Lee Tae-sung was startled.
Just looking at the massive Earth Dragon was enough to give him a sense of overwhelming pressure.
However, Volkran reassured him.
“Don’t worry. An Earth Dragon will never attack you. They simply avoid people.”
It was just as he said.
The Earth Dragon stared at Tae-sung for a moment before its body slithered away to another spot.
Despite its mountain-like size, it moved without a single sound, making for a magnificent sight.
Volkran looked at Tae-sung with an expression of surprise.
“You… you have quite the talent for a human. I only gave you a few tips, yet you grew instantly.”
Earlier, the Earth Dragon hadn’t even blinked at the Flame Tide Wave Sword, but now it had actually gotten up and left.
Showing this much growth in such a short time was truly not easy.
Especially for a human!
“Haha…”
Tae-sung laughed awkwardly and scratched his cheek.
It wasn’t that Volkran was a racial bigot.
It was just a prejudice rooted in long experience.
The Bear Tribe was born with powerful bodies, and when martial arts were integrated into that foundation, they became strong at a rapid pace.
A Bear Tribe warrior who learned martial arts would unconditionally reach the First-class, and a significant number of them even achieved the Peak Realm.
Considering that First-class martial artists among humans were a tiny minority of the total population, it was an absurd difference in talent.
Having experienced such things since he was young, those thoughts were naturally ingrained in Volkran’s head.
“Seeing you grow gets me excited as well. Follow me. Let’s go do my training this time.”
Volkran gestured and began to head up the slope.
Following beside him, Tae-sung asked, “Are you going to find another Earth Dragon?”
“That’s right. Honestly, most Earth Dragons get annoyed and leave after taking one of my strikes.”
Volkran was among the highest-ranking members of the Bear Tribe even among the practitioners training on this mountain.
A single strike he threw could shatter cliffs and produce a roar like a thunderclap.
No matter how tough an Earth Dragon was, such strikes were fatal.
Only larger and more powerful ones — those at the Ancient Dragon level who had trained for a long time — could withstand them.
“Among them, the greatest Earth Dragon. We are going to meet the Earth King who reigns at the summit of this place.”
After that, Volkran climbed the mountain in silence for a long time.
He stopped in a place where the summit was not far off.
There was a massive rock cliff that looked a bit tricky to climb, but once they passed it, they would reach the top.
The distance was roughly several hundred meters.
However, it didn’t seem particularly difficult to climb for someone at Volkran’s or Tae-sung’s level of skill, so Tae-sung wondered why they had stopped.
“!”
At that moment, Tae-sung realized the truth and his mouth fell open in shock.
“Could this… be an Earth Dragon?”
“You guessed correctly.”
“!!”
The summit wasn’t several hundred meters further.
They were already at the summit.
What Tae-sung had initially misunderstood as a cliff was a massive Earth Dragon coiled tightly.
It was so enormous that even in its coiled state, it stood several hundred meters high and looked like a rocky mountain.
“The Earth King. It has been my goal for over ten years of training here. To make this fellow look at me just once… it has been a long-held dream.”
Just as the previous Earth Dragon had ignored Tae-sung’s first strike with indifference, the Earth King did not budge before Volkran. Waking the Earth King by becoming stronger through long training on this mountain — that was Volkran’s goal before he could descend.
“Hup!”
Volkran assumed a starting posture and thrust his fist forward.
A strike capable of toppling a mountain slammed into the Earth King’s torso.
*BOOOOM!*
Tae-sung grimaced at a sound so loud it felt like a thousand bombs had exploded at once.
It looked like a light punch, but it carried an enormous, monstrous force.
‘This is… I can’t block this head-on. I’d have to dodge it no matter what.’
Just thinking about that strike coming toward him gave him goosebumps.
He really needed to work hard on his Bihwapok training.
“Whew. Not today either. I tried challenging it by drawing on your energy, but it’s truly a shame.”
Volkran let out a bitter laugh.
However, since this was how it always ended for over ten years, he wasn’t particularly discouraged.
He simply thought that today was the same as any other.
“Would you like to try as well?”
“I will.”
Volkran stepped aside, and Tae-sung drew his sword.
Tae-sung wasn’t confident he could produce power comparable to Volkran’s, but since this was the Earth King, he wanted to at least swing his sword once before it.
Just as he had realized earlier, he filled the sword with his mental image.
The will to turn the Earth King before him into ashes!
In that state, he drew his sword and swung.
*Whoosh!*
The flames of the Flame Tide Wave Sword soared dozens of meters high and lashed against the Earth King.
At that moment, Tae-sung felt a strange sensation.
It felt as if the Heavenly Fire Holy Law Art, which filled the Flame Tide Wave Sword, was resonating with the Earth King.
‘Is this…?’
It was as if two familiar energies were reacting to each other.
It wasn’t just Tae-sung who felt it, as the Earth King showed a reaction as well.
*Rumble*
A heavy movement felt as though the entire mountain was vibrating.
The coiled Earth King unraveled its body slightly and lowered its head close to Tae-sung.\
Then, its massive eyes snapped open.
The pupils alone looked to be several meters wide.
With those ruby-red eyes, the Earth King stared intently down at Tae-sung.
“H-How!!?”
A voice filled with shock erupted from the side.
Volkran, who had been calm the entire time, could not control his emotions at this unimaginable situation.
‘The… the Earth King reacted?’
He thought he had become skilled at controlling his emotions through his long training here, but he couldn’t calm the storm in his heart this time.
To think the Earth King reacted.
Even though he had put in over ten years of effort, it had been in vain.
How could it be like this after a single move?
