Shortly after Vaan’s group agreed to the dragon lord’s invitation, they were surprised to witness the dragon lord lowering himself to offer them a ride on his back.
“Is this appropriate, Your Excellency?” Astoria asked, knowing it may seem disrespectful and humiliating to let humans ride on a dragon’s back.
After all, dragons were said to be a proud race.
“Do you think this Lord will find it disrespectful and humiliating?” Lord Narvim glanced at Astoria and said, “This Lord highly regards Vaan, and you are also all guests of this Lord. Thus, this Lord will treat you all hospitably.”
“It is only disrespectful and humiliating if you see this Lord as a pet ride despite this Lord’s extended generosity,” Lord Narvim stated.
“I understand, Your Excellency,” Astoria acknowledged with a nod and said, “I will certainly not think that way.”
Nevertheless, it was an opportunity for everyone to ride on the back of a Rank 5 being; it was a privilege that not everyone could enjoy.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one could say.
After everyone hopped on the dragon lord’s back, Lord Narvim took off and flew towards Ninth Peak’s center, where everyone saw the steep chasm to the land of fire.
They passed many dragon caves on their way down before reaching a noticeably larger dragon cave that stood out from the rest.
As it was located around halfway down the chasm, the extreme heat emanating from the land of fire didn’t particularly affect them.
It was only warm at best.
After entering the dragon lord’s cave, everyone dismounted off the dragon lord before studying the dragon cave with surprise.
The exterior didn’t look fancy; it was primitive at best.
However, inside the dragon cave, it was luxuriously decorated in quality metal and jewels.
Even so, what stood out most wasn’t the glittering jewels illuminating the dragon cave nor the smooth marbled surface of blue mithril that reinforced the cave’s structural integrity.
It was the dragon lord’s huge collection of knowledge sitting in one corner like a mountain.
“Oh? It looks like the little one has fallen asleep,” Astoria suddenly commented after noticing Emerald soundly asleep on Vaan’s shoulder.
She must have been truly exhausted.
“Allow me to settle my spirit’s accommodation first, Your Excellency,” Vaan spoke, to which the dragon lord agreed without a fuss.
The dragon lord always had the spirit’s interest in mind.
Nevertheless, Vaan asked Aeliana to use her ability to create a suitable home made of high-quality plants and supplied her with the mana he collected from the dragon fragments.
After Emerald’s plant home was created, he stored it inside his Heaven-Swallowing Space and transferred Emerald there to avoid Topaz disturbing her rest.
His Heaven-Swallowing Space wasn’t just a subspace he could expand limitlessly with mana; he could also build worlds within like his own miniature universe if he had the capability.
“Did you just stuff Mera into an interspatial storage, Teacher Raphna?” Astoria asked with knitted brows.
“Interspatial storage… Something like that,” Vaan vaguely replied before adding, “However, I would say it’s also an independent world that only I possess.”
“Soul Masters have independent spiritual worlds that could be used to accommodate spirits without an issue,” Lord Narvim commented.
“I see… Soul Masters have a lot of convenient capabilities, huh?” Astoria muttered.
“It is the most desired profession in all of Chaos,” Lord Narvim casually said.
Vaan didn’t know about the Soul Masters’ spiritual worlds, but he appreciated the dragon lord’s unexpected assistance nonetheless.
Shortly after, Lord Narvim directed the group’s attention to a big passageway leading into a different cave.
“Come, this Lord has a place to show you.”
When they followed the dragon lord and reached the end of the passageway, they entered a larger cave with multiple passages connected to other dragon caves.
The place appeared to be recently constructed, but everyone only roamed the large cave with e gazes briefly before the center caught their attention.
Several dragons surrounded a cage, studying an ugly wyvern held within.
“Eniwse…” Vaan immediately recognized the Wyvern-type Abomination in the cage.
Nevertheless, he felt the side effects of losing a third of his subspace. It decreased his intellectual ability and took him longer to confirm it was Eniwse’s Abomination form.
“You said you came to the Thousand Fog Mountains in search of the Wyvern-type Abomination to save her. This Lord thought to surprise you all by showing her whereabouts without informing you all in advance,” Lord Narvim mentioned, expecting everyone to be pleasantly surprised by the discovery.
However, Hester furrowed her brows and asked, “What are they doing to her, Your Excellency?”
“Nothing that would concern you.” Lord Narvim realized the Wyvern-type Abomination’s captivity may cause some misunderstanding, so he quickly explained, “They are only studying Abomination with simple observation techniques.”
“We haven’t done anything to her yet. She came to us, writhing in pain. Thus, we’ve been looking for ways to help her since then. But without a foolproof solution to treat her, we didn’t dare to carry out any procedures,” Lord Narvim stated.
At that moment, the Wyvern-type Abomination showed no sign of writhing in pain or resisting despite being held in captivity.
The group quickly learned that Eniwse had been put under particularly strong anesthetics to numb her pain, which was why she appeared more peaceful instead.
Nevertheless, the dragon’s anesthetics weren’t strong enough to completely numb the pain; it was only strong enough to reduce the pain down to a level that Eniwse could tolerate.
However, such anesthetics would become completely useless the moment the dragon attempted any treatment, as the pain would be amplified.
“This Lord is quite curious. How did you overcome the pain hurdle when you treated this lady, Vaan?” Lord Narvim inquired with curiosity.
Astoria and Hester also glanced at Vaan with curiosity regarding his treatment process.
After all, Aeliana’s recovery was an unprecedented achievement. It would be a lie if they said they weren’t interested in hearing the process.
“Would you believe me if I said I used pleasure to negate the pain, your Excellency?” Vaan nonchalantly asked.
“Pleasure?” Everyone furrowed their brows upon hearing Vaan’s answer before Lord Narvim responded with some doubts. “Pleasure can indeed negate the pain, but…”
“The pleasure level would have to be at the same level as the pain, if not greater. For you to do that while administering the treatment…”
“I am ambidextrous, and multitasking isn’t a problem for me, Your Excellency,” Vaan replied with a smile.