Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from the Elden Ring

The swimming pool and restaurant are nestled among towering ancient trees, lush and vibrant.

Looking down from the hotel suite, the swimming pool shimmers nearby, the restaurant lights flicker in and out, and in the distance, there is a charming town and a harbor below the mountain. The view is like that of an emperor inspecting his private garden.

“What did Angers say?” Frost asked, flipping through a stack of paper documents in his hotel suite.

“He said Lu Mingfei was not in good health and requested that the meeting be postponed by one day. The board members have already had their accommodations arranged by their families.” Passy paused for a moment, then added, “Angers refused the security forces from the Italian branch, and the hospital was taken over by the Laurent family. This afternoon, Lu Mingfei’s ward was outside Norma’s surveillance for about ten minutes, and there are records of operations performed by board members with board member authority.”

“Is Angers planning to use this meeting as Lu Mingfei’s political debut?” Frost frowned. “Meeting with the board members in a hospital room? Does he think he’s the emperor?”

“There can only be one emperor of mixed races,” Percy said calmly, bowing his head.

"Is the data ready?" Frost asked.

“The data that the investigation team downloaded from the Norma database last time, along with the results of the family secret investigation, has been connected to the computer terminal in the conference room,” Percy replied.

“This kind of thing can’t be fooled. The Secret Service’s principle has always been to rather kill the innocent than let the guilty go free,” Frost said coldly.

……

the next day.

The meeting was held in a standalone building perched on a cliff, its exterior carved from hard white marble, giving it a cold and solid appearance, with small windows.

The gate slowly closed from the inside out, accompanied by the heavy click of four ancient locks, completely sealing off the building.

“Everyone is here. It’s time to begin this special meeting of the Board of Directors.” Angers sat at the end of the long table, his voice deep and powerful.

He gently shook the small brass bell, and the bell rang crisply.

This was originally a place where ancient monks practiced asceticism, so the room was dimly lit. Although it was daytime, a row of candlesticks was placed on the long table, and the candlelight illuminated the faces of all the school board members.

There were six people in total, four men and two women.

No one spoke, and everyone's expression was different. An old man beside Angers, fiddling with prayer beads, looked deep in thought, while on the other side stood Frost, leaning on a cane, his face calm and his eyes lowered.

Sitting next to Frost was a middle-aged man in his thirties or forties, wearing a bright yellow tracksuit, with a bicycle helmet on his right. As a member of the board of directors of a prestigious high school like Kassel College, he had actually come to the meeting by bicycle.

The remaining two ladies were Countess Laurent, who had a private conversation with Lu Mingfei, and a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl.

Besides the school board members, a butler stood behind the young female school board member.

“I initiated this special meeting, but I did not reveal the topic to you beforehand. Perhaps some of you have already guessed it, but before the mystery is revealed, please look at the document in front of you. Its name is ‘A Brief Analysis of the Four Dragon Sovereigns’,” Angers said. “It is a conclusion drawn from the research results of the executive department of Kassel College, the archaeological team and professors over the past few decades.”

All the school board members simultaneously opened the complex report.

For about five or six minutes, the only sounds in the conference room were the turning of pages, interspersed with the occasional gasp of surprise. The contents were not top secret; the board members, as heads or acting heads of various families, were able to access most of the information and intelligence about the Secret Society and their respective families. What amazed them were the details and conclusions of the "Bronze City Report" and the "Panhandel Report."

Frost Gattuso picked up the brass bell in front of him and shook it: "The reports from the Executive Department of Kassel College have always defined these two events as suspected awakenings of the Dragon King. Why is this document so certain that the targets are the two brothers, the Bronze and Fire Kings?"

“Frost, my old friend,” Angers said softly, ringing a bell. “You should look at the signatories of this document.”

Frost and the other board members turned to the cover and, sure enough, found the author's name in a tiny corner: Mingfei Lu.

Below are the signatures of the student advisors and the head of the executive department, but the font is smaller than Lu Mingfei's name.

“As you all know, Kassel College recruited an S-class student from China last year. His name is Lu Mingfei,” Angers continued. “By chance, he encountered the twins of the Bronze and Fire Kings in two consecutive S-class missions.”

The board members present had all heard of this name to some extent, and they were all curious about how "lucky" it must be to encounter the first species in two consecutive missions? Moreover, these two first species were brothers.

Perhaps only Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the Japanese who experienced the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki within four days, can be compared to him.

Chapter 99 Shifting the Blame East

Frost rang the bell again, drawing the attention of all the board members. "Why was his account of the mission so ambiguous before?"

“Frost, Lu Mingfei is an excellent kid, but he’s just a freshman. You can’t expect him to have the mental fortitude to take a picture or ask for an autograph in front of the Dragon King, can you?” Angers replied casually, taking a Havana No. 1 cigar from his cedarwood cigarette case. He slowly sniffed it, cut the cigar open with a sliver of wood, charred the cigar with a thin match, lit it, and took a satisfying puff.

The girl covered her mouth and chuckled, but the butler behind her quickly placed his hand on her shoulder, reminding her to be serious.

