The mountain to the west of the Royal Capital is named Mount Domus Flau—the very site where the "Grand Magic Games" would be held in the future.
Since the construction team claimed to have found "something incredible" here, there was likely only one thing it could be.
The Dragon Graveyard within the mountain!
"Why did you all head inside the mountain?"
The person leading the way replied, "We stumbled upon it by accident while excavating building materials."
Huh??
After a few detailed questions, Weston finally understood the whole story.
As it turned out, the minister in charge of transportation planned to build Crocus's train station at the foot of Mount Domus Flau.
This was the iconic peak closest to the Royal Capital, making it visually striking as a landmark. Additionally, the surrounding area was spacious, flat, and uninhabited, meaning it wouldn't cause trouble for the city's residents. Furthermore, since an arena was planned for the summit in the future, it would become a scenic attraction to draw tourists—killing several birds with one stone.
Besides that, the massive amount of sand and stone on the mountain could be used as material for building the station. Excavating on-site would save a fortune in material costs and manual labor for transport.
The plan was solid, but who would have guessed that today, a single shovel from the workers would dig straight into a graveyard of dragons?
Half a day later, Weston followed the soldiers to the destination.
The Dragon Graveyard was filled with dragon skeletons, and their presence caused a small portion of the mountain's interior to be hollow. This hollow section would make the ground structure at the summit unstable; if they continued digging, it could very well cause a mountain collapse.
By rights, a place like the Dragon Graveyard, even if it provided no practical benefit to humans, possessed deep archaeological value and historical significance. It shouldn't be easily destroyed.
The construction team couldn't make a decision, so they could only report the discovery to their superiors for a final verdict.
But since the matter involved the long-extinct Dragon Race, even the Minister of Transportation didn't dare decide on his own. Thus, he informed Queen Lily, who in turn sent Weston, the wizard, to handle it.
The group walked into the graveyard, carefully observing the environment inside.
"How terrifying!"
"After 400... no, 300 years of settling, this scent of blood still hasn't dissipated?"
"It seems the 'Dragon King Festival' back then was truly a tragic massacre!"
"I wonder just how many more dragon skeletons are buried beneath this graveyard..."
Weston observed the sights within the tomb as he ventured deeper.
It was much like the one in his memory; most of the dragon bones had decayed under the erosion of time, maintaining their original shape only through lingering, stray bits of magic power. Once subjected to violent tremors, the remains would easily break off and decompose.
After a tour, Weston called over the foreman and instructed: "Don't worry, this is just an ordinary burial ground. Aside from the fact that it houses dragon corpses, there's nothing special about it, and it poses no threat to the capital."
"However, a place like this is no longer suitable for excavating building materials. You'd better choose another location for the train station!"
The foreman replied loudly: "Yes, we understand!"
Although the past few days of work had gone to waste, this was a result they had to accept.
Soon, he led his soldiers away one after another.
Weston wasn't in a hurry to leave. Instead, he rubbed his hands together and continued searching through the Dragon Graveyard.
He didn't know Wendy's "Milky Way" Magic and couldn't summon the spirits of the dragons to chat, but that didn't mean he couldn't do anything.
"Since I'm already here, I can't go back empty-handed."
"Might as well take back some souvenirs to decorate the place!"
Dragons were incredibly powerful creatures; even after hundreds of years, their bones didn't decompose easily. In this graveyard, there were bound to be some relatively sturdy skeletons.
If he collected those bones and polished them a bit, they might make for valuable mementos.
Acting on the thought, Weston immediately opened the Archive interface and entered the matter detection function. Magic power radiated from his body, instantly covering the entire Dragon Graveyard.
"Let's first detect the material structure of this place!"
Beep beep beep...
In almost an instant, a 3D map of the entire Dragon Graveyard appeared on the Archive interface.
This included the composition of all matter in the area and the energy strength contained in every space—everything was displayed clearly.
"Hmm... this corpse, based on energy analysis, is way too brittle!"
"This one isn't bad, but it's buried too deep; hard to dig up!"
"This corpse is too ugly, don't want it!"
"There's actually a skeleton of a small-scale dragon? Just right for making a chair!"
After searching for a long time and analyzing about twenty dragon corpses, Weston only found one set of bones worth reclaiming.
The small-scale dragon was buried twenty meters below the surface, pinned under the skeleton of a much larger dragon. Weston had to use Earth Magic to dig downward.
Ten minutes later, a dragon skeleton over three meters tall finally saw the light of day.
"From the looks of it, this small dragon's skeleton is fairly well-preserved, and the bone quality is quite firm. It's perfect for a collection piece."
Weston muttered to himself incessantly while sweeping the dust off the skeleton and prying away bones that clearly didn't belong to the deceased itself.
"I wonder why it was pinned under a larger dragon when it died?"
"Could it be that when Acnologia came for them, its father or mother held it in their arms as they died?"
"Ah, that's a bit dark."
Click!
Just then, Weston suddenly felt something hard on the small dragon's skeleton.
"What's this?!"
In his confusion, Weston took a breath and gave a loud "whoosh" to blow away the accumulated dust.
As the dust cleared, a pitch-black key came into view.
"A key??!"
"Wait, this isn't an ordinary key!"
"The magic power on this..."
After sensing the magic on the key carefully and examining its shape, a memory he had almost forgotten suddenly popped into Weston's head.
"Ah! This... this is... the Ophiuchus Key!!"
The Ophiuchus Key, also known as the "Thirteenth Key of the Zodiac"!
Unlike the other twelve keys, it didn't bear the responsibility of "opening the Eclipse Gate," so it hadn't received the attention or heritage of the Heartfilia family.
In past history, there were very few records of the Ophiuchus Key. Even most Celestial Spirit Wizards believed this key was merely a fabrication by predecessors and didn't actually exist.
"No wonder there are so few records of this key; it turns out it was buried here with these dragons!"