The Five-Clawed Golden Dragon

“Not bad.”

In the camp, Ed looked at the Dust Shadow Roe Tyr had brought back and nodded in satisfaction.

Ed was already long past being surprised by Tyr being the first to complete the task.

If there ever came a day when Tyr didn't take first place in training, that would be the truly strange thing.

“Young Master, leave it to me.”

Avia took the Dust Shadow Roe from Tyr's hand, planning to dress it and prepare lunch.

“Wait a moment, Avia. Come with me somewhere first.”

Compared to what they were having for lunch, Tyr was far more curious about who exactly that voice calling out to him belonged to.

Considering safety concerns, Tyr did not plan to go alone and instead brought along his maid, Avia.

Over half an hour later, Tyr, with Avia in tow, finally located the place his sense of guidance was pointing toward.

Before them stood a steep stone wall, heavily draped in green vines.

Tyr stepped forward, pulled the vines aside, and knocked hard on the stone wall a few times.

“Yes, Young Master.”

Although she didn't know what Tyr wanted to do, Avia didn't ask any questions.

She stepped up to the stone wall, magic power radiating from her body. Twisting her waist, she spun and delivered a powerful kick with her shapely, long leg.

With a deafening crash, the stone wall in front of Avia shattered, revealing an opening over two meters high.

“Let's go. Inside.”

Now that the stone wall was broken, Tyr felt the calling grow even clearer.

Avia followed behind Tyr into the cave, alert to every change in their surroundings, her internal magic power primed to erupt at a moment's notice.

She didn't know how Tyr knew there was a cave here, nor did she need to. The only thing she needed to do now was protect Tyr's safety if any danger arose.

The moment they stepped into the cavern, Tyr felt a cool breeze blow past. Looking around, he saw colorless, transparent crystals embedded all over the surrounding stone walls and pillars.

“Young Master, those are magic stones.”

Magic stones were somewhat similar to spirit stones in cultivation worlds; they could be used to replenish magic power and served as the primary power source for various magic tools.

Throughout the entire Elan Continent, no matter which race's kingdom it was, magic stones were an absolute hard currency.

“There really are quite a few of them. If we carted all of these magic stones away, we'd make a fortune.”

Tyr took a quick look around. The place was densely packed with these magic stones, leading him to guess that this was likely a magic stone vein.

“Young Master, you don't need to worry about money. Once you become a Grand Duke candidate, the family will allocate one hundred thousand gold coins to you every year.”

Hearing Tyr's words, Avia assumed he was in need of money.

“That much?”

Tyr really hadn't known about the family allocating funds to candidates. Hearing such a massive figure suddenly left him slightly dazed.

In the Kester Empire, currency was divided into three types: gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins.

At the time, to show off their superiority, the nobles had given these coins specific names.

Gold coins were called Gold Crowns, silver coins were called Silver Badges, and copper coins were called Copper Till-cents.

These represented the crown of supreme imperial power, the family crest unique to nobility, and the farmland and trivial loose change representing commoners, respectively.

For a period of time, nobles even considered it a disgrace to use Copper Till-cents, believing that no matter how destitute a noble might be, they should still pay with Silver Badges.

Furthermore, in transactions between nobles, the appearance of Copper Till-cents would be viewed as an insulting gesture.

Duels had even broken out between nobles in the past over this very issue.

Even to this day, some old-fashioned nobles still clung to this mindset.

However, most nobles no longer cared, and calling them "Gold Crowns" and such was too much of a hassle, so most people just directly referred to them as gold, silver, and copper coins.

The exchange rate between gold and silver coins, as well as silver and copper coins, was one to one hundred.

One hundred thousand gold coins a year... if one copper coin was equated to one dollar, that meant once he became a Grand Duke candidate, the family would give him one billion dollars every year.

In his past life, his family's annual income was probably around that amount, right? And now it was being handed directly to him as pocket money?

As expected of a top-tier great noble family—they were incredibly wealthy and domineering.

With this comparison, Tyr suddenly felt that the magic stones in this cave weren't so dazzling anymore.

Oh, heavens, is this what it feels like to be rich?

At this moment, Tyr suddenly understood the meaning of that famous quote: I don't like money; I have absolutely no interest in money.

Yes, looking at the surrounding magic stones now, he really had no interest in them at all.

Time to get to business and find the source of that voice.

Following the sense of guidance, Tyr and Avia made their way through the stone forest inside the cave, heading deeper into the interior.

As they reached the deepest part of the cave, a shaft of dazzling daylight shone down from above.

Tyr looked up. The depths of this cave actually opened up into a valley.

Looking ahead, at the very back of the valley, stood a massive wall of magic stone crystal.

But what shocked Tyr even more was that sealed inside this gargantuan wall of magic stone crystal was a dragon.

Yes, a dragon. And it wasn't the lizard-like western dragon, but an Eastern divine dragon.

Its massive body, winding for thousands of zhang, was covered in overlapping scales. Every single dragon scale flowed with an incredibly pure golden divine glow, and its five claws were powerful and robust.

This was not just any divine dragon; it was the sovereign of the divine dragon clan—a Five-Clawed Golden Dragon.

Avia, who had been following behind Tyr, felt her pupils contract violently upon seeing the colossal beast inside the magic stone crystal wall.

With a wave of her hand, she shielded Tyr behind her. The magic power inside her body boiled, and a black magic glow erupted from her form.

“Fellow countryman, you have finally come.”

A vast, ancient voice echoed. This time, it wasn't a divine sense transmission like before; Avia, standing beside him, could hear it clearly as well.

“So you're the one who was fucking disturbing the peace last night, huh?”

When a fellow countryman met another, Tyr felt absolutely no excitement. Instead, he was filled with nothing but pure resentment toward this guy for disrupting his peaceful sleep.

And to be honest, having lived for over twenty years in his previous life, Tyr had never seen this kind of creature outside of legends.

Just because it claimed to be a fellow countryman, did that make it so? Did it bring its ID card?

If he weren't currently unable to gauge the strength of this dragon, Tyr would have already wanted to have Avia go up and beat it up just to vent his anger.

“What are you talking about?”

The Five-Clawed Golden Dragon was taken aback by Tyr's sudden profanity. It had imagined that Tyr would question how it knew his secrets, or that Tyr would be eager to know the reason he came to this world. It had never, in its wildest dreams, expected their first meeting to play out like this.

Are you not even a little bit curious about why you came to this world?