The Natural Empire of the Oceanic Dragon

The Bearman instantly appeared between the Atlantean and Tigerman, who were locked in a tense standoff. A smile played on his lips, but his eyes radiated a terrifying mental pressure as he glanced at them both.

He said calmly:

"My place can't withstand the ripples caused by your battle. There's a new training ground specifically created in the forest, prepared just for you. There, you can unleash all sorts of techniques to your heart's content."

"Don't worry about damaging the environment. The mountains, rivers, trees, and plants there are all prepared for your various techniques. Right now, find the flaws in your combat techniques through sparring and improve upon them."

"When you encounter real enemies, you can skillfully use combat skills and spells to quickly eliminate them. Not just Atlantean and Tyr, I hope you all can make good use of this training ground."

"I'll oversee the restoration of the damaged environment once a week, ensuring you can draw enough energy from the training ground's natural magic network to fuel your battles."

The Atlantean's lips twitched. Although the Bearman made it sound like they could destroy anything they wanted in the training ground, the Atlantean was sure that the main force for restoring the magic network would still be them, the inexperienced Druids.

In the first year, the Bearman silently created Moonshadow Lake while the Atlantean patrolled the forest every three days. Now, as the second year passed, the Atlantean believed his observational skills were no longer what they once were.

Yet, he still hadn't detected the slightest clue about this natural training ground, allowing the Bearman to win again in this silent game between them.

The amplification effect of the environment's magic wasn't strong, but it was perfect for sparring and exchanging ideas.

The Tigerman took out a short spear and stroked it twice. Scarlet true energy coiled from her hand towards the Dragon Hunting Arrow. She grinned ferociously at the Atlantean.

"This time, you'll be the one coughing up blood, collapsing on the ground, and unable to get up!"

The Atlantean sneered and raised his claws, similarly flashing with a misty blue wave of water elements.

"Boastful! Do you really think you can get revenge just by learning a few tricks from humans? If you want to kill a Green Dragon, you need to bring a weapon that can effectively kill dragons."

"Do you think a Green Dragon would appear and fight you? Green Dragons don't have the dignity of being dragons. Deliberately showing weakness and fleeing in panic is something a Green Dragon would definitely do."

"Once the Green Dragon runs away, you'll probably only encounter a Green Dragon who specifically comes to kill you during the final years when you're losing your strength due to old age. I hope that when that day comes, you won't regret your arrogance today."

The Atlantean mentioned the Tigerman's clan annihilation and deep blood feud, and the Tigerman's somewhat calmed emotions instantly surged.

"Atlantean! I'll let you see my power. I hope you can still talk big like this when the Dragon Hunting Arrow is inserted into your neck!"

"Then come on."

When the Atlantean was being intensely trained by the Bearman for a whole year, he actually had a sense of resentment and irritability suppressed in his heart, but there wasn't a suitable opponent in the forest.

The Eagle King could actually exchange a couple of moves, but it was slightly lacking. Unless he could master his Storm Giant Eagle form, the Atlantean could solve him in two or three moves.

Secondly, there was Mount Tai. The power of the Life Angel within him had made very significant progress after Mount Tai held rituals on the mountain day and night to absorb starlight.

If quantified numerically, Mount Tai's efforts were probably equivalent to increasing the total amount from 1 to 1.1. This seemingly laughable 0.1 was a high-purity energy that many people couldn't extract in their entire lives.

A broad road to heaven was placed before Mount Tai. Even if Mount Tai didn't transform into a Life Titan Angel while alive, his soul would ascend to the Seventh Heaven after his death and be shaped into a Celestial guarding the Celestial Realm.

From a weak human to a noble Celestial, Mount Tai definitely benefited. The difference was just how much he benefited, the difference between achieving sainthood in the flesh and a wisp of true spirit being conferred a god.

Ordinary people didn't even have the opportunity to be conferred a god, let alone achieve sainthood in the flesh.

In the entire forest, besides the Bearman and Vine Woman, and the legendary couple Blooddye and Lallune, only Mount Tai and Hana were qualified to be shaped into Celestials.

Of course, Mount Tai needed to condense enough power of the Life Angel, enough to dye his soul into the same golden appearance.

At this moment, watching the Atlantean and Tigerman go to war, Mount Tai was eager to try. He also wanted to go up and fight, but he looked at the Druids watching around him, and it seemed that only Great Horn was suitable to be his opponent.

The Eagle King liked the hit-and-run tactics of descending from the sky. He could maintain his human form and turn both his hands and feet into eagle claws, and then grow a pair of eagle wings on his back, diving from high altitude and attacking with his hand and foot eagle claws.

From time to time, he would launch a wind or lightning elemental spell attack. Although he didn't have a bird's beak, his fighting style was exactly the same as the Thunder Prince described in the Atlantean's story.

