“Are you a water-attribute dragon?”
Xige looked at Xuanxi and asked.
“I think so?”
Xuanxi looked down at her own hands.
In her palm, a small water sphere condensed, transparent like a crystal ball, reflecting her face.
“Just now, I heard the sound of water, and then…”
She didn’t know how to describe that feeling.
Hildegrif walked over and stood in front of her.
The distance between them was very close. So close that Xuanxi could see her own reflection in Hildegrif’s pupils—a girl with dark cyan hair, enveloped in a pale blue glow.
“A water-attribute dragon.”
Hildegrif’s voice was much softer than usual.
“Mm.”
“Do you know that in the western dragon clan, the water attribute has been extinct for over a hundred years?”
“……So I’m very rare?”
Hildegrif looked at her, but her expression was very serious.
“Rare is rare, but do you know what the water attribute meant in the history of the dragon race?”
Hildegrif’s voice returned to calm, but in those amethyst eyes, something had changed. It wasn’t coldness; it was seriousness. A seriousness she had never seen before.
Xuanxi shook her head.
“The water attribute has been extinct for over a hundred years, not because no one awakened it.”
Hildegrif looked at the slowly rotating water sphere in her palm, her tone like she was stating a long-forgotten story.
“It’s because almost none of those who awakened it survived.”
Xuanxi’s hand froze, and the water sphere wobbled in her palm, nearly dispersing.
“What do you mean?”
“Water-attribute dragons have blood with healing properties. A single drop of dragon blood can accelerate wound healing, and a bowl of dragon blood can save someone on the verge of death.”
“Although water-attribute skills are weak in attack, they are extremely strong in support—they can heal wounds, dispel poison, purify contaminated elements, and even stabilize a broken dragon core.”
Hildegrif’s voice grew lower.
“Over a hundred years ago, the last water-attribute dragon in the Dragon Domain was taken away by three families working together. No one has ever seen her since.”
Xuanxi’s palm went cold, spreading from the soles of her feet to the top of her head.
She looked down at the transparent water sphere in her hand, at the reflection of her own face, and suddenly felt that face become unfamiliar. It wasn’t that she had changed; it was the way others looked at her that had changed.
“So…”
Her voice was hoarse.
“My awakening of the water attribute isn’t luck, but rather a kind of trouble?”
“More than just trouble—it’s a dangerous bomb that could explode at any moment.”
Hildegrif did not comfort her, her amethyst eyes staring straight at her.
“What’s more, the news has already spread. During the assessment, everyone saw your water wall. I believe it won’t be long before all the major forces know—that the Dragonborn Academy has recruited a once-in-a-century water-attribute new student. They will come to confirm, to test, to…”
She didn’t finish, but Xuanxi knew what she wanted to say: to capture the dragon, just like a hundred years ago.
Xuanxi dispersed the water sphere, and droplets fell to the ground between them, making a crisp sound.
She watched the droplets seep into the cracks of the stone and disappear, suddenly feeling that she too was like that water—rootless, homeless, ready to be evaporated, sucked away, imprisoned somewhere unseen by others.
“Then what should I do?”
Hildegrif did not answer immediately. She stood there, her silver-white hair dyed light gold in the twilight, the last orange-red light of the sky reflected in her amethyst eyes.
Her expression was as cold as usual, but her lips were pressed tightly, and the line of her jaw was taut like a bowstring pulled to its limit.
“Two options.”
“The first one?” she said.
“Hide. Leave the academy. Go somewhere no one knows you. Lay low, and never let anyone know you’re water-attribute. Live as an ordinary dragon for as long as you can.”
Xuanxi was silent for a few seconds.
“What’s the second one?”
Hildegrif took a deep breath.
“Become a member of the Edelstein Family.”
Hildegrif said this in the same tone as usual—calm, cool, without any emotion. But the tips of her ears were red. Very red. So red that they could be clearly seen in the twilight.
Xuanxi was stunned.
“What?”
“The Dragon Domain has seven major powers, and the Edelstein Family is one of them—and one of the oldest.”
Hildegrif’s speech was a little faster than usual.
“If the Edelstein Family publicly declares you as a member of the family, no other power would dare touch you. Touching you would mean declaring war on the Edelstein Family, and no one wants to declare war on the Edelstein Family.”
“A member of the family…”
Xuanxi repeated the words, feeling that she knew each word, but together they seemed unreal.
“Are you saying that I should join the Edelstein Family?”
“Not just join.”
Hildegrif looked at her, her amethyst eyes shining like two ignited stars.
“But become—my wife.”
The twilight solidified at that moment, the evening wind stopped, the leaves fell silent, and even the noise from the distant Training Ground disappeared.
