Legend of the Heavenly Fruit
Eps. 93 — Golden Dragon Scales

In the hero guild there was indeed a ranking system to show his identity in living a hero. Starting from the heroes of class E, D, C, B, A, and last S where E is the lowest rank while S is the highest class of heroes.

This rank could change depending on the swordsman's contribution to the guild rather than from his high strength, the more missions the hero completed the more he could for himself to move up the class.

Missions also actually have their own level of difficulty, just like the hero rank, the difficulty of missions in for 6 is the easiest E level missions to the hardest missions which are S level.

Level E missions usually contain light work such as searching for lost pets, runaway livestock or the like.

While S-level missions are dangerous missions, examples are missions to search for high-level swordsman fugitives, destroy criminal organization nests, kill hundreds of years of stealth and so on.

S-level missions are rarely taken by members of the hero guild because completing them requires the power of a Light Realm swordsman.

Even though it is very difficult and dangerous but the money obtained if it works is also very large.

With the hero guild in place, unemployed warriors could easily find work and earn money from the missions they were working on.

Not to mention those who have stepped on class B heroes usually already have titles in the martial world, famous and respected.

Hero guilds were also applied in the other three empires and arguably all the systems were about the same.

Not only the Moon Empire, other imperial governments also hope that with the hero union the crime rate will decrease.

Zhou Bing then took Zhou Yuan home after registering, Zhou Yuan immediately asked him the reason why he had to join the hero guild.

"Yuan'er, Grandfather hopes that you can contribute a lot to rooting out criminal organizations by joining a union, or at least you can help others with your power..." Zhou Bing answered him when the two of them had already entered the carriage.

After learning Zhou Yuan had the Sky King Body, Zhou Bing realized his grandson's destiny would be unusual in the future.

The main reason Zhou Bing had registered Zhou Yuan's name to the guild was because he wanted his grandson to be motivated to become a real hero.

Not closing the possibility with his special body Zhou Yuan would become the strongest swordsman in the martial world, evident in his current age, the increase in his grandson's strength was already beyond the limits of normal humans.

Zhou Yuan did not ask any more, he did not mind his Grandfather's decision as his purpose in this second life indeed wanted to destroy all criminal organizations let alone the organizations that had killed him.

***

Zhou Yuan returned to his room after leaving with Zhou Bing, he looked at the badge in his hand with a faint smile before then storing it under his cloak.

Zhou Yuan opened the Celestial King Body Book before starting to open a new page and read it.

After successfully refining Zhou Yuan's physical forging technique still needed to practice because according to him his strength right now was still not enough to fight against the organizations.

Even if Zhou Yuan rose strongly by leaps and bounds during closed-door training, he actually still wished he could be even stronger, at least until his strength reached in his first life.

The Book of the Celestial King guided Zhou Yuan to gradually become a different swordsman with powers in his first life.

Zhou Yuan had always focused on sword training but now he thought of other training useful to him one of which was the technique he found on the next page of the book.

"This Golden Dragon Scales Technique... It seems very useful, I will train this first..."

Zhou Yuan invented a technique that was able to harden his skin so that it was not easily penetrated by sharp objects or the like, the technique was named the Golden Dragon Scales technique.

Following the directions and instructions from the book, Zhou Yuan exerted a deep energy on his entire skin, gradually Zhou Yuan's skin began to form flashes of light that formed golden scales.

The flickering scales of light were only visible for a moment before dimming and disappearing. Zhou Yuan had to concentrate in order to bring out those flashes of light scales again.

After a while of practice Zhou Yuan finally understood how to use the technique. Zhou Yuan continued to study for the next four days until he could finally master the technique completely.

"Hm, if his strength is like this an ordinary sword or a third-grade heirloom weapon cannot penetrate my skin, this technique is really interesting..." Zhou Yuan muttered as he assessed the strength of the technique he was using.

Activating the Golden Dragon Scales technique required no small amount of deep energy, this technique was almost exactly the same as the inner power shield that warriors would normally use in protecting the body, which was very powerful, what distinguished the Golden Dragon Scales was extremely powerful and protected Zhou Yuan's body entirely.

"The techniques taught in this book are all high-level techniques, only a few pages have I been amazed let alone read to the end..."

Zhou Yuan was amazed at the creator of this book, Zhou Jiangnam. He was sure that his Grandfather's words were not a mere story about Zhou Jiangnam who was the strongest swordsman in the entire Northern Land Continent.

The next day, Zhou Yuan was summoned by his father to the main hall. Now Zhou Yao's status had changed to that of the Family Chairman, thus making Zhou Yuan's status rise as his son.

"Yuan'er, did I hear you have a special relationship with the Moon Emperor?" Ask Zhou Yao.

Zhou Yuan was silent for a while before finally admitting it, in the city of Hana he met the Moon Emperor, Jiang Qisha by accident and helped his poisoned grandson.

Jiang Qisha was so indebted to him back then and gave him a golden jade as a reward from saving his grandson.

"Yuan'er, actually I want to give you a task regarding this Emperor Jiang..." Zhou Yao then explained that he wanted Zhou Yuan to go to the capital to send a letter to His Imperial Majesty.

"Dad, wouldn't it be faster to use a message-sending pigeon?" Zhou Yuan asked after hearing his father's request.

"Dad thought so too, but the letter you sent was very important..."

