Chapter 953 The Elder Dragon
"That's enough."
The instant the elder dragon's deep authoritative voice resounded in everyone's ears, they closed their mouths shut and bowed their heads respectfully in silence.
This turned the sacred grounds as quiet as a deserted graveyard even though there were close to a million dragon around.
Even the viewers felt their fingers stiffened, unable to write a single thing.
They could just watch the elder dragon transform from a cosmic entity into a humaniod dark scaled dragon.
His scary dreadful expression wasn't changed at all even though his size was reduced significantly.
The moment the elder dragon sat on his overreaching throne, he ordered composedly, "As you were."
Life returned to the sacred grounds again as everyone lifted their heads and started discussing the elder dragon.
"He is as magnificent as half a century ago." Forgo mumured with a look filled with veneration.
"Just the sight of him on his chair is enough to make me shiver in fear." Tando gulped, "I can't even imagine facing him in a battle."
"He isn't proclaimed as the strongest for no reason." Anastasia smiled wryly, "I really can't see anyone defeating him any time soon."
Anastasia wanted to win the ceremony to regain her clan's honor back...But, she refused to challenge the elder dragon when she wins the ceremony.
You see, the captain of the winner team in the ceremony had a chance to challenge the elder dragon for his position.
Naturally, they cash out on their challenge any time they wanted...In other words, they could wait even hundred thousand years before challenging the elder dragon.
At the present, there were hundreds of unused challenges by the previous winners...Forgo included.
Everyone thought that with time and effort, they would be able to bridge the gab and challenge the elder dragon on better grounds.
Alas, every time he made an appearence, and they saw his unfathomable size and pressure, they erase those thoughts from their minds.
If the elder dragon wasn't so freaking overpowered and overbearing, those challenges were meant to be used a few years after the ceremony to snatch the leader position.
Alas...He had turned the ceremony into a mere traditional meeting for the clans' glory and collecting bloodline treasures.
'Elder dragon...One day, one day I will overthrow you.' Prince Domino thought with eyes burning with unhinged determination.
He respected the elder dragon the most for holding into the throne even before the creation of the SGAlliance, but he wasn't planning on bowing his head to him for the rest of his life.
His end goal was always to become the supreme leader of the dragons and his first step was winning the ceremony and obtaining as much bloodline treasures as possible to improve his strength.
Now that the elder dragon had arrived, it was time for the introduction of the ceremony rules...There was no way the four clan heads were going to wait until Felix arrive.
"How irritating, it just has to be me in this cycle."
Miffed, Red clan head Bymid stood up from his chair and eyed everyone for a few seconds...Then, he manifested a humongous holographic ancient brown wine jar.
"Just like in every cycle, the four clan teams' key to winning the ceremony is locating the ancestral wine jar and keeping it on them until the last day of ceremony." Red clan head Bymid paused, "As you all know, the ancestral wine jar is an important treasure to the entire dragon race."
All the dragons showed a solemn expression at the thought of the ancestral wine jar.
That's because everyone knew that it was a spiritual treasure that possessed the last remaining piece of the Ancestral Dragon's soul!
"Each cycle, the holder of the jar wakes up the ancestral dragon's soul and meet the ancestor personally. You can learn many secrets about our race and if you were lucky, you might even be the inheritor of his legacy." Red clan head Bymid said with an envious tone, "Such an opportunity can be enjoyed only by youngsters."
The dimensional pocket had a limit to the age of the participants...It allowed only beings with an age less than six centuries.
For the dragon race, having such an age counted as being still a youngster.
The four clans believed that it was the wish of the ancestral dragon to allow only youngsters dragons inside because he sought a true inheritor to his legacy.
But this was honestly more of a myth.
The current clan heads had gotten their chance to meet the ancestor, and he hadn't mentioned the legacy to either of them.
The same happened to each glorious dragon to lay his hand on the ancestral wine jar.
The fact that even the elder dragon had gotten his chance and failed to receive it was a proof that he had no intentions of passing out his legacy to anyone.
Still, they were convinced that the legacy did exist due to the many limitations imposed on the current dragons.
First, many other attributed flames could be inherited, but it seemed to be locked to just three attributes.
Second, the dragons were growing weaker and weaker ever since the dark ages...Majority of the dragons were able to reach the size of the elder dragon or even surpass him.
Yet in this Era? It seemed to be the average size of the dragons had been reduced to merely sixty meters.
Sure, they could grow bigger than this, but they had to consume bloodline treasures to achieve it instead of getting it straightaway from simply growing properly.
There were many other iffy things that the dragons wanted to know, but the ancestor refused to talk about them whenever his wisp of consciousness get awaken.
"As you know, the dimensional pocket kicks out everyone in seven days but the holder of the wine jar." Red clan head Bymid stressed, "Only after seven days does the ancestor wake up. So, if you took hold of the wine jar, make sure to protect it until everyone gets kicked out."
"Naturally, it's the job of the teammates to prioritize passing the wine jar to the captains."
For repeating participants like Forgo, he had no problem with this request since he had already gotten his chance to meet the ancestor.
The ancestor refused to meet the same dragons twice; hence it was useless to keep the wine jar on him.
On the other hand, the first participants weren't too pleased with this term.
But, they couldn't act against it since it was written in their contract, forcing them to hand over the wine jar to their captains.
After all, the captains were considered as the heirs and true core of the royal families. If anyone deserved to meet the ancestor, it had to be them.
"Last advice, don't bother with trying to leave with the wine jar from the dimensional gate." Red clan head Bymid added, "If the wine jar sensed that it was too near to the gate, it will teleport away."
Anastasia and the other participants nodded in understanding.
They knew that finding the ancestral wine jar and securing it was a challenge on its own due its teleportation ability.
They didn't know whether it was the ancestor playing with them or the wine jar having a consciousness that made it capable sensing danger and escaping from it.
It was so hard to find it, there were many cycles, where no one managed to find the ancestral wine jar and wake up the ancestor.
"That's it for now...I wish you have plentiful harvest and an overall good experience." Red clan head Bymid nodded at his daughter Chozzus before returning to his seat.
Everyone held their breaths in anticipation after realizing that there was merely two minutes before the dimensional pocket to open up.
The same didn't apply to the white clan team as they were starting to grew anxious with each second that passed by.
"As I have told you...unreliable." Black clan head Ygos advised indifferently, "There is still time to send in the replacement."
"No." Clan head Kyrsun replied bluntly.
He knew that it was already too late to replace Felix. Sure they had hundreds of great royal dragons, waiting to jump on this opportunity...But, he understood that none of them would truly help out his daughter and clan to win the ceremony.
If he wanted just to participate in the ceremony and be a token, he wouldn't have bothered to bet on Felix and make a deal with him with their precious ancestral scales.
"You are too stubborn for your good." Green clan head Azesdirth shook his head.
"He will come."
No matter what he heard, Clan head Kyrsun was convinced that Felix would make it on time.
He had seen his character and recognized that he was a man of his word. Even without the contract, he would still try his best to make it in time.
Alas, two minutes had gone by and Felix was still nowhere to be seen.