Chapter 723: Chapter 0720: Surpassing the Dragon Knight (Second Update)

Once master of the seas, the Sapphire Duke boiled with unvented resentment. He had thought that the success of his dragon riding, bought with a steep price, would shield Sapphire through its crises.

The emergence of the two Dragon Knights from the Eagle Kingdom made him realize the crisis of Sapphire was far more terrifying than imagined.

Although ultimately, with the appearance of Liszt and Acherloides, he succeeded in resolving this wave of calamity, the collaboration of a Dragon Knight and an Archmage meant that the oceans were no longer under Sapphire’s control—or perhaps it could be said that from the time the Eagle Kingdom was able to manufacture schooners, the ocean had ceased to be Sapphire’s exclusive dominion.

“Damn that Andy, an ungrateful wretch raised in vain!”

“If not for the Bull Family’s betrayal, how could the Eagle Kingdom have developed its shipbuilding industry and even dared to initiate the Dragon Slaying War!” The Grand Duke’s eyes twinkled with hatred. “I won’t let you die easily, not just you, but also your grandson and your people, I will eventually send them to follow you!”

He silently seethed for a moment.

Only then did the Grand Duke regain his composure as dawn began to break quietly, and the First Prince had already led the fleet back to the Port of Bull Hoof City, fruitful from a night of pursuit.

As the sun rose from the horizon, the port once again buzzed with activity.

The Knights boasted incessantly about their own battle merits, how many fleeing ships they had crushed, how many Knights they had captured who had jumped into the water. Of course, they couldn’t omit discussions about the Dragon Knights and Archmages born from the Tulip Family, the discussions about Carl’s death, and Liszt’s rise, the change of the ocean’s overlord.

However, as the focus of everyone’s discussions, Liszt quietly remained in the study, flipping through the “Dragon Knight’s Dou Qi Secret Manual” delivered by the Grand Duke.

A notebook of blank pages, each page able to hold roughly two hundred words, the manual consisted of ten pages, amounting to no more than two thousand words. The content recorded was not voluminous, but every sentence gave Liszt an epiphany, greatly expanding his thinking.

“So that’s how it is, the stages of a Dragon Knight are no longer merely about cultivating Dou Qi or Combat Skills, but about the fusion between man and dragon, including the minds, Magic Power, and bodies. Seeking a perfect dynamic equilibrium between Knight and Dragon, compensating for each other’s flaws to achieve completion,” he realized.

In this process of complementary completion, Mind Branding was simply a matter of course.

Because the manual was recorded by Anderson Sapphire, it was divided according to his cultivation experiences. He categorized Dragon Knights into four stages.

The first stage, the Examining phase—before riding a dragon, Knights and Dragons test and adapt to each other, Advanced Dou Qi gradually transforming into Dragon Dou Qi. However, at this stage, one is not yet a Dragon Knight. Many potential Dragon Knights fall at this stage, afterwards their Dou Qi declines, plummeting back to Complete Advanced Level Dou Qi.

The second stage, the Mind phase—when a Knight passes the Dragon’s test and is recognized, he can engage in the Mind Battle. If one fails the Mind Battle, dragon riding fails. If repeated attempts also fail, it results in losing the Dragon’s recognition, and one falls back to Complete Advanced Level Dou Qi.

If one succeeds in the Mind Battle, it means successful dragon riding and becoming a true Dragon Knight. At this stage, Dragon Dou Qi gradually integrates with the Dragon’s Magic Power, and the minds continue to merge, with battle methods converging as well.

The third stage, the Completion phase—when all merges are successful, the Dragon Knight finally brands his own mark in the mind of the dragon, achieving perfect harmony between man and Dragon. When riding a dragon at this time, neither Dragon nor man distinguishes their thoughts, they become one.

Anderson Sapphire was a Completion-term stage Dragon Knight.

Ten years after the founding Dragon Slaying War, he and the Sapphire Dragon stepped into the Completion stage together.

Furthermore, there is a fourth stage, the Transcendence phase—this is a stage conjectured by Anderson, which he himself never entered, so he also did not know what wonders this stage held.

Completion-term Dragon Knights are the mainstream of Dragon Knights, basically whether it’s the Eagle Kingdom, the Steel Ridge Kingdom, or the Blast Furnace Fortress Kingdom, Dragon Knights are considered at their peak in this stage. Even as Dragon Knights grow old and die, they can’t surpass the Completion term to reach the Transcendence phase.

But Anderson believed that the Transcendence phase definitely existed, as he had recorded in the manual: “The Completion phase is not the endpoint; I deeply feel the constraints of that bottleneck, there must be a way to break through, for man and Dragon to transcend together, transcend each other, transcend the present, transcend everything we know!”

