Rise of the Legendary Emperor

Chapter 206: Chatting with Rodrigo

After changing their faces, Don took Knight, the tigress, and the cubs into his space and continued to walk towards the final portal with Arrora.

The timer showed they still had three hours until the portal opened when they reached a huge tree with a giant hole in its center.

"We came early"

Arrora said looking at the empty place as she couldn't see a single soul around or near the tree.

"Let's wait here"

Don sat under a tree as Arrora sat beside him and started to wait for the portal to open.

"King Don"

A while after waiting under the tree, Don, and Arrora were surprised to hear a voice calling him by his real identity from behind.

As they turned back, they saw Prince Rodrigo walking towards them and he frowned when he saw their faces.

"Wow, I thought you as Don for a moment, you just seemed liked him with a girl buddy and all when I saw you from behind"

Rodrigo laughed as he said. Unlike Don and Arrora, Rodrigo had wounds and cuts all over his body as he covered them with bandages made of simple clothes and herbs.

"Guess I was wrong"

Rodrigo laughed again as he sat beside them and started to sharpen his spear.

"I'm Rodrigo, what're your names?"

Rodrigo just said his name but did not reveal himself as the prince of the Mairis.

"I'm James and this is my friend, Molly"

"So you two are just friends or more than friends?"

Rodrigo winked at Don as he shook his head

"Just friends, why didn't you go to the next level of the dungeon?"

Don avoided the meaningless conversation with Rodrigo as he wanted to know more about what happened while they were stuck underground.

"I love the thrill of a challenge and a battle believe me but even I'm not dumb enough to go to the next level after surviving that explosion"

"What explosion?"

"You didn't know?"

Don and Arrora shook their head

"After the arena, oh wait, did you come to the arena?"

"Yes"

Don said as Rodrigo nodded and continued

"After the arena, the next level had a foggy place filled with vial undead and ghostly creatures like I've never seen in my life, those creatures killed most of the contestants but few of us survived the path and reached a mansion in the middle of that death trap "

Dn could notice that Rodrigo was still not recovered from the shock of battling the fiends and the shadow ghosts as he was touching the wounds on his body.

"Some of us thought that the mansion would be another death trap while some thought the mansion would be filled with ancient treasures"

Rodrigo sighed and went on

"But when we tried to open the main door, it didn't even budge until the Archeron princess decided to destroy the whole door with a powerful spell"

Rodrigo paused as Arrora asked

"Then what happened?"

"The survivors rushed into the mansion after Audrey and the moment they stepped into the mansion, the whole place exploded, I was lucky that I stood far away from the place"

"What happened to the Princess?"

Don interrupted Rodrigo and asked about Audrey

"She survived somehow along with few other lucky ones, that place didn't have any treasures but a freakin time bomb"

Don was feeling lucky and at the same time, he was glad that they cleaned the place out before they went to the underground.

Because of him, many of the contestants had to return to the outside world with empty hands since he robbed them, set a grandmaster golem on them, and somehow destroyed the mansion along with the unlucky ones.

"Oh here they are"

While they were talking, Rodrigo pointed at the group of people walking towards the tree as Don saw familiar faces like Rosaline, Aster, and a few others.

"Do you know who entered the next level?"

Arrora asked Rodrigo

"Isn't it obvious, that Archeron Princess, last time I saw her, she and her friends entered the gateway as nothing happened"

Audrey entering the final level was not a surprise to Don as he had already guessed that she would and if he didn't get weakened by the black aura, he would have also entered the final level.

"After leaving this place, I need to visit Don and issue him a challenge for a duel"

"Oh?"

Don and Arrora looked surprised when they heard Rodrigo 

"You two know him?"

"We heard of him, you're talking about the Emir and Agoria's king right?"

"Yep, it's a shame that you two know him but not me"

Rodrigo chuckled as he didn't get angry at them for not recognizing him as Prince Rodrigo even though they heard of Don.

Don acted like he still didnt know him as Rodrigo shook his head

"I heard he's a peak level grandmaster, are you sure that it's a good choice to challenge him?"