“PTSD.” Angers exhaled a puff of blue smoke. “Post-traumatic stress disorder. He deceived himself into believing that he hadn’t witnessed a battle at the Dragon King level, so that he could sleep peacefully.”

“You don’t mean to say that he suddenly remembered now, do you?” Frost said slowly.

“How can you say it was sudden?” Angers shrugged. “It was more like he recovered just as he was recovering.”

“I just figured out your background, and you’ve already confessed…” Frost took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes, “Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”

Elizabeth rang the bell, "The data doesn't mention any battles at the Dragon King level. Where is Lu Mingfei's latest mission description?"

"This brings us to the topic of this meeting: the 'Dragon King's Latent Theory.'" Angers clapped his hands. "Please allow me to introduce you all to our 'S'-class student, the undisputed elite, Lu Mingfei."

The door opened.

Lu Mingfei, dressed in the winter uniform of Kassel College and carrying a small suitcase, slowly walked in.

All eyes were on the Asian boy with black hair and black eyes. Facing the gazes of many mixed-race leaders who had long held high positions, the boy remained calm, his eyes sweeping around as he scrutinized them one by one.

"Such upright character," the middle-aged school board member murmured in admiration.

Lu Mingfei's gaze finally settled on Angers, who was in the main seat. After receiving a nod of approval, he sat down in the empty seat at the end of the conference table.

“No student has been invited to the Board of Directors for so many years, you are the first.” Angers glanced at Lu Mingfei, then turned to the Board of Directors. “To give you a brief introduction, you are an S-class student, a guest professor of close combat, the newly appointed senior executive officer of the Executive Department, and the winner of last year’s first friendly martial arts competition among students, ‘Freedom Day’… By the way, he defeated two of the best A-class young people in recent years.”

Every board member was puzzled by the string of honors. In Angers' previous introduction, Lu Mingfei was supposed to be a patient with PTSD, but now he sounded like an unprecedented rising star among mixed-race youths.

But they soon realized that although the young man was very talented, he was facing the Dragon King, who in mythology destroyed human civilization with natural disasters corresponding to the four elements. Even now, the Dragon King is a formidable enemy that requires the entire Secret Society to go all out.

This is what guided thinking. People are always inclined to believe the conclusions they have reached through their own thinking. Even if it is the same conclusion, if they learn it from someone else while the logic remains the same, they may have completely different judgments.

“I’m here because I don’t trust anyone else.” There was no bell to ring in front of Lu Mingfei, and seeing that no one wanted to speak, he tapped the table twice. “Esteemed representatives of your families, can I trust your stance as half-bloods?”

The old man, who was holding prayer beads, shook a bell and frowned. "You have no right to question the honor of the school board members. For thousands of years, the Secret Party has been at the forefront of dragon slaying!"

"Let's change the subject then." Lu Mingfei glanced at him indifferently, not caring about the old man's displeasure. "What are your understandings of the Dragon King?"

“Before this, we always thought that the dragon kings were cocoons buried underground or hidden in the sea, which would hatch when the time was right and then eagerly destroy mankind.” Angers echoed him, “So part of the Academy’s work has always focused on finding the remains of the dragons, and we are committed to eliminating them before they hatch.”

This is something that most of the families present are doing.

“But imagine this,” Lu Mingfei looked around at everyone’s faces, “that a dragon king hatched a long time ago, and with his learning ability, he quickly figured out the rules of human society, so he hid among us and secretly expanded his power…”

No one was surprised. Such arguments had been made before, but they had always been regarded as absurd fantasies and had never been supported by any substantial evidence.

Elizabeth rang the bell. "So, what you said happened, right?"

The butler whispered a few words in the girl's ear, and the girl nodded and rang the bell to speak, "This argument is too shocking; you need to provide evidence."

“It’s very simple, I saw it with my own eyes,” Lu Mingfei said casually. “In Nibelungen, the protagonist of the story is not me at all, but the gods on the throne.”

"You saw multiple first-generation dragon species?" The middle-aged man rang the bell, his expression solemn.

“That’s right, this is the only remaining paper document.” Lu Mingfei took out a stack of printed materials from his briefcase and slid them across the conference table to the group. “The firsthand intelligence about the Dragon King that you want is all here.”

He said "you," but his gaze lingered on Frost, the old man with the cane, who remained silent for a long time.

The document was passed from one school board member to another. Everyone frowned, memorized the contents of the paper, and then passed it on to the next person, including Elizabeth Laurent. She already knew the contents of the document beforehand, and now she looked surprised, just like the other school board members.

"Odin, Norton, Constantine, it sounds like our enemies are three dragon kings?" The middle-aged man rang a bell.

“No.” Lu Mingfei shook his head in denial, and slowly spoke under the middle-aged man’s questioning gaze, “In the Bronze City incident, Constantine was killed by Norton, and in the Panhandle incident, Norton was killed by Odin.”

Old Tang, far away in China, suddenly sneezed. He rubbed his nose in confusion and then covered himself with a thin blanket.

