Bloom of the Myriad Lotuses

Leo's vast will energy surged inside him as he was opening his mental network to let this Administrator enter and connect with him.

This should be possible even if they were not quite familiar with each other, Irene should be able to respond to his calls, this way Administrator would have a temporary access to his mental network due to Irene's connection with him.

His short and shiny golden blonde hair was wildly swaying with the winds and the vague appearance of his mental network could now be seen in front of them.

A large complicated web-like mental network could now be seen and it looked just like an old version of a computer panel that had a large node in the middle and countless crisscrossing patterns that connect to different small nodes.

The nodes of the mental network appeared grey and lifeless indicating that the owners of those nodes were currently out of reach and aside from Leo's mental node in the center of the panel, one could see a faintly shining node near his but it was flickering in and out which made it look extremely unstable.

That mental node had the familiar presence of his disciple, Irene, and right now, it was using its minuscule energy to create a sub-node for the Administrator to occupy.

A trace of worry flashed past Leo's eyes as he was looking at his disciple's flickering node, Administrator detected this but chose to not say anything and just waited for him at the side.

A whole minute passed and Administrator could still see that this foolish master of his predecessor was still worrying about his disciple, she frowned as she couldn't afford to wait any longer thus he held his hand and comfortingly said in a slightly warm voice.

"Your disciple is safe, so you don't have to worry about her and just focus on the situation we are in right now."

Leo was startled by her sudden actions, his heart skipped a beat and his eyes widened in shock as he hurriedly retracted his hand from her hold and awkwardly replied to her while avoiding his gaze away.

"Cough. Cough. I-I understand."

Administrator just nodded her head after hearing his answer and looked away to where the dragon was but Leo was currently thinking to himself with embarrassment.

'W-what just happened? Did my stone-cold heart really skipped a beat just now?! Towards my disciple at that?! No, this won't do! This is a forbidden act between a disciple and master relationship!'

He vigorously shook his head as he was thinking about this.

Well, he wasn't entirely wrong though, because strictly speaking a master is indeed forbidden from feeling any romantic feelings towards their disciple, but it wasn't his disciple who held his hand but her persona who was called Administrator.

This type of relationship between a master and a disciple's persona is unheard of and should be an unprecedented feat that no one else managed to do ever since the establishment of Dystopia, but he didn't know about all of that right now though as he was still panicky, thinking to himself that it was his disciple who he fell in love with.

Meanwhile, Administrator had no idea that the master of her predecessor was currently in a state of emotional turmoil as her whole attention was only focused on the current state of the Red Dragon.

The already gargantuan dragon had become larger and thicker in size to the point that its size cast a huge shadow on the large of the desert below them.

She was quite worried as she was not that confident right now when it comes to dealing with this buffed dragon, after all, the body of her predecessor is still limited in strength and she couldn't even wield the 10% of her psychic prowess in the past with Irene's body.

She could only sigh helplessly and looked to Irene's master again who already had his whole focus on operating his mental network.

Bits after bits of his will energy was being slowly consumed by the mental network as he wore a serious expression on his face as he rapidly used his thoughts to give commands on the panel.

Then his crystal blue eyes diverted on the panel to look at her and said in an urgent and serious voice.

"Give me your hand and channel a bit of your energy to me."

Administrator unhesitatingly held his reached out hand then she slightly gave it a squeeze and slowly and carefully channeled just a little bit of her energy to him through their connected hands.

Leo felt the slight squeeze on his hand and his heart felt a huge tremor once again which he immediately suppressed because of the urgency of their time.

He then focused his whole attention on establishing the temporary connection between him and Administrator using the will energy that she gave to him earlier.

He used it to provide assistance to Irene who was trying to open a sub-node, slowly, the energy flowed through him then to Irene and to the small opening of the node below her.

He gave it a slight push then the node cracked open and could now accommodate Administrator's will energy, albeit faint and unstable due to it being used to only store her energy temporarily.

They breathed a sigh of relief and looked at each other while telepathically talking at the same time.

[ Do you hear me? ] - Leo

[ Yes... ] - Administrator

[ That's good. Please wait for a moment. ] - Leo

[ Okay... ] - Administrator

Leo focused his whole attention on the enhancements that he received from her and instantly felt surprised because of the huge buffs it gave to his body.

[ STR + 26 ]

[ AGI + 37 ]

[ INT + 102 ]

[ STA + 20 ]

He could not see those though as he didn't even have a game panel thus he could only feel that his overall stats had increased by quite a marginal amount with his Intelligence stat being the highest.

Then he suddenly felt that the will energy he sent out gave some feedback to his head, it was the information of one of his teammates, he was instantly elated as hurriedly used all of his power to send a message to that member for reinforcements and he did not forget to include his coordinates and the rough situation they were in.

***

Leo felt that the message was sent successfully to his teammate thus he breathed a sigh of relief and mentally talked to Administrator.

[ I have a teammate that is soon coming here to assist us with the dragon raid, but I don't know when he will come thus we can only do our best to buy as much time as possible... ] - Leo

Administrator gently shook her head and replied.

[ I alone am more than enough to deal with this dragon. ]

She tightly squeezed his hand and let go, she then directed her cold gaze towards the dragon, which seemed to have already finished its body reinforcements.

Administrator breathed out and then made extremely fast and complicated hand seals while she was intently staring at the dragon.

The dormant will energy inside her was churning and became increasingly violent as time passed, it didn't take too long for her to finish making the final hand seal, her will energy seemed to calm and down as it released a low hum and came out of her body as they materialized like a thick white mist before slowly transforming into countless buds of white lotus flowers that were scattered throughout the space.

Bloom of the Myriad Lotuses!

The sight around them instantly became mesmerizing as the lotuses slowly bloomed one after another, the hot and dry desert suddenly became a beautiful flower field.

To say the least, the transformation was shocking but this didn't end here as the countless lotuses scattered around the space simultaneously released their flower pollens in the air, and aside from Administrator and Leo all of those pollens were all inhaled by the huge nostrils of the dragon.

The Red Dragon sneezed but it suddenly became quite dizzy but then it inhaled another huge amount of flower pollens around it which were also sneezed out again and this time the dragon felt sleepy.

The dragon shook its head and used its huge dragon wings to unleash a terrifying wind that pushed the pollens back, but it saw that the pollens were slowly gathering up again and flew in its direction again.

The dragon became frustrated and angrily roared before it opened its huge dragon mouth and breathed out its scorchingly hot dragon's breath.

The flowers and pollens alike that were on its path were all instantly obliterated by the scalding heat that it produced.

The dragon looked satisfied and snorted in exuberance when it saw the burnt black field of yellow sand that became devoid of the presence of the pesky and annoying pollen-producing lotus flowers.

Then suddenly its berserk red eyes turned to look at where Administrator and Leo were standing and they also had quite a varying expressions when they witnessed the upgraded terrifying prowess of its dragon's breath.