High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 213: Chapter 137: Dragon Hunting Dream_1

As midnight approached, the moon became increasingly bright, and the temperature continued to drop.

The cold wind swept across the open lake surface, brushed through the sparse woods, and made a pass around this group of young wizards by the lakeside.

Zheng Qing couldn’t help but shiver again.

”Strange,” he looked around in puzzlement, ”Although it’s early autumn now, it doesn’t make sense for the temperature to drop so quickly... I remember the sun was still scorching hot at noon.”

”What we’re feeling is not temperature, but the Yin energy.” Lin Guo squeezed beside him and whispered, ”Around the 15th of each month, the moonlight is at its peak, and the Yin energy is also at its strongest. Wizards are extraordinarily sensitive to Yin Yang energies, often perceiving them as external temperature.”

”Yin energy.” Zheng Qing gritted his teeth, looking involuntarily into the distance.

In his mind, Yin energy was always associated with negative images like ghosts and demons. And now, in this dark, windy night full of Yin energy, it was hard to avoid getting lost in thought.

The surface of Lin Zhong Lake was unusually calm, although there were occasionally suspicious ripples, they dispersed quickly.

The insects, which used to sing energetically in the grass, started to become a bit sluggish, their sound gradually becoming feeble.

”If I had known, I would’ve drawn a couple of talismans to ward off Yin evil,” Zheng Qing muttered, wrapping his robe tighter around him.

”I have an extra jade talisman here, you can borrow it.” Lin Guo rummaged in his bosom for a while, pulled out a pale jade talisman, and stuffed it into Zheng Qing’s hand.

This was a rectangular jade talisman, the front of which was carved with a goat crouching under a Lingzhi mushroom, and the back was engraved with the rune for ’talisman’; the top and bottom were decorated with ruyi-shaped cloud patterns, its four corners polished smooth and delicate, it felt exquisite and warm to the touch.

As soon as he touched it, a warm current flowed into his body from his palm. It coursed through his body in an instant, immediately making him forget about the surrounding Yin energy.

”Are you alright?” asked Zheng Qing, his face unusually flushed.

Originally, his friends had asked him to patrol with Lin Guo at night because he was older and could take care of this underage little wizard.

Little did he know, he hadn’t even demonstrated a hint of an adult’s responsibility, yet had already been taken care of by Lin Guo several times.

”Absolutely!” Lin Guo lifted his thin arm, tried to flex his bicep, and had a brilliant smile on his face.

Under the moonlight, Zheng Qing had a serious look at Lin Guo’s outfit for the first time tonight.

It was evident that this brilliant young boy from Alpha Academy was well prepared for tonight’s patrol task.

A shiny silver neck ring was hanging around his neck, etched with dense runes. Under the moonlight, you could clearly see a few strands of luminescence flowing endlessly on the neck ring.

Around his wrist was a slender string ornamented with colorful silks, woven with many cyan jade beads. The sound of jade chimes accompanied his movements, making it look far more high-end than Zheng Qing’s Five-Color Peach Talisman.

Even Lin Guo’s cheeks were painted with mysterious symbols in a light gold color. Under the moonlight, they subtly absorbed the moon’s glow, but it was unclear whether they were used to ward off evil or for spirituality.

Zheng Qing quietly swallowed a mouthful of saliva and shoved his much humbler Black Donkey’s Hoof even deeper into his bosom.

”It seems like you’re very well prepared.” He finally uttered a word of admiration.

Lin Guo retracted his smile, a look of nervousness appearing on his face.

”Perhaps.” He hesitated for a moment, then suddenly thrust the thick notebook into Zheng Qing’s hands, saying urgently, ”Take a look for me, see if there’s anything else I need to prepare... I’ve prepared everything listed in it, but I still feel something might be off.”

Under the glow of the Deadly Wind Lamp overhead, Zheng Qing squinted and carefully read the notes in his hand.

After scanning the first few characters, he couldn’t help but lift his head again to take a new measure of the little boy in front of him.

”What is it,” Lin Guo looked at him uneasily, muttering his complaints, ”Is there something missing... I always feel like I’m not fully prepared...”

”No, no,” Zheng Qing waved his hands repeatedly, and after a moment of silence, he cautiously said, ”I just didn’t expect... that you’d actually prepare these things.”

Saying this, he returned his gaze to the notebook in his hand.

At the top of the paper was a line of bold black letters:

Dragon Hunting Essentials.

What followed was a catalog of notes written in slender italics and neat Songti characters, marked according to different contents.

From the current classifications of the Wizard’s world’s Dragon Clan, to the unique dragon species found in different regions, to the preferences and tastes of these dragon beasts—all neatly summarized in this notebook.

For instance, the Chi Qiu from Changbai Mountain was noted in italics: ”A horned fire dragon, reddish in color, known as ’Chi Qiu’,” ”commonly seen around Tianchi in Changbai Mountain, likes to sleep on the pale yellow floating rocks on the mountain top, and sunbathing,” And finally noted in neat Songti characters: ”This Qiu has a gentle character and pure bloodline, with horns. It has high economic value. However, it is difficult to hunt due to its high and remote location, and it is inside the Nine Provinces Barrier. Rating: Three Stars.”

”Are you actually planning to hunt a dragon tonight?” Zheng Qing asked, flipping quickly through the thick notebook and admiring, ”It’s so detailed... you should give this notebook to the Book Mountain Library, they might just give you the dragon materials you need.”

”Really!” Lin Guo cried out in surprise, looking very tempted, ”This project indeed took me a lot of time. I started collecting data when I was ten and learned I could get into the first college.”

”What does this three-star mean?” Zheng Qing pointed to the notation at the end of the notebook, asking curiously.

”It represents the difficulty of hunting.” Lin Guo responded succinctly, ”I have listed all the dragon species that are allowed to hunt in the wizard world, and built a model based on known data, considering the length of their fangs, sharpness of their claws, corrosive level of their saliva, purity of bloodline, whether they are demonstrative or not, whether they raise minions, whether they are nocturnal or diurnal, and many more.”

”The hardest dragon to hunt is marked with five stars, such as the Tanggula Ice Chi. They are demonstrative creatures with powerful innate magic, most of their clans prefer to raise Iceberg Snow Wolves as minions for hunting, making them very troublesome.”

”Like the Rice Silo Cute Dragon, it gets a one-star. This small dragon, which is only a few feet in length and has sharp teeth and claws, likes to hide in the farmers’ rice silos, stealing rice to survive. If it wasn’t for their beautiful big eyes, the irritable wizards would have hunted them to extinction hundreds of years ago.”

Standing under the moonlight, the boy’s words convinced Zheng Qing.

”So, do you know what type of dragon is in the school?” He finally asked the most critical question, ”How do you plan to hunt the dragon in the school?”

”I don’t know!” Unexpectedly, Lin Guo answered very simply, ”Although there are many stories about dragons circulating in the campus, most of them are fictional according to my analysis... some may be true, but the information is incomplete, and I can’t accurately judge which type of dragon it is.”

”Then how do you plan to hunt it?”

”By baiting!” Lin Guo took off his backpack, groped inside it, and took out something wrapped in parchment, handing it to Zheng Qing, ”This is a swallow roasted, any type of dragon likes it... it’s perfect as bait.”

Zheng Qing took the package and carefully gave it a squeeze.

The stuff in the parchment was very soft, and even through the thick paper, Zheng Qing seemed to smell a strange aroma.

”What a clever little fool.” Elder Ferna had somehow appeared behind them and gave them this remark with a mixture of laughter and scolding.