Chapter 228: Prideful Bones

The Ten Thousand Swords Mountain was located near the south of Long Sang Country, where Liaoye Country and Empty Mountain intersected.

The Ten Thousand Swords Mountain was quite vast. Most of it was within the borders of Long Sang Country, but there was a small bit of it that extended into Liaoye Country and Empty Mountain. It was a natural wall separating the three countries. Because the mountain contained many peaks, each of them tall and pointy like the tips of swords, it had been named the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain.

Lin Chenyuan never could have expected that Su Chen would actually ask for the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain.

Upon hearing Su Chen’s request, Lin Chenyuan was dazed.

Was the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain valuable?

Of course it was valuable. It was quite a vast region.

Was the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain not valuable? It really wasn’t that valuable.

Even though the territory was large, the resources there were only average, and even fewer citizens lived there. Most of the lifeforms present were Demonic Beasts. If you were to round up all these Demonic Beasts, they would be somewhat valuable, but the amount of energy that would be necessary to do so was absolutely not worth it from a business standpoint!

However, Su Chen had somehow set his sights on this piece of land.

What did he want this piece of land for?

Lin Chenyuan couldn’t figure it out.

The problem with the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain was not one of how much it was worth but of authority.

Su Chen wanted this mountain range basically to turn it into his own territory, his own place!

A personal territory!

This was a much more serious problem.

After all, this mountainous region was very large. No matter how barren it was, it was still thousands of square kilometers in size. No matter how difficult it was to develop that region, it was still Long Sang Country territory. No Bloodline Nobility Clan possessed such a vast amount of territory.

If a person was ambitious enough, this mountainous region would have been more than enough to start a small country with.

Why would Su Chen want a place like that?

Su Chen answered directly, “I want to start and establish my sect so that I can start passing down my cultivation techniques!”

Lin Chenyuan immediately remembered the words Su Chen had just spoken. He somewhat understood and said, “You want to establish a sect there so that you can begin accepting disciples?”

“Yes, that’s right!”

Lin Chenyuan let out a sigh upon understanding Su Chen’s intentions.

You couldn’t blame Lin Chenyuan for being simple in his thought process.

The Seven Kingdoms had various sects scattered throughout, but under the current bloodline system, these sects had very little to inherit. Most sects just hung around the marketplace like gangs. Occasionally, there would be a few that were established in the wilderness, but no one ever seemed to show any interest in them.

Under such circumstances, it was no surprise that everyone looked down on the importance of sects.

This was like starting a new business. The well-established businesses would not believe that this new business would have any effect on the market. Before large beasts had gotten to their current size, no one would have paid them any attention before they bared their fangs.

Su Chen wanted to start a sect in the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain Range?

That was acceptable.

It was just that he had asked for a bit too much space. However, given the contributions Su Chen had made so far, and with Lin Chenyuan’s support, the Emperor would definitely agree to such a request.

The most important factor was that this was directly related to the “method of inheritance” that he had just gotten Su Chen to agree to. Even those large Bloodline Nobility Clans probably would have agreed. Otherwise, if they didn’t agree, wouldn’t they be basically forcing Su Chen to continue to publish any future breakthroughs he made on the Dreamrealm?

Since Su Chen had already built the stairs for them, they had no option but to go down those stairs. At the very least, Lin Chenyuan understood this principle.

“I will definitely give you my full support in this matter, but the problem is that the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain is partly located in between Liaoye Country and Empty Mountain......”

“I want all of it!” Su Chen didn’t hesitate.

If he didn’t make it a bit difficult for them, they might believe that he was easy to dismiss.

Because of the presence of external enemies, the Seven Kingdoms were on somewhat peaceful terms. It wasn’t impossible for them to discuss the matter of the Ten Thousand Swords Mountain. After all, there was no concept of “not backing down an inch” yet. Exchanging a piece of desolate territory for the support of powerful Bloodline Nobility Clans was quite a common occurrence. Otherwise, where could the feudal system have come from? This world did not yet have an official process for dividing land for nobles, but under circumstances where they didn’t have complete control, handing out some unimportant territory to the nobles for them to use was not a problem.

Of course, this was not a problem for the country. However, Su Chen’s decision to do it on his own made it a much bigger problem.

Regardless, the difficult problem had already been posed. All that remained was to see how Lin Chenyuan would resolve it.

That evening, Lin Chenyuan prepared an abundant feast for Su Chen. Of course, a few important individuals had also been invited.

“Sir Su, this is the Head Minister of Public Works, Guo Siyang.”

An ancient, grizzled man walked over as Lin Chenyuan introduced him.

Lin Chenyuan was the host, and Su Chen was the main guest. As such, Lin Chenyuan personally accompanied Su Chen and introduced him to everyone one by one.

“Greetings, Minister of Public Works Guo,” Su Chen politely bowed and said.

The old man in front of him was one of the nobles that had formerly advocated strongly for dealing with Su Chen, and he had been responsible for putting pressure on Lin Wenjun. Now, however, he had appeared here.

Indeed, Su Chen’s obvious alliance had caused some shifts in the domestic situation at home. Some of the people who had lost hope in Lin Wenjun had begun to shift their allegiances.

Of course, it was still too early to say that they supported Lin Wenjun at this moment. That would depend on what happened next.

Guo Siyang wore a benevolent expression. “Prince Su is quite a young hero. You intelligently saved the Heavenly Might Battalion, and you also developed the Hemolytic Totem and a bunch of other remarkable cultivation techniques. I am very impressed with your talent.”

