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Dragon Heart Refinement Method.
A special Cultivation Method passed down through generations of his Dragon Family from Yggdrasil, created by the Dragon King himself.
This powerful Cultivation Method allowed even the weakest Dragon to refine their Dragon Heart and slowly evolve into a True Dragon, ascending to higher realms regardless of their original bloodline level.
Because of the countless descendants the Dragon King left across the world, Dragons formed a vast portion of the population. More than seventy thousand years after he became King of that world, roughly forty percent of Yggdrasil's inhabitants carried some degree of dragon bloodline.
Thus, the Dragon King, worried that his descendants would inherit increasingly diluted bloodlines, created numerous Cultivation Methods to awaken and strengthen the Dragon Bloodline in anyone who possessed even the smallest trace.
Before his Awakening Ceremony, Louis had studied this method daily with his mother, learning how to regulate the energy and every detail, even though he lacked the ability to practice it yet.
However, when it was revealed that he possessed absolutely no talent as a dragon and could not even manifest his Dragon Form, Louis had been forced to abandon the method entirely.
Nearly a decade had passed since then. Though Louis remembered parts of it, he reread the entire book to refresh his memory. His eyes widened as he felt something within him stir while reading.
"Is this it?! Is it really possible...?"
Louis' face lit up with great joy as he sensed "something" rather than nothing—more than he had ever felt from this technique before. He continued reading, memorized the formula, then began activating the Method by regulating his breathing and channeling his Intent and Consciousness throughout his body.
Memories and thoughts of being a dragon, every draconic characteristic, merged together and imprinted themselves into his flesh. They flowed like countless colorful rivers of energy.
These rivers carried the roars of innumerable dragons. The more Louis focused, the more intensely the method pressed upon his body.
"Uugh! Nngh!"
Louis groaned, blood streaming from his eyes, mouth, nose, and ears as he pushed himself beyond endurance, gathering this draconic energy into his chest to form his Dragon Heart.
He screamed. His head felt ready to explode. He activated Death-Sense and forced himself past all limits, even those that would have already killed him.
"With Death-Sense...! I can do this...! I CAN DO THIS!"
Louis roared. His Aura writhed in agony, desperately attempting to take the form of a dragon however it could—but it twisted into an aberrant shape, unable to assume proper form.
"W-Wha...?"
Louis felt intense horror as he watched his Dragon Aura contort in pain, warping into something grotesque that was definitely not a dragon but something else entirely.
It resembled a chimeric creature or an incomplete, dying homunculus.
That thing could not be called a dragon.
"No...! No! NO! NO! NO! NO!!!"
Louis descended into madness as he kept pushing, refusing to care if the result was monstrous—as long as it was at least similar, even if only a false, horrible reflection.
At this point, anything!
"Please, please...!"
Then his eyes widened.
Something within him began to crystallize!
A small, flickering energy—a tiny crystal of...
"It's there, it's... eh?"
Yet Louis' face quickly twisted into horror as he saw what had formed inside his chest.
Ashen Frost.
"A-Ahh..."
He immediately stopped, coughing blood as he stared at the Dragon Aura he had created, which looked nothing like one, slowly faded away.
"Why... Just why can't I... do it...?"
Even after all these years.
Even after all his efforts so far.
Even after he had achieved some form of transformation with draconic features.
He was no dragon, and he could never be.
This was the truth Louis now accepted, realizing the horrible curse placed upon him.
A dragon with no wings, no claws, no scales, no tail...
He had only horns, and even these were small compared to his mother's.
Thus, he understood the reality.
"I am cursed..."
He smiled while blood dripped from his lips. His eyes grew unfocused as the light within them began to fade.
"I'm sorry, Mother... your son is a failure... aahh... how much disgrace have I brought to our family? I really should... just die... right?"
Slowly he dragged himself toward the table and picked up a kitchen knife.
Louis brought the blade to his neck.
Perhaps if he died, he would stop embarrassing his mother and restore the honor he had tarnished by birthing such a useless "dragon."
"I cannot even be called a lizard... I am the most pathetic being in this world..."
Louis smiled while laughing softly. The knife pressed deeper, cutting into flesh.
It hurt so much.
"...!"
But a black hand seized his arm and stopped him.
"Wha...?"
Louis glared at Handy, who forced him to halt.
"Get away from me!"
He grabbed Handy and hurled her aside, once more raising the knife toward his neck in desperation and madness.
However.
A skeletal hand caught his wrist.
Then two metallic hands.
And finally, long claws forged from ashes.
"What is the meaning of this?!"
Louis roared furiously at his Incarnations, all of whom now prevented him from doing something foolish.
"You have no right to stop me! You're beneath me! You're Incarnations! You're...!"
Then he saw Handy slowly reach toward his arm, healing the wound on his neck.
The Pugilist crushed the knife in its grip and tossed the broken metal away.
"I guess I did ask you to protect me..."
Louis smiled bitterly after a long silence.
