Chapter 4- Plans for the future
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-Zhou Prefecture General Zhou's courtyard
Fatty Zhou was peacefully awaiting his young fiancee whilst humming a delightful tune. He was watering the 500 year old cherry tree with utmost care.
"My son, how was your day," asked a strong voice reverberated through the hallways to the courtyard.
"Oh hey dad, hm yes I met an interesting fellow a few days ago Jiang Chen, I think it was."
"Oh? Yin Yue also mentioned that name before in her voice transmission," said General Zhou as he takes a seat next on the bench looking at his son's back, "Son, I know that you love that… Yan Yan but… she is a commoner not worthy of you."
"OH? Not worthy of me, I don't care for power or money or anything like that, I just want to enjoy a peaceful and quiet life with someone who shares my values."
"But with Yin Yue is so much better than her, our Zhou Prefecture can rise to the top ranks again with the Tang Prefecture as our ally."
"I will only speak of Yin Yue when she gets here, let's stop before you and I get angry." Fatty Zhou or Zhou Ling was the only son of General Zhou, he was not like other young masters who struggled for wealth and power. He did not believe that he will live forever so why bother with the constant pain of work?
Zhou Ling liked to work like the commoners such as being a simple shop owner. He liked how the days went by peacefully without the worries of a place to sleep or food to eat. After all his expenses were paid by the general.
During many meetings with his dad, disciples of sects and young nobles would mock him for being a dog son of a tiger dad. While the sect masters and older generation cultivators would talk behind his back showing some respect to the general.
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-Zhang City Zhou Prefecture
"Everyone gather round, gather round!," shouted a refined looking man wearing a formal dress as he walks back and forth on the large wooden platform, "Today is the day we will witness the battle of our rising dragons and phoenixes of Zhang City!"
"Oh wow, lets go!"
"Mom, dad can we get closer?"
"Hey did you bring the art supplies?"
Everyone on the capital square were preparing themselves for the fight of the decade. There were artists and sculptures hired to capture the best scenes, kids and parents bought snacks from nearby stalls, while the important figures chatted amongst themselves.
Jiang Chen decided to sign up as a participant since the rewards were incredibly enticing. The contract was that the participant will not be held responsible for any injuries they cause to their opponents. In addition there was a betting center backed by the city lord.
Jiang Chen deposited all his gold and refined spirit stones all on himself. Others snickered at his actions believing that he's just another foolish nouveau riche wasting his spirit stones.
Jiang Chen paid no attention to them and sat quietly in the free-lance cultivator section.
Hours later when the sun reached its maximum height above the sky, the contest was finally going to begin.
A young man draped in all black walked to the free-lance cultivator section unnoticed by anyone, acting all mysterious and powerful. However only the old hag and Jiang Chen noticed him. That's right the old hag was there again, stalking Jiang Chen for his supposed saint-level seal artifact.
The first battle was between the sects which took over 5 hours, and they even held multiple fights at the same time. The mood was festive as their wasn't anyone who was seriously injured or killed. However the older generation knew that once the free-lance cultivators started to compete, the battles will become more dangerous.
Many sects were 'moral' and did not use evil measures to compete such as using, gu (5)*
, poison, taboo techniques, and other similar means. Usually the disciples of sects would steer away from such ways because it is enforced by the sect. But, most free-lance cultivators did not care if they used 'evil' powers.
"May we have free-lance cultivator Jiang Chen and free-lance cultivator Tian Hong step up the platform?"
Jiang Chen was actually fighting the mysterious black draped person. Both of them were undefeated gaining quite a sum from their bets. Jiang Chen felt that the person was familiar but could not figure it out. Just as Jiang Chen drew out his new iron jian, obviously with a peak inscription, the black draped person suddenly knelt and took off the drape.
"Its me Junior Apprentice Brother Jiang Chen," cried the female, Yu Yan as she put on a depressed face, "It was all Senior Apprentice Brother Tian Ming's fault! He tricked me into harming you!"
The referee tried to protest for them to continue fighting, but a voice transmission told him to stop.
"Hmph, so it is Yu Yan don't be so formal I left Mount Hua Sect for good," replied Jiang Chen Coldy as he put his hands behind his back, "Now fight or leave!"
"You must listen to me! Come find me after this!" Yu Yan quickly left clearly not wanting to attract too much attention.
Naturally the referee counted this fight as void. After a couple more fights Jiang Chen eventually won the contest. It wasn't too surprising for any of the sects since there has been times when a free-lance cultivator would win. Many top figures immediately tried to curry good favor from Jiang Chen, after all being friends with a future rising dragon list champion is not bad at all. Several sects also tried to invite him to their schools to no avail.
Why would someone like Jiang Chen need guidance from anyone else when he has the system?
Yu Yan left him a spiritual mark so he quickly found her at an inn near the northern gate, which was suspiciously chosen far away from his base. He doubted that she had any good intentions for him so he decided to actually go out of the city to level up first.
It was nearing noon and there was not a lot of travellers or carriages to be seen. The stronger monsters would start to appear soon, but Jiang Chen was not afraid as he had bought several life-saving formations and a new masochist auxiliary technique that upgrades his body durability stages farther than his cultivation. All he had to do was let strong opponents hit him to level up the skill.
He went to the Rebirth Desert to find monster heads to bash. Legends has it that someone had reached the True spirit realm core realm but was ambushed by his enemies causing him to be severely injured and thus the vitality was absorbed into the desert creating many strange and powerful creatures. It is the True spirit realm core of the cultivator that was lost somewhere in the desert that produced such strong demonic vitality. Otherwise cultivators could also refine it and absorb it. But because not many practice dark arts and those arts are incredibly hard to train, they needed to create a constant shield around themselves.
Jiang Chen used his 4 heavenly creature formation to ward off the demonic vitality and continued to kill creatures left and right, occasionally getting swiped, punched, kicked, and burned by stronger creatures. The desert was actually blocked off by the Tian Empire, but Jiang Chen just found a weak spot with the system and entered.
In total he gained:
10,000,000 exp for the Immortal body strengthening skills
125 1st golden gate cores
79 2nd golden gate cores
25 3rd golden gate cores
17 4th golden gate cores
6 5th golden gate cores
He could only injure and ward off stronger opponents of the heavenly gates while cores above 5th golden gate did not appear. As for the meat chunks, he put them into the warehouse freeze that is connected to his system inventory.
In addition to that he also collected many spatial rings from the royal soldiers of the Tian Empire city that were posted to guard and search for the supposed True spirit realm core.
He immediately went back to the inn. It was already past midnight as the desert was quite far away from the city.
Hmm if I wanted to expand my territories and be able to defend against the Tian Empire, I'm going to have to at least take over a third of the prefectures.
Jiang Chen decided to build 4 formidable bases in the north, south, east, and west. The main base obviously near the middle, which was Zhang City that was located somewhat in the middle of the prefecture.
He will use the Howling forest, Rebirth Desert and 2 other locations as his bases. This way he can surround the prefecture and easily take it over without much resistance. But these are plans for the future. For now he will fortify his army and main base.
(5)* Type of bug used for controlling organisms