There were two cases where an Earth Dragon reacted.
One was when it was hit by a strike its body couldn’t withstand.
The other, which most practitioners didn’t know, was when they met someone with talent the Earth Dragon acknowledged.
In fact, when Volkran had faced a few young Earth Dragons, he had made them move without doing anything.
But the Earth King, the king of all Earth Dragons, had never budged.
Yet the Earth King was completely different in front of Tae-sung — a martial artist of the human race whom he had felt lacked talent!
‘Did the Earth King see something I failed to see…!’
He thought Tae-sung had decent talent when he first met him and when he saw his growth earlier, but he never imagined it would be enough to move the Earth King.
If so, there was likely only one reason.
He was a genius with overwhelming talent that Volkran couldn’t even dare to judge.
The moment that thought occurred to him, a hollow laugh escaped him.
‘Haha. Even so, I was trapped in my prejudices, thinking the human race lacked talent.’
The Earth King recognized it, while he did not.
Even though he had been secluded on Jiryong Mountain to gain enlightenment, it seemed nothing had changed during that time.
To fall into prejudice and lose his broad perspective…
He felt utterly pathetic.
As soon as that thought struck him, Volkran felt his inner self shifting.
The times he had spent on Jiryong Mountain flashed by and then exploded in his mind!
“He… Hahahaha.”
Volkran, whose eyes had become deeper in a single instant, gave a soft smile and placed a hand on Tae-sung’s shoulder.
“Thank you so much. Thanks to you, I have crossed the wall that was blocking my path.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Humility. We of the Bear Tribe lacked that. I also considered myself a great martial artist and practitioner, but I was arrogant. How could an arrogant practitioner gain deep enlightenment? The more of a giant one is, the more serious and calm one must become, but I didn’t know that. Thanks to your brilliant talent, I was able to realize what I was lacking.”
“???”
Tae-sung was flabbergasted.
‘No… what did I even do?’
Looking at the situation, it seemed to be because the Earth King had suddenly moved, but Volkran was completely wrong about it being talent.
‘The Earth King seems to be related to the Flame Emperor…’
Whether it was the resonance with the Heavenly Fire Holy Law Art or the fact that the Earth King — whom he shouldn’t even be able to scratch with his current skill — had moved, it all seemed related to the Flame Emperor’s Hybrid status.
If not, there was no way there would be such an intense reaction.
Tae-sung knew very well what his own talent was like.
“Thank you truly. I might not be able to repay this even in a lifetime… but I will surely repay this debt.”
After saying that, Volkran turned and began to leave.
“Then, I shall head down first. It seems the Earth King wishes to be with you.”
As he reached a higher stage, his senses had become more refined.
The Earth King seemed to have something to say to Tae-sung, and he was an uninvited guest.
In that case, it was only polite to leave.
Volkran began to descend from the summit with a refreshed face and a light step.
“……?”
Watching his retreating figure, Tae-sung had to struggle to understand why he was acting like that.
***
After Volkran went down the mountain first, Tae-sung was left alone with the Earth King.
Volkran’s attitude was strange, but it worked out well in the end.
Hadn’t he come to Jiryong Mountain to find the Flame Emperor’s legacy?
If the Earth King resonated with the Heavenly Fire Holy Law Art, it was bound to know about it.
“Um, Earth King? By any chance, is there a legacy left by the Flame Emperor? He told me to come find him here.”
Tae-sung asked cautiously.
It wasn’t just that the Earth King seemed related to the Flame Emperor; its sheer size made it impossible to treat lightly.
Obviously, if he acted up, a single tail flick would turn him into a flattened jerky, so Tae-sung remained polite.
The Earth King didn’t answer but brought its head right in front of Tae-sung.
Then, it opened its mouth wide.
Tae-sung saw sharp serpentine teeth and the dark interior of its throat beyond them.
It didn’t look like the inside of a living creature’s body, but more like an abyss.
At first, Tae-sung thought the Earth King was trying to eat him, but that wasn’t it.
The Flame Emperor’s legacy was inside the Earth King’s belly!
He could feel a strong energy resonating with him from deep inside.
“Then… I’ll go in. You won’t eat me, right?”
The Earth King remained silent in response to his question.
Whether it couldn’t understand him, didn’t think it was worth answering, or…
‘It wouldn’t really eat me, right?’
In any case, he had no choice but to go now.
Tae-sung walked slowly into the Earth King’s belly.
He summoned Ashaka to provide a light source and walked forward bit by bit.
The interior felt like a well-refined cave.
The Earth Dragon looked like a rocky mountain on the outside, and its interior was similar.
As he walked through the belly cave, it didn’t take long before he reached a place that looked like a well-carved stone chamber.
In the center of the stone chamber were a small bottle and a gold ring.
“That ring! It’s exactly like the gold bracelet we saw in the Spirit Realm! It’s an item that can communicate with the Flame Emperor!”
Abeson suddenly popped out of his pocket and shouted.
However, Tae-sung’s eyes first landed on the potion bottle next to it.
It was a potion of a peculiar color, looking like a combination of green and orange.
He had heard of this before.
While being on friendly terms with Elder Miganic, he had heard about intermediate and high-grade elixir potions.
He had said the color of a high-grade elixir potion was a mysterious five-colored hue that looked like a mixture of green and orange.
Suddenly, a comment Elder Miganic had made in the past came to mind.
‘In the past, a villain named the Flame Emperor robbed us. Among the items stolen at that time, there were many of our sect’s treasures and elixirs…’
‘…Wait, is this stolen property?’
Where’s the chapter 95,to 96