The message pigeon is a tool used to send letters in the Northern Mainland Continent, even though it moves very quickly but the message pigeon has a shortcoming that is easily captured by others.

It is not unusual for a letter not to reach its destination because there are people who sabotage the letter while on the way. Moreover, pigeons are very easy on the fishing line with food so that ordinary people can hunt them.

"It's..." Zhou Yuan held his breath. " This is a letter from Your Majesty?"

Zhou Yao nodded, "Right, His Majesty invited you directly to Yuan'er's palace, he sent a letter to father to give it to you."

Zhou Yao smiled happily in his heart, he did not understand how his son could have a relationship with the Moon Emperor yet this was definitely good news for his family.

"You've been invited there, I'm giving you the task of sending Dad's secret letter to the capital." Zhou Yao added after.

Zhou Yuan nodded and accepted the assignment from his father, there was no reason for him to refuse the task. After all, sooner or later Zhou Yuan would indeed leave his residence for some time to complete the missions of the hero guild.

Zhou Yao explained that it was likely that Zhou Yuan would go alone on this trip. Zhou Yuan had no problem with it instead feeling pleased, he could be free at this task.

Since the trip to the capital was quite far away, Zhou Yuan needed careful preparation. Zhou Yuan rode a horse on this journey and carried two swords on his waist, a sword from his father and a sword from Kusanagi.

Even though this task was very easy, Zhou Yuan still had to prepare everything. He did not want any situation to be out of his control.

Zhou Yuan said goodbye to his parents and grandfather, Zhou Yuyin cried bitterly after knowing his brother was leaving and left for some time.

The little girl was not even willing to let go of her embrace of Zhou Yuan while parting ways, only after being lured in by her gift of crying stopped.

"Son promised you'd give Yuyin a present when you get home?" Zhou Yuyin stretched out her little finger.

"Sister of promise, Brother will give you many gifts." Zhou Yuan stroked the little girl.

Zhou Yuan then rode the horse and waved at his family last time, after which he spurred his horse out of Riva City.

"Yao'er, are you sure you're not being forthright why you sent Yuan'er there?" Zhou Bing asked after remaining only the two of them.

"It's for Yuan'er's good, didn't Dad say that it's better for Yuan'er to develop on his own."

Zhou Bing scratched his head, he could not answer it and wished Zhou Yuan well when he reached the Imperial palace.

***

Three days passed after leaving Riva City, Zhou Yuan traveled smoothly. During these three days Zhou Yuan had not found a temporary stopover or so he had to spend the night in the open.

Zhou Yuan was currently lighting a bonfire in the middle of a dark night, right above his fireplace was the venison he had burned earlier.

"It's a little nostalgic..." Zhou Yuan was so reminded of his first life that ventured on his own like this and often slept heavily in the sky.

Zhou Yuan then unfurled the map his father had given him before leaving. Map depicting the entire region of the Moon Empire.

The same map Zhou Yuan used to head towards the current Imperial Capital.

"Hm, it should be tomorrow afternoon I will find a village if nothing hinders, I will stop there to fill my food needs..." Zhou Yuan closed the map with a long sigh.

The next day Zhou Yuan resumed his journey, when the sun began to fall on the western foot then he found the village referred to the map.

Zhou Yuan immediately sped up his horse's run, he wanted to immediately rest there as well as fill his stomach.

During these three days Zhou Yuan had only eaten bland meat from his quarry, he regretted not bringing any seasoning on this trip in order to enjoy the food more.

Zhou Yuan was so enthusiastic towards the village but when he was a few meters nearby, he felt that there was something strange in the village especially after seeing that there was thick smoke coming from there.

"What is a fire..." Zhou Yuan frowned, he was sure that the thick smoke usually came from a huge fire.

The problem is that the fire is not in one location but five places at once. Zhou Yuan was getting faster and faster on his horse to see what was happening.

"It seems like this is not right..." Zhou Yuan got off his horse after a few steps inside the village, he found the village in deep trouble.

Zhou Yuan climbed onto one of the roofs of the house to see the situation more clearly.

From above Zhou Yuan discovered that there was a group that seemed to be bandits attacking this village and were burning down the houses of the people. All residents were gathered in one location, their condition was not good, some were crying while others were scared.

"This is a reward because you dare not pay taxes on us, instead I will bring your young girls with my group. These five houses are a memorial and if next week you still have no money left. I won't hesitate to take your lives." Excited one of them who was the chief rogues of the group.

"Master, we've given you a lot of treasure, don't bring our girls... Your tax money is too big for us to pay every week." The village chief begged.

"I really care! Blame yourself for not making money!" The chief rogues angrily and turns to his men. "Come, take the girls, I don't have time here anymore."

The Village Chief did not give up, he blocked the steps of the Chief Raiders many times while continuing to plead for their children not to be taken.

That upset the Chief Robber, he swung his machete towards the village Chief's neck to end his life.

The Village Chief was surprised, he did not expect the Chief rogues to attack him, he closed his eyes as he did not dare to look at the swing of the machete.

Another second the machete touched the neck of the Village Chief, Zhou Yuan had already appeared nearby and held the machete with the back of his hand which had now turned his skin into golden scales of light.

Not only did it not manage to scratch Zhou Yuan's skin, the machete actually suffered a fine crack.

"Hm, stronger than I thought..." Zhou Yuan swung his hand that was holding the machete. The Golden Dragon Scales Technique completely protected him.