The aftershocks of the secret realm had yet to dissipate, but the Academy’s classes had already returned to normal. Thursday morning, when Xuanxi walked into the classroom, she found a new notice posted on the Academy’s bulletin board.
Most of Class A’s students were gathered around the bulletin board, talking in low voices, their expressions a bit more relaxed than the past few days.
“Today is field training,” Elsa said, squeezing out of the crowd with a notice clutched in her hand. Her deep green eyes held a hint of anticipation. “We’re going to the wasteland north of the Academy. The teacher will teach us dragon transformation control.”
Xuanxi took the notice and glanced at it. Dragon transformation control. It was already on Class A’s schedule—not an extra course added last minute. But coinciding right after the secret realm incident gave the class a subtly different feel.
“Dragon transformation?” Reggie walked over, frowning slightly. “Haven’t we known how to do that since we were kids?”
Elsa rolled her eyes. “That instinctive kind of dragon transformation and actual combat dragon transformation are two different things, you know?”
“When you were little, you only transformed to fly and scare the neighbor’s kids. Combat dragon transformation requires maintaining the flexibility and tactical judgment of human form while in dragon form. It’s not just about turning into a dragon and calling it a day.”
Reggie looked at her. “You talk like you know a lot.”
“Cecilia teacher mentioned it last week. I remembered.” Elsa lifted her chin proudly.
Xuanxi said nothing. She folded the notice and put it in her pocket, her gaze falling on the back of her right hand.
She had dragon-transformed during the entrance assessment and again on the training ground. Each time, the heavenly fate mark beneath her right eye had grown hot—as if something inside her was being awakened, but also being suppressed.
She couldn’t quite describe that feeling. It was like there was a door inside her body. She could push it open a crack, stick a finger through, even see the light spilling from the gap—but she couldn’t push the whole door open.
“Xuanxi?” Hildegrif’s voice came from behind.
Xuanxi snapped back to reality. Silver-white hair glistened in the morning light, and amethyst-crystal eyes were watching her.
“You spaced out,” Hildegrifa said.
“Mm. Thinking about something.”
Hildegrifa didn’t press further. She stood next to Xuanxi, closer than usual.
***
The training ground was on an open wasteland north of the Academy. They arrived quickly via the teleportation array. The wasteland had no trees—only low shrubs and gray-brown rocks. Wind blew from the northern ice fields, carrying a chill.
Class A students gathered in the center of the field, forming up by teams. Xuanxi’s team stood on the far left: Xuanxi, Hildegrifa, Elsa, Reggie, and Valeris Frostmark, who had just returned today.
Cecilia Fengxingzhe stood at the front of the formation. Her black short hair fluttered slightly in the wind.
Today she wore a dark gray combat suit with a wide belt, on which hung several tools she couldn’t name. It made her look less like a teacher and more like a commander about to go to war.
“Dragon transformation.” Cecilia got straight to the point, her sharp gaze sweeping over all the students.
“Most of you have been doing it since birth, but what you know is just instinctive, unconscious transformation. Instinctive transformation can only bring out thirty to fifty percent of your dragon form’s combat power. Today, I’m going to teach you combat dragon transformation.”
She raised her right hand, palm up. After a moment, her body began to change.
Silver-white scales emerged from beneath her skin, covering her arms, shoulders, and neck—but her body shape remained unchanged. She kept her human form. Her arms were covered in scales, claws extended from her fingertips, but her face stayed the same, as did her body.
“First principle of dragon transformation: bigger is not always better.” Cecilia flexed her scale-covered fingers, joints cracking softly.
“The advantages of dragon form are high strength, high defense, and high elemental output. The disadvantages are obvious: large size, large target, and high consumption.”
“What we want from localized combat dragon transformation is the advantages. So you don’t need to transform your whole body—just the part you need.”
Elsa’s eyes lit up as if she had discovered a new continent. Reggie nodded and began rolling his shoulders. Valeris’s expression didn’t change. Her gaze was fixed on Cecilia’s scale-covered arm, observing intently, as if pondering something.
Cecilia retracted the transformation. The scales receded from her arm, revealing perfectly intact skin. “Practice in groups. First, try localized transformation—an arm, a hand, or any part that feels natural. Don’t force full-body transformation; that’s advanced content. Your current control isn’t sufficient.”
Xuanxi took a deep breath.
‘Localized dragon transformation… I’ve never tried that. Every time before, it was full-body, and never on my own initiative—just instinctive reactions from my body in crisis.’
She didn’t know the difference between active and passive transformation. She didn’t know if this time would be like before—the heavenly fate mark burning hot, then transformation failing. She closed her eyes and tried to mobilize the power inside her.
