Chapter 713: Tracking

Deep within the Iron Spine Mountains, dense forests blocked out the sky and sun.

Layer upon layer of tree crowns fragmented the already dim daylight into broken shards. Only a few scattered, pale beams of light pierced through the gaps, slanting onto the ground.

The air was humid and stifling, carrying a faint scent of sulfur.

The trees here possessed a degree of draconic bloodline, so their appearance differed entirely from forests in other planes.

Thick trunks were covered in fine, scale-like bark, resembling the shed outer shells of some colossal creature. The edges of the leaves bore jagged, keratinous protrusions. When the wind blew past, they produced soft scraping sounds, like countless tiny scales rubbing against one another.

Two tall figures were laboriously making their way through the dense woodland.

They moved extremely slowly, every step taken with great caution.

Their broad dragon wings were pressed tightly against their backs to avoid brushing against branches and making noise.

Dark red scales gleamed faintly in the dim environment. Whenever stray daylight struck them, they flashed like red-hot iron. Both figures stood over three meters tall, with wide shoulders and thick backs. Their arms hung down nearly to their knees.

A pair of backward-curving dragon horns grew from each of their foreheads, the patterns upon them dense and distinct.

The density of the patterns on their horns symbolized the purity of their dragonman bloodline. The denser the patterns, the closer their bloodline approached that of true dragons.

The dragonman in front was slightly taller, with deeper-colored scales resembling solidified dark red magma.

As he pushed aside scale-leaf branches blocking his path, he muttered in a low voice, “This damned place always feels uncomfortable no matter how many times I come here.”

He raised his head and scanned the canopy above.

“Have you noticed? Those flying dragon beasts have been getting louder and louder these past few days. Did something happen?” The dragonman behind him was half a head shorter, his scales a lighter copper-rust color.

He was clearly more nervous than his companion. Every time he stepped on a dry branch, he would instinctively look around.

“Maybe… they migrated?”

Even as he said it, he didn’t quite believe it himself.

After a few seconds of silence, he couldn’t help but speak again in a low voice:

“Halta, I think… maybe we should forget about it this time.”

The dragonman in front didn’t turn around. He simply sneered disdainfully. “What? You’re planning to back out again?”

The copper-rust dragonman said with a serious expression:

“During the last trade, those guys looked at us strangely. And the potions they gave us… were way too cheap. A few low-quality energy crystals with chaotic structure for a bottle of bloodline evolution potion? There’s no such good deal.”

“Of course there isn’t.”

Halta scoffed, as if mocking those who wanted to trade with him—or perhaps mocking his companion.

“You think I don’t know there’s a problem here?”

He pushed aside a thick hanging vine. His vertical pupils gleamed faintly in the shadows.

“Those guys hiding deep in the mountains don’t even dare show their faces. All trades go through middlemen. They’re either resistance fighters themselves or supplying the resistance.”

At this point, he turned his face sideways. His lava-colored vertical pupils emitted a cold light in the dim forest:

“But what does that have to do with us?”

The copper-rust dragonman was momentarily stunned.

Halta ignored him and continued forward with a cold laugh:

“We’re just doing some small business that’s common between villages, trading a few unwanted crystals for potions. Where the potions come from and what the crystals are used for—we know nothing. If anyone investigates us later, we can simply say we traded them with other villages.” As he spoke, he snapped a dry branch in irritation.

Crack.

The crisp breaking sound was especially jarring in the quiet forest.

“Why do you think those black-market dealers at the city gates have been fine for so many years?”

“It’s not that they can’t be found out. It’s that even if they are, they can’t be convicted.”

“We should thank those rigid fakes. As long as they can’t find solid evidence, they won’t convict us… This is much better than before!”

The copper-rust dragonman opened his mouth but said nothing more.

Yet the emotions pent up in Halta’s chest finally found an outlet.

His steps quickened, and the sounds of breaking branches grew heavier.

“Besides…”

His voice suddenly dropped, forced out through clenched teeth.

“Even if there’s risk, so what?”

“We were once high nobles! The Halta family name can be traced back sixteen generations in dragonman history!”

As he spoke, a fanatical gleam appeared in his vertical pupils.

“Sixteen generations!”

“And now?”

“Power, glory, and wealth—all plundered by those fakes! Those inferior lizards… those mixed breeds with bloodline concentration less than ten percent can now sit as equals with us in the villages!”

His voice grew colder: “Why?”

The copper-rust dragonman shrank his neck, clearly frightened.

But after a few seconds, he still spoke softly:

“But… I think things now aren’t so bad.”

The air suddenly fell silent for a moment.

Halta stopped abruptly. The muscles beneath his scales instantly tensed.

The copper-rust dragonman stopped as well.

He could clearly feel the rage radiating from his companion through the gaps in his scales, causing the surrounding air to warm slightly.

