A World Worth Protecting

Within the past two weeks, besides the three autonomous zones, the construction of the remaining city had gone on as per usual. However, everyone had their eyes on the battle between the autonomous zones and Wang Baole. As a result, no one noticed the strange new face in the new city.

Of course, even if there had been no such fight, this additional presence wouldn’t have been discovered. After all, while there hadn’t been a mass influx of new residents to the city, the current city population had already exceeded two hundred million people.

One person to such a vast city was akin to a grain of sand to a vast desert.

That was especially so when this person was adept at disguising his looks and concealing his presence. Perhaps… his cultivation was of such a high and unfathomable level, resulting in his presence not being easily detected.

At present, in the new city zone under Jin Duoming’s charge, within one of its alleys, there was a young cultivator dressed in blue robes conversing happily with someone he had just gotten to know but had nevertheless become good friends with.

“Brother Jiang, the person you’re talking about, is it our City Lord Wang? He’s an important figure. He’s really amazing!” The cultivator beside the blue-robed young man seemed to have drank quite a bit of wine. The man next to him said something. He laughed and replied.

“City Lord Wang graduated from the Ethereal Dao College, one of the four Dao Colleges. He progressed up the ranks swiftly. He is the true nobody who ascended up the ranks, step by step, to reach where he is today!”

The blue-robed young man smiled and nodded as he listened to the other speak. He didn’t say much himself. They walked further and further away into the distance. His partner didn’t realize that there was a fire burning deep inside the blue-robed man’s eyes. It was like the Dark Fire, burning strong without signs of extinguishing.

His partner also didn’t know that this young man in blue robes whom he had just befriended wasn’t someone from the new city. What he was seeing wasn’t the latter’s true form.

Perhaps, what he should really look like, was a figure covered in black robes, from head to toe…

They walked further into the distance. An hour passed. Suddenly… a black figure dashed from afar into this quiet alley. It revealed itself as it neared. It was the donkey!

Nobody in the city had noticed the strangeness of this blue-robed young man, but the faint scent that it exuded didn’t escape the donkey, whose obsession with food had reached perverse extremes.

From the initial construction of the new city zone to its current transformation into a new city, the donkey had been seemingly wandering around, leaving behind random and indiscernible tracks. In fact, it had been searching for the food that it had eaten previously and couldn’t get out of its mind.

But the food was cunning. The donkey had been searching for it for a very long time but hadn’t been able to find it. It didn’t give up though. It continued to persevere. Finally, today, it caught a scent similar to that of the food. It was slightly different, but seemed to originate from the same source!

It had raced over excitedly. It sniffed around in the alley, seemingly surprised and confused as to why the scents were similar and yet different. It didn’t think too much about it though. It swallowed visibly and, with eyes shining, it continued searching…

The donkey wanted the food all to itself. It wasn’t going to let Wang Baole know about its discovery, not that Wang Baole had time to waste on the donkey anyways.

From the way Wang Baole saw it, it was good that the donkey was out and about. At least it was taking care of its own meals. Else, if it had stuck religiously to his side, the thought of its bottomless pit of a stomach and how it never seemed satisfied after a meal might drive Wang Baole into slaughtering it once and for all.

As a result, he only checked up on the donkey’s condition daily to ensure that its life signs remained stable. Besides that, Wang Baole didn’t pay it much attention. He would then leave his office and return to his residence.

Wang Baole seldom visited his new residence in the new city since he had an entire office building to himself. Be it seclusion or refining Dharmic Artifacts—he had a designated space for it. There were also numerous cultivators and employees from various departments in the building, as well as more female cultivators than male cultivators, which made it very pleasing to the eye.

However, Wang Baole finally felt slightly inappropriate for staying such a length of time in the office. Especially when it came to studying Dharmic Armaments and their refinement—if something were to happen and resulted in a building collapse, it would adversely affect others.

After some consideration, Wang Baole decided to continue his study of Dharmic Armaments at his own residence. His residence had been constructed and allocated alongside the other buildings in the new city, and it wasn’t far from his office building. It was located in an isolated area that was heavily guarded to ensure the safety of the residents.

