Monarch Of Time

Chapter 1055 Eating a natural treasure

Jiang Chen didn’t stay too long in Shun Long’s room. After giving him a brief report on the situation of the continent and informing him of two upcoming auctions he thought Shun Long would probably find interesting, he bade him farewell and headed back to his own room.

During this past year, Shun Long had noticed how Jiang Chen’s and the others’ rate of improvement had increased by leaps and bounds, to the point where their progress had startled even some of the higher-ups within the guild.

Although they were still peak-stage Dao Kings and nobody had managed to break through to the Dao Emperor realm just yet, the comprehension of each of their respective Daos had increased tremendously.

Of course, Shun Long knew that this was mostly thanks to Lunar Grave’s missions and the way the guild operated.

During the past 12 months, Jiang Chen and the others had constantly pushed themselves to their limits, striving to complete Phantom-class missions at the very minimum. Although there was a clear distinction between low, middle, and high-level Phantom-class missions, a bona fide Phantom-class assassin, even a low-level one, was still a valuable resource to any of the two assassin guilds.

Even so, among the four of them, the one who had improved the most during that time was Liu Mei. After completing a dozen Phantom-class missions on her own and even slaying an early rank 1 Dao Emperor in one of them — a feat that had sent ripples of disbelief throughout the entire guild — Liu Mei had gotten extremely close to the threshold of becoming a Dao Emperor.

Thinking of how quickly everyone was growing, Shun Long let out a quiet breath. The thoughts of the guild, the continent, and the undercurrents swirling around Amber Dawn pressed against the back of his mind, but he pushed them aside one by one.

For now, there was something far more important he had to do.

Closing his eyes, he sent his consciousness into the foggy space, where Little Black was casually munching on some of his rank 7 medicinal herbs. At this point, he had already come to a decision.

Staring at the figure of the massive black dragon, Shun Long shook his head and said with a grin

"Little glutton, I see you’ve been eating well."

Little Black’s bright azure eyes lifted from the half-crushed stalk he was eating and looked back at him. He then swallowed it before he answered in a somewhat dejected tone

"Master, I’ve eaten more than a thousand stalks of this, but they are simply useless. They don’t seem to have much of an effect anymore. This entire mortal world just doesn’t have enough qi or natural treasures for me to get any stronger."

Shun Long could sense Little Black’s disappointment as he muttered that last sentence, as if the entire central continent was inadequate for a real dragon who was still in his growth period.

Of course, Shun Long knew this, as well.

Forget about the city of Amber Dawn and its two assassin guilds, even if a superpower like the Tianxuan dynasty sold everything it had and decided to purchase natural treasures, it still wouldn’t be able to acquire enough resources to help a true dragon reach its true potential.

This was just how difficult it was to raise a magic beast of that level. It was practically impossible for any person or power to help them grow without going bankrupt.

Shun Long had pondered this for a while, too.

He was already allowing the ’Heaven Swallowing vine’ devour high-grade spirit stones freely, filling the foggy space with endless amounts of refined spiritual qi. During this past year, he’d even switched and let the vine eat some of the top-grade spirit stones he’d obtained from the ’City of Immortals’, in hopes that Little Black would get a bit stronger.

However, magic beasts were simply much slower than humans in that regard. They didn’t thrive on absorbing qi as fast as humans did. Their lifespan was much longer than that of a human’s, but their rate of improvement was naturally slower too, to compensate for that.

So Shun Long had come to a decision.

If even top-grade spirit stones didn’t work, there were still two other treasures he had that could help Little Black get stronger.

The first one was the immortal-grade spirit stones he’d obtained from the seventh trial of the ’Heavenly Tower’. Although spirit stones wouldn’t have much of an effect on a magic beast of Little Black’s level, the pure immortal qi from a dozen immortal-grade spirit stones should still be enough to propel the black dragon to the peak of the Sovereign realm.

Even though that was a bit of a waste, Shun Long wouldn’t bat an eye even if he had to use everything in his possession for Little Black’s sake.

However, there was also one more treasure in his hands that was even better than those immortal-grade spirit stones. The only piece of natural treasure he had, in fact.

Patting the black dragon’s head, Shun Long’s grin turned even wider as he waved his hand and said

"I should have let you eat this thing earlier. It’s practically useless to me, anyway. I have enough spirit stones to last me until I become a high-level Sovereign, so there’s no point in keeping this anymore."

In the next moment, a giant piece of crimson rock materialized in front of Shun Long and the black dragon, causing the temperature in the foggy space to rise by several degrees. It looked as though a fragment of the sun itself had been carved out and left to cool, forming the mountainous piece of rock.

Little Black’s eyes widened, the faint azure glow in their depths sharpening as he stared at the gigantic slab of ’Sun-blessed spiritual rock’.

He glanced back at Shun Long in disbelief, and for a moment, the entire foggy space seemed to have turned completely silent.

Of course, this was no ordinary treasure. Shun Long had obtained this thing after completing the fifth trial of the ’Heavenly Tower’, and was arguably the rarest treasure he’d gotten inside the ’City of Immortals’ after his immortal-grade spirit stones.

Just a fist-sized piece of this was more than enough to let a Dao King leap directly into the Sovereign realm and increase their comprehension of their Dao of Fire by a few levels.

And yet, he was giving this to him?

Little Black looked at his master but didn’t refuse. He knew him better than anyone. If Shun Long was giving this thing to him, he had already made a decision. And indeed, the next words that left Shun Long’s mouth made it clear that he wasn’t doing this on a whim

"I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but letting you eat this is for the best. To me, this is just a slightly bigger piece of spirit stone. The impurities inside it are far too many to absorb, and I don’t really care about the ’Dao of Fire’. There is no point in selling it to someone else, either, so..."

Without another word, Shun Long patted Little Black’s head one last time before closing his eyes and letting his consciousness return into his body. He had stayed copped up in this place for too long. It was finally time for him to take on a few missions from Lunar Grave.