Xuanxi opened her mouth but no sound came out. Her mind was like struck by lightning, all thoughts short-circuited in an instant. Water attribute, danger, major forces, abduction, Edelstein Family, wife—these words spun rapidly in her mind like a pot of stirred porridge.
Xuanxi stared at Hildegrif’s face for several seconds, then she laughed. It was a laugh tinged with a little helplessness, a little panic, and a little bitterness at being told “My mind is already messed up enough, can you not add to the chaos?”
“You’re joking, right?” she said.
Hildegrif didn’t laugh. Her amethyst eyes stared at her without blinking, serious to the point that it didn’t seem like a joke.
“I’m not joking,” she said.
“This is indeed the safest way.”
Xuanxi’s smile froze on her face. She looked into Hildegrif’s eyes, trying to find a trace of “I’m just messing with you.” But she found none.
Those eyes held only one color—a seriousness bordering on stubbornness, a color from which she could not escape.
“You’re serious?”
“I am never not serious with you.”
Xuanxi took a deep breath, then another. She felt her heart beating too fast, so fast that she couldn’t stand it.
“You… then will your family agree?” she heard herself say.
This was not a refusal; it was insurance.
The corner of Hildegrif’s mouth twisted up, clearly she had anticipated Xuanxi’s question.
“I will convince them,” she said, her tone more resolute than before.
“Don’t worry, you don’t need to worry about the family matters. You only need to answer one question.”
“What question?”
Hildegrif extended her hand. Not her pinky, but her whole hand. Palm facing up, fingers slightly spread, as if waiting for something to fall into it.
“Are you willing to let me protect you?”
Xuanxi looked at the hand she extended—long and cold.
She should refuse, laugh and say “Stop messing around,” turn and walk away, and treat this as a not-funny joke never to be mentioned again. This was too absurd. They had only known each other for a little over a month.
Going from “roommates” to “teammates” to “best friends” was already fast enough—so fast that she hadn’t had time to digest it. Now they were jumping to “wife”? What kind of speed was that?
But she didn’t refuse. Not because of the danger, not because she needed protection. It was because she saw something in Hildegrif’s eyes—the fear of “I don’t want to lose you.”
The S-rank Young Lady of the Edelstein Family, one of the three strongest of the younger generation in the Western Dragon Domain.
She was afraid—afraid that Xuanxi would disappear from this world because of her bloodline, her attribute, and those damn powers.
Xuanxi extended her hand and placed it in Hildegrif’s palm.
Her hand was cold, while Hildegrif’s hand was warm. The two hands overlapped, their temperatures mixing like the rainbow that rises when water and fire meet.
“You convince your family first.”
Xuanxi’s voice was steadier than she expected, but her heartbeat gave everything away—fast beyond belief, so fast she thought Hildegrif could definitely hear it.
“Once you’ve convinced them, then I’ll answer that question.”
Hildegrif lowered her head and looked at the hand in her palm.
She looked for a long time—so long that the sun set, so long that the twilight turned from orange to indigo, so long that the first star appeared in the sky.
Then she tightened her grip on that hand.
“Okay.”
Just one word. But Xuanxi could hear all the weight in that word—it was a promise from a Young Lady, a word heavier than any vow.
In the twilight, two figures leaned together, silver-white hair and dark cyan hair lifted by the evening breeze, intertwining in the air.
In the distance, the first star of the sky lit up.
That star was very bright, as bright as an eye watching them.
The team collaboration assessment ended within the allotted time.
Xuanxi and Hildegrif’s two-person team captured three flags—plus their own, a total of four. They had the longest flag defense time in the entire venue and the highest number of flags captured.
But what shocked the entire venue more than the results was another matter: Xuanxi Herras, the girl with “no bloodline rating” and “no background,” had awakened the water attribute during the assessment.
The water attribute had been extinct among the western dragon clan for over a hundred years.
The last record of a water-attribute dragon was in the Dragon Clan Yearbook from a hundred and fifty years ago. Since then, no dragon had ever awakened the water attribute.
Some say the water attribute is “the element forgotten by the primordial dragon,” some say it exists only in legends, and some even say it doesn’t exist at all. But it exists, right in front of everyone.
When the examiner tallied the scores, he was silent for a long time. He glanced at Hildegrif, then at Xuanxi, and wrote a line in each of their evaluation columns.
Hildegrifa von Edelstein—
“S-level bloodline, thunder-fire dual affinity. Excellent team collaboration performance, outstanding individual combat. Assessment: SS-level potential.”
Xuanxi Herras—
“Awakened water attribute during assessment, first water-attribute dragon in over a hundred years in the western dragon clan. In individual combat, defeated an A-rank opponent with skill.”
“In team collaboration, completed a flag-capture task intended for a four-person team with a two-person team, and awakened water-attribute abilities. Combat style integrates Eastern and Western characteristics. Assessment: SSS-level potential. Recommendation: Close attention, individual training.”