Yet he continued: “At least now, as long as you’re willing to work in the mines or forges, you get a stable income every month. You won’t be conscripted by high nobles to fight wars anymore, and you don’t have to worry about losing your land and property over a single wrong word. And if you’re willing to learn, they’re willing to teach us…”

His voice grew quieter until it sounded like he was talking to himself.

“The children can attend school for free to learn all kinds of knowledge. If they get sick, there are medical stations. Elderly dragonmen with mobility issues can even receive monthly subsidies for free.”

“In the past, although we stepped on those low-bloodline dragonmen, even higher-bloodline nobles stepped on us.”

“Back then, every time you went to see the lord’s steward, you had to prepare gifts three days in advance, terrified of saying something wrong and bringing disaster to the family.”

As he spoke, he lowered his head slightly.

“Now at least… as long as you follow the rules, no one can casually bully us.”

“You call this not being bullied?!”

Halta spun around fiercely. His vertical pupils burned with rage that seemed almost tangible.

“They turned you into an ordinary miner! A replaceable tool! And you think that’s good?!”

His breathing grew noticeably heavier.

“The nobility of the Halta name is not something those wi—”

His voice cut off abruptly. The word triggered a hidden fear deep in his heart, forcing him to swallow the rest.

The copper-rust dragonman shrank his shoulders, but eventually raised his head to meet Halta’s gaze.

The two stared at each other in terrifying silence.

In the end, the copper-rust dragonman looked away first.

“Forget it.” He sighed wearily.

“I heard new… wizards have arrived recently. Including that one who calls himself Broadleaf, one of our own kind.”

He reached out and patted Halta’s arm.

“Several such beings have come. It looks like the Broadleaf and rest of wizards are really getting serious.”

“After this job, let’s stop touching these things.”

Halta remained silent for a long time. The rage in his eyes gradually extinguished under his companion’s exhausted gaze.

He turned his head and resumed walking, only giving a vague “Mm” in response.

The two continued through the dense forest without speaking again.

Not far behind them, Jie Ming followed silently in the ethereal state of the Great Void Step.

He trailed the two dragonmen in an extremely relaxed manner, strolling casually as if in a courtyard, quietly listening to their entire conversation.

Based on the information revealed in their words, a large amount of data began automatically organizing itself in Jie Ming’s mind.

He had already thoroughly reviewed the past social structure of the Dragonman Plane before setting out.

It was an extremely typical bloodline hierarchy civilization, where bloodline purity determined everything.

High-purity bloodlines monopolized political power, military command, and premium resources. Low-purity and mixed-blood dragonmen were permanently fixed at the bottom, engaged in manual labor and basic production.

Because bloodlines inherently carried power, combined with resource disparities, class mobility was nearly impossible.

High-ranking dragonmen maintained bloodline concentration through marriage alliances, while low-ranking dragonmen didn’t even qualify to enter the core areas of cities.

Until the arrival of Wizard Broadleaf.

What he brought was the most standard governance logic of wizard civilization: merit above all.

Bloodline did not matter—only value.

The capable rise, the weak fall. Fair competition. Survival of the fittest.

This system was perfectly normal in the wizard world.

But for those high-ranking dragonmen who once stood above all, it was tantamount to having their spines broken on the spot.

Although high-purity bloodlines granted some innate power, the vast numbers of lower dragonmen produced a massive pool of powerhouses capable of transcending bloodline limitations through their own abilities.

Thus, under a system based purely on capability, a large number of high dragonmen lost their privileges.

They lost their naturally noble status, forcibly pulled down from the top of the pyramid to stand equal with the “inferior lizards.”

That was why Halta was so furious.

He firmly believed he was born noble because of his bloodline from the Halta family, because those so-called sixteen generations of inheritance had been natural qualifications for rule under the old system.

But now, all of that was gone.

He could only resort to smuggling low-quality crystals to exchange for suspicious bloodline potions, attempting to raise his purity this way. As for the resistance army…

Jie Ming could roughly guess their composition.

Most were probably former high-ranking dragonmen like these.

The reason they had never been able to develop was not due to overly strong external suppression, but because their demands were completely irrelevant to the vast majority of ordinary dragonmen.

In some sense, they were even diametrically opposed.

The far more numerous ordinary and mixed-blood dragonmen had been the ones trampled at the very bottom under the old system.

The new system was not oppression to them, but liberation.

Who would risk their lives for the nobles who once stood on their heads?

“From this, it seems these resistance forces have lasted so long thanks to Wizard Broadleaf’s tolerance.”

Jie Ming narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, silently gliding past two scale-leaf trees in his ethereal state.

“The goal is probably related to Reflection Dimension technology. So… is it time for the final phase now? Then why seek us out?” The two dragonmen ahead continued forward in silence.

Deeper in the dense forest came faint, low, and oppressive sounds of flapping wings.

Jie Ming reined in his thoughts and continued following.