He wasn’t the only resident in the area. It had been divided up into lots for ten separate residences.

Besides him, those who were eligible to stay there were the other mayors as well as Deputy City Lord Li Wan’er. However, like him, the rest seldom stayed here.

At present, Wang Baole returned to his residence. He activated the array formation to isolate the area from external disturbances and interruptions and began his daily training. Through his daily training and the augmentation from the Dark Qi, his cultivation had advanced rapidly. Within a brief span of time, he had reached the peak of the late-stage Foundation Establishment realm and wasn’t far from the perfected stage.

His rate of progress made Wang Baole immensely happy. He felt that reaching the Core Formation realm within three years wasn’t an impossible goal. Once he reached the Core Formation realm, even should there be something wrong with his Military Warrant, he would have a sufficiently strong cultivation to protect himself while he advanced further in his career!

Core Formation realm cultivator and Dharmic Armament master—if I possess both criteria… I can even try to fight for a Primary Rank Two Noble! Wang Baole raised his head proudly. He could sense that he was inching closer to his goal of becoming the Federation President. If he could just work slightly harder, it would be within reach.

Federation President! The thought of that title excited Wang Baole. He took some time to calm himself down and continue his training. It went on for a few days before he finally ended his meditation and began his study on Dharmic Armaments.

With regard to the Spirit Integration and Heavenly Evocation required for a Dharmic Armament, Wang Baole thought the former an easier step to address. The important step was the latter. However, he still had no idea how to go about doing it after studying it for so long. He didn’t lose patience though. He knew that many challenges existed in the refinement of Dharmic Armaments. He just had to go through them one at a time.

Wang Baole continued his seclusion. Besides the donkey, the rest of the new city carried on with life as usual. The construction of the autonomous zones picked up pace. The new city’s look changed from day to day. It began to resemble a great capital city as construction continued and improvements were made to perfect the design.

During this period, the donkey was busy searching through the entire new city. Its obsession with food made it forget exhaustion. It even resorted to staking out certain areas a couple of times. There were even a few times it narrowly missed its target, but that didn’t lessen its enthusiasm.

There was another person in the new city who had first been relieved, then had slowly grown mad, and finally ended up gnashing his teeth.

This person was Wen Huai… the cause of his gnashing of teeth was Liu Daobin. He could do nothing to Liu Daobin, as he had been sent by Wang Baole to keep an eye on him. Liu Daobin was good at his job. He immediately took over the disciplinary aspects of the zone, and he was experienced and familiar with his work.

Wen Huai was beginning to suspect that Liu Daobin had been in this line of work since he was a young boy. He wasn’t wrong. Since Liu Daobin had entered college, he had been in this business, working for Wang Baole. He had been doing this while Wang Baole had been around. After Wang Baole left, he had continued with his work. He was the master of this trade.

Under the masterful supervisor Liu Daobin’s watchful eyes, everyone in Wen Huai’s new zone was in danger. There were even signs of Wen Huai being overthrown and replaced. There had been times when Wen Huai had been simmering with frustration, with no outlet for his venting. He had almost imploded then.

He wasn’t the only one in this state. Similar troubles faced Fang Jing and Chen Mu in their respective autonomous zones. They didn’t have it as bad as Wen Huai, though, as not everyone had the same kind of expertise as Liu Daobin.

Wen Huai and Fang Jing were reminded of how difficult Wang Baole could be and chose to swallow their frustrations. Chen Mu, on the other hand, couldn’t take it lying down. He felt resentful towards Wang Baole. At the same time, he was also deeply displeased with his fiancee, Li Wan’er.

He couldn’t help but think about the legendary dubious recording of the two. If it had been in the past, he might have been able to set the matter aside and not think too much about it. However, at present, simmering with resentment and aggrievement, his thoughts began to linger on the matter. He grew increasingly uncomfortable with the thing and decided to contact Zhuo Yixian again and ask for the video.

“Zhuo Yixian, I know you have a younger brother called Zhuo Yifan. He’s a War Soldier your family has been grooming for you. You need to subdue him. I heard he’s recently gone slightly out of control…”

“I can help you with your problem. What you need to do is to hand over that video in its entirety to me!”