“Perhaps, in the three great empires, there are Dragon Knights in the Transcendence phase!”

“Alas, I have no chance to witness it!”

He finished flipping through the manual.

Liszt handed the “Dragon Knight Dou Qi Manual” to Ach standing beside him, hoping Ach could see something that could provide him with some insights.

He leaned back in his chair, deep in thought.

“According to the cultivation system organized by Anderson, I should now be a Mind-term Dragon Knight,” he mused, “As for Alonso, Carlo, and the Grand Duke, they should be Completion-term Dragon Knights… Of course, their completion term was forcibly elevated by the dragons after bonding with their dragon souls, since all these dragons had previously bonded with Completion-term Dragon Knights.”

When a dragon and a Dragon Knight’s souls unite, their thoughts synchronize. Naturally, the dragon imparts its memory of being a Dragon Knight to the Dragon Knight.

There’s no need for the Dragon Knight to grope around; as long as they slowly adapt, they will inevitably reach the completion stage.

“So, to be precise, the Dragon Knight Dou Qi Manual appears more like the First Dragon Knight’s riding experiences, a record of insights akin to an autobiography. The true Dragon Knight Dou Qi Manual is actually hidden within the dragon’s memories… The recorded detailed combat skills must have been added by the Grand Duke.”

He distinctly felt that in the second half of Anderson’s manual, the various applications of Dragon Dou Qi seemed disjoint from the earlier part of the record.

It’s likely that the Grand Duke, fearing Liszt would not believe that the inherited Dragon Knight Dou Qi Manual was merely a personal memoir, wrote the ‘true’ Dragon Knight Dou Qi Manual, which he derived from the Sapphire Dragon’s thoughts, in the second half of the memoir and handed it over to Liszt.

“Fortunately, the Grand Duke was wise enough to include the Dragon Knight’s Dou Qi movements; otherwise, I might have misunderstood. Now, with the Sapphire Dragon Knight’s Dragon Combat Skills as a reference, I can easily develop combat skills unique to the Fire Dragon Knight… Each Dragon Knight’s combat skills are different and must be crafted individually.”@@novelbin@@

Because dragons are different, their Dragon Combat Skills naturally vary, unless it’s the inheritance of the same dragon.

“However, through this manual, I can see that the Fire Dragon, as an Elemental Dragon, is obviously quite different from the Gemstone Dragon and Metal Dragon, especially in its major feature of elementalization!”

Gemstone Dragons and Metal Dragons, being resource-oriented dragons, don’t shift between magical form and flesh and blood.

So, only Liszt can use the technique of Dragon Magic Refining Qi.

Moreover, since Leo is so powerful even in his youth, he deeply feels that Gemstone Dragons and Metal Dragons are just ordinary resource units, while Elemental Dragons are the true combat units. As a Fire Dragon Knight, an Elemental Dragon, once he enters the completion term, he will undoubtedly dominate over the other Dragon Knights.

Soon after.

He suddenly had some inspiration: “It seems that the cultivation of a Dragon Knight is not much different from that of a Sky Knight or an Earth Knight.”

Earth Knights are divided into regular and elite.

The regular phase is Intermediate Dou Qi, and the elite is the Complete Intermediate Dou Qi.

Sky Knights are divided into regular, Sword Saints, and completion, but the essence of their Dou Qi remains the standard Advanced Dou Qi and the Complete Advanced Dou Qi.

A Domain Knight is just a special state of Complete Advanced Dou Qi.

Dragon Knights are similar; starting with dragon riding success after a Mind Battle, the Mind-term equates to the standard Dragon Dou Qi, and the Completion-term is the Complete Dragon Dou Qi.

“So, the surpassing term is more like exceeding the stage of Dragon Knight? Elite Earth Knights can break through bottlenecks with drugs, Completion-term Sky Knights can break through bottlenecks by dragon riding, but what can Dragon Knights use to surpass the bottleneck of Complete Dragon Dou Qi?”

No one could give him an answer.

Neither did he dwell on it; first, he would diligently practice until reaching the completion stage.

Standing up and stretching, he turned to Ach and asked, “How are you feeling after resting for a night? If you’re recovered, come with me to Mind Island. I have a strong feeling that the severely wounded Light Green Gemstone Dragon is hiding there to recuperate.”

Ach didn’t ask Liszt how he came to such a feeling.

He just nodded seriously, “Ach is fully recovered and ready to depart at any time.”

“Then let’s go. The port is too bustling for my taste. I don’t like this feeling of being constantly flattered.” He had enjoyed it once yesterday, and to enjoy it again would be sickening.