Her own Spiritual Energy (Qi)—as calm as lake water—flowed slowly in her body. She tried to guide the Qi toward her right hand, letting it travel from her dantian through the meridians of her arm to her fingertips, while simultaneously urging scales to emerge from beneath her skin.
“Xuanxi… your face…” Elsa’s voice came from beside her.
Xuanxi opened her eyes. She looked down at her hand. Dark cyan scales had appeared on her right arm—not many, only up to the elbow, but they were there.
‘Could I have succeeded?’ No, the spot beneath her right eye was burning. The heavenly fate mark lit up, dark golden light spreading from the corner of her eye to her cheekbone, like a thin line set ablaze.
The light grew brighter, heat radiating from the corner of her eye across her entire right cheek. It was that power she felt every time she dragon-transformed.
That door inside her vibrated, the light from the crack got brighter and brighter—but she still couldn’t open it.
Then her scales began to recede. Starting from her fingertips, the dark cyan scales withdrew like an ebbing tide—past the knuckles, past the back of her hand, past the wrist, retreating again and again.
She tried to hold them back with willpower, with Qi, with every power she could muster to grasp the fading scales. The scales slowed a little, but only a little. They paused for an instant, then continued receding.
Xuanxi clenched her teeth and pushed more Qi toward her arm. No more scales appeared. Her Qi struck an invisible wall. It wasn’t that she had run out of Qi—the flow was blocked, stopped by that unseen, dark golden door.
She tried to push the Qi harder, harder. Then the world lurched.
She heard Elsa’s voice from far away, like from the sky: “Xuanxi—what are you—” The remaining words turned into muffled buzzing, as if through a thick layer of water.
The heavenly fate mark beneath her right eye blazed blindingly bright. The dark golden light pierced through her eyelids, and she saw her own blood vessels.
Her temples began to throb, as if something inside was struggling—wanting to come out, but afraid.
Then she sank into darkness.
When Xuanxi woke up, the first thing she saw was a white ceiling.
Not the dormitory ceiling. The dormitory ceiling was gray with a crack that she stared at every night. This ceiling was pure white, without cracks, without stains, smooth as a mirror. There was also a faint smell of disinfectant in the air, light and slightly bitter.
This was the Infirmary. She lay on an infirmary bed, covered with a thin blanket, an IV needle in the back of her right hand. Sunlight squeezed through the gaps of the blinds, painting bars of light on the floor.
“Awake?” A unfamiliar voice came from beside her.
Xuanxi turned her head and saw a middle-aged female dragon wearing a white coat standing by the bed. She had short dark brown hair and wore thin-rimmed glasses. She was holding a medical chart and writing something on it.
“I’m the Academy’s school doctor. You can call me Doctor Elian.” She placed the chart on the bedside table, pulled up a chair, and sat down. “You fainted during training class. Something went wrong with your dragon transformation control practice.”
“Where are my teammates?”
“They’ve all gone back to class. Except one with silver-white hair—she said she wanted to come in, but the Infirmary only allows one person in at a time. She’s been at the door for… about an hour now.” Doctor Elian pushed up her glasses. “She hasn’t left since the moment you were brought in.”
Xuanxi followed her gaze to the door. The Infirmary door had a small window. Through it, she could see a patch of silver-white in the hallway. Hildegrifa leaned against the wall beside the door, only a corner of her dark gray uniform and a hand hanging by her side visible. That hand was clenched into a fist, knuckles white.
Xuanxi’s heart skipped a beat. “Can I see—”
“Let me finish first.” Doctor Elian held up a finger. “Your body is fine. You fainted because of excessive Qi consumption, not physical injury. You’ll recover after half a day of rest.”
“But your dragon transformation process was abnormal. When your scales appeared, there was a force suppressing them. That force came from inside your body, not an external factor.”
“In other words, it’s not that you can’t dragon-transform—it’s that something isn’t letting you. As for the reason, even your teacher Cecilia couldn’t figure it out. She told me to pass along a message: ‘Don’t force dragon transformation for now. Wait until we figure it out.’”
Xuanxi was silent for a moment. “I understand. Thank you, Doctor Elian.”
Doctor Elian stood up and pushed the chair back to its place. “That silver-haired girl outside—you can let her in now. But don’t talk too long. You need rest.”
She opened the door and walked out. Then came a faint sound from the hallway—footsteps, very light, very quick.
The door was pushed open. When Hildegrifa walked in, her steps were not as usual—a bit hurried. She stopped by Xuanxi’s bed. Her amethyst-crystal eyes met Xuanxi’s amber-gold eyes. Her lips were pressed into a thin line.
