Chapter 513: Du Ao's Sovereignty-Forfeiting and Humiliating Contract

Leech directly poured his Spiritual Power into the dragonling’s body.

There was good news and bad news.

The good news was that as a legendary creature, the black dragon had still become a Corpse Ghost even though Leech hadn’t used any Extraordinary materials or wondrous items to create it. It also possessed a fair amount of intelligence and retained its cunning and cautious personality.

The bad news was that it was very weak, not even at the Extraordinary level. And since it was already dead, it would likely never become a Transcendent.

He began to sift through the young black dragon’s memories.

The young black dragon, named Du Ao, had awoken in a narrow cavern. He had broken out of his shell but found no mother dragon.

After subsisting for a time on rats that wandered into his cavern and various insects dug from the earth, he was forced to go out and hunt. He had to avoid the fearsome beasts of the Koso Mountain Range. The whole process wasn’t exactly smooth, but fortunately, he didn’t starve to death and even managed to grow a little.

Until an unexpected person arrived.

Her name was Trish.

The cunning black dragon wanted to eat Trish, but with his small frame, a successful hunt was impossible. So, he used a few little tricks to lure her into a trap, leaving Trish gravely injured.

The black dragon had originally planned to feast, but after seeing the gold and silver treasures on Trish, he changed his mind. He signed some sort of ancient contract with Trish, bestowing upon her his own bloodline and making her his servant.

Then, using the increase in power that came with being dragon-blooded, Trish began earning money everywhere and offered it up to the black dragon. The Black Dragon Du Ao shamelessly exploited her, accumulating his own little treasury.

As the days passed, Du Ao’s body gradually grew larger. His excrement, dragon dung, mixed with stone to form dragon ore gems. Trish asked for all of it. Although Du Ao didn’t know what use they had, it was just dung, so he didn’t care.

Leech, who was watching the memories: “…”

The more he watched, the more something felt off. That Trish… wasn’t she a member of the “Round Table Trash and Scrap Recycling Organization”? She had traded dragon ore gems with him, and like him, she had been tricked into going to the Bonta market, where she ultimately died at the hands of the golden Holy Grail.

‘So dragon ore gems are actually treasures formed from catalyzed dragon dung?’

‘And here I was, treating them like treasure. Why do I feel a little disgusted?!’

Leech continued to watch the Black Dragon Du Ao’s memories. For reasons of his own, Du Ao loved to spend his days sleeping in his nest and eating occasionally. Trish was a great help with this.

She would buy large quantities of livestock and throw them into a pool Du Ao had dug, which was filled with foul-smelling, putrid mud.

It was like the black dragon’s personal refrigerator.

But as time went on, Trish stopped coming. Leech guessed this was because Trish had died by then.

Du Ao didn’t care one bit whether Trish lived or died. He was growing and would only become stronger and stronger.

Then, a few months ago, a man furtively approached. He snuck into Du Ao’s cavern and used some method to destroy it. Du Ao, who was fast asleep, was startled awake. He was horrified to discover that his cavern, originally the size of a pond, had suddenly split open.

But that wasn’t the main point. The main point was that someone had dared to barge in and disturb his sleep. An enraged Du Ao pounced, ready for an extra meal, and fought with the intruder. However, he was careless and had his head chopped off.

‘The one who killed Du Ao was clearly a Transcendent who also knew Magic. A rampaging black dragon isn’t something an ordinary person can handle.’

Leech finished reading the Black Dragon Du Ao’s not-so-long memories and began to catalog its abilities.

The dragonling didn’t know much Magic, and its power definitely wouldn’t increase anymore. The good news was that the Magic inherited through its bloodline could still be learned; it was already in its memories. The bad news was the power… because it was still just a dragonling, it couldn’t cast them at all.

If it wanted to cast powerful Magic, it had to grow up.

To use a classic phrase from Leech’s own memories: “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

Unfortunately, the Black Dragon Du Ao would never grow up.

‘Shouldn’t black dragons look like Deathwing? How come even the adult ones in the memories are all shriveled up like skeletons?’ Leech felt he’d been deceived after looking through the memories.

There was no iron jaw, no giant wings that could blot out the sun. Although an adult black dragon’s size could be considered monstrous, it was still a far cry from what Leech had imagined.

