100\% DROP RATE : Why is My Inventory Always so Full? Chapter 736 - Red Dragon

For several moments, the Red Dragon simply stared at the projection centered on him.

Lucien found the reaction amusing.

He had already decided that the ancient dragon was one of the most suitable people present to receive the Covenant of the Thousandfold Echo.

The battle had only confirmed it.

Lucien had watched the Red Dragon’s flames cover kilometers of battlefield without touching a single allied formation. Its attacks were violent enough to erase entire Black Mass groups, yet the fire curved around friendly forces with a degree of control that did not match the dragon’s usual temperament.

That control mattered.

Giving someone the ability to reproduce an enormously destructive technique was only useful if the bearer could keep those additional attacks from becoming a disaster of their own.

The Red Dragon had already proven that it could.

Its reserves were another advantage.

Lucien had felt the amount of mana moving through the ancient dragon while it fought the Primordial Incarnation. Even after hours of combat, the reserves buried inside its enormous body remained ridiculous.

It could not use the Covenant without limit.

Nobody could.

But unlike most people present, the Red Dragon could activate something this demanding more than once without immediately emptying itself.

Then there was the most obvious reason.

It hated the Black Mass.

Lucien did not need Divine Sense to determine that.

The Red Dragon had made absolutely no effort to conceal it.

Every time a Black Mass creature appeared within reach, its expression changed. The corruption itself seemed to offend it, and whenever its flames consumed another mass of miasma, there had been something deeply personal behind the satisfaction that followed.

That hatred could have been a weakness if the dragon were reckless.

It was not.

The Red Dragon was temperamental, greedy, excessively possessive, and far too proud for its own good.

It was also crafty.

Lucien had dealt with it enough times to know that.

The ancient dragon knew how to wait for an opening. It could improvise when brute force stopped working, and it had adapted against the Primordial Incarnation instead of mindlessly trying the same attack again.

For an item like the Covenant, knowing when to use it was almost as important as having enough energy to activate it.

Lucien quietly swept Divine Sense across the dragon once more.

The colors surrounding it were different from what he remembered.

When they had first met, some of those shades had been unpleasant enough that Lucien had wondered how a living creature could accumulate so many ugly colors without making an effort.

They had softened considerably.

There were still traces Lucien would never describe as beautiful, but the difference was unmistakable.

Apparently, even an ancient dragon could change for the better.

Lucien found that strangely reassuring.

•••

There was another reason he had chosen it.

The Red Dragon’s firepower was absurd.

If the Covenant reproduced one of its larger Fire techniques across a true Black Mass horde, millions of weaker creatures could disappear in a single activation.

But raw destruction alone had not decided Lucien’s choice.

His attention shifted toward the three dragons still gathered near the Red Dragon.

Their relationship had been obvious throughout the competition.

Whatever had happened between them in the past, the connection had survived.

More importantly, it was repairing itself.

That interested Lucien because the Covenant did not need to remain in the Red Dragon’s possession every moment of every battle.

The Red Dragon was famously possessive.

Lucien knew that better than most.

The ancient dragon had once stormed Lootwell because Lucien sent Astraea, Condoriano, and Saber to take Origin Core fragments from its vault.

Calling the dragon unreasonable about its possessions would have been generous.

Yet the Black Mass seemed capable of overriding even that instinct.

During the simulated invasion, the Red Dragon had coordinated with the other three without hesitation. It had adjusted attacks around theirs, accepted support, and changed positions when another dragon was better suited to a threat.

Lucien could already imagine what would happen in a real war.

If the Red Dragon exhausted its reserves after using the Covenant, it could hand the Disc to one of the others.

Lucien doubted it would enjoy doing so.

He believed it would do it anyway if the alternative meant allowing more Black Mass creatures to survive.

And the other dragons gave the Covenant possibilities that went far beyond fire.

•••

Most people had only seen Lucien use the Covenant offensively.

That was the easiest way to demonstrate it.

It was not the only way.

The Covenant did not care whether the technique recorded inside it was meant to destroy something.

If a technique could be reproduced, then a healing technique could be reproduced as well.

A support technique could spread across several targets instead of one.

A reinforcement spell could become an entire formation’s worth of reinforcement.

Protective techniques, cleansing techniques, movement techniques, and countless other forms of magic could all benefit from the same principle, provided the user supplied enough energy and the technique could be properly echoed.

That was where the other dragons became interesting.

The Blue Dragon’s Water could be used for far more than crushing enemies beneath rivers.

