Four Split Personalities

"Monster, monster, monster, monster?!"

The girl swallowed with difficulty and asked quietly, "Are there monsters here?"

Motan chuckled dryly. Even though he couldn’t see right now, he could imagine the girl’s two rows of little white teeth continuously clashing. He immediately shook his head and said, "Doesn’t seem like it."

"But you can’t even see! How can you ’doesn’t seem like it’?"

"It’s just a figure of speech. Take a deep breath, calm down. Haven’t we experienced quite a few big scenes already?"

"Um... inhale... hiss... inhale... hiss... Yeah! I feel much better!"

"Really or not?"

"Not. I’m freaking out."

"..."

"Okay, fine, I am a bit afraid of ghosts. I got it from my mom, got a problem with that?"

The girl’s voice progressively became annoyed and angry.

"Absolutely no problem, I’m actually quite afraid of ghosts myself."

Motan smiled, offering a soothing comment. He wasn’t exactly lying; although the current personality state he was in didn’t fear ’ghosts’ and the like, when in a state of ’Absolute Neutrality’, Motan always kept his distance from supernatural things. He was the type to cover his ears or mute the sound when watching horror movies. Western thrillers were manageable, but Eastern ghost films were utterly unbearable for him. He didn’t even want to mention films like "Deep Mountain Old X" and "Curse X", and believe it or not, even watching a ghost movie of the level of "Night of the Living Dead" could panic his ’Absolute Neutrality’ personality!

"I don’t believe it!"

Ji Xiaoge pouted (and at the same time, she grabbed Motan’s cape), huffing, "You don’t look like someone who’d be scared of ghosts."

Motan smiled wryly and shrugged, "I’m not lying to you. Have you seen that popular movie last year, ’Black Tuesday the 23rd’? I (Orderly Good/Chaotic Neutral) couldn’t muster the courage to go to the bathroom all night (Absolute Neutrality) after watching it. I almost gave myself an inflammation."

"Pfft... hahaha... all night... hahaha... almost got an inflammation, that’s hilarious... hahaha..."

Motan: "..."

Half a minute later, when Ji Xiaoge’s laughter finally ceased (Motan had no choice but to scare her a bit), as Motan was about to commence a more thorough search, the environment suddenly brightened with the chime-like sounds of a dragon’s chant!

Well to say ’lights’ might not be quite accurate—more specifically, it was numerous golden light orbs floating in mid-air, illuminating the area around the two as if it were broad daylight.

"Wow! My eyes, my eyes, my eyes!!"

Ji Xiaoge exclaimed in a fluster from behind, but Motan, who had already instinctively closed his eyes, was not affected too much.

And the reason? Well...

Remember that dragon chant just now? It was actually two words in dragon language—"turn on the lights."

As a Half-Dragon Person, Motan naturally understood, but everything happened so fast. Just when he was about to warn Ji Xiaoge, the surroundings had already lit up.

"So this is... the Dragon King’s Tomb."

Mo Tan slowly opened his eyes and took a careful look around where they were and discovered that they were actually in a vast hall, nearly a thousand square meters in area, surrounded by crumbling yet still lustrously colored dragon reliefs. Under their feet was a Teleportation Array, similar to the one on the second floor of the Timing Tower, only instead of the Dolah Seven Kids series surrounding it, there were seven lifelike, adorably plump mini dragon statues.

This was clearly an enclosed space; even though there was a dome over ten meters high above them, the distinctive dragon motifs in the relief carvings and furnishings all around faintly gave off a ’foyer-like’ feeling. However, there was no so-called ’entrance’ to be found. The only ’path’ lay in the center of the hall, a downward spiral staircase so large it wouldn’t even seem crowded with dragons passing through it and even had ample space around it for flight. At first glance... well, it looked like a big pit of a design.

"Wow! This place is so spacious!"

Ji Xiaoge, too, had recovered from her brief bout of ’Blindness’ and upon seeing the surroundings clearly, cheered softly, "It’s not gloomy at all! Yes, this is exactly how I imagined an ancient tomb would be!"

