Zane nodded "Follow me, you are staying with my lineages treasure guardian to look after Aurora. I have to go to the golden dragon ruins and I can't take her with me."
Aurora's mother just nodded.
Zane got up picking up Aurora before they flew out, Zane didn't want to be late to the golden dragon ruins.
'Can she be trusted?' Oliver asked internally.
[Yes, besides, my creator will be making sure they don't harm her. So no harm will come to Aurora.] Alina responded.
Zane nodded. He brought Aurora's mother to the treasury, after explaining the situation to the guardian, he was surprised but agreed.
"Alright I'm off, I'm not sure how long I'll be gone for. People are beginning to find out the saint dragon clan has fallen, and this means there will be looters. The treasures in the treasuries can tempt even some saints, so seal the treasuries for 2 weeks."
The guardian nodded, and he gave a token to Zane.
"This will allow you to unseal this treasury if you come back sooner."
Zane turned around to see Aurora pouting.
He felt bad, after all, she thought he had died and was miserable in that time. When he finally woke up he had to leave…
He gave her a kiss on the forehead with a doting expression in his eyes [I will be back. Wait for me, alright?]
With misty eyes, she nodded giving him a kiss on his nose.
Aurora's mother sighed at this sight 'She's grown very attached to him.'
With that, Zane walked away. He couldn't stay with her forever…
She stared at his departing figure with complex emotions.
Once Zane left the treasury, he saw the gate disappear behind him, there was only marble in place of the gate.
He sighed.
Without needing to ask an arrow appeared in his vision and a faint circle could be seen.
'Thanks, Alina.'
[Your welcome, Zane.]
Zane took off, into the sunrise. Why the sunrise? Because the golden dragon ruins were in that direction. His form was only the size of a carriage now, due to his size manipulation.
Coincidentally the village he was curious about was in that direction. Once more, he smelled that sweet scent that he smelled on his first day in this world.
'I'll come to visit you to satisfy my curiosity when I get back.' Zane thought looking at the village in the distance.
He decided to scare the villagers for some fun so he enlarged his form for a moment and did a low fly-by.
"ROAAAR!"
Seeing as they stared at him in awe and reverence he chuckled inwardly as he flew away into the distance. Some of them even kneeled on one knee respectfully.
…
The villagers watched as he flew away. "That was the saint dragon with a bounty, right?" A guard asked.
The village chief slapped the guard to the ground.
"Don't get greedy, the hell shock wyverns might kill us if we try to turn him in. Were nothing but a few small fries to them. Besides, this is a dispute between him and the heaven shock wyverns, let them settle it themselves."
The guard scratched the back of his head which was in pain and nodded.
…
Zane flew for 1 day and 1 night straight at his cruising speed of Mach 4 before he saw a towering spire in the distance.
They were in the middle of a grassland with no hills for miles.
This spire was the entrance to the golden dragon ruins. The golden dragons didn't live in main space. Their home was an isolated pocket of space inside this tower. The space inside the tower is almost the size of one of the 4 cardinal continents, much larger than the 3rd island itself. A testimony to how powerful they were, and this was only a branch!
There are 5 main golden dragon branches and 9 sub-branches, one for all the continents and islands. However, all of them mysteriously disappeared.
'Alina, is it possible to extend the time I can transform?'
[It depends on how closely your transformation resembles your original form. So if you make no physical changes but for example, make your scales black, then you can maintain that form for 32 hours with a mere 2-hour cooldown. Or if you change to a drake form that could work just as well.] Alina explained.
Zane nodded, with this he found a place to hide before transforming into a black dragon with 2 horns on his head.
Once he was done he flew out of hiding and towards the spire.
When people saw a black dragon arrive they nodded in greeting.
Zane nodded back, he could see all sorts of species here.
Ogre's, golems, elves, dragons, wyverns, drakes, wyrms, wolves, fairies, phoenixes, lions, tigers, the list went on.
All sorts of mythical and spiritual versions of creatures back on earth were here. There were of course humans as well, but they were surprisingly in the minority.
Zane found a spot before setting up a neat floating pavilion. It was made entirely of black marble.
Zane just sat down and curled up to relax feeling the gentle breeze against his scales while waiting for the person with the stone to agree to let everyone in. The person with the golden dragon stone is the owner of the golden dragon realm for the duration of it's appearance.
If they decide not to let anyone in, no one can go in and the realm will bar their entrance.
A group of elves stopped in front of the teleportation ring, many people glared at them.
The leading elf who was a girl turned around with a friendly smile.
"Relax, friends, we are not going in. We just wished to make an announcement. Our party will be selling most of what it gets inside of the golden dragon ruins, so there is no need to fight us for treasures. Is that alright?"
Many people stared at this group of elves in pity, they realized these people were doing this because they were not confident in their own strengths.
Zane realized this too.
