Dragon Clan: Starting with the Azure Dragon Fruit

"I really don't see anything special about him." Mai Shude sighed, her tone full of helplessness.

"You're so stupid!" Su Enxi took the opportunity to stuff another potato chip into her mouth.

"So that's why the boss called us here. If he can't solve it, you're still here, aren't you?"

“Me?” Mai pointed at her own nose, laughing in exasperation.

"Adding me would just be adding another dish to the second generation's table. Do you think I have that much power? I thought we came here to stop the assassins sent by the Gattuso family."

"Do you really need to get involved in dealing with a few mixed-race assassins?" Su Enxi scoffed, her tone full of disdain.

"No matter how strong those people are, can they be stronger than Kondra, whose Word Power Sequence is 82? Besides, S-rank isn't alone right now; he's also with that seemingly dull and useless senior brother."

Su Enxi lowered her voice, as if she were talking about some incredible gossip: "Don't let his dull appearance and talkative nature fool you. If he really got angry, he could kill all the assassins sent by the Gattuso family by himself."

She waved towards the bathroom exit, as if giving an order: "So tomorrow you'll quietly go up the mountain, follow them, and subtly guide them so they know what they're facing before you figure out how to help them."

Mai Shude helplessly covered her forehead and sighed deeply. Sure enough, every business trip was bound to end badly.

She rubbed her temples, muttering to herself with some confusion, "Speaking of which, why is the boss so interested in this S-class item?"

"How could I possibly guess what the boss is thinking?" Su Enxi shrugged.

"We working people just need to do our best to complete the tasks assigned by our bosses, oh, by the way..."

As if remembering something, she deliberately raised her voice to remind them, "The boss specifically instructed that when you are secretly helping them, try not to use binoculars to observe that S-class."

Mai Shude was taken aback. The request to keep watch from a distance without using binoculars sounded utterly absurd: "Why?"

"Why are you asking so many questions today?" Su Enxi pulled a bathrobe over herself, shuffled back to the living room in her slippers, and sat down on the other side of the sofa.

"I wouldn't dare ask why the boss tells me to do something. Just remember it well. He's never made a mistake."

The next morning, halfway up the Hatz Mountains, in Krastar.

Pushing open the door of the guesthouse, a thick fog rushed in.

Lin Yuan stood on the steps, looking at the white mist in front of him, his brows slightly furrowed.

The fog did not dissipate with the rising sun; instead, it became even thicker than when we arrived yesterday.

Dozens of meters away, even those iconic German-style pointed wooden houses were blurred into gray shadows.

"What on earth is this thick fog?"

In his original plan, the process of a "field mission" should be to get off the plane, find the prey, kill it, and go back to school to collect the scholarship.

But all we see right now is thick fog, and we don't know how to even begin the investigation.

Fingel yawned and comforted him, "Don't worry, junior brother. This is your first field mission. No matter how monstrous those people in the Execution Department are, they can't possibly assign you a resurrected pureblooded dragon right away. Monsters of that level usually appear with extreme weather or geological changes, they're not as quiet as they are now."

He pointed to the street ahead: "Look at this town, even though it's shrouded in fog, the locals are still walking their dogs and buying bread as usual, nobody seems to care."

"I reckon it's most likely some alchemical equipment buried underground, or some ancient alchemical array that has been awakened by tectonic activity." As he spoke, Fingel took a deep breath of the thick fog and analyzed it in a serious tone.

"These inanimate objects generally don't harm people on their own. Our task is simple: find it, pack it up, and send it back to the academy."

Lin Yuan nodded, finding the explanation reasonable.

The two walked along the wet street, intending to first conduct a search of the city.

As he walked, Lin Yuan gradually realized that something was wrong.

Logically speaking, in such a remote mountain city, the permanent residents should be mostly elderly people, but almost all the people I passed along the way were young people walking in a hurry.

What puzzled him even more was that he would occasionally run into several familiar Chinese faces. Instead of the sense of alienation he had imagined being in a foreign mountain village, he felt a strange sense of warmth.

"Why are there so many Chinese people here?" Lin Yuan couldn't help but turn around and take a second look.

“That’s normal. This city is basically supported by students.” Fingel was indeed a German expert, just as he had described on the plane.

“Many universities in Germany don’t have walls. The buildings you see around here, big and small, are mostly research institutes and teaching buildings of Clausthal University of Technology,” Finger said, pointing to the left and right.

"This is no shoddy school. Its mining, metallurgy, and mechanical engineering programs are all top-notch in Germany. Because the programs are relevant and the place is conducive to focused academic research, Chinese students make up almost one-fifth of the entire school. If you throw a brick on the street with your eyes closed, you're more likely to hit someone from your hometown."

