The fact that the imperial capital’s grand spell formation was powered up to its highest level of scanning right when Xu Qing came could either be a very big coincidence, or it was as the Captain had said, and it was all intentional.6

The reality was that the Captain was right. As Xu Qing and his group stopped outside of the grand spell formation, there were people inside the imperial capital who were chuckling coldly. And there were many organizations in the capital who were watching to see what would happen.0

To them, Xu Qing and these people from Sea-Sealing County were all strangers. Though they knew some of them had impressive backgrounds, all of their information came solely from intelligence reports. None had interacted with any of them personally. In the imperial capital, where relationships were extremely complicated, and it was always hard to tell what people were thinking, one had to be very careful around strangers.2

Therefore, most organizations in the capital wanted to just wait to see how things played out. They were more than happy to watch the results of other people meddling. That would also give them a good idea of how they should act in the future. After all, there was no black or white in this world. Alliances and loyalties. Profits and losses. Those were the things which drove action. Friendship and hatred were like masks...5