Chapter 222: Reflective Dragon

[ Familiar Seal - Binding Result ]

[ Target: Reflective Dragon ]

[ Caution: The target already has an active binding. ]

[ Binding.... ]

[ Binding.... ]

[ The existing binding has been severed. ]

[ Binding: SUCCESSFUL ]

Encrid read it three times.

’Successful?’

He remembered the gold eyes of the creature that had walked out of the horde. They had seemed far too old for its narrow, youthful face. A crimson film had moved across them like a tide coming in and going out, and he remembered the thin, high scream that had sounded almost like the cry of something young being hurt.

He also remembered the last thing he had seen before darkness took him: a circle of pale light settling between two small horns, followed by the creature’s gold eyes widening in surprise.

At the time, he had not known whether one binding could break another. He had used the Familiar Seal because it was the only thing he had left, and because doing nothing had meant certain death.

He had not expected it to work.

Yet it had.

’Reflective Dragon!’

Encrid turned the words over in his mind, and the more he thought about them, the less he liked how casually the system had presented them.

A dragon.

Not a beast with a few dragon-like features. Not some powerful monster that had been given an impressive name by frightened humans.

An actual dragon.

Dragons stood at the pinnacle of all living species. They were the absolute beings of the natural world, creatures whose existence had shaped the histories of entire civilizations. Their power was not merely a matter of physical strength or the amount of energy they could wield. It was something far more fundamental, something that placed them above the standards by which other living beings measured themselves.

Among ordinary creatures, strength could be compared. Cultivators had their Stars and Realms. Mages had their circles. Even the most powerful beasts could be classified according to their abilities, their territories, and the threat they posed to human settlements.

Dragons were different.

The standards used to measure other species had never been made with them in mind.

A dragon’s body was a weapon beyond the reach of ordinary understanding. Its scales could withstand attacks that would tear through the defenses of creatures considered nearly invincible. Its breath could reduce fortified strongholds to ruins, while the power contained within its blood was enough to become the foundation of legends, ancient rituals, and entire schools of cultivation. Some dragons possessed abilities that seemed to violate the very laws governing the world.

And those were only the things that other species had managed to understand about them.

The truly terrifying part was that dragons did not need to prove their superiority. They existed, and that was enough.

Throughout history, kingdoms had risen and fallen, empires had waged wars that lasted for generations, and countless powerful beings had fought for the right to stand above their peers. Yet dragons had occupied a place apart from such struggles. They were not simply another species competing for dominance. They were the standard against which dominance itself was measured.

Even the strongest beings of other races could spend their entire lives pursuing greater power and still remain far removed from the heights a dragon could reach.

That was why dragons had inspired both reverence and fear in equal measure. To encounter one was not merely to discover a powerful enemy. It was to come face to face with a being whose very existence could change the balance of power around it.

And Encrid had apparently bound himself to one.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

’Of all the things I could have found in that horde.’

The novel had mentioned several dragon species, although most appeared in ancient legends, scattered histories, or towards the latter half of the story. Even then, the descriptions of their abilities were often incomplete. Some were associated with fire, others with storms, darkness, or powers that had no clear equivalent among the abilities of other species.

But there had been one detail that Encrid remembered particularly well.

Several dragon species were believed to have gone extinct.

The Reflective Dragons were among them.

They were also known as the White Dragons, although the name did not refer merely to the color of their scales. It came from their extraordinary ability to conceal their existence so completely that even the most powerful means of detection could fail to reveal them.

According to the oldest accounts, a Reflective Dragon could hide itself from the perception of other living beings so thoroughly that even the gods might fail to find it, provided the dragon did not wish to be discovered.

Encrid had initially assumed that such descriptions were exaggerations preserved by ancient storytellers. Legends had a habit of turning powerful creatures into incomprehensible beings, particularly when the people writing those legends had no hope of understanding what they had witnessed.

But after what he had seen on the bridge, he was no longer certain.

He had sensed danger, but he had not understood its nature.

Now, the system had given that creature a name.

Reflective Dragon.

And if the records were even partially accurate, then the creature he had encountered was not simply a rare monster. It was a member of a species that the world believed had vanished, a being whose kind had once stood among the absolute pinnacles of creation.

Yet it had been wandering with the horde.

Worse, something had already bound it before Encrid used the Familiar Seal.

Who had done that?

And what sort of being could place a binding on a dragon in the first place?

Encrid looked back at the notification.

There was another problem.

The system had explicitly stated that the dragon already possessed an active binding. It had even confirmed that the existing bond had been severed before his own binding succeeded.

Yet the next lines claimed something that seemed impossible.

[ You are the first mortal in recorded history to successfully bind with the Dragon. ]

[ Unique Title Acquired: DRAGON TAMER ]

[ Narrative Relevance: 3.76% → 4.96% ]

Encrid frowned.

’The first mortal in recorded history?’

He read the notification again, searching for some detail he might have missed.

It was not a matter of wording. The system had clearly acknowledged the previous binding. If another being had already bound the dragon, how could Encrid be the first?

Unless the previous binding had not been created by a mortal.

Or unless the system did not consider whatever had existed before to be a true bond.

Neither possibility was particularly comforting.

He had more questions than answers, and the system seemed determined to provide the answers in the least convenient order possible.

Another line appeared beneath the title.

[ Unique Title: DRAGON TAMER ]

[ A title held by no one before you. ]

[ Effects: ]

[ ? You can sense your familiar at all times, even when it hides from all others. ]

[ ? When both are willing, you may share its senses at close range. ]

[ ? Dragons will recognize the bond you carry. ]

Encrid read the last line twice.

’Dragons will recognize the bond.’

That was troublesome.

He had no particular desire to attract the attention of other dragons. If they truly occupied a place above the other species, then having them recognize him as someone who had bound one of their kind could create problems he was in no condition to handle.

He had spent nearly two years trying to survive the consequences of being an extra in a novel. He had barely managed to keep the Wall standing, and even that had ended in failure.

The last thing he needed was for something even more powerful to take an interest in him.

’Of course. Why would a title like this have a drawback that isn’t obvious?’

Still, the first effect was useful.

The system had not told him where the dragon was, but it had said he could sense it at all times. If the dragon was alive, he should have been able to locate it, regardless of the distance between them.

Encrid tried.

He lay still and focused on the faint connection the title seemed to promise. He pushed aside the pain in his chest and the dull, torn ache running through his channels, searching for any trace of another presence.

He found nothing.

No warmth. No distant awareness. No sense of another living being connected to him.

Only the pain and exhaustion of his own body.

He tried once more, but the result remained the same.

’Later,’ he told himself. ’When I can sit up.’

Perhaps the connection required something he did not yet understand. Perhaps his condition was interfering with it. Or perhaps the dragon was somewhere beyond the limits of whatever the title allowed him to sense.

He could think about it when he was no longer struggling to remain conscious.

For now, he had a dragon, a title he did not understand, and less than four percent Narrative Relevance to keep him alive.

That was enough to worry about.

Another window opened before he could think further.

Its border was different from the others. The edges were darker, almost black, and the text inside was surrounded by a faint red light.

Unlike the earlier notifications, this one did not appear to be reporting something that had already happened.

It was announcing something new.

[ ? ? ? HIDDEN QUEST TRIGGERED ? ? ? ]

? ? ?