No red-rimmed eyes, no trembling, none of the emotional outburst Xuanxi had expected. She just stood there, looking at Xuanxi, as if confirming something.
Xuanxi looked at her. The room was quiet for a moment.
“Did you skip breakfast today?” Xuanxi asked.
“…I ate.”
“Then why are your hands so cold?”
Hildegrifa didn’t answer. She found a chair by the bed and sat down. Silver-white hair slid off her shoulder, falling onto the edge of the bed.
She reached out and took Xuanxi’s hand that was resting on the blanket. Her fingers threaded through Xuanxi’s fingers, interlacing, palm against palm. Cool, slender fingers trembled slightly between Xuanxi’s.
“You waited an hour?” Xuanxi asked.
“Just standing at the door?”
“Weren’t you tired for that long?”
“Not tired.”
Xuanxi curved the corners of her mouth and tightened her grip. “You idiot.”
Hildegrifa lifted her head, amethyst-crystal eyes looking at her, as if to say “You’re the idiot.” But she just looked at Xuanxi for a few seconds, then lowered her head and buried her face against the edge of the bed.
Silver-white hair scattered over the back of Xuanxi’s hand, like a thin layer of snow. Xuanxi felt her forehead pressing against her hand—cool, her body trembling slightly.
Soft.
“Don’t force dragon transformation next time, okay?” Hildegrifa’s voice came from between her arms, muffled, carrying a vulnerability that had never been there before.
“Okay.”
“Not ‘okay.’ Really don’t dragon-transform.”
“Really won’t dragon-transform.” Xuanxi replied helplessly.
Hildegrifa didn’t speak again. She kept that position, forehead pressed to the back of Xuanxi’s hand, silver-white hair scattered on the white sheet.
Xuanxi looked at her—at the scattered silver-white strands, at the hand gripping hers so tightly that the knuckles were white, fingers intertwined.
She suddenly felt that whether the dragon transformation succeeded or not didn’t matter that much. Whether she could push that door open didn’t matter that much either. Because someone was waiting for her on this side of the door.
Sunlight squeezed through the gaps of the blinds, painting bars of light on the floor. Those bars slowly shifted—from the door to the bed, from the bed to the corner of the room.
***
That evening, Xuanxi returned to the Dormitory.
She lay on her bed. The spot beneath her right eye was no longer hot. The dark golden heavenly fate mark rested quietly beneath her skin, as if nothing had happened.
Her communication stone vibrated. She picked it up—a friend request. The avatar was a piece of ice-blue snowflake. No signature, no note. Applicant: Valeris Frostmark.
Xuanxi stared at the request for a few seconds, then accepted.
A message came immediately: “Your heavenly fate mark glows when you dragon-transform, doesn’t it.”
Xuanxi replied: “Do you know why?”
“That’s not an ordinary mark. It’s a shackle. The heavenly fate mark on your face is not only a bloodline marker but also part of a seal. It has two functions on you: besides proving who you are, it suppresses the power inside you so that ordinary people can’t tell who you are.”
Xuanxi’s finger hovered over the screen. “A seal? Who put it there?”
“I don’t know. But one thing is certain: this seal isn’t meant to harm you. It’s meant to protect you. It’s just hiding your bloodline, making the western dragon clan’s detection systems unable to measure you, making everyone think you’re just a ‘no-bloodline’ ordinary dragon.”
“When you forced the dragon transformation, the seal was preventing you from revealing your identity. It didn’t want others to see what you look like in dragon form. Because if you fully dragon-transformed, your dragon form would expose you as an eastern dragon.”
Xuanxi stared at those lines for a long time.
“Can the seal be undone?”
“Yes, but not now. Unlocking the seal requires conditions—maybe your power reaching a certain level, maybe some external trigger, maybe only a specific person can do it. I don’t know the specifics, but I know forced unlocking won’t work.”
“What you did today was forced unlocking. To protect you, the seal directly cut off your Qi output. You fainted not because you were too weak, but because the seal was too strong.”
Xuanxi put the communication stone on her pillow, turned over, and faced the screen.
“Xige.”
“Mm.”
“My heavenly fate mark is a seal. It won’t let me dragon-transform because it’s protecting me.”
There was silence from the other side of the screen for a moment. “Who told you that?”
“Valeris.”
“She added you as a friend?”
“Mm.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
No more sound came from the other side of the screen. But Xuanxi heard a tiny noise—like something being gently placed on the table. She had put down her pen.
“Xige.”
“Mm.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Then why did you put down your pen?”
The silence on the other side of the screen stretched long—so long that Xuanxi thought she wouldn’t answer.
“You get some rest,” Hildegrifa said. “There’s class tomorrow.”
Xuanxi curved her lips in the darkness without calling her out.