"Heavens!! Is that the Thunder Dragon in its true form?!"

The voice sounded to belong to someone around eighteen years old. Qiao Mei looked toward the source of the voice and saw a boy who looked a little shorter than her, with a cute baby face, rushing toward her with bright, round eyes.

His hands, wrapped in white bandages, were tightly embracing a black snake that at first glance looked somewhat like Ao Cang, but was several times larger.

"?"

How come she remembered that among the mainstream familiars①, the only snake species was the little green snake? Why was his black one?

To Qiao Mei's surprise, a boy who looked no different from a young boy appeared in front of her, looking at Ao Cang with bright eyes.

"Thunder, did you see that? This is the Thunder Dragon I told you about before. Quick, hurry up and pay your respects; maybe you can absorb some of its lightning essence!"

The little green snake, nicknamed Thunder, was speechless. It flicked its tongue and shattered the boy's fantasy.

"I am the sacred beast avatar of the Green Serpent, possessing only the power of the Wood element. Even if I worship it to the point of exhaustion, I still cannot acquire the power of the Lightning element."

The boy completely ignored what Lei Ting said, and insisted on pressing its snake body down to bow three times to Ao Cang. Looking at Ao Cang with starry eyes, he said, "Lord Lei Ting, could you please spare some of your extra lightning power for my good-for-nothing Lei Ting? It has wanted a lightning companion for a long time. As its master..."

Thunder interrupted again, speechless: "It was clearly you who wanted it..."

The boy covered Leiting's mouth, not giving it a chance to speak, and continued his antics, leaving Ao Cang and Qiao Mei dumbfounded.

Qiao Mei glanced at the blue and white striped casual clothes that the boy was wearing, which looked a lot like a hospital gown. After carrying Ao Cang a little further away from the man, she leaned close to Ao Cang's ear and whispered, "Cang Cang, how likely do you think it is that he escaped from a mental hospital?"

Ao Cang frowned, pointed with his dragon tail to the location of his dragon head, and replied, "About 110%, he seems to be acting strangely here."

"I think so too. Let's go somewhere else; this place is kind of creepy."

"Okay."

The two voices weren't quiet, so the boy, who was called mentally ill, heard them too. The admiring smile on his face cracked for a moment before he glared at Lei Ting, who was laughing at him.

He stepped forward in a few strides, blocking Qiao Mei and Ao Cang, and used his right hand, which was wrapped in a white bandage, to rub his forehead, saying helplessly, "It's alright. The moment I became the Thunder Dragon Envoy, I was prepared to be misunderstood, but I still want to tell you, I'm not crazy, I..."

Qiao Mei listened to him speaking in such an incredibly childish and pretentious way, her lips twitching as she interrupted him: "Alright, just tell me who you are and what you want!"

The boy then remembered that she hadn't introduced herself yet. He cleared his throat, looked up at Qiao Mei, who was half a head taller than him, activated his personal computer bracelet, played a background music track of someone strumming an electric guitar, and solemnly said:

"Hello, let me formally introduce myself. I am Shang Duojin, the Thunder Dragon Envoy, the last guardian of the universe, and the savior of the interstellar future. This is my familiar beast, Thunder."

Qiao Mei, whose toes had undergone a major renovation: "......"

Ao Cang, who was already feeling ashamed for the little green snake, thought, "..."

Thunder: Destroy it! It wants to escape, but it can't.

But Shang Duojin seemed oblivious to the change in the man and the two beasts, explaining his main reason for coming to see Qiao Mei: "Actually, one thing I wanted to do was to see Lord Leilong's true face, and another thing is, I wonder if you could let me meet Lord Leilong..."

"Ao Cang, his name is Ao Cang. He's not a thunder dragon, but a little black dragon. Just call him by his name. What do you want to do with him?"

Qiao Mei suppressed the urge to continue scratching her toes at the Magic Fairy Castle, and carefully recalled the original plot. She wondered how she could have no recollection of such a bizarre main character.

Could it be someone even more of a background character than her, this cannon fodder princess?

Shang Duojin paused for a moment, then nodded vigorously: "Oh, I'd like to take a picture with Lei... oh no, Ao Cang. Is that alright? After all, I heard before that the Dragon God Ao Cang had left the Awakening Domain and I thought it was fake. I didn't expect it to be true. I even saw the real Ao Cang today!!"

It was just a group photo, and Qiao Mei had no objections, but she still needed to ask Ao Cang what his opinion was.

When Ao Cang heard Shang Duojin repeatedly using the "I" that he had used before, he suddenly felt that the self-reference "I" was being lowered in status. After a long silence, he looked at Qiao Mei and said, "I can accept it."

Upon discovering that he had changed his self-designation, Qiao Mei chuckled for a moment before guessing why. After helping Ao Cang wipe the red cross marks off his body, she gave up her spot and, watching the boy still taking photos with Ao Cang, silently opened the interstellar encyclopedia on her personal computer to search for his information.

Upon searching, she discovered that it wasn't that Shang Duojin was just a background character in the book, but rather that he never appeared by name in the original book; he was always referred to as a human ATM by the female protagonist, Qiao Yingying.

The reason for this title is that Shang Duojin comes from the wealthiest of the four great families, and is considered the richest man in the entire intergalactic world. He has four older sisters, and he was born to Shang's wife when she was forty years old. He is very much loved by his family, so he naturally has a lot of money.

Recalling his experience as a vengeful spirit in the original story, Qiao Mei sighed and decided to help him out. When he finished taking a photo with Ao Cang, she agreed to his request to add him as a contact.

"What college are you going to apply to next? I haven't decided yet. We could apply to the same one, that way I can admire Ao Cang's heroic figure every day!!"

Qiao Mei didn't understand why Shang Duojin was so obsessed with taking advantage of Ao Cang, but since he wouldn't say, she couldn't ask directly. So she could only tell him that she had applied to the Federal Academy.

"If there's nothing else, I'm planning to have Cangcang do an attack rating check. You..."

"Attack rating?" Shang Duojin glanced at the swarm of onlookers gathering not far away and frowned. "In such a rudimentary place? Using this kind of machine that has been used by who knows how many people?"

Qiao Mei: "? What else?"

Shang Duojin: "Come with me. We can't just casually rate Ao Cang. I have a dedicated rating room at home—it's cleaner and more professional! But it's a deal: after the rating is done, you have to get Ao Cang to give me a dragon claw signature!"

There were too many people in the training center. If they stayed any longer to evaluate Ao Cang, they would not only have to hide their shortcomings, but they would also have to spend a lot of time and effort to retest him later. In order to save as much time and energy as possible, Qiao Mei glanced at the onlookers around her, and after asking Ao Cang for his opinion, she finally followed Shang Duojin.