Chapter 197 (1/2)
Chapter 197: Everyone Was Satisfied
Two days later, Fang Ning received word from Zheng Dao that the Truth Department’s Ren Ruofeng, that old man who likes looking like an eighteen-year-old, had a message for him…
The message said, “Brother Dragon, after probing around a little and confirming with Xie Dong, Azure Mountain’s Gu Buwei will temporarily not take action against you for his martial sister’s death. According to my calculations, it might be some time before anyone would say anything after, maybe after her spirit had been punished enough in the Draconic Penitentiary. Hopefully, you’ll be ready for their actions. If you need it, I am willing to be the middleman for you.”
Fang Ning had a frown on his face the entire time. He only knew a little bit about the Azure Mountain. He knew that the master of Azure Mountain, Shang Qingshan, was like a god in his own Azure Mountain realm. Just like his own Draconic Penitentiary, they who enter without permission would be killed.
However, aside from Gu Buwei, Shang Qingshan, and Qi Mei, Fang Ning was not aware of any powerhouses from there. Not even Anderson could fully comprehend their power, only estimate it.
Right at that moment, a system notification popped up.
[The System is evaluating…]
[The System is evaluating…]
[The System has decided to fish at the Land of Heritage.]
Fang Ning had no words to that. “Sir, stop obsessing about that for now. We haven’t settled the problem with the Azure Mountain yet, don’t make new waves. Let’s go and ask the old man Ren.”
The System replied, “Oh, okay. Understood.”
After a while, Fang Ning got in contact with Ren Ruofeng through Zheng Dao, and they made an appointment to meet.
Immediately after, Vigilante A stepped out of the window onto his new flying sword and took to the skies.
The sword-skateboard was really fast. Within three minutes, Vigilante A and Ren Ruofeng met up on the top of a hill near Ji City.
Ren Ruofeng held his fist and saluted. “Brother Dragon, it’s been a while.”
Vigilante A returned the salute by holding his fist as well. “Fellow cultivator Ren, you look better than I’ve last seen you…”
After the pleasantries, they went straight to the main topic.
Hearing Vigilante A ask about the Azure Mountain’s origin, Ren Ruofeng answered without hesitation or concealment. “Azure Mountain’s origin is pretty straightforward. When the tiny planet appeared in the solar system twenty-one years ago, causing the Vitality to recover on earth, a talented man in China, Shang Qingshan, was the first to feel the reappearance of Vitality…”
Fang Ning listened carefully. This was another typical protagonist story. Shang Qingshan’s family background was pretty uncommon in that he was the son of a rich father, but he was also very capable of handling himself. At twenty-three years old, he was the first person to sense the Vitality and found the method to cultivate.
It was only a year later that the Truth Department had been established. Within the one year, he traveled all over China to look for artifacts and cultivation methods, found the entrance to the Azure Mountain realm first, and occupied it. His birth name was not Qingshan, but he changed it because of the name of the arcane realm… 1
To Ren Ruofeng, this man had already treated the arcane realm as his own without the intent to turn it in to the authorities…
With the arcane realm, he managed to rise above everybody else and dominate any negotiations, disciple-recruitment, and resource-pillaging. In addition to that, he had enough foundation to bargain with the Truth Department and maintain the current situation where no one was more powerful than the other.
With a nationwide effort, The Truth Department had located the Land of Heritage twelve years prior, but that was nine whole years of progress between the two parties.
Comparing the vitality concentration between the Azure Mountain and the outside world, it could be postulated that a nine-year progress of cultivation in it would equate to at least a hundred years of cultivation outside.
Ren Ruofeng continued, “According to our many years of spying, the Azure Mountain has a very rich foundation. If we rank them according to the ranking system of your race, there are at least six Lake-level powerhouses, Gu Buwei is one of them being the strongest of the third-generation disciples. Shang Qingshan is probably even stronger than that. However, due to outside world’s thin Vitality Concentration and the upper limit to power levels, they shouldn’t be able to use even a tenth of their strength, so they’d rather stay quietly in the Azure Mountain waiting for the right time while cultivating.”
Hearing that, Fang Ning pretended to scoff. “With only a few Lake-levels and so many restrictions, how dare that Qi Mei behave so pompously, that’s grossly underestimating the vastness of the world… I bet they do not have the noblest of intention as well.”
Ren Ruofeng was stunned hearing that. ‘As expected of the dragon race with their immense power, not even Lake-level powerhouses were able to shake him. He called them “only a few”…
‘I suppose only Sea-level individuals would be strong enough for the dragons to consider as a challenge…’
His face did not betray his emotions as he carried on, “As you said, the Azure Mountain already has three generation of disciples. Shang Qingshan was the founder who accepted four disciples, who also accepted disciples of their own totaling seven-hundred-odd people. It has 365 core disciples, and its strict rules for admittance has encouraged fierce rivalry. They would have a ranking tournament biennially, and all who ranked lower than the 365th would be demoted to fatigue disciples who were in charge of the daily routine of performing menial duties like alchemy, refinement, formations and charms enchantments, and others.”
At this point, Fang Ning asked, “With their kraterocratic system, would there be any chance of the disciples automatically gaining seniority as soon as they advanced to Lake-level?”