Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from the Elden Ring

Lu Mingfei knew he was referring to Angers' words, so he listened quietly.

“Nidhogg, the Black Dragon King, was killed thousands of years ago on his own throne, a mountain forever covered in ice and snow. His killer placed his enormous corpse atop the mountain, his wings drooping to the foot. His blood flowed down like lava, staining the entire mountain red, melting the ice and snow, and rising into the sky with blood-red vapor, turning into dark red clouds and bringing down crimson rain. His killers cheered as they bathed in the rain, calling that day the ‘New Era,’” Lu Mingze said softly.

Lu Mingfei suddenly realized that the scene Lu Mingze described was being replayed outside the window. He heard the sound of a hammer striking the end of an iron cone coming from afar in the wind and snow.

He had been restraining himself from taking his eyes off Lu Mingze, but now he was powerless to resist, as the boy who called himself Lu Mingze had used the power of dreams.

Lu Mingfei turned his head to look out the window. The train was speeding across the vast ice plain. A layer of pure white ice, tinged with a bluish hue, covered the mountains that pierced the sky. The sky was a deep, blood-red, and torrential rain poured down, every drop of water a vivid crimson, streaming down the train window. At the summit of that ice peak, the giant dragon from the painting lay silently, its wings drooping to the foot of the mountain, its thick, blood-red stained the entire ice peak. Groups of people were climbing up the dragon's wings. Those who reached the top surrounded the dragon's head, hammering sharp iron spikes into its skull. Each time a hole was drilled, a white, viscous liquid gushed out like a fountain, instantly evaporating into thick white steam. The crowd cheered and shouted, their voices deafening.

Lu Mingfei slightly widened his eyes.

The Dragon King of Earth, perhaps?

He had also painstakingly slain the Dragon King of the Borderlands, Platonsangs, the supreme ancient dragon, hidden in the temporal rift of the storm at the heart of Sky City. When the ruins and storms returned to their places as time reversed, the towering stone pillars rose again, and the magnificent sacrificial site reappeared from the river of time, while the ancient king, as large as a small mountain, slept in the center of the stormy sky.

It was less of an encounter and more of an audience.

The moment Lu Mingfei saw Him, he was prepared for his first death after ascending to the Sky City. At that time, he had already defeated numerous demigods and possessed several great runes; no one who saw him would doubt his qualifications to become king. However, he was 100% certain that he was about to face a true mythical creature.

"It must be a tough battle." At this moment, Lu Mingfei looked at the cheering people outside the window, and his eyes even revealed a look of eager anticipation.

“That was a massive rebellion,” Lu Mingze said.

"You know so much, you even recreated a scene that should have been from mythology, it's like you were there," Lu Mingfei turned to him, "So are you a dragon-slaying hero, or a descendant of dragons?"

"Brother, I'm just curious now. If you really face him, can you still maintain this level of awareness and courage?" Lu Mingze didn't answer. His tone was serious as he turned and walked towards the back of the carriage.

The dream seemed to be on the verge of collapse. The faint, bright sunlight shone through and fell on Lu Mingfei's face, while the blurry darkness of the dream gradually swallowed up Lu Mingze's figure.

For some reason, Lu Mingfei felt a pang of reluctance and sadness, but he did not show it. Instead, he answered Lu Mingze's question earlier, "A long time ago, death was a new beginning for me."

Lu Mingze suddenly turned around and stared intently at Lu Mingfei's face.

Lu Mingfei continued, "But now..."

His figure was completely enveloped in dazzling light, like a nap about to be awakened by the afternoon sun, but his last words were calm and clear, following Lu Mingze into the darkness.

"Death means only one thing: that I have exhausted my strength."

The boy's gaze in his final moments seemed a thousand times more intense than the sunlight.

“Alright, I’ll trust you just this once, brother, only this once…” Lu Mingze replied in the darkness.

Someone woke up from their afternoon nap, took off their eye mask, and looked at the person next to them.

"Nono, how much longer until we get to Beijing?" Guderian asked the red-haired girl beside him, still half asleep, rubbing his eyes and swallowing hard.

"Still cruising, but we're almost there," Nono replied, looking out the plane window at the endless white clouds and azure sky.

"Wow, Principal Angers personally received Mingfei." The two were sitting in business class. Guderian was using the airplane's Wi-Fi and was grinning at a photo that had just been uploaded to the Night Watchers discussion forum. "I told you Mingfei was destined to be an elite among elites. This aura is no less impressive than the principal's."

"I have a feeling that our 'S' class is a big problem..." Nono said quietly.

“Big trouble? I think Mingfei is a good guy. He's sentimental. He even attended a classmate's farewell party and left his cell phone to his uncle.”

"Is that so?" Nono leaned towards the window, her forehead resting against the glass, thinking that it was because she hadn't been there and hadn't seen that guy's terrifying golden eyes. If Ye Sheng and Jiu Deya were still here and hadn't gone to Sichuan, they would probably feel a lot of sympathy. "I think he wasn't saying goodbye to his classmates, but rather like a dragon saying goodbye to its own humanity."