He slowly calmed down and began assessing the situation pragmatically.
"I almost killed myself... even though I had sworn I would never do that again..."
He gritted his teeth in anger and frustration, clutching his long hair and trying to tear it from his scalp, but his Incarnations stopped him once more.
"Hahah... Aren't you too overprotective?"
Louis laughed and gradually relaxed, feeling better as he recognized his own foolishness.
He had truly gone mad at that moment, madder than ever before.
Perhaps this trauma ran deeper than he had imagined.
"When I failed to form a Dragon Heart again, even after filling myself with Hope, it truly felt like my entire life lost all meaning..."
He sighed and collapsed onto his bed.
"But even if I had killed myself, I would have only returned to the beginning, unable to truly die..."
Exhausted and feverish, Louis tried to sleep.
Yet his obsession refused to leave. He remained restlessly awake, thinking.
"If I cannot use the proper formula, I have to modify it... not to create a true Dragon Heart, but a fake one. If I can only become a 'fake dragon,' then that is what I should aim for."
In the end, he had never truly given up.
He gathered the Dragon Heart Refinement Method's process and began combining it with the Heaven-Earth Harmonization Sutras.
The Five Elements, Fire, Wood, Earth, Metal, and Water, started to converge, slowly forming something resembling a false beating heart.
"It's... working?"
Louis stared in disbelief as the Five Energies merged into a fake Dragon Heart born from Elemental Ki.
Then he poured Celestial and Earthly Essence from his Heaven and Earth Channels. He used the Five Element Ki as veins while this essence became the blood being pumped.
Gradually, it took on the faint shape of a Dragon Heart—an ethereal, ghostly organ that looked as though it might fade away at any moment.
"It's...! It's there...! I have to—Agh?!"
But Louis suffered backlash for rushing the process. The entire heart scattered into energy, and sharp pain exploded in his chest. He collapsed to the floor.
He felt as though he were dying, but Handy expended half its power, healing his injuries and slowly helping him recover.
"Hahaha... I did it... It was there...! I am sure! A Fake Dragon Heart born from my own efforts, from every single particle of energy within me...! Sure...! Why not?!"
Louis smiled with fascination at the moon shining through the night sky.
He had grasped a unique method to create a fake Dragon Heart by using other Cultivation Methods as "materials," forming an entirely new formula.
Yet it remained unstable and very weak. Mastering it would require a long time.
Satisfied, Louis passed out over the floor, covered in his own blood.
♢♢♢♢
The next morning arrived. A panicking Catrise hurriedly woke him, cleaned the blood from his clothes, and healed him to ensure he was fine.
"Your majesty? Hello? Remember that today you have those personal meetings with the citizens. Please wake up and take a quick shower in the bathroom—it's getting late! Ahh, wait, why were you bleeding?"
"Ugh... I know... I know..."
Louis groaned, stood up, and went to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, he stepped out looking dazzling, as though nothing had ever happened, as though he had not looked like a complete wreck just minutes earlier.
The change was astonishing.
"P-Prince Louis? Weren't you..."
"I'm fine. Let's skip breakfast—I don't need it. Let's begin. Is my father ready?"
"He is!"
"Then let's go."
Louis met his father, and together they received the first family that had chosen to meet them personally. Each family was given a limit of thirty minutes to speak with the King and the Prince.
From wives with their children to elderly parents and even single individuals, all kinds of families arrived to discuss their loss and ask the King and Prince to honor the fallen in the best way possible.
Some demanded outrageous things like money and were quickly escorted out. Others attempted to assassinate the King or Prince with weapons hidden inside their bodies, only to fail when Gustaf waved his hand and completely suppressed them.
And finally, some did not speak about the dead at all, instead raising completely unrelated complaints, sometimes whining about their privileged lives as though they suffered, despite never having known real poverty.
The entire week passed in this manner. Louis and his father addressed hundreds of people over seven days while Louis continued developing his unique Fake Dragon Heart Method, practicing it every night before sleep.
Each practice session brought backlash. He vomited blood and passed out until the next day. Yet slowly, over those seven days, he noticed the time he could sustain the Fake Heart increased slightly.
Moreover, as he separately developed the Five Element Sutras through meditation and training, the Fake Dragon Heart's stability improved a little more.
Thus, after seven days of speaking with citizens and preparing for the Funerary Ceremony of the Fallen Warriors who had died protecting the country, his Fake Dragon Heart could remain stable for six minutes.
"Almost one minute per day... if I keep this up, eventually I could sustain it for twenty-four hours continuously!"
Louis felt genuine progress. It was slow, at a snail's pace, but far better than nothing. Whenever the Fake Dragon Heart activated, a surge of Dragon Power coursed through his body.
His various energies converged into an ideal dragon form, not born from bloodline but from his own dreams and hopes, resembling a giant, radiant dragon, only to scatter again before it could do much yet.
Still, Louis swore he would elevate this Cultivation Method to Grand Perfection and attain a Dragon Heart, even if fake.
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