Book 4, Chapter 180: Disturbing The Lingering Echoes

Once the domain signals stabilized, the spectators saw what had happened. Based on their current states and appearances, they could tell who had won.

Before the start of the fight, most of them had thought that one side might dominate the fight, but they had subconsciously thought that Long Xiang would do that. Who would have thought that reality was the other way around?

The screen in the municipal government continued showing the spot where Chen Chuan and Long Xiang had fought.

Even though the fight had only lasted for a few minutes, the wilderness was covered in pits, like someone had blasted the place with powerful artillery shells. The martial arts masters’ destructive power was shown clearly before their eyes, and it shocked them a lot.

They were stunned into silence for a bit before panic, shock, and unease started filling the room.

The politicians had thought that once Long Xiang defeated Chen Chuan, he would be intimidated, and everything would go back to normal.

But now, not only had Long Xiang failed to stop him, but Chen Chuan had also gotten to see that all their efforts to pester him before were all bark and no bite.

If Chen Chuan really intended to attack them, who could stop him?

Could they rely on Guardian Spider?

When they cultivated it, the municipal government had done so by using Hongfu as its benchmark. Logically, it was strong, but they couldn’t tell how well it could perform without a proper fight. They were no longer confident about it.

Besides, Guardian Spider was mostly a deterrent. They wanted it to exist more than they wanted to use it, because it had its greatest value while cloaked in shadow. The moment it showed up in battle, it would be far too easy for everyone to lose their fear and respect for it.

After witnessing Long Xiang’s defeat, they became even more reluctant to release Guardian Spider. It was their only trump card.

Their unease grew until it was on the verge of spilling over. Some of them started accusing the politicians who suggested sending Long Xiang over to test the waters. If they had known this would happen, it would have been better to have never attacked in the first place.

After an intense period of shirking responsibility and arguing, they finally came to an agreement. They had to work even more closely with the Union to cultivate a second active biosentient entity.

Chen Chuan’s presence put so much pressure on them that they felt that they could only protect themselves by having two active biosentient entities.

But active biosentient entities couldn’t be cultivated overnight. Their effects and models determined whether they required years or decades to reach full maturity.

Of course, in order to quickly boost their fighting power, the Union had brought them an embryo equipped with all the necessary technology. They could now skip all the preliminary work. Even so, they needed at least a year for it to grow.

To placate Chen Chuan, they were willing to provide him with three years’ worth of training resources. This would give them the time to cultivate their second active biosentient entity. They hoped that Chen Chuan would consider things a bit before attacking them, at least for the sake of the training resources. Any other person might end up protecting the municipal government in his place, but they weren’t hoping that Chen Chuan would do that. They only hoped that they could weather this storm.

After the meeting, Mr. Quan went outside. He planted his cane on the floor and frowned in deep thought. While their current crisis was over, the problem was far from being solved. Now that the war at the merged space was over, Yao Zhiyi was bound to come back too.

Two martial arts masters...

Due to the imbalance in top fighting power and their loss, they were going to be unable to fight for their rights in the negotiation with the Department of Administrative Affairs, unlike last time. Their power was definitely going to be diminished.

Fortunately, it wasn’t as if they could never turn the tide. The refined training faction wasn’t the only faction in Central City. They also had the fusion faction.

Mr. Quan knew that a certain number of politicians sided with the fusion faction and had quite a lot of contact with them. Some of them couldn’t even be fully considered human anymore.

However, Mr. Quan had no intention of approaching the fusion faction, because they might have played a huge role in the incident in the past. Once the purity faction built its base in Jibei Road again, he didn’t think that the fusion faction was going to stay still.

While he was thinking, he received an important call. He immediately answered, “Mr. Long?”

“Hahaha! Hi, Mr. Quan.”

He wouldn’t have been able to tell that Long Xiang was beat up just by listening to his voice.

“I’m sure that you saw the fight just now. Please fulfill your promise and hand over all the food required for him to replenish the energy he spent during the fight. You can give me mine a little later, I don’t mind. As for the other side... you’ll have to think carefully about it.”

“Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Long. I’ll get this settled immediately. We’ve actually delivered your share a few minutes ago. But would you mind if I asked you a question?” Mr. Quan asked.

“Ha! What is it?”

“Did you fight at your full strength?” Mr. Quan pressed.

