ăAt 11:20 a.m., a warehouse belonging to United Might in Thin Street of Deep End District was attacked by violent armed criminals. Up to the time of reporting, there has been more than twenty casualties, five destroyed vehicles, and an undetermined financial loss.
ăMr. You Shan, security advisor of United Might, has stated that they will increase their level of security and will take rigorous measures to search for the mastermind. They will also ensure that United Mightâs businesses arenât affected.
ăThe Elephant Gang and Swordfish Gang of Glowing Dew District were involved in a large-scale conflict.
ăGuan Song, spokesperson of the City Patrol, has stated that they will arrest the armed criminals and bring them to justice as soon as possible. ă
While Chen Chuan was on his way back to his room, he heard various pieces of news on his Realm Pass. There was a close connection between all of them.
This should be Ferris Wheelâs revenge against United Might.
Right now, various parties had cast their eyes on Ferris Wheel, yet they still decided to take revenge on United Might? That was quite stupid of them.
But after some thinking, Chen Chuan realized that Ferris Wheel was forced to respond in such an extreme and unyielding manner because of external pressure.
After all, wild beasts were usually the strongest when they were injured and reacting to external threats.
United Might was much larger than Ferris Wheel, but they only had a branch company in Jibei Roadâs Central City, which meant that they didnât have a lot of manpower here. In contrast, Ferris Wheelâs headquarters were here, and it had the island nations behind it, so it could get reinforcements whenever it wanted.
The conflict between the two gangs in Glowing Dew District should also be connected to this, because Ferris Wheel supported the Swordfish Gang.
After the Elephant Gang was chased out of its territory, it had stayed in what was left of it and refused to leave. Yet now, they started a fight against the Swordfish Gang. They wouldnât have done that without support, and the organization helping them was highly likely to be United Might.
As Chen Chuan thought about it, he came to believe that the superficial reasons provided in the news werenât the only ones behind why the two companies had decided to duke it out so openly. There might be some major changes going on behind-the-scenes, which would be hard for Chen Chuan to learn about.
With a shake of his head, he cast those thoughts to the back of his mind. They werenât part of his worries. All he needed to do was to focus on his training right now.
Once he was back in his room, he fed Dawncall and put the medicinal incense sticks he just bought from the university on the table.
The medicine for the meditation method he learned from Xue Shou had an expiry date, so he needed to grab it every day. If he went to the merged space, he could get them in the forts, but once he went outside on missions for several days, he wouldnât be able to train. That was why Chen Chuanâs current goal was to quickly get through this phase of training.
He remembered the booklet Wen Tong had given him, but he had mentioned that Chen Chuan was only to read it when he figured out the path he wanted to take, so Chen Chuan decided to wait a little longer.
After taking a few tubes of nutritional paste, he changed into another set of clothes and sat down in the training room to begin his meditation training
When the medicinal incense sticks finished burning, Chen Chuan stood up and exercised his limbs for a while before drinking a cup of water. Then, he went to the center of the room.
âHongfu.â
A woman in red appeared in his training room.
âI need you to help me with external tempering,â he said.
Hongfu trained her eyes on him before nodding. Then, the scenery around them changed, and they appeared in a temple.
Incense smoke drifted upward from a bronze incense burner, and Chen Chuan could hear chanting. Behind the incense burner was a statue with a face he couldnât see. When he looked further up, he found that there wasnât just one statue. There was another one staring down at them from the clouds above; they were standing on the statueâs open palms.
Chen Chuan looked away, sucked in a deep breath, and sat down.
The moment he got into the right headspace, he felt a ball of red light infiltrating his mind. It was different from the sun-like light of Xue Shou. Hongfuâs light was akin to scorching fire that filled the sky, and it continued burning his mental gemstone as Chen Chuan defended it.
Hongfu adjusted the intensity of her attack based on Chen Chuanâs performance. It was always within what he could withstand. It was never more and never less.
Xue Shou had insisted that he was to never drain his mental foundation when he practiced external tempering, because it was built through multiple meditation sessions. Just like blood essence, his mental foundation could keep him alive in a fight. It also had further uses for the techniques he was going to learn later, so he should not waste it here.
After practicing external tempering, Chen Chuan proceeded with internal tempering. While he couldnât improve as quickly with it, he didnât use up much of his energy, and when both tempering methods were combined, the results he got were greater than those of the refinement methods of the past.
Chen Chuan had also asked Xue Shou something before he left.
It hadnât seemed like it was difficult for people in the past to find someone to help them with external tempering, so how did they find those partners?
Xue Shou had said that external tempering wasnât as easy as Chen Chuan thought it was, and not every person could use it. One had to know a complicated technique. They had only come up with it after their predecessors experimented and studied it through multiple generations and active biosentient entities performed multiple calculations to figure out the perfect formula.
There was also another reason behind why it wasnât widely used. It contained a certain degree of risk, since the slightest bit of carelessness could destroy the mind of the person trying to temper their mind. Because of it, only a handful of aristocrats in the old era had had the courage to try this method.
After Chen Chuan finished practicing internal tempering, he opened his eyes to a bright light. Then, he gave Hongfu a nod. âThank you.â
Hongfu bowed at him before disappearing with a flutter of her robes. The scenery around them also vanished.
