Chapter 186: The Little Brass Dragon

Even though his curiosity scratched at his mind, desperate to know what the box held, the White Dragon Lord resisted the urge to snatch it away.

Ogum took the box, approached the white dragon, and offered it with both hands.

"Great dragon, please forgive my earlier offense."

The White Dragon Lord accepted the box with a single claw.

"There had better not be a next time!"

Given the orc's recent deception, a more short-tempered dragon would have already swatted him down with a single claw. Fortunately, he was dealing with the White Dragon Lord.

Ogum clearly knew this, but unwilling to give up hope for his clan's rise, he had chosen the most foolish course of action.

And as a result, he had paid a steep price.

"Understood!"

With a disappointment he could hardly conceal in his voice, Ogum stepped back.

The White Dragon Lord opened the carved box. At the sight of its contents, Amos's pupils contracted.

Inside, resting quietly on a small patch of white fur, lay a few transparent crystals. The White Dragon Lord knew these were no ordinary gems—they were Elemental Crystals!

In nature, non-sentient elements existed in three forms.

The first was the magical elements that filled the world. Omnipresent, they served as the primary energy source for all magical classes.

The second occurred under special circumstances where magical elements grew so concentrated that they condensed into liquid. This liquid state was highly volatile and required specific environments for storage. The most common example was the energy within a Mage Tower's Elemental Pool.

The third appeared under extreme conditions where magical elements solidified into a mineral-like state. Mages called these Elemental Crystals, the very same "magic crystals" the orcs spoke of.

Elemental Crystals were precious magical materials on par with Mithril. Because they emitted powerful energy signatures, the mighty Elf Dynasty had mined them to exhaustion in Nordhill as early as the elven era.

The magical energy within an Elemental Crystal was extremely stable. Unless a mage actively extracted its power, it could last for tens of thousands of years.

However, their formation was incredibly difficult. One of the most fundamental prerequisites was that the world needed an extreme abundance of magical elements.

Clearly, magical elements had once existed in this world, and in high concentrations.

But why had it become like this now?

Perhaps the White Dragon Lord could find the answers from one of his own kind.

But before that...

"Where did these magic crystals come from?"

"Over the past two years, the Wildhammer Clan traded cattle and sheep for them with human smugglers."

The muscles on Ogum's face twitched; parting with them clearly pained him.

A thousand sheep could only buy a single magic crystal!

He had originally hoarded this magic power for his own tribe's dragon, so that in times of crisis, the dragon could draw upon the crystals' strength to cast spells.

But now, they were merely tools to appease the white dragon's wrath.

Ogum glanced up and found the white dragon lost in thought.

The White Dragon Lord pondered the information the orc had just revealed.

The more he thought about it, the more something felt wrong!

Traded for them?!

Even human smugglers possessed Elemental Crystals?!

Were Elemental Crystals so abundant in this world that they circulated as currency?!

At the thought, the White Dragon Lord's heart surged.

In Nordhill, the primary economic engine for top-tier organizations didn't come from within the plane itself, but through outward expansion—conquering weaker worlds.

The Nordhill World possessed formidable strength and a highly prosperous magical civilization. The high-end combat power of its top organizations often eclipsed the peak strength of entire foreign worlds.

These organizations gathered resources from other worlds through conquest or trade to sustain themselves.

Amos had only learned this after becoming a member of the Council.

Within the Council, the resources of the public sub-planes attached to the Nordhill Plane, a portion of the public resources within the plane itself, and a set percentage harvested from the major organizations' outward expansions all came together to form a massive profit pie.

Receiving a slice of that pie was one of the fundamental rights held by the organizations each council member represented.

However, until the White Dragon Lord officially gained the Council's recognition, White Castle had no such right.

But that didn't mean White Castle couldn't take the initiative to travel to other planes and harvest resources on its own.

Recalling the gold coins plundered by the Blood Axe Clan, the White Dragon Lord asked, "Where are these magic crystals produced? What is their exchange rate against ordinary gold coins?"

Ogum found this somewhat strange. Wasn't this common knowledge?

But he didn't dwell on it, answering honestly.

"Magic crystal mines are found all over the world, but humans control most of the large-scale ones. Generally speaking, it takes ten thousand gold coins to exchange for a single magic crystal."

The White Dragon Lord calculated that even without resorting to force—if White Castle simply used gold to trade with the natives of this plane for magic crystals—the profit margin would be tenfold.

Moreover, there would be no need to worry about finding buyers. The true value of Elemental Crystals could never be measured in mere gold.

Originally, the white dragon had only intended to find enough magical energy to power his Portal and return to Nordhill.

But now, a grand scheme took root in his mind: he would establish a permanent Portal in this plane, transforming it into White Castle's private garden.

The idea was simple, but execution would be difficult.

The White Dragon Lord felt a slight headache coming on.

Forget it. He would meet his own kind in this world first.

With that thought in mind, the White Dragon Lord spoke.

"Orc, where is my kin? Bring them out to see me!"

"Understood!"

This time, Ogum did not dare play any tricks.

The White Dragon Lord successfully met the dragon of this world.

But he hadn't expected his kin to be a brass dragon—one of the five species of Metallic Dragons—and a little tyke who had just crossed the Wyrmling Stage at that.

Amos looked at the little brass dragon, who was staring back at him with their mouth wide open in utter shock. This works too, he thought. Kids are easy to fool.

And so, the White Dragon Lord embarked on his path of no return: tricking a little kid.

"Hello there, little one. I am Amos. What's your name?"

Hearing the familiar dragon language, the little brass dragon snapped back to reality.

"Hello, I'm Sanibel. There are only about a hundred True Dragons in this world. A True Dragon as strong as you... how come I've never heard your name before?"

The White Dragon Lord thought for a moment before answering, "Because I came from another world."

"What?!"

The little brass dragon was startled at first, but then leaped up from the ground in excitement.

"Have you finally come back to pick us up?!"

The white dragon pressed a claw onto the little brass dragon's head and asked the question burning in his mind.

"Don't get too excited just yet. First, tell me what's going on with this world. Where have all its magical elements gone?"

Hearing this, the little brass dragon froze, an overwhelming sense of disappointment washing over them.

"So you didn't come back to pick us up after all..."