Arrora asked Rodrigo and when she said this a grin appeared on his face

"Soon I will be a grandmaster too"

As he said, an excited grin appeared on his face as he waved his hand and retrieved a shiny ingot.

"Pure energy stone"

Arrora could see the pure life energy radiation from the stone as Rodrigo played with the stone in his hand with a grin

"With this, I'll be able to reach the grandmaster realm and with some other pills I have, I can even reach the mid-level of the grandmaster level" 

Rodrigo wasn't afraid of someone snatching his energy stone as he kept playing with the stone

"I wonder why he didn't come here"

While playing with the stone, Rodrigo asked himself as well as Don and Arrora.

"He didn't?"

Don acted surprised but he had already told Joel to spread the news that he didn't enter the dungeon so no one would try anything to invade his kingdom while he's away.

"That bastard would have made some noise in the arena if he came"

Arrora didn't like the way he addressed Don but she controlled her impulse to beat the shit out of him.

"You are not his subjects right?"

He suddenly stopped playing with the stone and asked them as Don shook his head

"No, what about you Rodrigo? where are you from and why do you want to challenge Don?"

Don quickly questioned Rodrigo so he couldn't ask more about them

"Me? I'm from Mairis and he and I have some unfinished business"

It was a new headache for Don as he wouldn't be able to defeat Rodrigo with his current weakened state but fortunately, he had Arrora to depend on.

Suddenly when they were talking, a light beam appeared before the tree 

"Look, It's Princess Audrey"

Princess Audrey and her friends stepped out of the light beam.

However, when the light beam disappeared, all of them were shocked as a tiny golden dragon was majestically standing on her shoulder.

"What the heck?! Grandmaster!?"

Rodrigo almost shouted when he saw the magical fluctuations radiating from the tiny dragon.

"So that was the reward huh?"

Don sighed inside. He knew that this tiny dragon would soon grow to be a godly level being and even with its current tiny state, the dragon could be considered as one of the powerful beings in the moon empire.

And he had no doubts that with the Archeron kingdom's resources, the dragon would soon reach the heavenly realm and boost the kingdom's power to another level.

The dragon's gaze on everyone like a king looking at his subjects as there was a kingly aura surrounding the tiny dragon. While Audrey was walking towards the tree, she kept petting the dragon but when the people behind her tried to approach the dragon, it hissed at them and let out a dark red stream of fire from its mouth.

"Bad Dragon"

Audrey chuckled and lightly smacked the dragon playfully as the dragon stopped breathing fire.

"Look at them trying to lick her boots"

Rodrigo snickered looking at the young master and young misses trying to get closer to Audrey by showering her with praise and compliments.

"Use hard work to grow fast in life. Tongue to grow faster"

Don calmly said.

"Hehehe, that's point on James, I hate that kind of people, I would choose death rather than lick someone's boot to live"

Rodrigo laughed and agreed with Don.

For a while, Rodrigo talked about the robbers and the events that happened in the dungeon with Don as he heard everything like he had nothing to do with it. Rodrigo seemed unhappy with the notion that someone is going to look into everyone's space ring to find the robbers. Yet, it seemed that Rodrigo was impressed with the robbers and wanted to meet them as they robbed everyone blind with their suppressed cultivation level.

Since Rodrigo wasn't so fond of the companions who entered with him from Mairis, he didn't care about them losing their lives to the golem.

What surprised Don more was that Rodrigo correctly guessed that Chase's disappearance might be connected with the robbers as he guessed Chase found out the robbers and got herself killed while trying to apprehend them.

Eventually, the timer reached zero and the tree began to shake violently.

"The portal is opening"

The youths standing before the tree shouted as Rodrion stood up.

"Its seems our chat is over, if you ever come to Mairis, tell anyone that you want to meet Rodrigo"

Rodrigo put the energy stone back into his space ring and told them.

"See ya"

With a little salute, Rodrigo rushed toward the portal as Don and Arrora nodded and walked towards the portal.