The black hole modified the dragon's tattoo. The creature had already gone through two transformations, but the fourth center of power applied a third one to polish the Blood Companion further.
The process took a while. Noah didn't want to use his ambition again to quicken it since his centers of power were begging him to rest. He had boosted his might multiple times to modify that rank 8 material, so his organs were almost at their limit.
Noah used that time to cultivate. His mind could benefit from the pressure radiated by the dragon, and his dantian had a lot of potential to exploit.
Only his body struggled to advance. His tissues required too many nutrients to grow. That center of power remained above his dantian due to the countless resources accumulated during the past centuries, but the latter would soon surpass it.
Noah summoned the dragon once the black hole completed the modifications. Dark matter flowed out of his body and created the Blood Companion in front of him.
The dragon gave voice to a pissed roar. It didn't like its time inside the black hole, but it soon grew interested in its new features.
Its skin had multiple layers of thick scales that seemed far better than its previous skin. The creature also felt lighter, and even the activation of its innate ability had become smoother.
"Go ahead," Noah said while wearing a smirk. "Try it on that wall." NovelsToday
The dragon didn't hesitate to turn and open its mouth. Its huge neck split open to enlarge the overall width of its mouth and create a pulling force that directly shattered entire chunks of the wall.
The boulders that separated from the wall turned into dust before flowing inside the dragon. The energy that they contained nourished the creature and its tissues. The cave instantly enlarged during that short use of its innate ability.
Noah made his darkness flow inside the dragon at that point. His energy empowered the innate ability, making it reduce most of the cave into dust.
The dragon grew excited at that sight, but Noah quickly ordered it to stop destroying his cave. The creature then gave voice to a helpless cry before lowering its head toward its new Master.
"Don't bow," Noah said before massaging his temples. "You can't fight the sky if you keep your head lowered."
A sudden sensation of weakness had reached Noah. The dragon had maintained its rank 8 status, but its power had fallen at the bottom of the lower tier. Yet, it was still strong enough to deplete massive amounts of his darkness.
The dragon couldn't help but feel surprised. It didn't expect Noah to be such a lenient Master. He didn't care about the creature's behavior, and he didn't even mind the many thoughts that reached his mind through the mental connection.
The Blood Companion was considering the possibility of rebelling. It sensed the restrains applied on its existence, but it was still stronger than Noah.
Noah would have to use his ambition to suppress the dragon if it tried to escape his control. A constant struggle could exhaust him, eventually forcing him to let go of his new asset.
However, Noah didn't mention those thoughts. He didn't even bother to suppress them. The dragon was virtually free to do as it wished.
"I need to give you a name," Noah eventually said. "I plan to keep you, so I can't just call you dragon."
"Names are for humans," The dragon replied while roars mixed with its human words.
"I can also call you Large Mouth if you don't stop complaining," Noah replied.
The dragon's expression froze. It had met Snore, so it knew that Noah wasn't joking. The creature would hate to spend the rest of its life under a terrible name, so it did its best to come up with something decent.
"World-eater!" The dragon shouted.
"No way," Noah replied. "It's too cool for you."
"Super dragon!" The creature shouted.
"That's not even a name," Noah said, rejecting that idea.
"Ultra dragon!" The dragon said.
"That's even worse than before," Noah replied before heaving a helpless sigh and thinking about the matter properly. "Duanlong should be decent enough. It also reminds me of my old draconic Blood Companion."
The dragon let that name seep into its mind and even repeated it a few times before accepting it. Duanlong was far better than Snore anyway.
"What happened to the other dragon?" Duanlong asked.
Noah thought about Heilong before suppressing those memories. The Body-inscription spell had harsh limits in the past, so he had often abandoned many valuable Blood Companions.
"I had to learn how to maintain your ability to grow," Noah shortly explained. "I don't need to replace my Blood Companions anymore since I can simply improve or feed them."
Duanlong was a Blood Companion created after amassing millennia of experience. The dark matter in its structure made it far stronger than its peers and connected it to the level of the black hole.
However, the creature was like Snore. It had the chance to improve on its own as long as it found nutrients. It could even send the energy absorbed through its innate ability to Noah since the two shared a tight connection.
The only difference with Snore was that Duanlong couldn't turn its body into gas. That made the creature slightly less resilient than the snake, but Noah couldn't avoid that flaw since he had to preserve its innate ability.
As a Blood Companion, Duanlong was a perfect example of a polished asset obtained after long studies. Noah had managed to create something so perfect only after experimenting on other beasts for countless years.
'This should seal my position in the eighth rank when it comes to battle prowess,' Noah thought while his other companions came out in the open to instruct Duanlong about Noah's habits.
The new use of the ambition had allowed Noah to breach through the eighth rank in terms of battle prowess. He had even added a rank 8 companion now. His foundation had never been so solid, but a grave doubt remained in his mind.
'Can I face rank 8 cultivators now?' Noah wondered while his eyes inspected his companions.
Cultivators were generally stronger than magical beasts, especially when it came to experts who had lived and fought for millennia. Noah's targets were also rich and influential, so he was sure that they had access to countless inscribed weapons and resources.
'I don't even know how the situation in the human domain is,' Noah thought. 'I can't imagine Divine Demon losing, and Wilfred was also there. They must have won.'
That conclusion raised another problem. Noah wanted a large battle to welcome him upon returning to the human domain, but he wasn't sure whether he could find the Crystal City.
'Madame Canson and the others must have changed location in these years,' Noah thought. 'There is only one organization that might know where their new home is.'
Fergie's face appeared in his vision when his reasoning reached that point. Noah didn't know much about the secret organization, but he was aware that one of its cells had worked with the Crystal City.
That gave Noah a strange idea. There could be a cell that desired to damage the Crystal City since one of them wanted to help it. Yet, only Fergie could know more about that topic.