Book 4, Chapter 190: Welcome To All Wanting Profit

The masked people exchanged looks before another one stepped forward.

He appeared to be an elderly gentleman and spoke with a rasp typical of old people. “There is indeed a way to change or switch your perception, which involves some advanced secret mental techniques. Some rituals also allow you to do this, so there have been people who tried to make use of this loophole.

“But our ritual has been set since the days of the mega alliance. After years of refining the contract and filling out missing details, there aren’t that many loopholes that can be exploited anymore.

“Still, we don’t exclude exceptions. I’d be happy to see them show up on casual days, which would give us time to fix them instead of having to deal with them under threat.”

Chen Chuan could understand that. The elderly gentleman was basically saying that he could try looking for loopholes if he wanted. They even encouraged it. It was worth it to have someone break a rule so they could fix it before all the other martial arts masters could exploit it.

He could sense that these people were looking at it from the point of view of someone superior, but he had something even more dangerous on his mind. “What if someone used an existence from the other world to put a stop to the ritual?”

The elderly gentleman said, “They could do it, but it would require continuously feeding energy into it. However, the World Ring stands between our worlds. If an existence from the other world was willing to do this, it would have to drain its power to do it, and the martial arts master would usually leave traces of it. This makes it easy for us to find those who are in cahoots with existences from the other world.”

Usually.

This meant that there were ways to bypass the ritual. It wasn’t all that surprising. The existences from the other world had been fighting against them for a long time, so some of them should have knowledge about their world and be able to find loopholes.

Chen Chuan didn’t ask any further questions and simply said, “Those were all the questions I had. Thank you for the explanations.”

“You’re welcome.”

The elderly gentleman turned to step back, but after some thinking, he added, “I’ve heard that you know about rituals, Mr. Chen, so let me tell you something that you might figure out yourself sooner or later.”

Chen Chuan noticed that when he said this, the other masked people also turned to him. Clearly, whatever he was going to say was no simple matter.

The elderly gentleman said languidly, “All the contracts from Class One to Class Seven are rituals set up during the age of the mega alliance and are used internationally. The better the contract, the fewer restrictions you face, and the more benefits you receive.

“These benefits affect your training and the possibility of reaching a higher limit. Once a martial arts master gets a Class One contract, their benefits are immeasurable.”

Chen Chuan’s eyes flickered as he thought about it. He was able to tell just how strong the ritual was. If the changes in class could really bring about the benefits the elderly gentleman was hinting at and even help reach a higher limit, he was sure that the motivated martial arts masters would do everything that they could to get them. They would even willingly be restricted and try to protect the contract.

It seemed like the people who set up the rituals were far-sighted and didn’t try to tie martial arts masters down by force. Threat only led to problems in the long run, while if they gave certain benefits, many people would want to stay within the framework.

Why didn’t they announce it at the start, then?

He considered all the power gained and lost in the ritual. Perhaps maintaining the rituals required a lot of effort. This would mean that they might actually need a group of people who didn’t want to obey.

Of course, this was just something Chen Chuan gleaned from the hints. Advanced rituals like this should have incredibly complicated mechanisms at work beyond his understanding.

He gave the elderly gentleman a nod. “Thank you.”

The elderly gentleman nodded back and said nothing else. He returned to his previous spot.

Since they had finished talking, Can Miao said, “We have one more question for you, Mr. Chen. What are your thoughts about your current situation? Do you wish to be transferred out of Jibei Road, or do you want to continue staying here?

“As a Class Five contractee, the National Highest Security Advisory Board will consider your wishes based on current circumstances. We will submit your request to them.”

“I intend to stay in Jibei Road first,” Chen Chuan answered firmly.

Can Miao motioned for his assistant to record it before saying, “Then, this marks the end of our conversation here.”

He rose from his seat and extended a hand to Chen Chuan. “Thank you once again for being so cooperative, Mr. Chen.”

Chen Chuan shook his hand and asked, “Can I leave now?”

“Yes. You’re free to go now. Please don’t forget our contact ID. You can also call me directly if you want to,” Can Miao answered.

Chen Chuan nodded to him and the others, then picked up the contract on the table and left.

Can Miao felt that Chen Chuan was different from the others. They had signed plenty of contracts with martial arts masters before, and it was rare for them to go this smoothly. The expressions of most martial arts masters turned sour the moment they saw the many restrictions placed on them.

They usually ended up explaining the clauses one by one or dragging in the National Highest Security Advisory Board to finish the contract signing. Sometimes, though, even that wasn’t enough, and things ended up at a stalemate. In such situations, they had to get even stronger martial arts masters to force their target into compliance, and things usually ended up unsightly, which was unbeneficial for future communications.