Because Druids all had a wooden stick as a weapon, it was just a matter of how skilled they were. The Eagle King's oak stick was soaked in a special medicinal liquid made from herbs, and it had strangely turned golden.

Everyone called it the Golden Stick. At the same time, under the guidance of the Old Urchin, the Eagle King also began to cultivate Wind and Thunder Wings. It was said that the pair of eagle wings would soon be permanently on the Eagle King's back.

Everyone didn't find it strange. Druids, after all, would sooner or later have some characteristics of animals that changed over the years. This was actually a proof of strength.

If the Eagle King mastered the Storm Giant Eagle form, he would even maintain this state all the time. Unless he was doing something that was inconvenient to do in this form, he would definitely not change back.

This was easy to understand. The Storm Giant Eagle, which was painstakingly researched and developed, would be a waste of time if it wasn't used. If it wasn't easy to use, why research it?

Maintaining the Storm Giant Eagle form for cultivation would allow the Druid to level up faster, but it would also pay a price, which was specialization!

Normal Druids used natural magic as a foundation to study the power of the three main areas of nature: plants, animals, and elements, but the consequence of doing so was that it would take a long time.

And studying the three areas at the same time wouldn't significantly improve combat ability. On the contrary, it would often happen that there were too many abilities and they didn't know which one to use, so they would use some silly, big, and clumsy forms and abilities to fight.

Because Druids quickly diverged into three schools, and each formed its own unique advanced profession within a thousand years: the Tree Shepherd of plants, the Beast Spirit Walker of animals, and the Elemental Apostle of elements.

Referring to the Druids in the forest, Flower Woman was considered a Tree Shepherd, although she only cultivated flowers, and she hadn't yet met the pre-requisites for advancement.

Panther Woman was a Beast Spirit Walker, although she only had one form, the Shadow Panther, and she hadn't fully mastered the Shadow Panther transformation. Yes, that's right, almost two years had passed.

Panther Woman was still in the process of working hard, because she had received guidance from the Old Urchin, which gave her Shadow Panther transformation a prototype, and then it had always been a prototype.

Originally, her progress had surpassed Black Panther's, but she wasn't as serious and hardworking in cultivation as Black Panther, a forest panther. As a result, Panther Woman, who often became the king of the children in the Druid school,

Became a negative example, while Black Panther, like the Gibbon, became an animal teacher at the school, replacing Panther Woman's job. Panther Woman looked at Black Panther turning from Black Panther into Black Panther Teacher.

Her mood was proud and complicated. She and Black Panther were good friends. To some extent, Black Panther's success was her success.

If Panther Woman hadn't been taken in by this forest panther tribe, and she hadn't shown good Druid talent, able to transform into a powerful forest panther, the leader of this tribe should have been Black Panther!

Black Panther's mother was the previous leader of the tribe. She should have inherited her mother's throne smoothly, but a Panther Woman named Sandrelli suddenly appeared, causing Black Panther to lose the throne.

Now Black Panther had initially been able to control the shadow magic in his body. The Shadow Walk that Panther Woman had once flaunted in front of everyone, Black Panther was even more skilled than her.

Yes, that's right, the Atlantean had personally witnessed a friendly match between Panther Woman and Black Panther half a month ago, fighting in Shadow Panther form, and only using Shadow elements.

Unsurprisingly, she lost to Black Panther. Everyone present didn't show a trace of shock.

Everyone had contributed to Black Panther's smooth transformation into a Shadow Panther, and they were naturally very clear about the strength Black Panther possessed.

After two and a half years of Shadow element cultivation, Panther Woman finally realized that the Shadow Panther form wasn't suitable for her. Her lively and active personality was completely incompatible with the steady and dark Shadow energy.

The root cause of everything was the Atlantean's fault!

Originally, Panther Woman just wanted to help Black Panther complete the transformation. It was under the Atlantean's questioning and instigation, in order to prove herself, that she chose to develop the Shadow Panther form.

The beast form transformed by the Beast Spirit Walker relied on the fangs and claws and the majestic power amplified by natural magic, and mainly launched physical attacks.

Shadow Panther and Storm Giant Eagle both belonged to the scope of the Elemental Apostle's abilities. That's right, the Eagle King could be said to be the representative of the third advanced profession, the Elemental Apostle.

The animal form was just a container for loading elemental magic. Under different containers, even the same magic would have different forms of expression.

For example, the Ocean Wyrm, Black Dragon, and Bronze Dragon were all water-based dragons, but relying on the water element, the three dragons formed completely different abilities.

Panther Woman couldn't skillfully use the Shadow Panther form, or rather, her instinct was repelling this form. In addition to mentally suppressing her nature, she physically didn't like using Shadow energy very much.

The Atlantean, realizing that he was wrong, was actively looking for a new animal form suitable for Panther Woman, preferably one that was related to both the Forest Panther and the Shadow Panther.