The corner of Mo Tan’s mouth twitched. He thought to himself that her imagined ancient tomb must surely be the kind that had professional lighting and post-processing, and every now and then featured a man with a sonorous announcer’s voice providing a voiceover to narrate something about the life of the deceased.

"Ahem, just kidding."

Ji Xiaoge hopped over to Mo Tan, giggling as she pointed toward the massive spiral structure not too far away, taller even than the two of them, "Do we have to go down there? It looks so spacious; I could easily fly down! It’s much fancier than A’sang’s staircase."

"This is meant for dragons, of course it’s fancy."

Mo Tan shrugged, then drew out the Justice Mandala in front of him, nodding as he said, "My task is to ’pass the Dragon King’s test’ and ’reach the deepest layer of the tomb’. There hasn’t been any warning about a significant difference in power levels, so it should be this ’path’ right in front of us. According to our previous agreement, Night Song, you follow behind me and keep the Beacon in your hand."

"Got it, got it~"

Perhaps the bright surroundings had imbued her with courage, because the winged beauty who had even trembled while laughing was now back to normal. She immediately took out her special Beacon from her bag and, standing askew, spread out her hands to Mo Tan with a wink, "You go ahead, leader."

"Comrades are hardworking."

Mo Tan smiled back and then began to walk towards the grand spiral staircase in the distance, focusing his mind and maintaining a hundred percent alertness. From that subtle dragon chant just now, he felt almost certain that he and Ji Xiaoge had been discovered or sensed by some monitoring feedback mechanism.

Fortunately, so far nothing in this tomb seemed to be hostile toward them.

That wasn’t a joke, after all. Even a place like the Mage Tower would have a plethora of defenses set up by the master—a mix of actively engaged and passively triggered ones. The latter could leave intruders bleeding out, while the former, under the subjective control of the master... well, would also leave intruders bleeding out, like the defense mechanism Mo Tan and Ji Xiaoge had triggered in the Timing Tower with those high-level Magic plows and the like.

And ’Dragon King’s Tomb’ sounded like a place that would be much tougher to handle than the Mage Tower. If indeed there were some passive defenses or even counter-measures, ten lives might not be enough for Mo Tan and his companion.

Of course, if it were truly so, the system wouldn’t leave them without any additional clues. So for now, everything was still within Mo Tan’s expectations.

"The real challenge will probably only become clear after that ’test’ starts,"

Mo Tan said with a smile as he cautiously hopped down the stairs—really, they were too high—turning to Ji Xiaoge, who was following closely on his side, "Having a mission description does save a lot of troubles."

The girl nodded emphatically, hugged her arms, and fluttered her wings for the leap, her little face blushing with excitement as she said, "Right, right, maybe this test could be about those virtues like morality, intelligence, physical education, aesthetics, and labor from the novels? Then you, with your strong character and will, would go through hardships to complete the task, and eventually become the son-in-law of the Dragon King, getting a Dragon Princess who’s soft and turns into a human form ninety percent of the time as a reward. Oh right! Isn’t your task called the Slumbering Half-Dragon? It really could be!"

Mo Tan cocked his head to think for a moment, then shook it and said, "I don’t think so. Even if it ends up like you said, the reward would likely be an egg—a soft girl seems unlikely, let alone marrying in. Nowadays, the Dragon Clan has completely disbanded; there isn’t anything like a first family, and besides, the Golden Dragon King isn’t hereditary."

Ji Xiaoge stared at him with a dark expression, "Do you have to take it so seriously...."

"Ahem, the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment. Mainly because what you said just now got me kind of expectant, I need to lower my expectations a bit. What if I fail the mission or find a dragon egg that can only be used for cooking?"

"Cook... cooking?!!"

"Hey, hey, hey! It was just something I said! Just off the cuff! Put away your dangerous ideas!"

Chapter 579: The End