The Green Dragon’s command over Air possessed enormous battlefield utility.

The Brown Dragon could reshape terrain, reinforce defenses, and alter entire fronts.

Combined with the Red Dragon’s destructive Fire, the four of them covered far more situations than any single bearer could.

Lucien had not chosen only a powerful dragon.

He had chosen someone connected to three other powerful dragons whom it trusted.

That difference mattered.

By now, the Red Dragon had probably understood the same thing.

Its expression had changed completely.

•••

The ancient dragon finally recovered from its surprise.

Its head lifted.

Then an excited roar erupted across the preserved region.

The sound struck the surrounding mountains hard enough to send loose stones tumbling from several ruined structures.

People flinched.

A few beasts answered instinctively before apparently remembering that this was not another battle.

The other three dragons looked toward their companion.

The Green Dragon said something in a language only they could understand.

Whatever it was caused the Blue Dragon to laugh.

The Brown Dragon joined in a moment later.

The Red Dragon’s head snapped toward them, and its expression became deeply offended.

Lucien did not need to understand the conversation to know that they were enjoying this far too much.

There was no jealousy among them.

That was another good sign.

The Red Dragon had received an artifact capable of changing the course of a battlefield, yet the other three looked genuinely pleased for it.

Around the preserved region, the reaction was similar.

There was surprise.

There were undoubtedly people who would have preferred another recipient.

But very few could call the choice unreasonable after watching the Red Dragon fight.

Everyone had seen the same flames. Everyone had seen its control. And everyone had seen exactly how enthusiastically it destroyed the Black Mass.

The decision made sense.

•••

Lucien raised the megaphone again.

"Red Dragon. Come and receive the Covenant."

The ancient dragon moved before the last word had fully crossed the region.

A burst of Fire erupted behind it.

The enormous body crossed the distance toward the central platform so quickly that several people looked upward only to discover that the dragon was already descending.

Lucien stared.

It could apparently move very efficiently when treasure was involved.

The Red Dragon landed beyond the platform rather than directly on top of it, which Lucien considered evidence of further personal growth.

Its enormous head lowered toward him.

Pride had already returned to its expression.

"You only noticed this one’s greatness now?"

Lucien smiled.

There it was.

The surprise had lasted longer than expected, but apparently not long enough to cause permanent damage.

He did not bother arguing.

The Covenant Disc rose from his palm.

Layers of translucent material turned slowly through the air, while the countless symbols embedded within them seemed to continue farther inward than the Disc’s physical thickness should have allowed.

The surrounding projections focused on it.

Lucien looked at the Red Dragon.

"You deserved it."

The dragon stopped.

For once, it did not immediately answer with something obnoxious.

Satisfaction settled across its expression instead.

The Covenant floated toward it.

The Red Dragon extended one claw with considerably more care than Lucien would have expected from something that had spent the last few hours incinerating armies.

The Disc touched it.

Its light spread briefly across the dragon’s scales before settling into its possession.

For several seconds, the ancient creature simply looked at the Covenant.

Then its head rose toward the sky.

The roar that followed was even louder than the first.

This time, the preserved region answered.

Cheers erupted from the surrounding districts.

Beast cries joined them.

Weapons rose again, but now there was no enemy left to meet them.

The other three dragons took to the air around the Red Dragon as it lifted away from the platform, and for a brief moment the four elemental dragons circled beneath the recovering sky while the Covenant’s light remained visible against the Red Dragon’s scales.

Lucien watched them for a moment before taking the megaphone one final time.

The cheering gradually softened.

Across the preserved region, the surviving projections turned toward him.

There were competitors who had entered the first qualification stage weeks earlier.

There were people who had lost early and remained to watch.

There were merchants, healers, faction elders, ancient beings, independent practitioners, researchers, craftsmen, and countless others who had somehow been dragged into a final stage they had never agreed to enter.

They had competed.

They had trained.

They had fought.

And whether they realized it yet or not, they were leaving far more prepared for the real enemy than when they arrived.

Lucien looked over the preserved region.

"The final reward has been awarded."

The remaining conversations faded.

"With that, the Grand Intercontinental Competition is officially concluded."

For a heartbeat, nobody reacted.

Perhaps they were waiting for the sky to tear open again.

Lucien could hardly blame them.

Then someone cheered.

Another voice followed.

Within seconds, the sound spread across the entire preserved region until it became impossible to tell where it had begun.

This time, nobody announced a fifth stage.