At the same time, she had to rely on physical combat. Even if she had abilities, they had to be the type that would make the Leopard Woman feel comfortable and at ease.

Of course, in just half a month, Artilan hadn't found a suitable target.

He originally wanted to ask the Tiger Woman, who had been traveling for a year, if she had seen any strange felines, but this guy went straight to the Allied camp as soon as he came out of the mountain to fight against the Swamp Dragon Empire.

Now she's back with a bunch of problems. She's really hopeless.

Artilan subconsciously curled his lips in disgust. At this moment, the scarlet true energy enveloping the Dragon Hunting Arrow instantly retracted, and the power of Zhujiang Dao erupted under the Tiger Woman's feet, rushing towards Artilan like an arrow.

Artilan didn't choose to take off and avoid the Tiger Woman's attack, but raised his claws and directly met it. His dragon claws easily parried the Tiger Woman's short spear.

If the Tiger Woman hadn't retreated in time, the short spear would probably have been broken by Artilan.

"What great strength! It seems that you have additionally tempered your dragon body during this year. Aren't you going to be a magic dragon? Why have you also started physical training that you look down on?"

"I have never said that I look down on physical training. It's just that for dragons, tempering magic power and spells yields better results and can be used for longer."

"Then let me see your magic!"

With that said, the Tiger Woman's spearhead shone with intense lightning, and a pair of cyan and blue energy wings opened behind her, rushing towards Artilan even more swiftly.

Such a straightforward offensive method made Artilan feel that it was not elegant at all. If it were the Tiger Woman of the past, she would never have made such an inelegant attack like a warrior's charge.

This time, Artilan showed no mercy. After blocking the Tiger Woman's attack, he turned around and swung his tail, fiercely striking the Tiger Woman head-on. He could be sure that the Tiger Woman had broken at least several ribs this time.

Looking at the Tiger Woman who flew out in a sorry state and crashed into several large trees.

"Is that all? Why do you feel even weaker than you were a year ago?"

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, the Tiger Woman slowly got up.

"Impossible! My attack speed is clearly three times faster than last year. Why can you still block my attack so easily?"

"Because you're not a monk at all. Do you think I can't block this kind of warrior's or even barbarian's offensive method? But you can still get up, so it seems that the warrior training you've been doing this year is indeed a bit important."

"Being able to take a beating is also a good thing, but it's meaningless if you can only take a beating. I've already let you attack several times. Now it's my turn to make a move."

"Let's see if you can block my move."

A playful smile suddenly appeared on the corner of Artilan's mouth.

"I've given this move a very nice name, Storm Nebula Split!"

Only to see Artilan's two dragon claws entangled with blue and white lightning, his body wrapped in a gust of wind, instantly crossing a distance of more than forty meters to attack the Tiger Woman.

The Tiger Woman widened her eyes, trying to open her wind and thunder wings to agitate the wind and thunder elements to form a protective shield, barely blocking Artilan's claw strike, but she still flew out more than forty meters away.

Artilan shook his head and said:

"That's no fun. This time I used combat skills to attack, but you started using magic to defend. That's not like you, a monk. What, do you also like magic?"

"If you want to learn, I can teach you!"

The Tiger Woman trembled as she stood up.

"How can you use Wind and Thunder Wings?"

Artilan smiled and said:

"A year has already passed. If you still regard Wind and Thunder Wings as your trump card, then I can only say that you have been eliminated by the times."

"Because not only me, but also the Eagle King has mastered Wind and Thunder Wings. You no longer have an advantage in front of us. You were able to compete with me in the past only because of your sufficiently skilled monk techniques."

"Now that even that's gone, how can you fight me?"

Artilan used to have to think about all kinds of tricks to deal with this former powerful enemy. He didn't expect that in just one year, the Tiger Woman had been completely left behind by him.

Perhaps the most wrong decision the Tiger Woman made was to choose to travel a year ago. Even if the Allied camp taught her the techniques to hunt dragons, that bit of knowledge was completely incomparable to the natural knowledge the Bear Man taught her.

The Natural Sect Monk was a school created by the Bear Man. If the Tiger Woman had honestly stayed by the Bear Man's side to receive guidance and practice, she wouldn't have been pulled so far apart by Artilan.

"Don't think that you've already won. There aren't only warriors in the Allied camp. There are also many monks there. I've also learned many advanced techniques of using Qi from them!"

Only to see the Tiger Woman's body suddenly wrapped in a white stream of Qi, the Qi forming an egg shape. Artilan politely spat out a dragon breath as a test.

Unexpectedly, this white egg flew up and avoided his dragon breath, while rotating and absorbing all the surrounding energy, and was quickly assimilated into the monk's true energy.