“Since the Dragon Kings have chosen to lurk in human society, they must be wary of the current power of humans. Why would they fight amongst themselves when faced with a powerful enemy?” The old man, who was holding a string of prayer beads, frowned. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“That document already mentions it, and I think you all know it as well,” Lu Mingfei replied calmly. “Dragons can gain power by devouring each other, and the powerful enemy they fear is not humans, but Nidhogg. They devour each other to strengthen themselves, just so that one day they can face their father again.”

Lu Mingfei is in the light, while Odin is in the dark.

But this is also where Lu Mingfei's advantage lies: Odin is unlikely to come to this conference room to defend himself, and the entire course of events depends on Lu Mingfei's account.

"Everything you've said is too far-fetched. The only evidence we can rely on is your verbal account." After speaking with the butler, the girl rang the bell to speak.

Chapter 100 Time Zero

Before Lu Mingfei could answer, a fierce ringing bell drew the attention of the school board members.

Frost Gattuso, the representative of the Gattuso family, had a face as cold as ice. "Have you finished your story? Besides these incredible alchemical realms, incantations, and mythological figures on paper, is your evidence the research on dragon prophecies by those professors at Kassel College?"

“There’s also a mathematical model that analyzes the total amount of social wealth each year. There’s always an invisible black hole in this model that swallows up a lot of wealth.” Lu Mingfei shrugged, adding to what Frost had missed.

The model was provided by Su Enxi. Under Lu Mingfei's instructions, they are tracking these mysteriously disappeared fortunes around the world. However, this matter is very tricky. Known investigative methods are difficult to use to locate the manipulators in a vast human society. These fortunes may be stored in many accounts in major banks in the form of money, or they may have been turned into weapons stockpiled in warehouses, or even turned into secret bases hidden in the Nibelungen.

This invaluable intelligence was dismissed by Frost, who slammed it on the table with disdain. "We pay Kassel College exorbitant administrative fees every year, not to see such an absurd report at a special meeting about the Dragon King incident."

Frost is an important figure who takes over the family business in place of his brother. His importance is mainly reflected in the fact that the Gattuso family donates the most money to the college every year, followed by Lisa's Laurent family.

He certainly has the right to make accusations in this regard.

The temperature of the surrounding air seemed to have dropped, but Angers seemed unfazed, smoking and shifting his body to find a more comfortable sitting position in the chair.

The other person who looked calm was Lu Mingfei, who shrugged and said, "That's a real shame."

Frost looked around at everyone's faces and said slowly, "In fact, ever since the S-class mission codenamed 'Sword of Victory,' the Kassel College headquarters and executive department have been covering up certain secrets. The reason our investigation team failed to find evidence last time was because Angers hid Lu Mingfei in China and deleted his file."

He suddenly waved his hand, and several beams of eerie blue light simultaneously illuminated several locations on the ceiling. The beams, projected from different directions, onto the conference table, forming a projection that floated in the air—a giant screen.

The screen displayed a massive amount of information, including text documents, mission reports signed by different people, and images and videos. Everyone could operate this huge circular screen. The girl first curiously clicked on the longest video, which was shot from an overhead perspective and showed Lu Mingfei and Chu Zihang's duel on Freedom Day.

Most of the board members started opening the documents that interested them, which contained everything from Lu Mingfei’s background, childhood, high school, to his experiences after joining Kassel College.

Lu Mingfei's expression shifted slightly. He gently clicked on one of the files, which was about his parents. However, it only contained the names Lu Lincheng and Qiao Weini, without any other information.

He looked up at Angers, who was leisurely puffing on his cigarette without responding. The glow of his cigar flickered, reflecting the old man's lowered gaze.

"This S-class student who 'coincidentally' bumped into the Dragon King repeatedly was himself a suspect. Before high school, he was extremely mediocre, even leading some to doubt whether he possessed dragon blood. However, overnight, his dragon blood awakened, and he became a top-tier S-class hybrid. Principal Angers was even more miraculous, seemingly foreseeing this outcome." Frost began his narration, while screens in front of all the school board members began displaying relevant information in sync with his words. "Principal Angers explained that Lu Mingfei's parents were both S-class alumni of Kassel College, but all we knew about them were the names Lu Lincheng and Qiao Wenni."

“My dear Frost, this involves the secrets of the Secret Party,” Angers replied. “Its information is only accessible to a very small number of core elders.”

“Alright, I believe you.” Frost surprisingly let Angers off the hook. “Let’s look at the next one…”

He had prepared enough information, and Lu Mingfei's parents were not the most crucial point of suspicion. Angers' vague explanation only deepened the other board members' suspicions about Lu Mingfei's background.

But someone called for a halt.

Lu Mingfei tapped the conference table again, "I want to know the so-called hidden information."

His tone was calm, but the other board members were filled with doubt, especially Duchess Laurent. Everyone thought Angers and Lu Mingfei were on the same side, but now Lu Mingfei had undermined Angers.

Frost was stunned for a moment, and became suspicious, wondering what trick Angers and Lu Mingfei were up to now.

This time he was overthinking it. Lu Mingfei and Angers hadn't planned this part; Lu Mingfei was just expressing his feelings.

He had always believed in Angers, thinking that his parents were searching for dragon ruins in the tropical jungles of South America, just like other executives from the Kassel College sent around the world.