As if reading Yang Kai's thoughts, Fu Guang said, "My accumulation is already sufficient. All that remains is the transformation of my bloodline, and that is not something outside help can assist with."
Over three years, Yang Kai had harnessed the power of the Dragon Pool through the Solar and Lunar Marks, which was equivalent to roughly a hundred years of effort for Fu Guang—proof of just how formidable those two marks truly were.
The reason Fu Guang had been unable to take that final step before was that the ancient method he used to draw upon the Dragon Pool's power yielded too little, never allowing the accumulation of quantity to trigger a qualitative transformation. But this kind of problem was completely trivial in the face of the Solar and Lunar Marks.
A hundred years' worth of effort that Fu Guang expended to draw upon the Dragon Pool's power being equivalent to what Yang Kai accomplished in three years did not mean the effects were identical.
Without Yang Kai's help, forget about three short years—even another thousand might not have been enough for him to make that leap.
But now, Fu Guang could feel changes beginning to occur in his bloodline. It was time to truly take that step.
Perhaps by the next time the Dragon Pool opened, the Dragon Clan would gain yet another Holy Dragon!
Hearing this, Yang Kai let out a sigh of relief. Owing someone a favor was never a good thing. Now that Fu Guang was going to guide him in the Dao of Time, and Yang Kai had helped him advance to Holy Dragon status, it could be said they were each getting what they needed.
A single dragon scale suddenly flew toward Yang Kai. Fu Guang said, "Take this to the three Elders of the clan. You will receive the treatment you are owed."
Yang Kai extended a claw to catch it, vaguely sensing that Fu Guang had used some profound technique to seal certain things within the dragon scale. He had no idea what they were.
He had no intention of prying. On this trip into the Dragon Pool, aside from absorbing a bit more of its power than most, he had done nothing against the interests of the Dragon Clan. If anything, he had done Fu Guang a favor. By all rights, the Dragon Clan should be thanking him.
Though he was now a pure-blooded Dragon Clan member and had set aside the human aspects of himself during the advancement, deep down he still considered himself human.
A beam of light shot down from above. The radiance seemed to originate from some impossibly vast distance, yet it pierced through the entirety of the Dragon Pool as though nothing were in its way.
Immediately after, a low voice rang out from above: "Time is up. Leave the pool at once."
Yang Kai recognized the voice as belonging to an ancient dragon Elder of the clan.
He wasted no time. Giving Fu Guang a slight nod, he said, "Senior, this is where we part ways. I hope to hear good news from you someday."
Though Fu Guang claimed his accumulation was already sufficient and that all that remained was a bloodline transformation, things might not go so smoothly. One need only look at the number of Holy Dragons in the Dragon Clan to know that. If advancing to Holy Dragon were truly that easy, the Dragon Clan wouldn't have remained so scarce in their ranks for so long.
"Go," Fu Guang replied with a slight nod.
Yang Kai flicked his dragon tail and plunged into the column of light, rapidly surging upward.
This beam of light seemed to possess the miraculous property of piercing through space itself. He had no idea how the Dragon Clan had created it, but even though Yang Kai was now millions of zhang deep within the Dragon Pool, in the span of a single blink he had reached the surface.
At that moment, at the Unreturning Pass, upon the enormous plaza, the statues of Dragon Emperors from past generations still stood tall. Between them, a vortex spun faintly.
Dozens of Dragon Clan members had gathered around on all sides. Three young dragons and ten great dragons emerged from the vortex one after another, appearing within the Unreturning Pass.
For a time, dragon roars filled the pass and the void itself trembled.
But after taking in the condition of these clansmen, the Dragon Clan members could not help but be stunned. Even the three ancient dragon Elders furrowed their brows.
There was no mystery to it. The clansmen who had entered the Dragon Pool this time had made disappointingly little progress.
By their earlier expectations, of the three young dragons, the eldest of the Ji family should have been a sure bet to advance to a Great Dragon. After all, his original body had already been nine hundred zhang long, not far from the Great Dragon threshold. Several years of cultivation in the Dragon Pool should have been more than enough to cross that stage.
Zhu Wuyou and Fu Qian were slightly behind, but with good fortune, they too might have made the leap.
Yet while the eldest Ji had indeed advanced to Great Dragon, his body was barely over a thousand zhang—looking for all the world like someone who had only just broken through not long ago.
Zhu Wuyou and Fu Qian fared even worse. They had barely reached nine hundred zhang, still a considerable distance from the Great Dragon stage.
And that was just the young dragons. The Great Dragons were even more disappointing.
Of the ten Great Dragons, at least two or three should have been expected to advance to ancient dragons.
Yet only the third Ji brother had made it to ancient dragon. The rest remained at the Great Dragon stage, and the growth of their dragon bodies fell well short of expectations.
The three ancient dragon Elders had never seen such lackluster juniors. This could truly be said to be the batch with the least improvement in all of recorded dragon history.
On the other side, perched on one of the branches of the Undying Parasol Tree, Huang Siniang sat in her multicolored robes, her two slender legs swinging idly, her gaze directed toward the scene with an air of one settling in to watch a show.
The moment she saw the condition of the dragons emerging from the Dragon Pool, she burst into laughter: "I knew it! Letting that person into the Dragon Pool was bound to cause some mishap for the Dragon Clan. Sure enough."
Feng Liulang stood beside her, frowning. "Didn't the Dragon Clan ever think to investigate his origin power?"
Huang Siniang curled her lips. "The Dragon Clan is far too proud. In their thinking, even if that person had refined a portion of the Dragon Clan's origin power, it was nothing of consequence. Add to that the agreements they had with the human race's Ninth-Order Supreme, and why would they waste energy on investigating? Little do they know—the origin power that fellow obtained is anything but ordinary."
Yang Kai carried the Golden Sacred Dragon's origin power—the origin of a third-generation Dragon Emperor. The Dragon Clan was unaware of this, but the Phoenix Clan had its suspicions.