Book 4, Chapter 176: Capturing Shadows And Turning Them Into Essence

Chen Chuan stood on the observation deck of his airship and let himself experience the airship going forward. His eyes were trained on the vast sky, which was so dark that it felt like it could swallow him.

Ever since he became a martial arts master, the vortex in the sky had become more obvious. It still wasn’t very clear, though, as if something was blocking it. The energy inside kept pressing against the invisible, thin wall to break through it, and it was getting closer to succeeding.

The Great Crash was creeping closer like an inevitable force. The two worlds were bound to clash into each other.

One of Chen Chuan’s goals had been to reach the Fourth Limit before the Great Crash. Now, he finally had a bit of power to protect himself.

After a while, he cast a glance in another direction, where White Bird District was. Even though he couldn’t see anything due to being too far away, he knew that the Linacrox Union’s martial arts master was there.

Perhaps he might have a chance to talk to him.

A moment later, he looked away and went to talk to the pilot before going back to his cabin.

Once he was inside, he shut the door and stood still at the center. He then drew the Frost King Saber. With a slash, and a gap the size of an adult man showed up in front of him. Brilliant light shot out of it.

Training at the Fourth Limit focused on true forms and spirit forms, but Chen Chuan didn’t know how exactly he was supposed to train. He had asked Hongfu about it, but there was practically no knowledge about this in Jibei Road’s Martial Valor University. But he didn’t panic because of it. He was sure that the government and the purity faction would teach him.

Besides, his body was still transforming, so he didn’t need to start proper training yet. What he needed to do instead was to communicate with the other world with his mind and fill up his body with energy.

He set the Frost King Saber aside and sat down in front of the gap.

Since his biofield covered dozens of meters around him, the place turned into an independent space. Unless anyone stepped into his domain, they could not see what was going on inside.

The greatest advantage of this was that if anything from the other world tried to come over, Chen Chuan could get rid of them without alarming the people in the physical world.

He practiced the techniques Xue Shou had given him, but it felt a little too reserved, so he made some adjustments.

There was a reason why martial arts masters were known as masters. Due to the transcendence of their minds, they got a deep understanding of various techniques’ effects and true nature and could modify them to suit themselves. Every martial arts master could walk down a path that belonged entirely to them.

When Chen Chuan made contact with the other world in the past, he could absorb its energy, but there was a wall between them. Now, after he modified the technique, that wall was practically nonexistent. A large amount of energy flowed into him along with a blinding light.

He absorbed it all and stored it inside himself.

The amount of energy he gathered and his body’s endurance were going to determine how much his body could transform.

Since there was no one before Chen Chuan who had reached the Fourth Limit with his foundation, Chen Chuan’s limit was clearly much higher, and he needed much more energy. He wasn’t dismissing the possibility that he might have to fight against other martial arts masters too. Because of that, storing a lot of energy was definitely for the best.

After becoming a martial arts master, his body was no longer the same as that of a regular person. His mutated tissue could store tons of energy within the body and use it when necessary.

This worked similar to the Furnace Breathing Technique, and he had reason to believe that the Furnace Breathing Technique was created based on the structures of martial arts masters’ mutated tissue and physical body.

After training for around half an hour, Chen Chuan smelled a thick aroma. When he looked over, he saw a blurry, black shadow behind the gap. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he could see thin and long tendrils having attached themselves to the edge of the gap.

Without the artifact as a cover, existences were inevitably attracted by the opening.

The aroma was an illusion created by his mutated tissue and mind to tell him that this shadow was useful to him.

Chen Chuan decided to listen to their demands. Before the existence could come over, he stood up, grabbed a seemingly empty spot in the air, and a loud screech tore through his mind.

Even though his eyes said that he was holding onto nothing, his mind and biofield sensed something struggling violently against him.

Chen Chuan didn’t budge. He dragged the existence out, and its invisible body became something that was part physical, part illusion. The being had a pair of flickering membrane wings and was covered in dancing tendrils.

Chen Chuan brought it to his eyes, and the aroma grew stronger. His mutated tissue was telling him to just eat it already.

