Was the medicine Avid gave him fake?

— It shouldn't be.

After pharmacological testing, the drug was confirmed to be effective. This time he was more vigilant, and the results from the research institute should not have been falsified.

But now, the effects of this bottle of medicine did indeed deviate somewhat.

His spiritual body merged with him, and after less than two minutes — it appeared on its own again.

But now was not the time to ponder these things. Seeing his spiritual body's resolute manner, Audrose's heart jumped and he quickly followed after it.

The dragon floundered through the flower bushes all the way. It did not appear in its complete form, but even so, its body was still very huge, trampling the flower bushes it passed into a mess. Occasionally, the tips of its bony wings would hit the trunks of the flowering trees, leaving deep marks on them. The ones that were hit particularly hard would be broken in half from the middle, their bodies falling to the ground in a miserable state.

It was like a scene of a major disaster.

Audrose stepped on the trail of destruction left by his spiritual body, following closely behind.

He had no time to criticize his spiritual body's actions of casually destroying the environment, because the further he walked, the faster his heart beat. His heart was pounding, beat after beat, each one like a heavy drumbeat, and the flow rate of his blood throughout his body also sped up.

He began to tremble slightly.

He could feel that his spiritual body was extremely excited. After merging with his spiritual body once, their empathic ability seemed to be much more stable and clear than before. The feeling of every inch of blood in the body boiling was clearly conveyed to him, making his breathing gradually become rapid as well.

He had a vague premonition that the end point of their advance this time might be what he had been searching for —

But how could that be possible?

The cosmic rift was filled with brutal energy zones. Even with his physical fitness, he could not stay there for too long, let alone his little slave.

Moreover, the cosmic rift was extremely unstable. There were definite studies showing that it would randomly jump the location of the opening every 20 hours.

On the day he woke up in the infirmary, he had taken his most trusted confidants to search for the rift entrance near the MX system. But too much time had passed. They used the most advanced detectors and searched almost the entire star system without rest, but did not find any fluctuations suspected to be a cosmic rift.

So how could it possibly be here...?

Amidst the alternating anticipation and doubt in his mood, the dragon finally stopped in front of an open flower field.

It lowered its head deeply, burying its huge head in the flower field, exploring left and right. Its bony wing joints also pressed against the ground, occasionally stirring the flowers.

Because it was probing with its head very low, the bones on its back protruded abruptly, looking a bit strained.

— A flower field this low could not hide a person.

Looking at the flower field in front of him that was at most up to his thigh, Audrose couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

It was as if he had finally gotten a glimmer of hope, only to be quickly told that this glimmer of hope was just his illusion.

The dragon was still searching hard. If it couldn't find it in one area, it would go to another, its bony wings covered in pollen and dirt, looking like it wouldn't give up until it found it.

Audrose stood there by himself for a while, watching the actions of his spiritual body. Suddenly, he couldn't help but walk forward and bend down to search with it.

He didn't know why he was doing such a stupid thing, nor could he clearly know what it was looking for, but there was an urgent feeling silently urging him on.

— Must find it.

After searching like this for about ten minutes, when Audrose let go of another handful of flower branches and gently wiped the pollen from his face with the back of his hand, he suddenly heard an urgent gurgling sound coming from behind him.

This was followed by several more intermittent sounds of this kind.

This was the sound dragons made only when they were extremely pleased, and with it came the constant welling up of satisfaction and joy in his heart.

As if he had finally found his lost treasure.

He looked back.

The dragon with its back to him had its head lowered, moving very slightly. Its thick tail with sharp bony spikes dragging behind it was wagging excitedly, whipping the flower bushes behind it, causing flower branches to fly and broken petals to ooze juice.

Audrose hesitated for a moment before slowly walking over to his spiritual body.

But when he looked, he was stunned.

His dragon was lowering its head, licking a plant enthusiastically.

