maintain its vitality is likely due to that spiritual vein." Qiu Ci looked up at the spiritual vein in the air, which was still coiled into the shape of an eggshell. With such dense spiritual energy, it was completely normal for the little azure dragon's vitality to be preserved.

"Then has the Senior found a way to locate the dragon soul?" Before Boqi could speak again, Qi Hong had already asked first.

"I shall try a soul-calling technique!" Although she said this, everyone understood that the chances were slim. After all, no one knew how long ago the little azure dragon's soul had departed, and after so many years, could that living soul have already dissipated?

Qiu Ci did not hesitate. She formed a soul-calling hand seal, attempting to summon back the soul of the little azure dragon. With her HuaShen cultivation realm, it was enough to search a radius of a hundred miles. However, considering it was a dragon soul, she paused, raised her hand, and directed the nearby spiritual vein to expand the search range across the entire continent.

Before she could form another hand seal, however, the socially anxious Jing behind her suddenly changed expression. His entire figure wavered, and then he opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood, looking as though he had suffered severe trauma.

"Senior Brother Jing!" Zhen Yi and Feng Ting, who were beside him, were startled and hurriedly went to support him.

"Disciple!" Qi Hong was also alarmed, parting a shred of his spiritual awareness to look at him anxiously.

"What is going on?" Qiu Ci had no choice but to halt her hand seals, hurried over, and grabbed the young man's wrist to check. "Why has your soul suddenly become unstable?" There were clearly no physical injuries on his body.

The socially anxious Jing wore a look of utter bewilderment. He shook his head and said, "I... I do not know." Just a moment ago, his soul had felt as though it were about to tear away from his body.

Wait!

Qiu Ci glanced over at the little azure dragon in the distance, then turned her gaze back to the socially anxious Jing in front of her.

"I remember that the bloodline you awakened seems to belong to the dragon clan as well?"

"Yes," he nodded.

A bold conjecture instantly surfaced in her mind.

Could it be...

[Eh? Master, Master! Just a moment ago, I noticed something strange about his body and soul. Can Master let me take a bite of him? Then I can detect the exact cause.]

The system suddenly piped up with a surprised tone.

Qiu Ci thought for a moment and said directly, "Don't move. Release your spiritual consciousness; I need to verify something." With that, she formed an incantation and tapped her finger against the center of the socially anxious Jing's brow.

The socially anxious Jing froze for a moment, but offered no resistance, letting her imprint the spell into his forehead.

Qiu Ci used the Soul-Departing Technique, which could briefly cause his soul body to detach from his physical form and manifest. A flash of white light surrounded the socially anxious Jing as a semi-transparent soul body materialized. The moment it drifted away from his body, it still looked like a human figure identical to him, but in the next instant, the soul body suddenly shifted, transforming within a fraction of a second into the shape of a colossal azure dragon.

As expected!

"Young Master!" Boqi gasped in astonishment. "You... you are our Young Master!"

This sight stunned not only Boqi, but Qi Hong and the other elders as well!

"This... this, this... how could this be?" Although they had long known that Jing Hong possessed a rare dragon clan bloodline, no one had ever said that he *was* a dragon!

That dragon soul appeared only for a fleeting moment before quickly returning to the body of the socially anxious Jing. He, too, understood what had just happened and looked blankly at the people before him. "Senior Chu, what on earth is..."

"I still need a bit of your blood for testing." Qiu Ci directly grabbed the system's small ball of light and placed it against his wrist.

The socially anxious Jing felt a microscopic prick at his wrist, followed by a single droplet of blood that surfaced and vanished into thin air.

From Qiu Ci's perspective, however, she saw the little light ball swallow that drop of blood *gulp*, causing the entire luminescent orb to start blinking like a traffic light. Fortunately, the system operated at high speed, and within a few breaths, it had the results.

[Ding! Testing complete! Master, Master, this kid's body is indeed different. It is a genetic creation from Blue Star, but only a semi-finished product.]

