Chapter 146 - 122: Steel Dragon, the Final Weakness

Chapter 146: Chapter 122: Steel Dragon, the Final Weakness

It took him less than ten minutes to learn the Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique.

He ignored the message from the Skill Proficiency Panel and continued cultivating the Breathing Technique.

Three days!

He planned to grind the Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique to the Tier Seven Limit within three days!

For anyone else, this would be an absolutely impossible feat.

But for him, it wasn’t that difficult.

Now, he only needed to cultivate for 48 hours to grind a Breathing Technique from the entry-level all the way to Tier Eight.

Three days was more than enough time.

...

「Iron Blood Castle.」

The Ironblood Duke sat in a high-backed chair behind his desk, his brow furrowed as he stared at the two intelligence reports in his hands.

The two reports had just arrived, one right after the other.

The first report was from Lucas in Yorkshire.

On his orders, Lucas had taken a Raven and traveled alone to Yorkshire to gather intelligence on the Dark Night Knight and Roy.

Upon arriving in Yorkshire, Lucas had carefully infiltrated Rock Lion Castle and Ice Wolf Castle, only to find that neither Roy nor the Dark Night Knight was present.

Though he didn’t know where they had gone, Lucas wasted no more time and immediately sent the Raven back with his report.

Lucas had no idea where the Dark Night Knight had gone.

The Ironblood Duke, however, knew perfectly well.

Because the second report in his hands had come from the Blood Bat Marquis of Noson Province.

After reviewing the reports from Lucas and the Blood Bat Marquis, the Ironblood Duke began to ponder what the Dark Night Knight was truly after.

In his eyes, it made no sense for the Dark Night Knight to offend the Eldest Prince at a time like this.

It was true that the Eldest Prince had no Silver Great Knights under his command.

But he could casually dispatch a single Bronze Great Knight and slaughter everyone in Ice Wolf Castle and Rock Lion Castle, now that they were without the Dark Night Knight’s protection.

Offending the Eldest Prince just to collect a Defense-Type Exemplary Breathing Technique for his student—one the student couldn’t even cultivate—was simply not worth it, no matter how one looked at it.

It wasn’t just the Ironblood Duke who couldn’t figure it out; the Eldest Prince, the Iron Armor Turtle Marquis, and the Blood Bat Marquis were all equally baffled.

Especially the Eldest Prince!

Unlike the others, he was well aware that Margery still possessed 12 Inheritance Maps for Bloodline Breathing Techniques of Exemplary and Perfect Level.

Although he hadn’t been there and didn’t know the specific details of the deal between Roy and Margery, he could guess that Margery had swayed the Dark Night Knight with those 12 Breathing Technique Inheritance Maps.

’If you wanted Breathing Technique Inheritance Maps, you should have just said so!’

’If 12 Breathing Technique Inheritance Maps are enough to hire you once, I can give you that too!’

’Forget 12, I could afford to give you 24!’

After repeated speculation, the Ironblood Duke and the Eldest Prince arrived at the same conclusion: the Dark Night Knight had taken an interest in Margery.

The ’interest’ they suspected wasn’t a physical attraction to Margery, but rather an appreciation for her Cultivation Talent.

Even though they had never seen the Dark Night Knight’s true face or knew his specific origins, they were certain of one thing: he was not a man to be swayed by a pretty face.

They weren’t the only ones who thought so; others felt the same.

The reason was simple.

Catherine was a beauty renowned throughout Yorkshire.

Miria, too, was a celebrated beauty in Gel County!

If the Dark Night Knight were lecherous, Roy would never have had a chance with them.

It was no surprise that the Ironblood Duke and the Eldest Prince had reached such a conclusion.

They had all been misled by Roy’s audacious ruse of hiding his identity; it never occurred to them that Roy and the Dark Night Knight could be the same person.

But they couldn’t be blamed.

After all, Roy’s audacious move to conceal his identity was hardly something a normal person would do.

More importantly, they couldn’t imagine that Roy, who came from an ordinary Baron Clan, could become a formidable Bronze Great Knight at the age of 18.

The Wesley Clan was nothing more than an utterly ordinary Baron Clan.

Forget an 18-year-old Bronze Great Knight; their family history had never even produced a single Black Iron Great Knight.

If Roy truly were the Dark Night Knight, the shock would be no less than that of a beggar uniting the entire continent to become the founding monarch of its sole Empire.

They would never know that it wasn’t impossible for a beggar to become the founding monarch of an Empire.

Still less would they know that the Roy they thought they knew had long been replaced by someone else.