Black dragons didn’t even fight head-on. Instead, they relied on sneak attacks. If they couldn’t win, they wouldn’t hesitate to flap their wings and flee, with no regard for their draconic pride.

As a human, Leech couldn’t learn the Dragon Race’s Magic, but he could still reference their magical knowledge.

From the Lighting Skill to Dimensional Anchor, while he couldn’t learn to use them, he could gain the experience from the black dragon’s inherited memories. In the future, if he encountered similar Magic, it would be easier to learn.

There was also information about Giant Dragons being resurrected after death, and how a dragon could be transformed into an Undead Giant Dragon, becoming a high-level Undead creature in one leap.

Logically speaking, since the Black Dragon Du Ao had died, it should have become one of the Undead. But Leech’s refining method had instead turned it into a Corpse Ghost, not an Undead. It was a corpse that could move and had its own thoughts.

Leech refocused his study on the Dragon Race’s contracts.

Like the unlucky Trish, who had signed an unequal treaty with the black dragon. Although she gained the physical enhancements of a dragon-descendant and became a Transcendent, her body grew weaker by the day. The Black Dragon Du Ao held the dominant position; he was the perpetual beneficiary, making no sacrifices himself.

Besides that, there were also equal Magic Contracts, where a dragon and its partner cooperated peacefully. The ties between both parties were minimal, and it was mutually beneficial, or perhaps the dragon would occasionally gain some small benefit.

Many Dragon Knights were of this type.

It was said they could even share lifespans, allowing a human to become a long-lived species. This required immense willpower from the Giant Dragon, and almost no dragon would choose to do so unless it had been beaten into submission and forced to sign the contract.

And finally, there was the last type: a humiliating, unequal contract that stripped the dragon of its sovereignty. The dragon no longer held the dominant position, instead sacrificing its own interests to submit to another creature. As for how much interest was sacrificed, it depended entirely on the negotiations between the two parties.

Leech was extremely interested in this Magic Contract. According to the memories, after signing the contract, as long as both parties agreed, they could use teleportation magic. This was far more reliable than the unstable blood-sacrifice teleportation!

So, Leech made a snap decision. Sign the contract!

Du Ao, now a Corpse Demon Black Dragon, would of course not refuse Leech’s request. He would sacrifice all of his autonomy, taking on the role of a complete servant to sign an unprecedented Magic Contract with Leech.

The contract included a clause allowing Leech to summon the Black Dragon Du Ao to his side at any time, in any place, without its consent.

It also included clauses allowing him to freely draw upon the black dragon’s power for his own use, to be completely immune to harm from the black dragon, and to be able to harm the black dragon at will, among others.

Sharing lifespans was also impossible. The Black Dragon Du Ao was already a dead dragon; it had no use for a lifespan.

After the entire contract was signed, Leech felt a change in his body. It seemed he was also influenced by the dragon. This was no longer the negligible effect he felt from holding the dragon-dung stones, but a true enhancement—the kind of dragon-blooded descendant who only reaped the benefits.

If other Giant Dragons ever found out, they would surely be dying to slaughter Leech.

With a thought, the Black Dragon Du Ao instantly appeared before him.

A pang shot through Leech’s head. It was the physical discomfort caused by the consumption of a large amount of Spiritual Power. It seemed the summoning couldn’t be used without limit.

The Black Dragon Du Ao moved on its four slender dragon legs, came before Leech, and obediently lowered its noble head.

Observed up close, its slender form looked almost ugly. Its undeveloped scales looked thin, and its dragon horns had barely even begun to show.

It couldn’t provide any real help in a fight, nor could it even make Leech a Dragon Knight, but… it was a dragon!

Leech sat up and gently stroked Du Ao’s ferocious-looking head. The texture of the skin and scales wasn’t good, but he now understood what the Brass Dragon had meant by the difference between dragon scales and reptile scales.

‘Once you have the first dragon, the second will soon follow,’ he comforted himself.

He hadn’t expected this. His Wyvern Legion hadn’t even gotten off the ground, yet his Giant Dragon Corps was already starting to take shape. Getting the first dragon was like completing 99% of the work. The remaining 1% was just figuring out how to get a dozen more Giant Dragons.