The First Order

Luster of Heaven Palace. Several maids were flying kites in the private gardens behind the palace.

Qin Yin was wearing a violet robe, a golden crest with the Yin flower fastened on her chest. She lay with a guqin against her body as she watched the fluttering kites in the sky with a serene smile.

“Princess Yin!” A female servant respectfully greeted her.

Qin Yin smiled gently: “I don’t need anything, you may retire.”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

Then Qin Yin turned around and saw Tang Xiao Xi walking over to her with a greedy glint in her eye, as if she was looking at a delicious dish before her. She laughed and said: “Xiao Xi, why are you looking at me like that? I’m not food.”

Tang Xiao Xi rubber her delicate hands together, and said a little shyly: “Xiao Yin ah, I have a favor to ask of you…”

“Oh…”

Qin Yin couldn’t help smiling: “When did our Xiao Xi become so polite? Hmph! Last time in the palace you were a lion opening its mouth so widely that you got five rods of golden thread wood, where has that gutsiness gone?”

TL: Lion opening its mouth widely is like wanting something a lot

Tang Xiao Xi’s face blushed red: “Well this time I will be taking advantage your generosity…”

“Oh? Tell me, what is it!” Qin Yin set the guqin down, and opened her arms wide to take Xiao Xi into her embrace, smiled and said: “I don’t have anything I want myself, tell me what you want and I will do my best to help you.”

“Xiao Yin, do you still have the present you got from the empress when you were seven?”

“Ah?” Qin Yin thought blankly, said: “Mother… the last gift she ever gave me…”

“Yes…”

Qin Yin bowed her head, and slowly opened the lapel of her robe. A gold piece of thread glinted between two buxom breasts. At the end of it hung a piece of bone, about the size of a toe. It was the bone of a young dragon, a true Five Claw Dragon, passed on from generation to generation in her mother’s family.

“This is the last present my mother ever gave to me. It’s all I have left of her…”

Qin Yin’s eyes turned red. Her mother had passed away while she was young. The things she left behind for her were not many.

When she saw Qin Yin’s eyes turning red, Tang Xiao Xi panicked, “Xiao Yin don’t cry, I don’t want it it’s just that…”

Qin Yin pursed her red lips and said: “This true dragonbone is very valuable, but… but if Xiao Xi wants it, then I will give it to you. After all, it is merely a present for me?”

“Really?”

Tang Xiao Xi blinked her pretty eyes, and felt that she was being excessive, shook her head “Forget it, I won’t take it…”

Qin Yin smiled and lifted her hair, and removed the pendant from her neck “It’s fine, I’m giving it to you. You are like a sister to me, a sister for a lifetime. I still have this guqin left to me from my mother. My mother’s spirit would feel gratified to see Xiao Xi happy, right? Heehee…”

Tang Xiao Xi held the dragon bone that was still warm from Qin Yin’s body, her heart felt a little regretful but also very grateful. She stuck out her little tongue: “Xiao Yin, I will be good to you for a lifetime! Let’s never leave each other!”

“Yes!”

……

That afternoon, a white horse stopped in front of the Temple. Tang Xiao Xi carried the precious gift from Qin Yin into the Temple and found Lin Mu Yu in the middle of training. He immediately respectfully withdrew from sparring with the Gold Star instructor. The instructor understood that Lin Mu Yu had some business to attend to with Xiao Xi and did not feel like being a third wheel. Xiao Xi was considered to be the second most beautiful girl in the empire, the pearl of Seven Seas City, and also very temperamental, he did not dare cross her.

“This…. Is it really true dragonbone?”

Lin Mu Yu held the pendant in his hands and couldn’t believe it. The bone looked very ordinary, it did not look much like what one would expect dragonbone to look like.

At this time, Tang Xiao Xi’s eyes were red, she said in an injured tone: “To get this dragonbone for you, I… I really pushed my luck. You ungrateful guy, why are you suspecting it’s fake!”

Lin Mu Yu hastily apologized: “Ha, thank you Xiao Xi… really, I thank you. Where on earth did you find this dragonbone? It must have been very expensive. I heard Grandpa Lei Hong say that the dragons in the continent have long been extinct, so the true dragon bones have also become scarce over time. So it’s practically impossible to find a whole dragonbone now.”

“You don’t have to know where I got it from.” Tang Xiao Xi replied with a wink. “Mu Mu, what are you going to do with this dragonbone? Is it for refining medicine?”

“Hey!” Lin Mu Yu had accidentally left the Dragonforged Bone Tome open. “It’s a secret, I will tell you next time!”

Tang Xiao Xi was suddenly worried, and pouted: “How stingy! Fine, don’t tell me! I’m going home to train!”

“Okay! When I’m free, I’ll go visit you!”

“When will that be?” Xiao Xi was suddenly excited.

“When I’m free I said!”

“Stupid….”

…

After he walked Xiao Xi out, he passed by some instructors and trainers that looked at him with envy. After all, it was very rare to see as kind and as beautiful a girl as Tang Xiao Xi under the heavens, and she was showing so much favor to this small Temple trainer. How would it not make people jealous and hateful? These instructors and felt that the gods were unjust, and doted too much on this little bastard, Lin Zhi.

