Borrowing a God

Seeing that An Bai was right Qiu Ling naturally didn't waste any time. His body flashed behind another group of trees and before the gods squatting there even realized what was going on one of them had already been grabbed by the collar and dragged back to An Bai where he was carelessly thrown to the ground.

"Will this one suffice?"

The god felt a chill down his back at those words. What did he mean with that, hah?! Nobody would say anything like this after abducting someone! Not if you didn't want to do something extremely despicable! If he didn't know that those two men in front of him were dragons, he might be afraid to be sacrificed in some demonic ritual this very day!

An Bai wasn't any less indignant than the god. He didn't say anything though, after all, it would have been too shameful to argue with his king. As a good subject he should at least pretend that his king hadn't done anything wrong.

Thus An Bai nodded with a heavy heart. "Yes, Your Majesty."

Inwardly, An Bai felt like crying. All of them who directly answered to Qiu ling had long since grown accustomed to his quirkiness but An Bai was still the one who was the least resigned. Why couldn't the king he served be an outstanding, accomplished gentleman like the previous king? How come instead of someone who was knowledgeable in alchemy and proficient in the four arts he now had to serve a rogue who abducted people in broad daylight?

Well, at least this king still knew how to paint even though he used this talent only for the sake of drawing a certain person's portrait all day. Heaven alone knew how many different portraits of the god's crown prince were already stored away in the dragon king's palace.

An Bai chose to ignore the gaze of his king and helped the god back to his feet. "I'm very sorry we have to disturb you. I'm sure the gods already noticed that crown prince Jing He's mortal reincarnation was thrown into the secret realm when the explosion occurred. Considering the relationship between our races us dragons naturally can't remain as bystanders. I hope the gods don't mind but we took the liberty of having a closer look at the array used to conceal the secret realm. We reckon it might be the key to setting His Highness free. Unfortunately, we couldn't determine what was used to place this array here. Might I trouble this brother to help us out?"

The god listened to every word An Bai said but only half of it was actually understood. He was just too stunned at what was happening in front of him. This person … was so … polite. And he spoke so … elegantly. So dragons could actually be like this?

Qiu Ling frowned, grabbed the guy by the shoulder and made him turn around. "Didn't you hear? We asked you what the humans used to place this array! Take a look now or do you want to be responsible if something happens to the Son of Heaven?"

Qiu Ling's forceful approach startled the guard awake and he scrambled to take a closer look at the array himself. Considering that his family hadn't much status he definitely couldn't be compared to someone like An Bai in terms of knowledge. In fact, even Qiu Ling had learned more in his time in the capital city of the dragon realm than a normal guard would ever have the chance of learning. Thus he didn't bother about the complicated design of the formation and only looked at the elements used for it.

In terms of magical power the gods certainly were the most blessed since even after Tian cursed all three races they had retained the power of all six elements. The guard didn't waste his time on water and air since he knew that the two dragons would have already looked at that. Instead, he focused on the other four elements one after the other.

When he started he was still confident that he'd find the solution but his confidence slowly disappeared bit by bit. Neither the earth, nor the fire element had been used for the array. Well, there weren't any special characteristics of these two elements around though. It would have been dumb to use something for a spell that wasn't supported by the surroundings. No, looking at the forest around them it was quite probable that the array used the wood element.

The guard took a deep breath and closed his eyes to concentrate even more. He could feel the elements in his surrounding and tried to distinguish the array from them. There was … nothing.

The god opened his eyes and looked at the gentlemanly dragon to his left. He definitely didn't want to tell these bad news to the dragon king, ah! The guy was already looking like he'd eat him raw if he said the wrong thing.

"You … were also unable to perceive the element?"

The guard gulped and swept another glance at the array to make sure that the metal element also wasn't likely to be the source of this array. "I'm not sure. There's traces of earth and metal but that's normal for the ground. It would be stranger not to find them. I don't think they're likely to be part of the array."

An Bai's gaze sunk. "Not that either …" He really felt depressed now. How were they supposed to open the secret realm like this?

He looked up at Qiu Ling whose gaze had already darkened considerably. "I'm afraid it won't be that easy, Your Majesty. We'll probably need to research this for a while."

Qiu Ling closed his eyes and turned away, muttering to himself. Research … Just hearing this word he dreaded the future days. How long would they take if they tried to unravel the formation bit by bit?

No, he couldn't wait this long. He needed the solution as soon as possible. It seemed he should make another effort to find that old geezer. He was still the one most likely to know a way.

Mn, he should have An Bai work on finding out more about the array though. Just in case he really couldn't find the old geezer.