He ignored the noisy screeches and grabbed the existence by the center with both hands. With a powerful yank and a loud rip, he tore it in two, and large globs of something resembling gold flakes spilled out.

Due to his biofield, none of them landed on the floor. Instead, they floated around him in a golden fog.

A translucent ball of fat the size of a finger pad immediately caught his attention. Most of the aroma was coming from it.

Chen Chuan pinched it and tossed it into his mouth. A moment later, his mutated tissue started cheering and demanding more. Clearly, this was exactly what his body needed, but this tiny ball was like pouring a drop of water onto a fire.

Suddenly, Chen Chuan remembered something Yao Zhiyi had told him. Both martial arts masters and the existences were food sources for each other. This must be what he meant.

Chen Chuan turned his attention back to the gap. If that were the case, aside from training the mind, he could occasionally get some extra benefits by opening a gap. It, however, depended on whether his “guests” were strong or not. The one he encountered just now was something he could handle with ease. If a strong existence took note of him, Chen Chuan might end up as food instead.

Luckily for him, such beings should be rare. After all, the World Ring stood between the two worlds and kept away the truly powerful existences from passing through. If they did, they would cause such a huge ruckus that Chen Chuan would definitely have enough time to shut the gap.

After getting rid of the existence, Chen Chuan sat down and continued training.

The night passed, and the sun rose.

Even though he was only training, his airship stayed in the sky for a long time, so everyone thought that he was in a standoff against the martial arts master from the Linacrox Union. They had no other idea why else would Chen Chuan go to the sea in an airship at night. Aside from other martial arts masters, no one else was worthy of his attention.

This move of his showed that he had a hardline position. If they took a step forward, he was going to take a step forward as well. He didn’t care about any threats sent his way.

This ended up making the Union even more nervous, and they started urging the municipal government to settle this issue as soon as possible. Otherwise, they were really going to reconsider working with them.

***

Long Xiang reached the checkpoint outside Central City and got into the Fu-Mu Entity’s domain. Right away, they heard news about Chen Chuan going out to sea from the municipal government and were asked to hurry up and meet Chen Chuan.

Upon hearing this, Long Xiang laughed and commented, “Looks like this guy is ambitious.”

The people in the limousine panicked. Ambitious? In other words, Chen Chuan was aggressive. Who knew what he was going to do next?

“We’ll leave it to you, Mr. Long,” the liaison officer said earnestly.

Long Xiang laughed again before schooling his face and saying coldly, “You think that sending a martial arts master against another one will make both sides wary of each other, but this isn’t a good idea, because every martial arts master has different ideas. If you don’t understand the other, you won’t know when they might act in an extreme manner. Sometimes, those assumptions will end up with the other party thinking that you’re a threat and lead to even more extreme reactions.

“The suggestion of the Linacrox Union’s martial arts master was pretty good, you know? You could have just stated your offers and settled this mess, while now you have to pay a price for calling me here. It would have been better for you to have offered enough benefits to him to calm him down.”

“It’s not that we’re reluctant to give him training resources, but that we’re worried. Since we’re unequal in strength, we can’t believe his promises. After all, Chen Chuan is on the government’s side, and the government is hostile toward us. We’re worried that we won’t be able to solve this problem even after offering him all the benefits. That’s why we asked for you to step forward.”

“Hahaha! Fine, your worries make some sense.”

Then, he remembered something. “The two martial arts masters sent by the purity faction last time didn’t enter the city, right? I won’t step inside either. If you want to negotiate with him, convince him to step out of the city. One moment.”

The people in the limousine looked over in puzzlement.

Long Xiang laughed once, as if to signal he was only taking a brief pause in talking, then continued speaking, “I’ll go through the motions to contact him. You don’t have to do it for me. But get a reliable agent to contact him for me. That’s it, though. Don’t do anything else.”

The others exchanged looks. They could somewhat understand what he meant. Long Xiang was thinking about negotiating with Chen Chuan as another martial arts master, not as a representative of any side.

“Alright. We’ll get things sorted for you, Mr. Long,” the liaison officer promised.

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