Chapter 108 (1/2)

“What are you doing?” Azalea asked. The first thing she saw when she walked into Grandpa Vremya’s room was the old man painting on a long scroll of paper. “Drawing rivers?” Her brow furrowed as she stepped behind Grandpa Vremya. Although she could already see the painting in detail from far away thanks to her immense cultivation base, it still helped to get closer. “Mountains? That’s new.”

Grandpa Vremya ignored Azalea and continued painting, swinging his brush freely. Alongside the mountains, a sentence written in a domineering font appeared: When the emperor farts, no one dares sniff it in. Azalea was dumbfounded by the sentence. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” she asked, her expression darkening. Mentioning the emperor and farts in the same sentence, wasn’t that just asking for trouble? “Did my dad contact you or something?” What other emperor did Grandpa Vremya know?

“To raise a truly domineering nascent soul, you can’t just be the best in one area,” Grandpa Vremya said. “You have to be the best in all of them.” He put down the brush and waved his hand in front of the painting, instantly drying all the ink. “Imagine you’re an immortal, and a child challenges you to a game of chess. You lose. The only thing you can do to wipe away your shame is kill the child and all the witnesses. How embarrassing would that be? Can you truly be called domineering even if you’re undefeated in combat? You’ll still be the immortal who lost to a child.”

“So, you think someone’s going to challenge you in the realm of painting and calligraphy?” Azalea asked, glancing at the scroll. “And if you suffer a loss, your nascent soul will lose its overbearing nature? You know, it’s impossible not to fail. What matters is being able to pick yourself up after failing.”

Grandpa Vremya snorted. “That’s something failures say to comfort themselves. If you truly want to reach the peak of power, you can never fail at anything. Your momentum must surge from the moment you’re in your mother’s womb. If anything stops your growth, then it’s over. Even if you pick yourself up and do everything else perfectly, all you’ll ever amount to is an immortal.”

Azalea shrugged. “Aren’t all cultivators seeking immortality anyway? You make it sound like becoming an immortal is a bad thing.”

Grandpa Vremya shook his head. “What is immortality without power? There are immortal jellyfish floating around space. When they grow old, they revert to their infant form, growing anew. As long as they aren’t killed, their lives will never end: a form of immortality. Is that what you wish to be? A jellyfish floating aimlessly without thinking?”

“Well, no,” Azalea said. “I just don’t want to die. And how do you know about these jellyfish? How come I’ve never heard of them? Seriously, did we receive the same education or not while growing up in the sect?”

“I’ve been studying; undefeated in all things includes trivia,” Grandpa Vremya said. “Even if you become an immortal, death is just waiting around the corner. There are lots of immortal beings out there, but a lot are killed anyway. Overcoming the limits of longevity is just the beginning.”

“I suppose you know about all of this through studying as well,” Azalea said before taking a seat on the couch in Grandpa Vremya’s room. With a wave of her hand, a stack of papers appeared. She hadn’t come to Grandpa Vremya’s room to debate with him. “What are your thoughts on Emily’s negotiation? Are you satisfied?”

Grandpa Vremya thought back to Emily’s performance. Although business and cultivation were entirely different things, it seemed like they were still run on the same principles. The domineering party gained the advantage. “She did a good job.” Although Grandpa Vremya was too lazy to calculate all the benefits, he could tell Emily did a superb job through her opponent’s defeated expression.

“I just thought of something,” Azalea said, her eyes lighting up. “Wouldn’t that negotiation have been a good chance for you to show a domineering side? If you had done the negotiations instead of Emily, your nascent soul would’ve gotten plenty of experience, right? Why didn’t you negotiate for your own benefits?”

“I could’ve,” Grandpa Vremya said. “And I’m sure I would’ve done an even better job than Emily if I did.” He stroked his beard. “However, what kind of message would that send? The president of the federation sent a mortal to do business with me. If I were to personally handle a mortal, wouldn’t that mean the president is above me, that I am only qualified to deal with his subordinate? If someone thinks I have no one capable under me, they’ll look down on me, and that is unacceptable.”

“There are a lot of rules in that head of yours, aren’t there?” Azalea asked before shaking her head. “Alright, head honcho, what are your next orders for this subordinate of yours?”

Grandpa Vremya glared at Azalea. “You’re not my subordinate.”