Of course, some people weren’t actually against the contract and were just using the chance to show that they were tough and not to be trifled with so that the council would be wary of them in the future.

Chen Chuan didn’t do that, but it wasn’t because he didn’t have a temper or because he was weak. They could tell that he was strong based on his achievements and his actions in Central City over the past few days. Despite all that happened, he had remained calm, so Can Miao could only say that he had a completely different mindset from other people.

***

Once Chen Chuan left the building, he returned to his limousine and stared at the black dots on his purlicues for a bit. Then, his second self turned fainter. The restrictive feeling in his mind grew weaker, and the mental marks on his purlicues started fading away.

Once he stopped staring at them, the restrictive feeling returned, and so did the black dots.

This showed that his second self could even withstand the ritual.

However, his second self was weaker than his current self, so he couldn’t bear the ritual’s effects for too long. Not that it mattered much. It wasn’t as if he had any intention to break any rules for the time being.

His goal was to be free of all shackles, physical or mental. Before he achieved it, he would withstand all the necessary restraints.

Once he got back, he was going to bring his second self up to standard.

“Start driving, please,” he said to the driver.

The limousine drove out slowly from the parking lot and left Hacksaw Building.

***

The municipal government had been paying close attention to the building. Once they were sure that the National Martial Arts Council signed a contract with Chen Chuan, they finally sighed in relief.

As long as they didn’t target Chen Chuan, he should not attack them anymore because of the limitations placed on him by the contract.

Besides, now that they knew that Chen Chuan was a martial arts master, how could they possibly bother him?

But while they had solved this imminent crisis, they had a future worry.

The Department of Administrative Affairs had been passing all of their own proposed laws. Due to a lack of top fighting power on the municipal government’s side, they could only concede. Soon, this would end up restricting them on a foundational level.

If they broke any of the new laws, the Department of Administrative Affairs could legally use force on them, and the organizations would have a hard time finding excuses and reasons to interfere.

If that wasn’t enough, the moment Chen Chuan and Yao Zhiyi got orders from the department, they could attack the municipal government directly. So, the threat from martial arts masters did not go away fully.

Hence, they needed to complete the cultivation of their second active biosentient entity as soon as possible. Its embryo was already on the way and should arrive before the end of the year.

The embryo had cutting-edge biotechnology and had been cultivated in such a way that with enough resources, it could reach maturity within a couple years. Then, the municipal government would have two active biosentient entities and could relax a little.

It wasn’t going to be enough, though. Even with an equal amount of strength, they would not be free of worry. They had to bring in more external help, so they launched into another meeting.

Mr. Quan was incredibly collected throughout the entire thing. He knew that this wasn’t the time for him to panic. Their next course of action was Chen Chuan’s job arrangement.

If the leaders sent him away, it would relieve the pressure on them, while if he didn’t leave, the fusion faction would be the most unsatisfied with the situation.

***

At that moment, multiple videos were playing on a screen in a dim room.

Some of them were of Chen Chuan’s fight against Long Xiang, some of them were of the bullets hitting his biofield, and some others were of white smoke pouring from his body. All scenes were shown from multiple angles.

Guards stood in the corners of the room. A middle-aged, built man in sunglasses was staring at the screen while sitting on a sofa.

A graceful woman sashayed in and said, “The faction sent their review, boss. His foundation was incredibly solid before he reached the Fourth Limit, which was why he was able to defeat Long Xiang in a direct fight right after becoming a martial arts master.

“They didn’t use any weapons and were just sparring, though. Not counting their conversation, the fight lasted less than one minute, so the review states that Long Xiang might have held back.”

“Are you saying that Long Xiang wanted him to live? How does this benefit the refined training faction? I remember Lead Investigator Chen being focused on taking down Gray Shell Office. Isn’t that agency under the refined training faction?” the middle-aged man asked.

The graceful woman had purple eyeshadow and an extra pair of implanted eyes at her temples that turned to the man. “Perhaps he thought that Lead Investigator Chen could cause us trouble if left alive?”

The middle-aged man removed his sunglasses, which revealed that his eyes were gone. Instead of them, his eye sockets were full of roiling black smoke.

“He did the right thing, then. We can’t just ignore him. If he weren’t from the purity faction, we could have tolerated him, but he just had to join them. Now, we can’t let him live.

“We’ve been running Jibei Road for thirty years, and it has become one of our main operation sites. We can’t let anyone interfere with it.”

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