"Do you really have dragon blood?" Noah asked, surprised at the revelation.
"I don’t think so. If I did, then big sis and sister Layla should have it too. But they don’t." Luke said.
Anna and Layla shook their heads to confirm when Noah, Ruby and Shane looked towards them.
"Why is the dragon stone reacting like this then?" Ruby asked.
"Maybe it’s because of the cultivation technique he practices, like father said." Layla spoke up.
"Is it?" Noah turned to Luke as he asked.
"Maybe...maybe not. The cultivation technique is a mystery to too. Even I don’t know everything about it." Luke said looking at the dragon stone in his hand, glowing with a faint light as everyone went silent, trying to think of reasons to justify the event.
"Don’t use that stone. You’re still not ready."
"Senior!?" Luke was surprised when he heard the senior’s voice in his mind.
"What do an I’m not ready?" Luke asked, but there was no response, it was like his voice vanished altogether. No matter how much he tried to call, no answer ca from his side.
Luke closed his eyes and tried to connect with the senior through his mind realm. As he went into ditation, darkness spread in front of his eyes.
Luke thought he’d appear in the grasslands of the realm he t the senior earlier, but instead he was floating in the infinite void of space. No matter where he looked, there were stars, galaxies and nebulas in the distance.
Suddenly Luke felt a presence behind him, he abruptly turned around and saw darkness in front of him, a dark smoke so concentrated and black that it absorbed even the light coming at it.
Just then a humongous eye opened as the smoke like eyelid lifted up, and a second transparent eyelid moved horizontally across the eye.
The eye was so big that Luke was like a speck of dust in front of it. The iris was yellow in color with crimson strands mixed in between and had a vertical slit-shaped pupil.
An unbearable pressure fell on Luke. His face contorted in pain as veins bulged out in his body. Red veins appeared in his eyes as blood started flowing out of them, and his skin started cracking. He felt like his body would blast at any mont, it was like he was looking at sothing he wasn’t worthy of, sothing Godly, and he was doing a sin seeing it in the eye.
"Luke! LUKE! LUKE!!!"
Luke opened his eyes abruptly and saw Anna screaming at him. He was shocked to see that all five of them were behind a mana shield casted by Anna. Their faces had expressions of shock, worry and a bit of fear mixed in.
Luke moved his eyes below towards his hand and saw the dragon stone jumping and vibrating on his palm, releasing flas all around as his clothes had burned into dust and he was bathing in that fire.
He closed his palm over the dragon stone as the flas disappeared, he pulled the box beside him and threw the stone inside and closed the lid. He looked at the box in shock, gasping for breath, fear was apparent in his eyes as he recalled that huge eye in the infinite space.
Anna released the shield as all of them sighed in relief, sweat ford on their foreheads, and hesitated in approaching Luke.
Realizing that he was naked, Luke pulled out so clothes from his ring and wore them imdiately. Anna then ca near him as she caressed his face with worry.
"Are you alright?"
"What happened big sis?" Luke asked, confused.
"You were talking but then suddenly went silent, closed your eyes and the dragon stone started shaking and releasing flas. The flas were so hot that we had to retreat back behind the shield." Anna said.
"What happened man? what did you see?" Noah asked seeing fear in Luke’s eyes.
Luke explained everything about how he was floating in the vast cosmos and saw the humongous eye, and the pressure that fell on him, excluding the fact about him trying to contact the senior.
"The description you gave, it seems like the eye of...a dragon." Noah said.
The others had the sa guess as they nodded. Silence spread in the room, various thoughts started flooding in their minds.
Just then, there was a knock on the door, and a soldier opened the door and ca inside. he bowed to them and then spoke up.
"Third young master, the duke had summoned you."
"Alright. I’ll go and et him." Luke said. The soldier bowed and left the room.
Anna and Layla looked at Luke worriedly, they feared what their father would say to Luke, but there was also a hope that seeing Luke’s performance in the duel, he may ask him to co back.
"Haha! Don’t worry sister, it’s not like I’m going for another duel, I’ll just have a talk with father." Luke laughed seeing their worried faces.
"It’s like a duel of words." Shane said with a chuckle as everyone looked at him with a frown.
"How do you manage to say sothing like that at the perfectly wrong mont." Noah said shaking his head as all of them laughed.
******
"When are you departing for the tournant?" Danver asked, seated in his office as Luke stood in front.
"We’ll be going tomorrow." Luke said.
"After the tournant, will you be back here or..."
"I’ll go to Gemburn directly. I won’t be back here."
Silence stretched between the two as no one spoke anything. After a few seconds, Danver spoke up.
"So the ancestor really gave you the cultivation technique."
"I told you I never lie, but you didn’t believe ."
"How could I when you didn’t say, or show anything."
"It’s not that. It’s about trust. You never trusted . You just sohow wanted to throw out."
Danver sighed, he couldn’t retort, as what Luke said was not false, though the reasons were different.
"Don’t you want to be the heir? Since you’re not manaless anymore, I can announce you..."
"I don’t want to." Luke didn’t let Danver finish, as he cut in between. "Big sis is the rightful heir. I have no greed for a superficial position. I have found my path and I’ll stride forward on it."
"So, you’ll give up your nobility and beco an adventurer for the rest of your life?" Danver asked, his tone a bit irritated now.
"I’ll beco a S-class adventurer. Even higher than that. They are treated no less than the patriarch of a house. Rather than inheriting, I’ll build my na with my own achievents." Luke said proudly.
Danver was surprised, seeing such resolution in Luke’s eyes. He smiled and looked at him.
"I give you my best wishes then. Walk the path you wish to. I have lost the right to stop you anyway."
Luke was a bit surprised. It was the first ti his father had smiled at him. He had longed to see his father smile at him and look at him warmly. But now when he really was treating him like that, he didn’t feel any achievent, it was now too late as he had no expectations left nor any need to prove anything to his father.
His lips parted into a smile as he bowed. "Thank you for taking care of all these years father."
Danver felt a pain in his chest. though he had prepared himself for this, it was still hard to finally let go of his son.
"I just hope you chose your heir wisely. One can carry your na and legacy forward, while the other will flush it down the drain." Luke left those words as he moved out.
Danver chuckled but his smiling face hid a pain and sadness behind it. A deep sigh escaped him as he stood up and looked out of the window at the lancholic amber sky with the sun going down on the horizon.
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