Lin Mu Yu held the dragonbone in his hand and happily considered when the best time would be to refine it.

At this moment, Lei Hong entered the training hall and rushed to the training room Lin Mu Yu was in. While smiling calmly, he said: “Lin Zhi, I came to visit you, how is your refining going?”

“Thank you for your concern, everything is going well!” He replied realistically.

“Oh?”

Lei Hong lowered his voice and smiled: “You have no trouble understanding the Dragonforged Bone Tome?”

“Oh… well half of it I can’t make out…”

“So it’s like that…” Lei Hong nodded and muttered irresolutely. He pulled out a black key from his sleeves and handed it to him: “Then, you can have this.”

“Oh? What is it for?”

“For the secret door in the back garden. The gold star instructors all have their own rooms for cultivation so that they are not disturbed. You need a quiet environment to be able to cultivate effectively with the Dragonforged Bone Tome, so you can have this private room temporarily. Use it well. Don’t waste the resources of the Temple.”

Lin Mu Yu was very grateful: “Thank you very much Grandpa Lei Hong!”

“Ha! It’s nothing. If it weren’t for Qu Chu I wouldn’t be bending the Temple’s rules and giving a trainer a private room!”

…

His afternoon sparring exercises were cancelled so Lin Mu Yu headed over to the private room. But when he opened that door and saw what it was it gave him start. It was called a private room but it was actually a very luxurious hall. It was also fully furnished and each room had servant ready to provide what was necessary. Furthermore, each private room has a servant taking care of all your day to day needs for cultivation practice.

Once he was inside he immediately locked the door.

He sat with his legs crossed on a flat bed of stone. This kind of design has a path to trace, many practitioners of fire refining do not refine on ordinary beds, or else they would burn the bed. The direction of Lin Mu Yu’s cutlviation was not all yet determined， Lightning Chop was a lightning type, Verdant Shell was a rock type, but the intesity of true qi gives rise to flames, so doing this on a rock bed was probably a good idea.

Weng…

With a small burst of energy the true bone floated in front of his chest. He carefully cut the gold chain attached to the bone and slipped it into a fold in his robe, then he channeled true qi to search for the power hidden inside the dragonbone.

While he was fully concentrated on the dragonbone, suddenly a crack of pain split across his skull. Immediately from his ears came a roar of a dragon sound came and a vast mass of dragon qi swirled around his body. It seemed as if his whole body was engulfed in dragonfire. He felt pain as if his heart and lungs were being rent to pieces. Lin Mu Yu yelled in pain, but he forcefully endured it, and continued to pry into the mysterious power of the bone.

Even though right now his eyes were shut he could see a scene appear before him. In the chaos raging flames burned fiercely, he could see a young dragon struggling in lava, crying out in distress. This was most likely the dragon’s scene of death. The young dragon’s calls became became despairing as its body slowly sank into the magma, blood dispersing into the lava, only leaving behind a claw on a piece of rock.

After a long time, the claw slowly eroded, and in the end left only a small chunk of bone, which was the very piece of bone on him right now.

Lin Mu Yu let out a long breath, finally understanding the origin of the piece of bone, and also understood the memories and power contained in the bone. The young dragon had transferred its power into the bone at the very end of its life.

If he could successfully refine the bone, then it would be equivalent to refining the spirit of the Five Claw Dragon!

…

He took in a deep breath and began to use true qi to peel off the essence of the dragonbone, releasing the dragon’s spirit.

But his true qi was like running water crashing into hard rocks. It surrounded the dragonbone and ceaselessly pounded against it, but to no avail. After several hours there was still no progress.

Perhaps he should use the Alchemy Cauldron?

He shook his head slowly and raised his fist, the light of fire enveloped his body and the dragonbone, a large cauldron appeared before him. What true qi couldn’t do the alchemy cauldron must be able to do.

“Fire!”

With the sound of the command, the alchemy cauldron whistled in response, a stream of fire surrounded the dragonbone. The raging flames burned for less than ten minutes but the dragonbone already started to peel. With a sound of a dragon’s roar, threads of golden light surrounded Lin Mu Yu’s body and continued to ooze out, as the dragon’s essence was released.

“Ah…”

When the dragon’s power entered into this flesh and blood vessels, Lin Mu Yu felt an intense burning pain, but it was still not the end of it. The piercing pain was intolerable for Lin Mu Yu, his whole body was covered in sweat, soaking his clothes.

The pain didn’t end, after the process of fusing the dragon spirit into his bones, the pain kept getting worse, Lin Mu Yu’s consciousness started to get fuzzy, and he fainted.

“Big brother, please stop!”

A voice entered his ears, it was the fairy Lulu, flying in the air, shouting in a panic.

Lin Mu Yu suddenly came back to his senses and realized his whole body was in flames.

“Ah?!”

He immediately let go of the true qi and the alchemy cauldron and rolled around the floor to extinguish the flames. Then he stood up completely exhausted. If Lu Lu hadn’t woken him up, the alchemy cauldron would have continued refining and his whole body could have been ruined!

…

Great suffering can make a person stimulated, but it can also let a person pass out into a deep sleep. It was really too dangerous!

Translated by: korezmi

Edited by: patrick_father_of_dragons