There was a brief moment of silence, followed by a short burst of laughter. “You’re asking me whether I held back, aren’t you? Let me put it this way. I’m thankful that it wasn’t a fight to the death, or I’d be dead right now.

“I know what you’re thinking. I should be stronger because I have more experience as a martial arts master. Normally, that would be the case, but the truth is more complicated. I can’t explain it in a way that you’d understand.

“Anyway, that’s all I’m going to say. Best send the goods over as soon as you can.”

Long Xiang then ended the call.

He was pretty open-minded when it came to winning or losing. As long as nothing went wrong with his training, no one beheaded him, his life force was drained out, and he wasn’t corrupted, he was never going to naturally run out of life force. At the very least, he had never heard of a martial arts master dying of old age.

This meant that he had plenty of time to get stronger.

Losing wasn’t a problem, especially in spars like this. It helped him find his weakness and be more experienced in future fights. This didn’t mean that he liked talking to people about this, though, especially since plenty of people had just watched him lose.

The purity faction got themselves a good fighter. He sighed.

Then, he thought about something and smiled meaningfully. The refined training faction wasn’t the one who should be worrying about it. If he were right, there was going to be an entertaining show soon.

***

The messenger in the airship received an order from the Union’s representatives and tried to fish out some information from Pulabacarl. “Master, Mr. Long didn’t fight at his full strength just now, did he?”

“He didn’t,” Pulabacarl answered with complete certainty.

The messenger sighed in relief. “Then, if this had been a fight to the death...”

Pulabacarl laughed at that. “You’re wrong. He didn’t use his full power not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t. Lead Investigator Chen stopped him. Even if they fought again, I don’t think the results would change.”

The messenger was shocked, since he wasn’t expecting such an assessment. “If you fought, you could have made him back down, right?”

Pulabacarl didn’t give him a straight answer. He simply shook his head. “Mr. Long might have lost, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What is sown will always bear fruit. This matter is complicated enough. There’s no need for me to join the mess.”

The messenger mulled this over and thought that he understood what Pulabacarl meant. He placed a hand over his heart, bowed, and said, “Thank you for telling me this, Master.”

***

Chen Chuan was driving back to the city while thinking about the path he had to take.

Wei Guochan and Long Xiang both took the path to achieve other forms. They were trying to transform their bodies into something else. In the Fourth Limit, martial arts masters had to defend their true forms and manifest their spirit forms. These other forms would end up becoming their true selves.

Long Xiang had mentioned that he was losing control over his emotions. That should be an effect of his other form. It was likely not due to him not mastering his path yet, but because it was a consequence of transforming into something else. Chen Chuan wondered whether he could end up with his true form corrupted and start to think that his other form was his true form.

He hadn’t encountered anyone who was confirmed to be taking the path of the mental form yet. Those taking this path only acknowledged their mental selves, not their physical selves. The physical body wasn’t the most important in this path, and based on what Chen Chuan knew, regarding both the body and mind as equally important was what made up the true self. So, he didn’t really think much about the path he had to take. It was definitely going to be the human form.

If he relied solely on his human self, how could he compare to the martial arts masters walking down the other paths?

He became a martial arts master with a foundation that was never seen before. So, his physical strength was far above that of most people. But how did the others walking down this path stand on equal ground with the other two?

While he was thinking, his Realm Pass chimed. He took a look and answered. Gao Ming’s voice entered his ears. “The municipal government contacted me, cuz. They’ve stored the compensation for your fight in Grand Prosperity Finance. You can take it out whenever you want.

“Also, the municipal government will provide you with three years’ worth of training resources. They’re asking when you can go over to sign an agreement. You can set the time.”

“Tell them that we won’t need a signed agreement. They just need to remember to provide the resources to me,” Chen Chuan replied calmly.

The municipal government was the one who had suggested the agreement. They were going to give him what they promised whether he signed anything or not. If they didn’t, he could pay them a friendly visit whenever he liked. Long Xiang could even act as his guarantor, so they couldn’t just say it never happened.

He knew what they were planning. They were thinking about using the resources to keep him under control so that he wouldn’t cause them trouble for the time being. They also wanted to buy time to build up their fighting strength. Chen Chuan needed to study plenty of things as well, so it was really a matter of who would end up stronger at the end.

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