"What do you mean?" What was a semi-finished product?

[His body was nurtured and reshaped in a gene pool, but his consciousness was implanted afterwards.]

"A gene pool..." Qiu Ci suddenly recalled the history of the beast clan that Boqi had spoken of—the origin of the people on this continent. "You mean the socially anxious Jing, just like the ancestors of this continent, was nurtured from Blue Star's gene pool, but his soul belongs to the little azure dragon?"

[Yes, Master!]

"That's impossible. The beast clan's incubation pool broke thousands of years ago. The socially anxious Jing is only a few years old—how could anyone create a bod—"

Wait!

Her words stopped abruptly midway, as a sudden realization dawned on her.

"The Main Brain!"

No wonder the Main Brain had spoken those words to her right before its self-destruction. She had previously found it strange that the beast clan had remained trapped in the Endless Sea for thousands of years without emerging, yet the Main Brain knew about them. If it had learned about the beast clan from the little azure dragon's soul, that would make complete sense. Furthermore, the research facility indeed possessed the capability to craft a new body for it.

"sect Master." At this thought, Qiu Ci turned to look at Qi Hong. "Would it be convenient to share the background of the socially anxious Jing? Where is he from, and how did he join the Xuantian Sect?"

"Ah? Who?" Qi Hong was momentarily stunned before realizing the other person was asking about Jing Hong. He glanced at the young man before replying, "This matter... is not really a secret. Jing Hong was originally an orphan. I discovered him within the sect and took him in as a disciple. He grew up inside the sect since childhood."

"Within the sect—was it the forbidden grounds?"

"How did you know?" Qi Hong asked in shock, looking at her with disbelief.

Alright! Confirmed!

It was the handiwork of the Main Brain!

"Exalted One?" Boqi looked between the azure dragon not far away and Jing Hong, asking with some urgency, "What is going on here?"

Jing Hong and the gathered elders also looked over.

Qiu Ci sighed, patted the shoulder of the socially anxious Jing, and said, "I don't know how to explain it to you, but what can be confirmed right now is that you are the little azure dragon."

The socially anxious Jing: "..."

Qi Hong: "..."

Boqi: "..."

What kind of situation was this?

Qiu Ci looked up at the spiritual vein ahead, piecing together the whole story.

A thousand years ago, the ones who broke into the beast city and stole the dragon egg were undoubtedly members of the Immortal Alliance. As for how they managed to enter, it was likely through the use of those immortal artifacts—products of Blue Star. After all, since even psionic mechs existed, opening the barrier of the beast city naturally wouldn't be difficult.

At that time, the immortal artifacts they could control should have been very few, until they brought back the little azure dragon and discovered that its blood could help them control the artifacts.

The system had once said that the more sophisticated a device, the stricter its authorization requirements. As allies who had signed a peace treaty with Blue Star, the beast clan naturally possessed the authority to control Blue Star's creations—especially the little azure dragon, who was the leader of the beast clan, granting it clearance higher than anyone else's.

The Immortal Alliance had exploited this exact loophole, using the little azure dragon's blood to steal part of that authority in order to drive the psionic mechs. That was why they imprisoned the little azure dragon here and deliberately extracted the spiritual vein—purely to suppress it.

Boqi had mentioned that when the dragon egg was stolen, it was already approaching the hatching period. It was very likely that the azure dragon hatched around that time. Realizing it was imprisoned, it would naturally have resisted. After presumably trying and failing to escape, it must have resorted to separating its soul from its body.

Perhaps through instinct, or perhaps drawn by the guidance of that dragon scale protocol in the research facility, its soul ultimately reached the facility. The Main Brain discovered it, and abiding by the mutual assistance treaty between Blue Star and the beast clan, rescued its ally and forged a new body for it.

This must be why the socially anxious Jing appeared in the forbidden grounds of the Xuantian Sect and was picked up by Qi Hong.