Looking at the college students rushing around, Lin Yuan turned his head and looked at his useless senior brother with some puzzlement: "Senior, since you've already repeated a year in Kassel and become a seventh-year student, haven't you thought about simply dropping out, going back to your hometown to study at a local university, and then getting a diploma and finding an ordinary job?"

"Junior brother, you're too naive! You have no idea what it means to just get a degree. You have no idea how terrifying German universities are!"

He pointed to several students with receding hairlines by the roadside, his tone full of lingering fear: "The four years of university in Germany will definitely be the most unforgettable eight years of your six years of youth. At least Kassel has an E-level to back me up, but if you had stubbornly chosen to go to a German university back then, you would never be able to leave the newbie village for the rest of your life!"

Lin Yuan was amused by Fingel.

The two continued to chat idly as they wandered aimlessly through the city.

I strolled from the university library to the city center square, and apart from the thick fog, I didn't find anything suspicious.

It was almost noon, time for lunch.

"Let's go, let's eat first." Fingel rubbed his stomach, his eyes darting around at the signs on both sides of the street.

“I just saw a Chinese restaurant over there, junior brother. Chinese food is the best cuisine in the world. Let’s go and get a couple of hearty dishes.”

Lin Yuan recalled the cloyingly sweet "General Tso's Chicken" from Chinatown, and his stomach churned instantly.

"I'm not going!" Lin Yuan refused firmly.

"Since I've finally come all the way to Germany, of course I have to try your local cuisine. I'll have German food."

Finger immediately looked dejected. As a German, he was well aware of how monotonous and lacking his hometown cuisine was, consisting mainly of pork prepared in various ways and sauerkraut.

He looked around and his gaze settled on a small shop not far away, and his eyes lit up immediately.

"I've got it! I'll take you to eat Doner, the most authentic German street food!"

A few minutes later, the two of them sat down by the window in the shop, each holding a Turkish kebab stuffed with grilled meat, lettuce, and rich garlic sauce.

Crispy flatbread paired with sizzling, oily roasted meat is definitely much better than those heavily modified Chinese dishes.

Lin Yuan took a big bite, and the aroma of the caramelized meat mixed with the rich garlic sauce burst in his mouth.

The owner gave so much sauce that it dripped down the edges of the pancake with the slightest pressure.

To avoid getting his clothes dirty with dripping sauce, Lin Yuan could only lean forward slightly, his legs parted a little.

Just as he lowered his head to deal with the spitting-out piece of roasted meat, his gaze inadvertently swept to the ground at his feet.

Next to the greasy chair legs lay a brightly colored booklet.

It seems that it accidentally slipped out of the pocket of the last customer who was enjoying his meal here?

Without thinking much, Lin Yuan put the kebab in his hand back on the plate lined with parchment paper and bent down to pick up the booklet.

The book contained descriptions of local customs and culture in both German and English. For Lin Yuan, whose English proficiency was limited to "more ice," this was no different from reading gibberish.

"What are you looking at?" Fingel, his mouth greasy, noticed Lin Yuandi's actions and curiously leaned closer.

Lin Yuan handed over the booklet casually, pursing his lips: "I can't understand it, it seems to be some kind of local scenic spot introduction."

Fingel freed one hand to take it: "Oh, this? It's a free tourist brochure printed by the city hall, specifically designed to swindle out-of-town tourists. Let me see what it covers..."

As he spoke, he opened the book, flipped through two pages, and suddenly stopped what he was doing.

"Oh right, how could I forget about that?" He swallowed the food in his mouth, his blue-gray eyes shining brightly.

"Junior brother, our investigation this morning went completely in the wrong direction."

"How to say?"

Fingel spread the booklet between them, pointing to a picture titled "Ottilia Shaft": "Most dragons despise modern cities; they prefer deep water and underground caves. If we're looking for alchemical items, we should be looking underground!"

"Klaustar has a mining history spanning hundreds of years. If something were to awaken here, it would never be hiding in the city; it would be in an abandoned mine!"

Looking at the dark entrance to the mine in the picture, Lin Yuan felt that Fingel's words made sense.

After finishing their meal, the two followed the map in the manual and made their way to the ruins of the Ottilia mine on the edge of the city.

Because it was relatively remote, it was already dark by the time they reached the vicinity of the mine entrance along the mountain path.

The fog here is much thicker than in the city center, and there is a faint smell of sulfur in the air.

Just as Lin Yuan was about to step over the barbed wire fence in front of him, he stopped.