The rhizome of the plant was a flattened spherical shape, with a black and rough epidermis, but with two tender soft leaves growing on its head, timidly curled up.

This plant must have just been dug up, with moist soil turned over all around it. Only half of the rhizome was exposed, and the rest was still well buried in the soil.

His dragon didn't mind the dirt at all. It stuck out its tongue and enthusiastically gave the exposed part of the black plant countless baths with its saliva, not even sparing the small leaves that had already shyly rolled into tubes, straightening them out with the tip of its tongue and licking the leaf surfaces over and over again.

Wasn't this the strange plant he had dreamed about?

......

After Marshal Audrose ran away with a straight face, all the citizens of the capital star were left dumbfounded.

According to the normal procedure, shouldn't they first sing praises on the star network, and when the atmosphere reached its peak, hold a formal war report press conference? Although they didn't expect the taciturn marshal to take on the task of reporting, it would be good if he could at least show his face at the press conference and say a few simple words!

Who knows how long it had been since they had heard the marshal speak!

How come now — before they could even react, the protagonist was already gone?

Under the constant inquiries of the public, the military finally issued an announcement that the marshal had been too busy with work before, taking a total of less than half a month of vacation during his more than ten years in office. Now that the border war situation was stable, the marshal had decided to step down from his heavy responsibilities and take a temporary one-year vacation.

However, the public did not buy this announcement.

Who were they trying to fool!

Everyone in the empire knew that the marshal was a workaholic! He had no private life at all! What could he do on a one-year vacation?

If it were a half-month or one-month vacation, it could still be explained as a temporary rest.

But this was a whole year! With a year-long gap, by the time he returned, his confidants might have already been replaced, which was practically no different from being dismissed from his position!

Having just made a huge contribution to the empire and completed a spiritual power evolution, becoming the only marshal with super S-level spiritual power, he was actually being so blatantly given the cold shoulder!

So for a while, the star network was in an uproar, with people constantly speculating about the truth behind Audrose's one-year vacation, trying to find the person or force that was giving the marshal the cold shoulder.

However, in reality, while Audrose was the highest commander of the military, he was also one of the two current crown princes of the empire. In terms of both status and power, he was at the pinnacle of the empire. From a logical perspective, the only person in the entire empire who had the authority to give him the cold shoulder was probably the emperor himself.

So the rumors that had already been widely circulating about the emperor and his eldest son not getting along were brought up again, spreading more and more fiercely on the star network, to the point where there were even a large number of remarks criticizing the emperor.

However, the palace seemed to be deaf, and did not take any measures to suppress or delete these widely spread unfavorable rumors, simply letting them ferment.

The situation continued to develop, and even the emperor's approval rating among the people began to decline, until half a month later, when Audrose, who had not been active for two full years, finally posted an update on his personal homepage, abruptly putting an end to it.

[Audrose]: I approved the vacation request myself, and there is a high probability that I will extend it. I am out traveling, all is well, no need to worry. [Image] x1

The accompanying picture was a simple latticed wooden window, with a desk right next to it inside, and outside was a dazzling sea of flowers, each petal so soft that it warmed people's hearts, but it had been professionally blurred, making it impossible to tell exactly where it was.

As soon as this post came out, the comment section exploded.

"Wait, what do you mean there's a high probability you'll extend your vacation??? Marshal, don't forget you still have a throne to inherit at home!!!"

"I really admire the move of approving your own vacation... By the way, why does the marshal seem to have a sense of detachment between the lines... What exactly has he experienced..."

"Did you guys see the flowerpot on the window? I just enlarged and processed it, and found that there's a black, round thing planted inside, which doesn't match any currently known plant. What is that?"

"...Could it be that the marshal has changed careers to develop new plant species?"

......

After posting the update, Audrose quickly received a harassing message from his younger brother.

[Avid]: What is big brother doing now? Where did you go to play? [pitiful.jpg]

He used his authority to block his location information, so even the emperor could not find his exact location.