The cowering royal guards dragged Crown Prince Chu Tianxiao backward until his torn silk robes were safely behind the outer edge barrier.
The thirty elite royal soldiers stood in a ragged, shivering line, their dragon-slaying axe-spears pointed at the dirt. Their hands shook like dry reeds in a storm.
None of them dared to make a sound.
None of them dared to look the huge emerald beast in the eye.
Big Green remained standing beside Frank, its massive, four-ton skull still resting comfortably against Frank’s shoulder like an affectionate Saint Bernard leaning against its owner on the porch.
The low, twelve-Hertz growl had ceased, replaced once more by that rhythmic, underground purr that shook Frank’s denim jacket.
Frank turned his head, patting the beast’s scaly nose to shove it back by an inch.
“Alright, alright, personal space, buddy,” Frank muttered, dusting a smear of dragon drool off his flannel collar. “You weigh twenty-eight tons. If you lean on me any harder, my left thigh bone is going to file a grievance with CIE-404.”
He looked across the crushed arena toward Hall Master Han, who was still kneeling in the dust. He was surrounded by sixty repentant beast instructors.
“Hey! Hall Master!” Frank called out, his voice cutting through the stunned silence. “Get over here for a second.”
Hall Master Han flinched at the summons.
He scrambled to his feet, smoothed down his torn gray robes with trembling hands, and rushed forward across the glass shards, bowing at every step.
He came to a halt ten paces away, not daring to step between Frank and the dragon. That kept his head respectfully lowered.
“Senior Master!” Han stammered, his eyes moist with devout emotion. “Command this unworthy servant! Whatever the Senior Master decrees, our Beast Guild shall execute without question! Shall we prepare the Grand Dragon-Palace Carriage to escort the divine beast to your sacred mountain residence?”
Frank stared at him like he had grown a second head.
“A carriage? To Ironwood Peak?” Frank shook his head vigorously. “Are you fully out of your mind?”
Han blinked, startled. “Senior... Doesn’t wish to convey the beast in state?”
“Look at the size of this dog!” Frank gestured with both hands at the forty-foot titan towering behind him. “He’s forty feet long from nose to tail! His ribs is wider than a two-lane highway! Where am I supposed to park a twenty-eight-ton lizard on Ironwood Peak? Classroom 404 is twenty-four feet by thirty feet! If he steps through the front door, he’ll take out the load-bearing studs and drop the second-floor library right onto the forge!”
Han’s jaw dropped. “C-Classroom... Studs?”
“And what about his food budget?” Frank continued, counting on his fingers with deep irritation. “He ate a ten-pound daikon radish like a breath mint! To keep this guy’s gastrointestinal tract from seizing up again, he’s going to need two hundred pounds of fresh greens, sixty pounds of wet mash. A clean water trough every single day! I’m a rural vocational schoolteacher on an unaccredited state pay, not a zoo tycoon!”
The sixty beast instructors behind Han listened in utter, mind-shattering shock.
To every sect, every kingdom, and every noble clan on the Jiuzhou Plane, a Rank-2 Peak Draconic War-Beast was a peerless strategic deterrent.
Emperors fought wars of extermination to capture a single dragon whelp.
Sects bankrupted their treasuries for three hundred years just to purchase the dragon-taming pills needed to maintain a beast’s loyalty.
Yet this young master was complaining about parking space and the price of grocery vegetables! He had received the beast’s voluntary, iron-hard life-bond on his bootlaces.
Grand Elder Yan shook his head from the upper pavilion, staring down at the pit.
“The calm distance of the ancient masters,” Yan murmured. “He regards an ancient titan not as an instrument of slaughter or political leverage, but as a mouth to feed and house. Boundless indifference to worldly posturing.”
“He refuses to hoard the creature for empty glory,” Chief Elder Wu agreed, his voice hushed. “He considers the practical upkeep of his school above royal vanity.”
Down in the pit, Frank pointed back at the colosseum’s open paddocks.
“Here’s the deal, Han,” Frank said in a practical, brisk business tone. “We’re going to set up a foster-care arrangement.”
Han scrambled forward, his ears perked up. “Foster... Care?”
“The dog stays here at the Colosseum,” Frank stated, laying down the terms. “You’ve already got the forty-foot holding paddocks, you’ve got the drainage trenches. You’ve got town funding for livestock feed. But here are the non-negotiable job-site rules: No more iron chains. No more spiked collars. No more dry baked kibble without water. You feed him fresh river greens, boiled oats, and wet mash twice a day. And every afternoon, you open the paddock gates and let him roam Cloud-Mist Ridge for two hours so he gets his cardio in. Got it?”
Hall Master Han looked at Frank, then looked at the dragon-hound. It gave an enthusiastic, approving snort that rustled Han’s gray beard.
Han’s eyes filled with fresh tears of overwhelming, religious respect.
“Senior Master...” Han’s voice cracked. “You... You leave the Divine Guardian to protect our humble Beast Guild? You don’t strip our heritage away, but entrust us with the sacred duty of its daily stewardship?!”
