“13th Gate?!”

Uehara had all right to be surprised. But he then remembered Lazarin’s words.

[He said there are twelve known Gates in existence. Does that mean he was aware of the 13th Gate?]

Choosing to resolve his son’s confusion, Volkarin spoke.

“There are twelve known Gates in existence, ranging from the 1st Gate all the way to the 12th Gate. Once anyone reaches the 10th Gate, they break free from the influence of the primordials and everything they control. They are no longer affected by time, they continuously produce life-force, making them immortal, the concept of death no longer applies to them and any attacks made by anyone under the 10th Gate are completely harmless to them. As a price for all these benefits, a god will cease to exist once utterly killed as they are no longer under the system of reincarnation. Regardless of things, the primordials can still watch you if they so wish so you’re not completely free. That becomes reality when you reach the thirteenth Gate. Once you cross that boundary, the primordials can’t observe you anymore. Aside from that is also a massive increase in power that allows you to kill gods like chickens and destroy universes like they’re nothing. That is why the 13th Gate is also known as the Balance-Breaker Gate and the primordials had no choice but to support Brain since they couldn’t let an anomaly like me exist without something else to restrict it.”

“I see. So they also helped Brain reach the 13th Gate in order to keep the balance.”

“Exactly. Brain would serve as the other half to keep me in check, and their plan worked too well. During the last battle I fought Brain, we suffered mutual destruction. With the both of us gone, balance was restored. If only one of us died, then the other’s race would’ve been in danger of extinction. But enough of that. These topics are stretching too far into the future. You’re not even a 1st Gate yet.”

Swallowing his disappointment, Volkarin continued to ask for more knowledge.

“Father. What’s the difference between void arts and void chi?”

Shaking his head at his son’s desire for knowledge, Volkarin chose to humour him.

“Void arts is a set of techniques that use the power of the void. Void chi is chi that has the attribute of void in it. When I say void chi, I mean all my chi has void attribute in it, making it superior to normal chi. But enough about this. You’re still too green to be learning about these sorts of things. You must first master chakra before we can even go any further in your training.”

Uehara’s mouth twitched when the tap of knowledge was abruptly closed. Sighing in resignation, he lowered his head.

“Thank you, father.”

At least he was grateful for what he got. With all this extra knowledge, a few aspects of his plans have to be adjusted.

“Good. Now leave. Your training session is done and your body is completely healed up. I don’t want to see you make these sort of amateur mistakes again. Do you understand me?”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Uehara almost coughed when his father brought up the aspect of him blowing himself up.

“Yes father. I understand.”

“Good.”

With a snap of his fingers, Uehara was once again, kicked out of his own mindscape. As he slowly regained his consciousness, he couldn’t even regain his bearings when he suddenly felt like he was smothered by something.

He then heard a frantic voice.

“Master! You finally woke up! Y-you finally…woke up.”

Chizuki’s tears of happiness flowed like the river as she hugged Uehara like her life depended on it.

“Careful Minamoto. You’ll smother the little drake to death.”

Chizuki regained her clarity and moved away when Shikibu spoke. Wiping her tears, she lowered her head.

“Sorry master. I was just…happy.”

Finally regaining clarity, he opened his eyes to see unfamiliar surroundings. It didn’t even take him a second to spread his chakra within a hundred kilometre radius. Another second was all it took for him to realise where he was.

Shifting into his human form, he turned his gaze towards the unfamiliar middle-aged woman in the room. He tried very hard to ignore the excitement he could feel from Chizuki through their soul-link and focuses on the woman who gave him a very weird feeling.

His eyes turned gold in colour.

“You’re not human.”

Shikibu was momentarily stunned at Uehara’s statement. But she chose to treat it as a joke and laughed a little, assuming he referred to how she healed him even when he was close to death.

“Not even a word of gratitude, young drake?”

Uehara didn’t remove his gaze from her. In fact, it seemed to intensify as he asked again in a neutral voice.

“What are you?”

Shikibu’s smile disappeared. Chizuki decided to intervene before tensions escalated.

“Master. This is Lady Murasaki Shikibu, a resident of the emperor’s palace. She’s the one who healed you.”

Uehara understood her intentions and dropped the subject.

“Thank you for healing me, Lady Murasaki.”

Shikibu smiled.

“Why you’re wel-”

“Who I’m not sure what type of demon they are yet.”

“Oh?”

Shikibu’s eyes glowed red.

“What makes you say that, young drake?”

Uehara kept a straight face as he spoke.

“Your scent is too appealing to belong to that of a human. It is similar to the chakra beasts on my island. Although I can’t tell what type of demon you are, I at least know you are a being of chakra through your scent.”

Chizuki was surprised but she remained quiet as she listened from the sidelines. Meanwhile, Shikibu’s expression was one of complete shock.

“Tell me if I’m wrong, but you are a dragon, correct?”

Her voice had lost its usual hint of seductiveness and had a serious tone to it. Uehara bluntly replied.

“Yes. I am a dragon.”

There was silence for a while before Shikibu stepped closer and was now face to face with Uehara. Leaning forward, she spoke.

“Are you completely sure you could identify my race by scent?”

Grabbing the neatly folded stack of black clothes and a black cloak, Uehara began putting them on.

“Yes. I know you are a being of chakra through scent. But as I’ve said before, I’m not sure what species you are as I’ve never encountered your scent before.”

Silence then filled the room. Shikibu was looking at Uehara as if she was trying to focus on something.

[He could tell I’m a demon by scent?! This is…this is completely impossible. There’s only one race that could identify races through scent but they’re extinct. But this boy said he’s a dragon.]

When looking at him clearly, she finally took note of his extremely long disheveled hair.

[No. Could it be he’s…a descendant of that race?]

Shikibu looked at Uehara’s hair. Only one race had long hair ever since they were born. Only one race could identify other races through smell. Most of all, only one race had the longest infancy period amongst three of the great demon races. She had already confirmed with Sakura that the boy was already twenty-one years of age and yet he looked like he never aged a day past five.

Looking at him looking at her, she refused to believe her thoughts but with the evidence in front of her, she chose to confirm.

“Are you both a dragon and…a surin?”