A gleam of brilliance appeared in Artilan's eyes. The battle had finally become a little more interesting. The Tiger Woman, who had lost her mind, fought too recklessly. The battle just now was really meaningless.

The new things she had brought out now made Artilan feel that this battle wasn't all garbage time.

"You're so good at absorbing, then I'll have to see if you can absorb this energy?"

Artilan spat out the dragon ball, and a pure thunderbolt was released from the dragon ball. The powerful thunder even made the Bear Man look sideways.

He didn't expect Artilan's dragon ball to be able to unleash such powerful thunder. It seemed that Artilan had been going to the Amethyst Mountain every day to absorb thunder for the past year, not just to temper his body.

The dragon ball of a dragon was a field that the Bear Man had never touched. He could give Artilan very little advice. Now that he knew that the dragon ball had the effect of purification, the Bear Man believed that the difficulty of Artilan's training content could be increased a little.

Originally, the Bear Man was already very satisfied with Artilan's magic purity, but that was because he didn't know that the dragon ball also had the effect of purification.

Now that he knew, he just roughly calculated and found that Artilan actually had a lot of potential that hadn't been developed.

Wasting time and potential was absolutely not allowed for the Bear Man, who had risen from waste material. Therefore, Artilan must work twice as hard in the following training to make up for it.

Of course, the Bear Man would ensure that Artilan's training intensity and duration would not exceed the limit he could bear, so that Artilan could maintain a healthy body and mental state.

Otherwise, how could he allow Artilan to hold a banquet every three to five days, where everyone could sing, enjoy singing and dancing, and drink wine? It was indeed the best way to release stress and relieve fatigue.

The white egg shattered, revealing the Tiger Woman who had recovered as before. Even her eyes had become clear again, completely without the arrogant and tyrannical appearance she had before.

Artilan asked in surprise:

"You've turned back? So your appearance just now was just a side effect of practicing secret techniques? Why does it feel a bit like a life transformation?"

The Tiger Woman casually threw the Dragon Hunting Arrow aside, holding a ball of wind in her left hand and a ball of thunder in her right hand, hovering directly in mid-air without relying on the Wind and Thunder Wings at all.

"Artilan, it's not just you who has improved in the past year! The current me is the real me. The one you defeated just now was just my secret technique shell."

"You have practiced the Life Transformation secret technique of the Life School. That is indeed a secret technique that I cannot master, but the master and I both want to develop a Life Transformation belonging to the Natural Sect."

"You once described a monk technique called Heavenly Silkworm Transformation. I thought it was very interesting. This time, I really met a monk master who has cultivated the Martial Dao Golden Body."

"He can reattach severed limbs. If his true energy is sufficient, he can even regenerate severed limbs! And I, because of my outstanding monk talent, the master taught me this Qigong!"

"I combined the principles of Qigong and Life Transformation to create this Heavenly Silkworm Transformation. I don't know how different it is from the Heavenly Silkworm Transformation you mentioned, or whether the effect has surprised you."

Artilan nodded knowingly.

"No wonder you can transform into your current appearance. It really has a bit of a Thunder Spirit White Tiger feel, but I don't think the appearance just now was like a shell. You were just going astray, right?"

At this moment, the Tiger Woman, who was standing in the air, was particularly calm in the face of Artilan's provocation.

"Artilan, have you ever tried being kicked by lightning?"

"What?"

In the next second, the Tiger Woman transformed into a bolt of lightning and rushed towards Artilan swiftly. Artilan tried to raise his hand, but he was still kicked in the face by the Tiger Woman.

Watching Artilan fly out, the Tiger Woman landed and moved her right foot, which had just kicked Artilan.

"As expected of you, your skin is really thick and hard."

Artilan rolled several times before stopping. He got up from the ground and shook his head. It was really close just now. He was almost kicked in the head by the Tiger Woman.

"It's not that my skin is hard, it's a magic shield. In the second before you kicked me, I timely opened a magic shield to defend. Although I can't open a magic shield that can protect my whole body."

"But just to defend against a single direction, I can open the magic shield with just a thought, and it's a hardness that you absolutely can't break."

The Tiger Woman was not ashamed and angry, but showed a smile.

"Then let's see if your shield is more solid, or if my spear is sharper!"

The Tiger Woman transformed into blue lightning, flashing around Artilan's body. Onlookers only saw a blue line occasionally brushing past Artilan, blocked by a layer of light green energy shield.

A minute later, the Tiger Woman appeared in front of Artilan, panting.

"I kicked nearly two hundred times just now. I didn't expect you to actually block them all."

Just as Artilan was about to say something, the Tiger Woman fell directly to the ground.

The Bear Man slowly stepped forward and used vines to lift the Tiger Woman.

"Finally, we can start treatment. The others stay here to familiarize themselves with the venue. Artilan, you and I will go to Moon Shadow Lake."