“I’m not leaving him to protect you, I’m boarding him here so he doesn’t eat my drywall,” Frank corrected with a sigh. “And I’m not doing it for free.”
Han fell to one knee, clasping his hands: “Speak, Senior! Even if you demand three million spiritual stones, our guild will sell our old family halls to pay the boarding fee!”
“I don’t need spiritual stones,” Frank said. He reached into his pocket and pulling out his stamped teacher license and tax papers. “I need vocational trade sign-off. Specifically, I need your official Beast Tamer guild stamp.”
Han blinked, confused. “A... Beast Tamer badge?”
“Yes,” Frank said firmly. “Under royal commerce statutes, an approved 2-Star Beast Grandmaster gets a forty-five percent wholesale exemption on bulk leather hides, cured sinew cordage, and heavy ox tendons. I’ve got three mid-air bridges to cable-stay on Ironwood Peak and twenty sets of leather carpenter tool aprons to sew for my apprentices. Stamp my papers for the trade discount. We’ll call it even for the emergency service call.”
Across the tiered arena, the silence was so deep that a dropped needle would have sounded like an explosion.
To tame an ancient draconic sovereign... Solely to receive a builder’s tax discount on leather tool belts and cable cordage!
Hall Master Han was so overcome with emotion he could barely breathe.
“Peerless magnanimity!” Han cried, pulling a golden seal from his robes with trembling hands. “Senior asks nothing for himself! Every demand is made entirely for the welfare of his apprentices and the physical construction of his academy! To use the highest honor of our guild merely to build shelter for the young... This is the supreme spirit of a True Master Teacher!”
Han didn’t just stamp the paper once.
With wild, breathless devotion, he pressed the 1-Star Bronze Beast Tamer seal onto Frank’s document.
Then, with both hands holding the heavy, jade-carved 2-Star Grandmaster Beast Seal, he pressed it firmly into the scarlet red stone paste and slammed it onto the parchment!
THUMP!
A brilliant, dual-colored crimson and emerald aura flared from the parchment, etching the roaring dragon crest of the Beast Guild onto Frank’s official paperwork.
Han hurriedly unpinned two gleaming bronze medallions from his own ritual sash. The 1-Star Beast Master Crest and the prestigious 2-Star Beast Grandmaster Medallion, both cast from cold star-bronze and inlaid with glowing spirit jade.
He offered them to Frank with both hands, bowing until his nose touched the dirt.
“The guild credentials, Senior Master! May they serve your sacred academy for ten thousand ages!”
The screen in Frank’s eye updated with a satisfying, skilled chime:
Frank took the two bronze badges, inspected the clean star-bronze finish. Then he pinned them neatly to the leather bib of his tool belt, right beside his pencil sharpener.
“Forty-five percent off bulk leather,” Frank muttered with deep satisfaction. He folded his stamped tax document and sliding it into his breast pocket. “That’s gonna save us at least forty gold coins on harness strapping alone. Good doing business with you, Han.”
Frank turned on his heel, adjusted his leather tool belt. Then he began walking toward the eastern exit ramp.
Behind him, Big Green realized his new master was leaving.
The forty-foot dragon-hound let out a painful, heartbroken canine whimper that sounded like a foghorn mourning a lost ship.
Whhhhiiiinnnnnne—!
The massive beast dropped its chin back onto the sand, its big jade eyes watering with pathetic, puppy-dog sorrow, its front paws creeping forward after him.
Frank stopped ten paces away, sighed, and turned around.
He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the leftover half of Niu Mang’s cold roasted sweet potato. Then he tossed it through the air.
Catch.
Big Green snapped the sweet potato out of the air with a loud, joyful CHOMP, swallowing it whole with a thrilled wag of its tail that cracked three more flat stone slabs.
“Stay, Big Green,” Frank commanded, pointing a stern finger at the paddock entrance. “Be a good boy, eat your radishes, and don’t bite the staff. I’ll come check on your ear next Tuesday.”
The dragon-hound let out a happy, obedient WOOF!, sat upright on its massive haunches, and watched Frank walk away with adoring, patient loyalty.
In the eastern gallery, Princess Jiang Ling’er watched Frank climb the stone ramp. Her dark eyes shone with quiet, exact amusement.
“Forty-five percent wholesale reduction across all leather goods,” Ling’er noted, neatly blotting the ink on her expense spreadsheet. “Master just halved our load-bearing supply deficit without spending a single copper coin from the school treasury.”
Shen Shitou grinned broadly, hoisting his five-foot iron sledgehammer onto his muscular shoulder. “And we didn’t even have to carry twenty-eight tons of dragon down the mountain trail. Master knows how to manage a job site better than any emperor.”
Niu Mang wiped his mouth with his sleeve, gathering the empty potato sacks into the cart. “Told you. A sweet potato and a fair trade. That’s how honest folk do business.”