The Roy of today was not the shut-in who refused to even cultivate his family’s Breathing Technique, preferring to hole up in the castle and read.

He was a Transmigrator from another world, one who possessed two Golden Fingers.

...

「Late at night, two days later.」

「Chaos Square.」

This was the longest Roy had ever stayed in Chaos Square since transmigrating to this world.

During this time, aside from the necessities of eating, drinking, and resting, he had dedicated all his time to cultivation.

The Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique, Wolf Tracking, and the Purgatory Dragon Meditation Method!

The Purgatory Dragon Meditation Method was the same as ever, mainly used to restore his expended Spiritual Power and to replace sleep.

As for the Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique and Wolf Tracking, one addressed the final weak point among his Breathing Techniques, while the other became an effective supplement to his Golden Deer’s Ear, granting him a second Extraordinary Sense far beyond that of an ordinary person.

[Wolf Tracking: Tier One (376/1000), Special Effect: Extraordinary Olfaction]

Just like his other Secret Techniques, such as Dragon’s Battle Roar and Frost Slash, Wolf Tracking awakened the special effect of Extraordinary Olfaction the moment he learned its basics.

According to Margery, cultivating Wolf Tracking required a Secret Medicine concocted from a rare plant called Wolf Kiss Grass.

She had only succeeded in cultivating Wolf Tracking because she had previously discovered a stalk of Wolf Kiss Grass in the Royal Treasure Vault. Though she didn’t know when it had been gathered, it was exceptionally well-preserved.

After concocting the Wolf Kiss Grass into a Secret Medicine, she successfully mastered the Secret Technique, Wolf Tracking.

However, because she was unable to find any more Wolf Kiss Grass, her mastery of Wolf Tracking was only at the entry-level.

Margery may have been unable to continue cultivating Wolf Tracking, but for Roy, this was no problem at all.

Because Chaos Square was the equivalent of a universal Secret Medicine.

Time trickled by.

Just as Roy had planned, upon completing another full cultivation cycle for the Steel-Backed Beast, a notification to upgrade the Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique appeared in his vision.

[Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique has leveled up!]

[Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique: Tier Seven (Limit), Special Effect: Middle Level Defense (Can be upgraded by fusing with the Bronze Bear Breathing Technique)]

’Finally, the Tier Seven Limit!’

Roy sighed inwardly, opening the Skill Proficiency Panel and focusing his gaze on the Bronze Bear Breathing Technique.

[Bronze Bear Breathing Technique: Tier Seven (Limit), Special Effect: Middle Level Defense (Can be upgraded by fusing with the Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique)]

[Upgrade the Bronze Bear Breathing Technique?]

Looking at the prompt on the Skill Proficiency Panel, Roy thought for a moment before selecting ’No’.

Up until now, whichever of two similar Breathing Techniques reached its limit first, he would use the other as upgrade material.

This time, however, he decided to do things differently and looked toward the Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique.

Besides, there was another reason he didn’t plan to upgrade the Bronze Bear Breathing Technique: he already had a Tier Eight Horror Claw Bear Seed.

[Upgrade the Steel-Backed Beast Breathing Technique?]

Without a moment’s hesitation, Roy chose to upgrade.

Just as before, the instant he made his choice, the Steel-Backed Beast Seed slammed into the Bronze Bear Seed, shattering the latter—which had reached the Tier Seven Limit first—into countless fragments.

The Steel-Backed Beast Seed then frantically absorbed the fragments of the Bronze Bear Seed, ascending to a higher Level.

The Steel-Backed Beast Seed quickly devoured all the surrounding fragments. Its body swelled to the same size as the other five Tier Eight Seeds, such as the Frost Moon Silver Wolf Seed and the Horror Claw Bear Seed, completing its upgrade.

[Steel Dragon Breathing Technique: Tier Eight (1/50000), Special Effect: Advanced Defense]

[Advanced Defense: Your Defense Attribute is permanently increased by 80%.]

Roy expected the upgraded Steel Dragon Seed to let out a roar, and for the other seeds like the Frost Moon Silver Wolf Seed to roar back in a show of dominance. He thought that, in the end, the six seeds would divide the Sea of Life equally amongst themselves. Just then, however, something strange and unprecedented happened within his Sea of Life.

None of the Life Seeds roared. Instead, with perfect, unspoken coordination, they all moved to the edge of the Sea of Life at the same time.

Upon witnessing this scene through Introspection with his Spiritual Power, an expectant look appeared on Roy’s face.

He didn’t know what was happening, but his intuition told him this was definitely a pleasant surprise, not a nasty shock.

...