"Don't talk nonsense! Mingfei is the principal's designated 'S' level, he is definitely not a dangerous hybrid." Guderian frowned.

Nono didn't say anything.

Professor, you've been blinded by the tenure offer. Dangerous hybrids don't reach that level; they'd have to be at least three generations above that.

Chapter 14 Percy

Still inside the speeding train carriage, darkness faded and light shone through.

Fingel raised his hands, looking as if he'd seen a ghost, "Junior brother, don't eat me!"

Lu Mingfei kept his head turned, his golden eyes gleaming as he looked towards the back of the carriage, where Lu Mingze had disappeared, and Fingel was right in his line of sight. The way this little boy who called himself Lu Mingze spoke reminded him of the white mask in Nymgford, who had also guided his fate in a similar way, while subtly hinting and suggesting that there was another path to take.

What does it mean to believe in yourself just once? If you believe, why only once?

I'm just curious, if you really faced him, could you still maintain that level of awareness and courage...?

Lu Mingfei seemed to understand something when he thought of that sentence.

"Is it clairvoyance? The Dragon King Nidhogg does indeed have a mysterious appeal to hybrids, which precisely proves the excellence of your bloodline." Angers seemed unconcerned about Lu Mingfei's loss of composure. The young man before him had regained his composure and was now carefully examining the oil painting.

"Principal, are you sure it's just 'excellent'?" Fingel raised his hand and asked timidly.

Angers smiled and said, "Geniuses are destined to be extraordinary. I believe in Mingfei; he is The One among us!"

"Is the 'Dragon King' in the painting your enemy or your ancestor?" Lu Mingfei asked.

He didn't care whether he was an 'S' or The One. In this borderland, he had heard enough flattery and slander. What he wanted to know now was when the time would come when the boy believed in him.

He suspected that the guy was planning something big for him.

“Yes, all of them,” Angers continued. “According to the Norse mythology, the Old Artemis, at Ragnarok, it would bite off the roots of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. On that day, the world would be destroyed. For thousands of years, countless people have searched for dragons and studied them, and Kassel College is the epitome of this. At Kassel College, the ultimate goal of all courses is,” he looked directly into Lu Mingfei’s eyes, “to slay dragons!”

“Then I’m going into a school that trains dragon-slaying warriors.” Lu Mingfei understood.

“Excellent awareness!” Angers’ eyes gleamed with undisguised admiration. “In places you may not know, this has been going on for thousands of years. Humanity has written one history without dragons, but in another, every line of history contains the presence of dragons. However, this secret is too astonishing, and the consequences of its leakage are unpredictable. Therefore, several families we call ‘Bloodline’ have shared this secret for the past few thousand years and have shouldered the mission of slaying dragons. They have continuously cultivated offspring skilled in combat, sorcery, magic, and alchemy, sending them to the battlefield to slay dragons, burying the efforts to revive the dragon race time and time again, until today, Kassel College has inherited their legacy.”

After he finished speaking, he waited quietly for Lu Mingfei to digest this knowledge, but unexpectedly Lu Mingfei suddenly asked a question in a low voice.

Where is he?

Angers immediately realized that Lu Mingfei was referring to Niederhogg in the oil painting.

“Dragons, especially the first and second generations, are very difficult to kill. Their bodies can be destroyed, but their souls can fall into slumber, only to awaken in the future and descend upon the world again.” Angers’ tone was calm, but his eyes flashed with a cold light. “Most dragons are asleep somewhere on Earth, but they will eventually awaken, including Nidhogg. That day will be the end of humanity. What we need to do is find them before they awaken and kill them completely.”

Lu Mingfei increasingly felt that Lu Mingze's words about "believing once" might refer to the awakening of a powerful dragon, or even Nidhogg.

"So how many dragon slumbering sites have you found so far?" Lu Mingfei asked.

“A lot, but far from enough.” Angers shook his head. “You’ve learned enough today. Take a good rest. There will be a 3E exam for you in two days.”

Lu Mingfei had no choice but to stop asking questions, since he still had a long time to go after entering the academy.

"The 3E exam?" Fingel leaned closer. "Isn't it only high school students in the preparatory program who take the exam in advance? It's only a summer vacation, the college can't wait any longer, is it really necessary to hold a separate exam for the juniors?"

When he asked the question, he winked at Lu Mingfei, his eyebrows twitching as if to say, "See? I'm definitely your good brother."

“It’s not the academy, it’s the board of directors. They’re still hung up on Mingfei’s video.” Angers’ tone was laced with sarcasm, as if he were echoing Fingel’s sentiments.

After getting a general understanding of the situation, Lu Mingfei followed Fingel to the sleeper car to rest.

Angers returned to his seat, picked up the bone china teapot, and refilled the empty teacup with steaming hot, deep red tea.

