The Dragon on the door was what was called a Precious Spirit.
Precious Spirits were as their names implied. There were made by mending the reminant spiritual energy of many strong Ancestors.
This required a special method for it to work.
The Precious Spirit is born with a seperate personality but the same memories as contained in the spirit energies.
At a certain stage in cultivation, one starts to cultivate not just spiritual energy in the body but also Spiritual energy in the heavens.
This excites heavens rage and a cultivator will have to face an heavenly tribulation.
When a Precious Spirit is made, it comes with a Precious Land.
A subspace different from the known world.
This was usually a land rich resources.
But there was just one problem.
The Precious Spirit was made from spirit energies of cultivators that have already touched heaven's spiritual energy.
Meaning that they also attracted heaven's tribulations.
This Dragon's precious land had not experienced Heaven's Tribulation in hundreds of years.
if Chiron destroyed the formation above, it was bound to suffer severely.
Chiron knew this and so did the Dragon.
"What is your name?" Chiron asked.
"You can simply call me Old Red."
Chiron nodded, "okay old Red. If you help me, then I promise that your descendant will live to see another day."
Old Red sighed loudly, "You win. I'll help you. But there are some things you should know first."
"Like what?"
"Firstly, getting your hands back is not the main problem. The main problem is the Curse."
"Curse!?" Chiron frowned, "I have long gotten rid of the curse."
The dragon shook his head, "No you haven't. You only stalled for more time. Apparently you don't know much about Magic energy. With the hundreds of years of memory I have from the Dragon souls that were used to create me, I can let you in on some useful knowledge. As you know, Magic energy is the most mysterious of all cultivated energies. No one knows it's origin or how to use it but magic users. They are also not allowed to teach it unless it's to another magic user chosen by blood or Fate itself. But that does not mean that we are entirely blind to it's ways."
Chiron nodded. They was only so much knowledge the MC of the book had. Even if he had climbed to the top, he couldn't possibly know everything in the world.
This created an opportunity for Chiron to learn something new.
Ignorance was always the Bane of true power.
Chiron would rather learn like a child than brag like a king.
He took a sitting position and listened attentively.
"Amongst magic users, Curse users are the worse. Their abilities usually surrounded Death, Decay, and Demise. However what makes them formidable opponents was not this aspect. Just like a lesson in life that happens again and again until one realizes their mistake, Curses never leave. When you were cursed, it was not just your hands that were cursed. It was your Soul."
Chiron had a feeling that what he was about to hear was going to be troublesome, but he did not know that it was going to be this bad.
It suddenly made more sense why the Fate system required a million points in other to heal him.
Curses were just too extreme.
However, Chiron still had questions. "Then why have I not felt it's effects all this time?"
The Dragon nodded, "You see Curse Energy is still magic energy. It has its core based in magic. Magic has rules. I might have been down here, but I see what happens around. I saw what you did when your hands got cursed. Like I said, Magic had rules. You had touched upon one of it's most fundamental rule when you cut off your own hands. You touched upon SACRIFICE. Your willingness to survive pushed you to it. For this reason, the curse had to Sleep."
"So you are saying that if I get my hands back, I risk reactivating the curse."
Old Red nodded.
Just out of curiosity, Chiron wanted to know
Although he had the Gate System, one could never be too prepared.
"What can I do to get rid of it?"
"Hmmm! Well, as you know, I am not a Magic user, and do not know much on the subject. But I can guess a few ways by which that can happen, all of which are based on the experiences of the memories I possess. Firstly which is the simplest one. If you were stronger than the Curse user that placed the curse on you, your spiritual energy could surpress his magic energy and the curse could be washed out of your soul. However, they is a problem with this method. It only works if you were initially of higher cultivation than the Magic user. As it stands, the curse energy inside you even when dormant won't allow you to push past that cultivation level. It will form a bottle neck that will always hold you back."
"What's the second method!?"
"The second method would be to kill the curse user. Without an origin, energy cannot be sustained. Even us Precious Spirits need our Precious lands to continue our existence."
Chiron nodded. However, he had to admit that this option was not currently an option. Meeting knight Sheyi again would spell only one end for him and that was Death.
The Dragon could easily read Chiron's expression. Even he could tell that this option was out the window.
*cough!* The dragon coughed lowly, "There is a third option. In fact, it is an option that aligns with your initial goal of getting your hands fixed.But I should earn you, it carries the same standard of risk and even struggle as the others I have mentioned."
"Tell me, what is it?"
As far Chiron was concerned, it couldn't possibly be as bad as the other two options. However, the moment he heard it, he couldn't help but frown even more.
"Have you ever heard of a Cardinal Forbidden zone before?"
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