Chapter 482: Chapter 482 - Taming Curiosity Zhao opened his eyes... 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶 Slowly, as if he were emerging from a dream that had lasted little more than an instant. The first face he saw was Ren’s, who was stepping away from the medical table with an expression of exhausted satisfaction. The blue fungi that had been applied as final treatment gradually faded from Zhao’s skin as they counteracted the intoxication, leaving behind a healthy color he hadn’t had in weeks. The transformation was remarkable to witness. The crystalline quality that had been creeping into his features was completely gone. "Does it work that fast?" Julius asked, his voice full of natural disbelief as he watched his most valuable soldier blink to focus his vision. The two medical experts exchanged glances of amazement. Decades of experience hadn’t prepared them to witness such complete recovery from a case they had considered terminal. "It worked," confirmed the first expert, his Parasitic Venus withdrawing its monitoring tentacles from Zhao’s body. "His mana pathways are completely restored. The intoxication has been perfectly neutralized. It’s... extraordinary." Julius couldn’t help but smile. They had used the energy of a ton of healers during the process. But Julius imagined a world where Ren’s cultivation techniques increased the number of healers who were before going to be of very low level in the end. If Ren’s methods could be replicated, if more people could be trained in healing techniques... Having abundant healers for any emergency would no longer be an impossible dream. And with Ren’s new knowledge... The kingdom’s medicine could be completely transformed. "Where... where am I?" Zhao murmured, his voice hoarse but clear. "How did I get here?" His last memories were confused fragments: the king awakening from the coma and the metallic taste of mana poisoning. Everything that came after was a fog of pain and unconsciousness. "In the castle," Julius responded, approaching the table. "My father brought you back after..." "After you completed your mission with exceptional success," Dragarion interrupted from his position by the wall. The king approached, his movements still showing traces of the fatigue he had been hiding, but with the natural authority that never completely abandoned him. "You somehow faced a journey that was impossible for Victor to complete in order to save me," he explained in a casual tone. Zhao tried to sit up, noticing the residual weakness in his muscles. "What day is it?" "It’s the 4th day of the year 1515 of the Wood Dragon calendar," Julius responded. "You’ve been away on the mission I gave you for about 6 months." The weight of the information hit Zhao. The entire second semester of Ren’s first school year had passed. How many things had changed in his absence? ♢♢♢♢ When Zhao regained better consciousness, he absorbed the war situation. Now more informed, he had doubts about what he had missed from his greatest adventure so far. "How did we get to the ring?" he asked. "You were..." "Beaten up? Yes, and the mountain’s beasts should be strong from having so much mana around them, right? But in reality they’re more limited than those outside and become clumsy." Ren looked interested in this information, which was something his fungus still didn’t have access to... so he paid greater attention. Fortunately, he didn’t have to raise his voice or his tired hand. "The creatures are limited?" Zhao frowned, still curious, processing the information. "The Dragon that controls the mountain absorbs energy from both the central crystal and the beasts connected to the system," Dragarion explained. "...The mana vein’s input feeds them, yes... but the constant losses are at the same level and keep them in a state that could be described as stagnant. Frozen in their development because a single organism takes the mana from an entire ring and becomes too large... The bottleneck that is a Dragon’s development isn’t just external, it’s also internal." What the king didn’t mention was how difficult it had been for him to defeat those creatures while protecting the wooden cocoon that contained Zhao. Each battle had required creating additional layers of protection, and throughout the entire journey he had to constantly use the water ring healing to keep his charge alive. "How did we escape from the mountain?" he asked, vividly remembering how the crystalline walls surrounded them on all sides. "I saw no way to escape when we entered." Dragarion smiled. "Yeah, I can’t break those either, so... By taking the ring, that way the mana vein opens," he explained. "That turns the crystal base into a liquid source and you can cross through it. You can dig through it at that moment, though I don’t recommend staying near that mana density for longer than 1 second. We were already close to Gold 3 territory when we emerged, so I decided to take you through abyssal terrain." His expression became slightly annoyed. "The corrupt mana from that zone doesn’t absorb into our bodies. Though I complained the whole way. Having to keep you under the ring’s healing mana for additional weeks while pushing against the current of disgusting beasts wasn’t in my plans. But it was the only way to get you away from more toxic mana concentrations and keep you alive." He paused, his tone becoming more serious. "Fortunately, the new wood ring gave multiplicative control over its element to my Azure Dragon. Without that amplification, keeping the cocoon functional for so long would have been... complicated. Well... Have you fed your curiosity enough?" Zhao nodded slowly, beginning to understand the magnitude of effort his rescue had required. Not only had he put the king in the position of returning the favor of the rescue, it had also required weeks of constant care to keep him alive. The debt was enormous and humbling. Dragarion had essentially put his own recovery and the kingdom’s needs on hold to ensure Zhao’s survival. The sacrifice weighed heavily on Zhao’s conscience. "Your Majesty, I..." "No," Dragarion cut him off with a gesture. "Your mission saved more than my life. It saved the kingdom’s last second save timing. If you hadn’t gone on a suicide mission to bring Julius’s letter..." "Hah... my mother’s last move wasn’t what brought you then, just payment of a favor..." Julius complained. "Hahaha, of course it helped... I remember that promise, it just turns out both things could be solved together." Dragarion scratched his head that now had a long, thick mane. The king stopped abruptly, his eyes moving toward where everyone else in the room was standing. Julius, Luna, Liora, the medical experts, and especially Ren, who had been observing the conversation with that intense attention he always showed when processing new information. "But let’s stop talking about me... there’s something much more important and mysterious," Dragarion continued, his voice acquiring a tone of fascination, "that you don’t seem to be taking about seriously enough." He turned completely toward Ren, studying the boy with new intensity. "The boy with the creature that changed my dragon’s mana," he murmured, more to himself than to the others. "A creature that seems to have characteristics that remind me of something I heard in the main mana root under the castle." Julius immediately straightened, surprise and alarm crossing his face. "Father," his voice carried a note of warning. "Should you be mentioning things about...?" It was information that not even Julius knew completely, secrets that only his father had maintained about what he had perceived from the golden crystal in the castle’s depths. Dragarion was about to respond when Ren suddenly doubled over, his hands pressing against his chest with an expression of acute pain. "Ren!" Luna launched toward him just slightly faster than Julius and Liora. The boy knelt, breathing heavily, while something inside his beast core seemed to hurt him. The voices of his main beast, normally clear and constant, became incoherent noise that made his vision flicker for a moment. "What’s happening?" Liora asked, panic evident in her voice.