'I should think of a cover name and back story in case someone asks. Better to have that ready in advance, I'll also have a few slight variations ready to make it sound more believable rather than scripted.' Zane thought to himself.
He just closed his eyes and began thinking.
After a bit of thinking, he got back to relaxing.
A few hours passed and parties similar to the elves walked up and announced they would be selling or auctioning off what they got from the ruins, etc.
Zane sighed 'One should never admit weakness like this… It will just get you targeted inside the ruins.'
A few divine realm spiritualist elders took note of Zane. They couldn't shake the nagging suspicion he was more than meets the eye. From the way he disregarded the presence of everyone by blatantly curling up to rest, to the feeling of him being able to fight martial realms despite being a 4th mortal realm, they couldn't help but take note of him.
Even a saint on the scene couldn't help but get a feeling of mysteriousness from him.
Gradually more and more took note of this seemingly ordinary black dragon.
However, Zane didn't care, he knew the higher-level people would take note of him before coming. Although they couldn't break his disguise which was enhanced by the system, their instincts and senses were at an extremely high level.
As for the mark of rebirth? Alina took over to hide that from anyone below the king realms.
The likelihood of anyone finding out was rather low.
It was then a roar was heard.
Crimson lightning shot down from the sky and a familiar hell shock wyvern arrived.
Zane finally perked his head up and smiled.
[Hey Anne.] He said over mental communication. Hearing the familiar voice she smiled.
She looked around but couldn't find him.
[Before I tell you where I am, call me Rudman from now on, alright? Just nod if you agree.]
She nodded.
[Turn your head to the 3'o clock position on a clock. Look for the black dragon on a floating pavilion.]
She followed his directions scanning the crowd before noticing him, She smiled and flew over.
"Rudman!" She said in glee and shot over with a flap of her wings.
Zane smiled "Hey Anne."
They switched back to mental chat as that was enough of an act.
[How have you been?] She asked.
[Good, dropped by the saint dragon clan. Apparently, the treasure guardians survived, in fact, they were untouched and didn't know what happened. So in the future, I should be able to restart the saint dragon clan.]
[That's good! I'm happy. Is Aurora with one of them?]
[Yeah, she's not happy I left her there though.]
Anne chuckled hearing this.
[Did anyone else survive by chance?] Anne asked.
[Yeah, Aurora's mother, apparently she hid her soul inside Aurora for a while. It's why she hatched later and also why Aurora was unable to use mental communication for some time as her soul was too weak to activate her bloodline. Her mother was using a quarter of the energy Aurora produced to repair herself.]
Anne frowned hearing that. That could be very detrimental to a child…
[Relax, Aurora's fine, I had a hero check her out.]
[A hero!?!] Anne asked in shock.
Zane nodded [I'm on really good terms with one, so it wasn't a problem.]
She nodded in a daze. She was about to speak when the ground began quaking. Of course, because the pavilion was hovering in the air, they didn't feel this, but they could hear it.
Zane narrowed his eyes. [Seems it's about to open.]
He got up and stretched before focusing on the teleportation circle below the giant floating spire.
The rumbling started off slow, but it gradually got more intense.
The ground was cracking apart with rays of light seeping out of it with motes of light also flying out of the ground. It was a magical yet cataclysmic scene.
"So… It's finally time." Zane muttered.
"Seems so." Anne said.
They looked at each other "Let's hope we both get what we want this time." Zane hoped.
She nodded.
The Pavilion they were standing on faded into strands of mist that entered Zane's spatial storage necklace.
They landed below and waited as a bubbly vortex slowly formed in a lake below the spire.
"Everyone!" A voice shouted. "Once you enter, life and death is no longer up to fate! Only by making a concession or having sufficient strength will you survive! However as the golden dragon stone holder this year I have added one rule!"
"If your opponent surrenders, you can not kill them! The realm will enforce that this time! That is all, good luck!"
With that a giant violet dragon barreled down from the sky and entered the golden dragon ruins, a golden brilliance could be seen to be clutched in one of his claws.
Everyone else charged in after him!
Anne and Zane held hands in human form to avoid getting separated as normally one is randomly teleported to one of 12 locations in the ruins when they enter the portal.
When it came to their turn they smiled and hopped into the portal.
Thus… The golden dragon ruin raid began!
...
End of arc 1 of volume 1 - Rebirth!
Next time: arc 2 volume 1 - Golden Dragon Ruins!
A/N: I will be taking a short 4 day break to plan the golden dragon ruins better, hope you understand! (I might publish sooner though, just depends on how long it takes for me to set up everything.) Also thanks to everyone who supported this book in the WPC#300 which officially ended today! In terms of power stones, we made it to 4th place with 108 power stones! That is a huge achievement for me! The true results will be coming out in 2 weeks and I am highly looking forward to them. Stay safe my dragon riders… Ok, that sounded better in my head.