Chapter 1030: The Dragon Races Yearning
All the dragon kings' gazes focused intently on Tang San. Lü Fuyao was about to speak, but Radiant Dragon King Xu An'yu gently raised a hand to stop him.
"Clan Leader Jin, we do not want to put undue pressure on you, but this matter is of great importance to our dragon race," Xu An'yu said solemnly.
The other dragon kings nodded, their expressions tinged with gravitas.
"Please speak, Brother Xu." Though Tang San already had a good sense of what they wanted to say, he showed his willingness to listen.
Xu An'yu sighed. "This concerns a matter long kept within our clan, and I ask that you keep it in confidence, Clan Leader Jin."
Tang San nodded. "Of course."
Xu An'yu took a deep breath. "It's long been known that our dragon race, like the phoenix race and the Behemoth clan, has always stood among the most powerful lineages. And we all face the same challenge: reproduction.
"For any race, the ability to bear offspring is of utmost importance. It is the foundation of a race's prosperity and continuation. But perhaps because we were born too powerful, reproduction has become exceedingly difficult for us. The birth of a single pure-blooded descendant can take decades, even centuries, and some of these descendants don't survive infancy. Among the three races, we dragons have it worse, and then there's the phoenix race. The Behemoths fare slightly better.
"To solve this crisis threatening our future, our race has invested a tremendous amount of resources into studying our bloodlines, hoping to improve our chances of reproduction. Even if we don't manage to actually increase our numbers, we want to at least secure our race's survival."
As Xu An'yu spoke, Tang San pondered silently, If the dragon race ever solved its reproductive issues, if it multiplied like humans, wouldn't this world reach the point of self-destruction? A race as gifted as the dragons, with no limits on its numbers... What a terrifying thought.
"That was the reason our bloodline research began. Later, we also began to explore union with other races, hoping mixed bloodlines might improve fertility. That did in fact work quite well, and that's how many of the lesser dragon breeds came to be. But hybrids aren't true dragons, and their bloodline power is invariably lower than their parents' bloodline power. In other words, this path failed us, so we returned our focus to our own kind.
"But during this research, we inevitably stumbled upon a number of mutations. As you well know, most mutated bloodlines aren't anything special, but that's not the case with us. Our race's strength means that most mutations tend to be beneficial. When such descendants prove stable, we let them live freely as any other dragon. Our most famous example, of course, is someone you should know very well: our late Dragon Lord and the greatest being of the Ancestral Court for three thousand years, the Crystal Demon Emperor. Her Majesty's bloodline was a successful mutation. She was the pride of our clan.