He glanced at the empty seat in the direction Lu Mingfei had suddenly turned to face while looking at the oil painting, seemingly lost in thought.

......

Aside from train CC1000, the only other way to get to Kassel College is by air, so the arrival station is practically the college's outpost, very close to the college's main gate. Inside the main gate is an arched corridor, where the sunlight is intense yet serene on one side, casting golden rays that flow through the corridor.

A smiling young man stood straight to one side of the gate, his long golden hair covering half of his face, making him remarkably handsome.

“Hello, Principal Angers, I am Passy, ​​the secretary of the board of directors, and I have been assigned to supervise the 3E exam for Lu Mingfei.”

Lu Mingfei, Fingel, and Principal Angers had just gotten off the train when they saw this young man waiting for them in the distance.

As he approached, Lu Mingfei felt that the man's gaze was subtly focused on him, carrying a deep-seated scrutiny.

"The 3E exam required by the Board of Directors should be in two days," Angers said casually. "Lu Mingfei just arrived at the school and needs to rest for a while."

“Of course, my schedule was moved up two days. I’m just here today to welcome you all.” Pasi’s icy blue eyes remained unwavering.

“That’s good. I thought those old guys were going to dissect and study our Mingfei right away.” Angers smiled and shook hands with Passy’s outstretched hand.

Passy did not answer, nor did he care about Angers' disrespect for the board of directors.

He followed silently not far behind the three, much like a taciturn butler following behind his master.

The principal ordered Fingel to lead Lu Mingfei to the dormitory. The school staff had already gone on vacation during the summer break, but this good-for-nothing who had been on campus for eight years and had been demoted from "A" to "F" grade was definitely a good guide.

The principal and Percy headed in another direction.

"Senior, do I really have to live with you this summer?" Lu Mingfei frowned as he entered the dirty and messy dormitory.

Fingel stepped over the potato chip bag on the ground and denied Lu Mingfei's statement, "Not only during the summer vacation, your mentor is Professor Guderian, so this should be your double room from now on."

Chapter 15 Useless Person

Lu Mingfei has slept in a variety of places, including damp and stinking swamps, mosquito-infested forests, polluted lands teeming with decay, and dark underground ruins. He can tolerate extremely harsh environments.

However, he really couldn't accept the fact that there was a pig bone under the bed. According to the classification of this world, it meant sleeping on the kitchen waste he produced, which was a completely different concept from the harsh environment that Lu Mingfei could accept.

Under his insistence, Fingel reluctantly cleaned the dormitory with him. If the college's disciplinary committee saw this, their eyes would probably pop out of their sockets.

Fingel also had something to say: he was thick-skinned, but would thick-skinnedness work on a creature that resembled a dragon?

Late at night, the two were lying in bed.

“Hey junior brother, don’t you find this strange?” Fingel started the conversation.

Lu Mingfei, who was meditating and trying to mobilize his mental energy, was woken up by him. He opened his eyes and asked, "What did you say was strange?"

“Everything is so strange, junior brother. Don’t you feel anything as the person involved?” Fingel poked his head out from his bed, looking like he had a lot to complain about. “Look, junior brother, you are the principal’s handpicked ‘S’ level student, but the team that came to pick you up was not the admissions team, but an elite group from the executive department. Norma bought your train ticket in advance, the principal personally gave you admission guidance, and as soon as you got off the train, someone from the board of directors came to find you and wanted to give you a 3E exam alone.”

Lu Mingfei agreed with his opinion, but firstly, he didn't care much about these things. He came to this academy only to understand the power within his body and the truth of the dark side of the world. Secondly, these doubts were not the source of the academy and the board of directors. The source was actually himself.

"There are some things the principal didn't tell me." Lu Mingfei felt that among everyone, the principal probably knew the most.

Alternatively, if he could find his parents, his doubts could be answered, since his special "S" grade bloodline came from those two old people.

"Maybe you're his illegitimate child. As an 'S'-rank, it wouldn't be difficult for him to cuckold another 'S'-rank." Fingel's wild imagination ran wild again.

Lu Mingfei had gotten used to his eccentric senior brother, and his mind was also a bit of a mess.

There aren't so many intricacies in border areas.

When you arrive at the Great Blessing, don't say anything. First, take down the two demigods before you sit down to talk.

Join the Darkmoon Witch's organization, defeat General Rataen of the Shattered Stars, then enter the Eternal City to find the God-Slaying Weapon and help Lani escape her fate as a god.

Even the Volcano Mansion, that "evil" organization ruled by the corrupt Grand Justice who vowed to desecrate the Golden Law, offered several names to those who went in, demanding that they first kill a few as a pledge of allegiance.

At the border, all objectives are clear and specific, everything is out in the open, just waiting for the appearance of a person whose destiny has faded.

What kind of riddle is this, where the riddle is actually your own?

However, Lu Mingfei is not one to indulge in daydreams.