“You’re really good with those cliches!” Lu Mingfei felt his mood lighten as he tore off a goose leg, chewing heartily, then handed the other leg to Finger.
“The best way to practice Chinese is reading and posting on forums!” Finger took the goose leg, and the two smiled at each other across the candlelight.
At that moment, the teacher of the two gluttons, Professor Guderian, was in the library, flipping through documents. The bookshelves in the ancient book section reached up to the ceiling, made from Burmese hardwood, with a metallic luster under the light. The shelves were filled with leather-bound tomes, and inside each book were transparent vacuum-sealed folders containing ancient copper scrolls, collectively known as The Ice Sea Fragments. These copper scrolls had been buried under the ice sea for thousands of years and had not been fully deciphered.
Guderian stood at the top of a ladder, stretching his arm to reach a book.
“Researching this late at night?” A voice came from below.
Guderian looked down and saw a head as shiny as the ceiling light.
“Manstein, what brings you here at this hour?” Guderian was surprised.
Disciplinary Committee Chairman Professor Manstein rubbed his shiny bald head. “I’m also here to do some research—about that new student of yours, Lu Mingfei.”
“Oh? Really? He is quite an interesting subject to study.” Guderian was startled, giving an ambiguous response.
“Despite being a freshman, he shot without fear when faced with Chu Zihang’s golden dragon eyes. Chu Zihang is the person we’ve found with the highest purity of dragon blood so far—he has already displayed the physiological trait of dragons, the ‘Dragon Eyes.’ Under his direct gaze, most people feel reverence, but your student Lu Mingfei felt nothing. It’s very intriguing,” Professor Manstein said coldly.
“He’s an S-Rank student, after all. Anything can happen with an S-Rank,” Guderian quickly responded.
“You seem very pleased with this new student, intending to nurture him into Cassell College’s most outstanding young talent, right?” Manstein asked.
“Yes, yes,” Guderian laughed, scratching his head. “That way, I can finally secure the position of a tenured professor.”
“Guderian, from our days in the same dorm at Harvard until now, whenever you lie, you scratch your head. Can’t you control yourself a bit?” Manstein sighed.
Guderian’s expression changed abruptly. He was silent for a moment before climbing down the ladder obediently. “How much do you already know?” he asked.
“He didn’t respond to ‘World Spirit: Emperor,’ did he?” Manstein stared directly at Guderian, his Aryan blue-gray eyes carrying a metallic coldness.
“How did you know?” Guderian asked quietly.
“It was posted on the campus news website—tonight’s headline, posted by your student, Finger: ‘Breaking News: S-Rank student Lu Mingfei did not respond to the Dragon King’s secret incantation. The college is investigating the reason!’ Now, the entire college knows,” Manstein said.
“Finger?” Guderian was stunned.
“Your specialty is Dragon Lineage Research. Despite your usual scatterbrain ways, in your field, you’ve always been better than me. You wouldn’t blindly make a conclusion about a ‘bloodline mutation.’ You clearly know that dragon lineage is incredibly strong—after dozens of generations of hybrids, it’s never fully erased by human lineage, and there has never been a case of mutation. Yet, you told your students that Lu Mingfei had a mutation. From that moment, you were trying to cover it up, weren’t you?” Manstein asked.
Guderian nodded. “I chanted ‘World Spirit: Emperor’ to him: ‘Praise the awakening of my king, destruction is rebirth.’ But he showed no response at all—he is the only case ever where a dragon-blood hybrid did not react to ‘Emperor.’ And he does have dragon lineage; otherwise, it would have been very difficult for him to resist Chu Zihang’s golden dragon eyes. My judgment of his lineage is not solely based on the principal’s assessment of him as S-Rank.”
“The Dragon King Nidhogg is the sole progenitor of dragons. ‘World Spirit: Emperor’ is the supreme World Spirit through which he rules his descendants. Any of his progeny would feel the call of the Dragon King upon hearing this World Spirit. But Lu Mingfei said you were singing. This is no small matter,” Manstein stated.
Guderian remained silent.
“The Ice Sea Fragments, serial number AD0099—I’ve already found the information you need.” Manstein handed Guderian a copper scroll sealed inside a cylindrical glass container.
“A fragment with the initials ‘AD’?” Guderian was shocked. “That’s a classified document!”
“The highest-level secrets are only hidden in the oldest records,” Manstein said. “‘World Spirit: Emperor’ affects all who submit to the Dragon King, but there was indeed a bloodline that did not submit.”
“The ‘White Emperor’ mentioned in The Secret Chapter of the Dragon Chronicle,” Guderian said softly. “That was our joint research topic back then.”
“Exactly. In this college, only we two know the most about the White Emperor’s history. The White Emperor’s ‘World Spirit: Oracle’ is, as far as we know, the only World Spirit capable of countering ‘Emperor.’ After betraying the Black Emperor, the White Emperor used ‘Oracle’ on all of his bloodline.”
“You mean Lu Mingfei is… a descendant of the White Emperor?” Guderian asked.
Manstein nodded slightly. “I can’t think of another explanation.”
Guderian was silent for a long time. “The White Emperor’s lineage is only a legend. According to the Ice Sea Copper Pillar, the Black Emperor Nidhogg destroyed the White Emperor with his immense power, killed him, ate his flesh, turned his bones into ice shards, and melted them in a volcano, utterly annihilating the White Emperor’s body and soul. Thus, the White Emperor no longer exists, and his World Spirit lost its power.”
“The White Emperor’s rebellion was the largest in dragon history. One-third of the dragons became rebels, and after the Black Emperor suppressed the rebellion, he recorded their fate on towering copper pillars—which are what we found in Greenland, known as the Ice Sea Copper Pillar,” Manstein said. “This means that the Ice Sea Copper Pillar was written by Nidhogg’s ‘Black Emperor’ faction. If dragons had political considerations, the Black Emperor would undoubtedly emphasize to his subjects that the rebel leader had been completely destroyed. But as an original-generation dragon, with the purest dragon bloodline, could the White Emperor’s soul really be so easily erased? Perhaps he still lives, sleeping somewhere, just like the other dragon princes.”