Chen Chuan continued practicing internal tempering. While its effects werenât as obvious as those of external tempering, he could feel his mental energy increasing bit by bit and his mental gemstone getting sturdier and stronger little by little.
When he finished his training, two hours had passed.
He felt refreshed, but if he continued, the effects would dwindle, and he might even get tired, so he ended his refinement training session for the day.
Still, that didnât mean that he was going to stop. He needed to try the purification method Xue Shou had taught him.
After figuring out the basics of the method, he could perform it once every half a month. After that, no matter what method he used to polish his mind, he couldnât abandon using this method.
Chen Chuan brushed up on the important points of the method. When using the purification method, he had to forget his own existence for a while and clear the mind of the self. He could only let a few of his memories stay before slowly collecting what had spread out. All the extreme thoughts had to be abandoned. While they wouldnât disappear completely after this, they wouldnât occupy the forefront of his mind anymore.
After adjusting his body and composing his mind, he tried out the method.
***
Chen Chuan trained for a total of seven days in his room and only stopped before the second day off of the month.
By then, he could sense that he had improved greatly. While his physical body had only improved by a little after he began his journey to train his mind, his control over himself and his understanding toward various techniques had increased.
And he had only trained for half a month. This meant that he was only at the beginning stage of his mental training journey. As he continued getting stronger, his strength would improve by leaps and bounds.
Since it was a day off tomorrow, Chen Chuan relaxed in the evening and poured himself a hot drink. While playing some upbeat and rhythmic music, he started looking for new movies.
Soon after he started watching, Ni Qianqian called him. âOfficer Ni?â
âHave you read the news from the department lately?â Ni Qianqian asked.
âAre you talking about the fight between the two companies? I saw it,â Chen Chuan answered.
Chen Chuan had been paying attention to the events around him. The conflict between Ferris Wheel and United Might hadnât settled down. Instead, it was escalating.
âWe believe that Ferris Wheel has been deliberately fanning the flames to make things worse. They might be thinking about creating such a huge mess that the government will step forward and force the Resolution Department to do something. Then, theyâll make us compromise. Director Wu has already been summoned for several meetings.â
âWhat does the department intend to do about this?â Chen Chuan asked.
âHear this. Ferris Wheel âinvestigated themselvesâ and believe that an executive member of the company called the attacks on you for personal reasons. This person has been fired and has since committed suicide.
âTheyâre offering a compensation for you and the department. Theyâre going to pay a penalty and sign a guarantee that they wonât do it again. Theyâll even offer a public apology.
âThe higher-ups believe that the situation is still controllable, but if this continues, other companies will get dragged into the mess. So, theyâre thinking that itâs time for us to rein in the situation.
âBut they want to know what you think about this,â Ni Qianqian said.
âTheir plan is fine. Iâm okay with it,â Chen Chuan answered.
After talking with Gao Ming and Lei Guangcheng, he had come to realize that the situation was incredibly complicated. There were a lot of restrictions placed on him from various parties, but that didnât mean that he was going to give up on looking into this. He was simply not going to do anything for now and wait for an opportunity to strike.
This was just like facing a strong martial artist who couldnât be defeated in one strike. Chen Chuan had to be patient while fighting against them and slowly drain away their stamina before attacking after locating an opening.
âAlright. Iâll tell the department. Director Wu mentioned that this is the best outcome he managed to get for you, and heâll make sure that you get a good amount of compensation. By the way, you know the Cult Investigation Bureauâs Lei Guangcheng, right?â
âYeah.â Chen Chuan nodded.
âLei Guangcheng has stationed an investigation unit in Ferris Wheel, and theyâre not happy about it. They filed a complaint against the bureau and sent their legal team and PR team to lobby and put pressure on the government departments and politicians to get the investigation unit out of the company.â
Ni Qianqian scoffed at that. âBut thatâs useless. You know what the Cult Investigation Bureau said after they got the letter from the government asking them why they did that?
âItâs very simple. If there were nothing wrong with Ferris Wheel, why would they be worried about the bureau investigating them? Heh. Did the company really think that it could use such a stupid strategy everywhere?â
Chen Chuan nodded in approval at that. If the other governmental departments investigated Ferris Wheel, they could be stopped far too easily. The Resolution Department was one such example. They provided logistical support for the World Ring Defense System, and the municipal government paid for most of its daily operational costs.
The Resolution Department wasnât directly under the municipal government, but it couldnât run from being affected and controlled by it.
The Cult Investigation Bureau was different, though. It was relatively independent. The central government was the one funding them and managing their personnel.
This was due to the Great Shun Republicâs extreme wariness toward cults, since there was no sense arguing with the cultists.
Just then, Chen Chuan saw a connection request from Advisor Pei, and his heart skipped a beat. After apologizing to Ni Qianqian for cutting their conversation short, he ended the call and connected to Advisor Pei.
âCaptain Chen? Letâs meet up. Itâs about that,â Advisor Pei said.
Chen Chuan immediately understood what he meant. It was about time. âWhen?â
âNow. Iâm in front of the Arcane Palace.â
âIâll go down,â Chen Chuan said.