Tense Diplomacy

Making progress towards being able to afford a new shop was slow. News of the shopping mall was steadily spreading and attracting more people, but most of these people weren't customers. The system's prices were just too extreme for the average person. Most of the people who came to the shopping mall were only there to cultivate.

The crowds of people streaming in and out of the back rooms and hallways were growing day by day, but Lin Feng barely benefited.

Despite how busy the hallways leading off from the main room were becoming, Lin Feng rarely went down there. He had made some significant progress toward making people less scared by giving out food randomly, but he found that many people still clammed up when he was around.

Adding to that, nothing happening in the network of hallways had much to do with him. He hadn't put any stores outside of the main room yet and everything being discussed was something he had no idea about.

After the disaster that was him trying to teach, he had done his absolute best not to intrude on topics of cultivation. He even went as far as avoiding the people he had lectured on martial cultivation. He didn't want to be asked any more questions and be forced to make anything else up.

"Knight to F6," Mei spoke up and told Lin Feng her move.

A chess board and pieces were easy enough to make by hand, so chess had been one of Lin Feng's few forms of entertainment before people found his little valley. At this point, he and Mei had played thousands of games of chess.

That didn't mean that Mei was any good though.

Lin Feng stared at the pawn that Mei had left undefended with her knight move. He quietly moved his queen away without punishing her mistake, deciding to keep the game going a little longer.

As Mei thought deeply about her next move, Lin Feng decided to ask her about the happenings in the mall. Mei was a popular conversation partner for most people in the mall and she was very well-informed about who was doing what.

"The Yang family's restaurant is finally open for business. I've heard it's pretty good. We could try them out for dinner if you want."

There were a handful of stores and restaurants being opened up by other people within the shopping mall now, and Lin Feng thought it was quite nice. If he was going to be stuck here, then he was happy to have other people around and things to do. There was only one problem.

"I don't have any money." Lin Feng said glumly.

The system may have started to give him a portion of the spirit crystals from his shops, but they weren't very useful to him. Most people didn't use spirit crystals as currency. They were too valuable.

If Lin Feng tried to spend a spirit crystal at one of these little shops that had opened up, he would end up buying out their entire stock and would still have change left over.

Mei laughed at him.

"Who would dare charge you money? If you show up at the Yangs' restaurant, they'll trip over themselves to give you anything you want for free."

"I guess," Lin Feng sighed. "I'll think about it." He had just barely started to get people to stop treating him a bit more comfortably. He didn't want to go throwing his weight around and risk ruining his efforts. He figured that he could probably trade some system goods to them or just pay with spirit crystals if he didn't want change.

"There are a few merchants that have set up stalls and are selling here. I've heard that one of them even bought some vending machine food to try selling in the capital."

Lin Feng raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

"What a rich merchant. How much did he buy?"

"I don't know, but it's good advertising if he's successful. Other than that, a few Golden Core cultivators have broken through to the Nascent Soul Realm. That's a big deal in Great Yan. I've heard that the emperor has ordered a stronghold be built at the entrance to the valley."

"For what?" Lin Feng was incredulous, "Who's going to attack the shopping mall?"

Mei shrugged.

"I don't know. I think it's more about him staking a claim than anything."

Lin Feng shook his head. He felt a little annoyed.

——

Zhang Fei and a group of seven Nascent Soul Realm experts stood in the air above the road leading into the Demon Tooth Mountains. Among this group was Wang Mu, who, with the help of the strong spiritual energy inside the shopping mall, had successfully broken through to the Nascent Soul Realm.

If people were to know that he was still in the middle stage of the Core Formation Ream around three months ago, they would be shocked, Lin Feng included. Not even Mei had been able to match such a cultivation speed before her injury. Granted, the cultivation process was not entirely the same between demonic beasts and cultivators and could not be perfectly compared, but it still showed that Wang Mu's speed was extraordinary.

To be able to break through so quickly was truly heaven-defying.

Heaven-defying enough that other people were beginning to grow wary.

The countries surrounding Great Yan and bordering the Demon Tooth Mountains were all similarly developed. The low spiritual density put a hard limit on how quickly one could cultivate and none of them were much stronger than the others.

The shopping mall changed that. With access to an environment so suited to cultivation, the Yan Dynasty had added three Nascent Soul Realm cultivators to its ranks in the last few months.

While this would inevitably slow down as the people who had been pushing up against a bottleneck all broke through, it was still very important to the Yan Dynasty.

When the surrounding countries heard this, they couldn't sit still. It was impossible for the Yan Dynasty to hide the existence of the shopping mall, so they were forced to defend it.

Yashan city and the surrounding area had slowly begun to grow tense lately. Big shots from the surrounding countries were silently gathering and it wasn't yet clear whether or not a fight would break out.

Across from the group of cultivators from the Yan Dynasty, was another group of six people. The markings on their robes declared them to be cultivators from the Kingdom of Zhou to the east.

Zhang Fei's Soul Reformation cultivation base pressed down on the surrounding area, keeping everything calm. The Zhou cultivators' faces were stony as they looked at the group of seven Nascent Soul cultivators from Great Yan. To be able to move such a large force of Nascent Soul cultivators was already enough to confirm the Kingdom of Zhou's fears.

The two groups were standing more than a mile away from each other, but such a short distance was nothing to cultivators at their level.

"You stand above the land of Great Yan. I would know what your business here is." Zhang Fei's voice projected easily across the distance separating the two groups.

"The Kingdom of Zhou has heard there is a wondrous business within Great Yan. We are simply here to visit this business and see whether or not it is truly as amazing as is said. Are we not allowed to do this?"

Zhang Fei gazed at the intruding cultivators with narrow eyes.

"Great Yan and the Kingdom of Zhou were once part of the same family. Naturally, members of Zhou can come to Great Yan for leisure and pleasure. My only worry is that some people may not come for leisure alone."

The cultivator from the Kingdom of Zhou raised both his hands in a helpless gesture.

"Can a group as small as ours do anything to cause trouble to the Great Yan Dynasty?" He purposefully brought attention to the large number of Nascent Soul cultivators in front of him. "Can any number of us trouble Master Zhang?" The cultivators from Zhou continued mockingly.

Zhang Fei's lips thinned with displeasure.

"Go and follow this road into the mountains if you wish to go to Senior Lin's shopping mall. I trust that you won't go anywhere else. Remember that this is Great Yan's land."

The Zhou cultivator gave a perfunctory bow before leading his group away.

Zhang Fei and the other Yan Dynasty cultivators watched the people from the Kingdom of Zhou leave with a complicated expression on their faces.

Great Yan would prefer to monopolize the shopping mall, but they were too weak! With Zhang Fei and their large number of Nascent Soul Realm cultivators, they could fight off one country, perhaps even two, but they couldn't fight them all off. To make matters worse, the shopping mall was on the edge of Great Yan. Heavily defending the area around the Demon Tooth Mountains would only leave other parts of the country undefended.

The Yan Dynasty could only compromise and allow peaceful foreign cultivators in while they desperately built fortifications to ensure someone else didn't snatch this away from them.