Su Chen said, “I am unaware of how high the heavens are or how deep the earth is. I just tinkered with them as I pleased, incurring your ridicule.”

Guo Siyang squinted his eyes and said, “If you were able to develop these things just by tinkering with them, then your talent is worthy of respect even if you are a bit inexperienced. However, you are still young, so lacking a bit of foresight in this regard is to be expected.”

Su Chen said, “Please, Head Minister of Works, I am willing to listen to your instruction.”

Guo Siyang said, “You can’t really call this instruction. However, having served society for so many years, I have some experience with these things. Do you know what the most important thing is in this world?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s social order!” Guo Siyang said. “Nature worships order. The reason we humans are human is because we have social rules that we follow and laws that we rely on to maintain this order.”

Su Chen listened very intently.

Guo Siyang continued, “However, there is so much going on that there will always be disputes. How do you preserve order? This necessitates social class. One group must rule, one group must execute these orders, and one group must accept this rule. Only this kind of a distribution and level can preserve this natural order.”

Su Chen somewhat understood. “So how do you divide these groups? Of course it’s with bloodline restrictions.”

Guo Siyang chuckled. “See? You understand. A bloodline-less cultivation techniques allows anyone to cultivate. It seems very generous, but it actually turns things topsy-turvy. People lose respect for status, causing chaos between the social tiers and making it so that people can offend their superiors at any point in time. Without this order, our country will in fact not be a country.”

Guo Siyang’s thought process was actually very simple and traditional. He believed that, if these cultivation techniques were to become universal, it would definitely disrupt the social order. However, he was not talking specifically about the Bloodline Nobility Clans but the country as a whole. He viewed it from the perspective of someone in power, and believed that this would create chaos within the country and damage the solidity of their rule.

In that sense, he wasn’t wrong.

For instance, now that Danba had obtained the Ravager cultivation technique, he possessed the ability to challenge the Inferno Tribe. In the same way, humans who were once considered low status would gain the right to challenge the current rulers via the use of this cultivation techniques. It was impossible to avoid a period of chaos. Apparently, there were already many disruptions that had occurred throughout human territory, a few of them started by people who had studied Su Chen’s cultivation techniques. Thankfully, up until this point he had only managed to develop a technique that could bring others to the Yang Opening Realm, which was still relatively low in status. It didn’t really affect the big Bloodline Nobility Clans much, but the signs of a rebellion were already present.

There at least needed to be a somewhat reasonable excuse for attempting to stop this new development.

Just as automation would cause some workers to lose their jobs, new cultivation techniques would disrupt the current social order. It wasn’t all good; obviously, even excellent inventions could create some negative outcomes.

The bloodline-less cultivation techniques were no exception.

Everything Guo Siyang had mentioned were all side effects that would really happen.

You could say that the Bloodline Nobility Clans were merely trying to find an excuse or that he really lacked a long-term view, but at this moment his words were filled with a conviction that his words were righteous and just.

This was the quality that every important individual should possess - regardless of whether you actually were concerned for the fate of the country’s commoners, you at least needed to act like you were.

If Su Chen was still the impulsive kid from twenty years ago, he probably would have tried to argue with Guo Siyang a bit, explaining that developing these bloodline-less techniques would be incredibly important for the future of humanity.

However, he was not.

He was very clear that there was nothing to be gained from arguing with people like this.

Whether they really understood or not, it was impossible to convince people like this with reason alone.

You can never wake up a person who is pretending to be asleep.

As such, Su Chen made no attempt to explain himself. He just nodded and pretended to agree.

Guo Siyang chuckled as he stroked his beard when he saw Su Chen act like this. He was very pleased with Su Chen’s “teachableness”.

Others also wandered over and offered their flattery and congratulations.

Su Chen discovered that building up relationships with important individuals was actually very simple.

You just had to nod your head and say, “Yes, I agree” no matter what it was that they said.

Su Chen was a good listener and was incredibly patient. As such, he was able to behave himself appropriately while still achieving what he was after.

As long as he wasn’t impulsive, it was very easy for him to mingle with them.

Of course, this only seemed very easy to Su Chen. To other people, possessing this much self control, being self confident without being conceited, or possessing talent without feeling the need to show off, was incredibly difficult, not to mention the other rare qualities that Su Chen possessed.

In any case, this was a very successful banquet. Su Chen was able to very easily mingle with this group of nobles.

It could only be said that, when he opened a window to the world, the world opened a door up to him.

That evening, news of this banquet had spread to the Flowing Gold Fort.

Lin Wenjun trembled with rage as he stared at the report.

“Bastard! How could this be? Su Chen agreed to, he agreed to not distribute any techniques through the Dreamrealm, instead relying on inheritance to pass them down. Why? Why would he refuse to open a dialogue with me? I went to such great lengths to put pressure on him, but he actually......”

Qiu Qingzhi sighed. “This person is far more stubborn than we anticipated. Even though he has no arrogance, his pride runs as deep as his bones!”

Su Chen did not try to arrogantly dispute Guo Siyang’s nonsense. However, he refused to back down even an inch despite Lin Wenjun’s attempts to put pressure on him every step of the way.

He had the ability to maintain his silence, but there was no way he would ever bow his head to his enemies or let someone harm his Instructor or the thousands of soldiers that were part of the Heavenly Might Battalion.

Such were his prideful bones.

Lin Wenjun’s mistake was that he had treated Su Chen as an enemy from the very beginning. If he had changed tactics earlier, the situation might not have turned out the way it did.

Unfortunately, it was too late for him to do anything about it now.