Chapter 533: Enlightenment

A crimson gleam also appeared in Li Mochen's eyes, and his breathing began to grow heavy.

Without a doubt, this was a powerful artifact possessing the divine authority over life and death, countless times more potent than the 'Yin-Yang Life-and-Death Mirror'—it could even be called a mythical armament.

At this moment, a great surge of greed was awakened within his mind.

Ever since his soul fusion with the original host exceeded 80% and his profession rank entered the Extraordinary tier, he had rarely been influenced by his own desires.

Dugu Tianyi's curse could amplify his desires tenfold or a hundredfold, yet Li Mochen could still handle them rationally. He precisely grasped which desires to indulge and which to restrain, and even had the spare capacity to eradicate the root of Dugu Tianyi's curse lingering deep in his psyche.

But now, upon seeing this 'Dragon's Enlightenment,' Li Mochen realized his self-control was not as praiseworthy as he had thought. Previously, he had been able to perfectly suppress his desires only because he had not encountered anything truly remarkable.

After staring deeply for a long while, Li Mochen forced himself to look away and swept his gaze around. He soon understood why the 'Dragon's Enlightenment' had not favored any dragonkind in the past century.

It was because some of the 'Dragon Language Magic Runes' here had been damaged. Under the relentless erosion of death energy over the years, many runes within the vast magical array had become unusable—

"There must have been more than one guardian here before, responsible for daily maintenance and security."

Angela discovered three dragon nests at the edge of this magical plane, but they were empty, containing nothing but large amounts of gold and gems.

After hesitating for a moment, Li Mochen produced a twenty-sixth-level magic scroll.

This was the spell 'Retrospect of Light and Shadow,' a demigod-level spell that could replay everything that had happened within a ten-kilometer radius over the past thousand years. Of course, its price was exorbitant—seventy million gold shields—which pained even Li Mochen.

But his purpose in buying it was to track down the 'Dragon's Enlightenment'—this was originally his third plan. After divining its approximate location, he would use 'Retrospect of Light and Shadow' to achieve his goal.

Yet now that the second plan had led him to the 'Dragon's Enlightenment,' this scroll had become useless.

The illusory images that then unfolded in this plane confirmed Angela's speculation.

The three guardians here were all ancient bronze dragons—a powerful species among dragonkind with formidable melee capabilities and a certain ability to manipulate the flow of time, and currently the longest-surviving known race among dragons.

They did not reside here permanently but took shifts every hundred years, each bronze dragon staying for about a century to guard and maintain the place.

However, since a female bronze dragon left a hundred and fifty years ago, no one had been on duty here. The other two bronze dragons had not returned for their shifts either.

"Something must have happened back then, and it was dangerous. She left in a hurry, anxiously, but she took all her combat equipment."

Angela's eyes showed curiosity: "There are not many beings that can threaten an ancient bronze dragon."

An ancient dragon's strength could rival a medium god, and bronze dragons, who wield time power, were exceptionally strong.

"I can only tell that if no maintenance is done here, the entire Dragon Tomb might be destroyed."

After entering this small plane, Hazel no longer suppressed her blood aura, which made her feel very comfortable.

"The Dragon Tomb is sustained by this artifact, right?"

Otherwise, that decaying world would have long been destroyed, and its fragments would have completely merged into the Light World it had been clinging to.

It was precisely because the 'Dragon's Enlightenment' continuously absorbed the death energy of this world that the Dragon Tomb world could persist.

But now, the life energy nurtured within the 'Dragon's Enlightenment' was in a state of overflow, unable to convert death energy any further.

And in the past, its constant gifts to outstanding dragons had been a way to vent life energy.

"So we are actually the saviors here."

Li Mochen made a joke, then led the young dragon vein to the apex of the pyramid.

The moment he stepped there, the 'Dragon's Enlightenment' transformed a vast amount of life energy into white light and forcibly infused it into the young dragon vein's body.

As a pure-blooded dragon, the latter was naturally favored by the 'Dragon's Enlightenment,' especially under the current circumstances—the artifact bestowed its gifts to the maximum extent.

The shadow dragon and red dragon bloodlines within this shadowfire dragon were rapidly purified and refined. Its body and bones expanded, increasing in length by ten meters in less than an hour. The dragon vein's claws and fangs grew sharper and more formidable, and its scales continuously enlarged, with mysterious patterns appearing on their surfaces. Li Mochen sensed that the little creature's level had risen by at least four ranks, reaching the high level of eighteen.

Even more astonishing was that the shadowfire dragon's physical strength and constitution seemed to have more than doubled from before.

Those life energies had directly strengthened the shadowfire dragon's foundation!

Li Mochen marveled at this. He knew that after advancing from level eight to level nine, a living being's physical foundation became stable and difficult to alter. At least in the Primordial Dome Realm, he had never seen such a method.

Even in the Light World, Li Mochen, who had read a vast number of magical texts and Eastern scriptures, had not discovered any secret arts or tools capable of strengthening the foundation.

Yet this 'Dragon's Enlightenment' had achieved this nearly impossible miracle.

After such rapid growth, the dragon vein showed no signs of pain. Its eyes were tightly shut, as if it were comprehending something, experiencing something, completely absorbed.

—The 'Dragon's Enlightenment' was not merely a vessel possessing the 'divine authority of life and death.' It truly had the ability to 'enlighten' all true dragons, and was part of the dragonkind's heritage in the Light World.

"Shadow Trace and Annihilation Dragonflame?"

A strange light flickered in Li Mochen's eyes.

Thanks to the 'Dragon's Enlightenment,' the dragon vein had awakened two powerful innate spells—which in the East were also called innate divine abilities.

Shadow Trace used the power of void and shadow to create a void trace, allowing it to freely traverse space, or, like the Nightlord of Void, to cast an enemy's attack into it. However, this innate spell had certain limitations and was not as convenient as the latter.

As for Annihilation Dragonflame, it was a dragon breath infused with a sliver of the divine authority of annihilation, possessing immense destructive power.

This was another miracle—an innate spell that a dragon-blooded sorcerer could normally awaken only when advancing from level eight to level nine, yet it had been mastered by the now level-eighteen 'dragon vein' without any adverse effects!

The dragon vein's foundation remained extremely stable. The 'Dragon's Enlightenment' had indeed spurred growth, but it had also solved all problems. It had packed the soil around the dragon vein's roots and helped the shadowfire dragon's root system flourish.

This made Li Mochen look forward to even more from this artifact.

"How do we use it?"

Angela was also eager to try. She did not know the situation of the young dragon vein, but the past experiences of dragons encountering the 'Dragon's Enlightenment' convinced her that this artifact could greatly help her.

Yet she also noticed that this thing still had principles. Even in its current overflowing state, it adhered to its rules, refusing to grant its internal life energy to anyone outside the dragon race.