The Observation Haki that had been activated all along seemed to hit a distorted barrier when it reached a certain limit deep inside the mine.

Immediately afterwards, a faint sense of danger swept back through my senses!

In that bottomless darkness, it seemed as if some ancient being was awakening.

Almost simultaneously, the "Azure Dragon Fruit" within his body began to stir uncontrollably. Lin Yuan could even feel the unmanifested azure scales under his skin slightly burning with the pulse from the ground.

His gaze suddenly sharpened, his dark golden vertical pupils appearing and disappearing in the mist.

Fingel, standing beside Lin Yuan, caught the fervor in Lin Yuan's eyes.

"Hey, hey, hey! Junior brother! Let's calm down, okay?"

Fingel grabbed Lin Yuan's arm, refusing to let him go any further.

"Look at the time, it's already completely dark!"

He pointed to the surroundings: "You've seen horror movies, right? Those supporting characters who insist on acting at night, every single one of them, ends up completely dead, unable to even complete the puzzle!"

"Besides, neither of us brought any equipment. Going into a high-difficulty dungeon unarmed is something only cannon fodder would do. How about we get up early tomorrow and come back fully equipped?"

Lin Yuan's fighting spirit subsided slightly. Although Fingel was usually unreliable, his words were indeed flawless.

The thing below was definitely not an ordinary alchemical artifact; the chilling sense of oppression it exuded was countless times stronger than that of Conrad back then.

Going in empty-handed is really underestimating your opponent.

"Alright, come again tomorrow." Lin Yuan turned his gaze away from the mine entrance, then patted Fingel on the shoulder.

......

At the same time.

A black Mercedes SUV is driving on the mountain road leading to Clausthal.

There were four people sitting in the carriage. They were assassins secretly trained by the Gattuso family, whose job was to eliminate the family's shady threats.

The group silently inspected their equipment: melee weapons engraved with alchemical matrices, large-caliber sniper rifles, and the specially made mercury bullets in the magazines designed to deal with hybrids.

In the passenger seat, the captain had a laptop on his lap.

The light from the screen illuminated his cold, hard face.

"Damn this weather, visibility is less than twenty meters." The sniper in the back seat lowered the window, and the thick white fog outside immediately seeped in through the gap.

"The magnetic field in this area is also extremely chaotic. Thermal imaging and infrared imaging are all just static. If we really have to fight, our sniper rifles will probably only be good for burning."

"With limited vision, melee combat is the best option."

The captain stared at the computer screen, his fingers sliding across the touchpad: "The four of us are not trash like Conrad. Lin Yuan's record in Chicago was nothing more than relying on sneak attacks and the opponent's underestimation of us. How could flesh and blood possibly be a match for firearms and alchemical weapons?"

As the Enter key was pressed, Lin Yuan's ID photo from Kassel College popped up on the screen.

"The destruction of the Sackler family in Chicago has greatly angered the Presbyterian Council." The captain lit a cigar, the flame flickering in the dimly lit carriage.

"Although those drug lords are not openly recognized, they are the family's 'white gloves' in North America. In order to avoid Angers's attention, the family has spent billions of dollars to secretly promote bloodline experiments through the Sackler family."

"So the Elders sent us here to retaliate for these billions in losses." The sniper loaded specially made armor-piercing rounds into the magazine.

"It's just a few billion. The Gattuso family can afford to lose it. In the eyes of the Elders, this amount of money is just a string of numbers."

The captain exhaled a puff of blue smoke: "A half-blood with no background trampled on the family's white gloves, which did make the elders feel they lost face. But this is at most a fuse, not enough for them to send us to kill them directly."

After all, the target was Angers' chosen successor, and once the assassination was exposed, the family would have to face his wrath.

Taking such a risk for a destroyed branch and exposed pharmaceutical experiments is not in the way of the Elders.

The captain tapped his fingers on the keyboard, switching the screen.

The photo was taken secretly.

The first photo shows Lin Yuan and Chen Motong walking side by side on a street in Chicago. The second photo shows the two holding hands in the center of the dance floor at a dinner party at Norton House.

"This is the real reason why the Elders issued the execution order."

The captain pulled out the dagger strapped to his leg, and the tip of the blade lightly grazed Lin Yuan's throat on the screen.

"Once we get to town, we'll go straight to the hotel and take him out." The sniper pulled the bolt, chambering a round.

The captain sheathed his dagger and turned his gaze to the thick fog billowing outside the window.

"What's the rush?" He closed his laptop and leaned back.

"Let Mr. S enjoy his first and last field mission."