Book 4, Chapter 262: Keep Moving Forward, There Will Always Be A Path For You

That night, Chen Chuan’s family enjoyed their first dinner in Central City in his manor.

Yu Wan and Nian Fuli were watching the news and various TV shows on the screen beside the dining table. They found this a novel experience, since they hadn’t seen it while they were in Shannan Road’s Central City.

With this, they could receive all sorts of news from Central City and beyond without even leaving the manor.

Yu Wan touched the Realm Pass Chen Chuan gave her and asked, “Can I use this to contact your eldest aunt, Chan’er?”

“Not yet. The Central Cities aren’t connected,” Chen Chuan said.

Nian Qian then added, “The Central Cities are like isolated islands of communication right now. They can’t communicate with each other.”

“They surround themselves with a fence and focus on living their own lives, huh?” Nian Fuli mused out loud.

“Exactly, Uncle. That’s how all the Central Cities are right now, but the central government is trying to change the situation. It’s difficult to carry this out, but they’re pushing it forward regardless. There might come a day when Shannan Road and Jibei Road’s communication network is connected,” Chen Chuan said.

“I was just asking. If I can’t use the Realm Pass, I can still call her using the phone,” Yu Wan said.

There wasn’t a direct telephone line connecting Yangzhi City to Shannan Road, so she could only send a telegram during the New Year. In Jibei Road’s Central City, she could call her sister, though only citizens had the right to do so. The fees were also astronomical, so regular citizens couldn’t afford it.

The companies preferred to use telegrams rather than telephones to pass information too, because the government and some covert departments could blatantly listen in on their calls. Of course, Chen Chuan was the director of the Defense Bureau and a martial arts master, so no one would dare to listen to his calls.

After dinner, Nian Fuli and Yu Wan took Nian Mo and Nian Lu out for a walk. Meanwhile, Chen Chuan called Cao Guiqi.

Due to Cao Guiqi’s identity, Chen Chuan couldn’t go to Motie Mountain as a martial arts master. A visit from him would provoke a strong reaction in a lot of people, and it would be far too easy for major trouble to come knocking at Cao Guiqi’s door.

It wasn’t just the people who were wary of the former royal family that could cause trouble. The ones with unrealistic plans might also start getting ideas. While it wouldn’t affect him, Cao Guiqi’s peace might be ruined forever, so he could only call him on the phone for a few minutes.

This time, he was just calling to tell Cao Guiqi that he was back in Central City.

After the conversation, he put down the phone. There was a file about Cao Guiqi in the Defense Bureau, but it wasn’t because they treated him as an enemy. The Department of Administrative Affairs wasn’t worried about Cao Guiqi, or the Resolution Department wouldn’t have asked him to teach Chen Chuan.

They were mainly wary about those who wanted to form ties with him and push him to represent them. They were the people that the Resolution Department was paying attention to.

Until they got rid of the former royal army, Cao Guiqi was going to be forced to keep living as a semi-recluse. For the time being, they couldn’t do anything to change it.

Chen Chuan went back upstairs and read the news and some reports for a while before going to the underground training floor.

On the second day, he went out to Grand Prosperity Finance and picked up the things that Qi Huishi had sent him from Haixi Road. When he returned to the manor, he opened the package and found that most of it was filled with ingredients.

There was something quite special among them. It was the mutated tissue of a merged space creature. After checking it with his Realm Pass, he learned that it was from the brain of some raptor.

Eating it would boost his mental energy, so it was valuable stuff.

Qi Huishi took the path of the human form. Those who walked this path needed to maintain a balance between their minds and bodies. However, during training, it was inevitable for one side to overpower the other, so they needed to think of ways to make up for the side that was lacking. Using medicines and mutated tissue from certain parts of the body of merged space creatures was the easiest method. Qi Huishi had prepared it for himself, but he gave it away.

Chen Chuan was certain, though, that he must have found ways to replace what he lost. Otherwise, he wasn’t going to help his allies in similar cases. The ones behind him should know this, so he shouldn’t have suffered too big of a loss.

These ingredients, coupled with the ingredients from Shannan Road’s Department of Administrative Affairs and those from Enclosed Shore amounted to quite the impressive pile of ingredients and nutritional fluid.

That wasn’t all.

Gao Ming had come back to Central City two days before he did and sent him a message that the municipal government had agreed to supply him with the ingredients he requested. They were going to hand them over tomorrow.

This meant he had an abundance of ingredients, nutritional fluid, and medicine. He could start using them without fear of running out.

Once he was done making arrangements for certain duties, he could throw himself into his training.

Reaching the Longevity Stage was his current goal. Once he reached it, his body wouldn’t regress without medicine or food, and he could maintain his condition at its peak at all times. However, reaching the Longevity Stage required mastering the Fist of the Vast Sky, the Blinding Blaze, and the Furnace of Heaven and Earth.

At noon, he went to the Defense Bureau, summoned the deputy directors, and had a short meeting with them. It was mainly to take care of all the tasks that had piled up during his holiday.

He also sent Enclosed Shore a telegram to follow up on their situation, and they sent a reply right away. They had started the extraction of the artifact in February. Based on current progress, they believed that they would need around a hundred days to complete the process, but in case it was going to end sooner, they were going to submit a progress report every ten days.

When he came back in the evening, Nian Fuli and Yu Wan came up to him and said that they had decided to let Nian Mo and Nian Lu study at home during their first year in Central City. Once they got used to life here, they would send the children to school.

Chen Chuan was okay with that. He looked at the living room and found his two younger cousins playing catch with Dawncall with their White Furballs. They were cheering in joy. The past month might have been the happiest of their lives, since they could play every day.

Soon, they would have much less time to do that and would spend every day under their parents and teacher’s watchful eyes.

Nian Qian cackled at their future misfortune. He could already imagine his siblings pouting while studying. Just then, he thought of something and asked, “Do you think Xiao Mo and Xiao Lu can become martial artists, Xiao Chuan?”

“Xiaojing and Xiaohuan also asked me whether they could become martial artists while we were at Shannan Road,” Chen Chuan said with a smile.

“I think that Xiaohuan is a little too old to start, but Xiaojing is about the right age to start training. What do you think?” Nian Qian asked curiously.

“Xiaojing and Xiaohuan have a bit of talent, but not much. If they were to satisfy all conditions to become a good martial artist, they might have some hope to reach the Second Limit, but it’s practically impossible for them to reach the Third,” Chen Chuan commented.

“The Third Limit? That’s not easy. It’s only normal for them to not reach it.” Third Limit martial artists were absolute elites in the army. Nian Qian looked at Chen Chuan and thought, Obviously, you’re an exception.

He simply couldn’t imagine how his seemingly average cousin could become a martial arts master in such a short time.

But immediately after, he said, “Wait, where were we just now? What about Xiao Lu and Xiao Mo? Do they have no hope?”

“They’re not at the age to start training yet. Their bodies haven’t begun growing, so I can’t tell. But if I start giving them certain medicines now or expose them to a suitable degree of stimulation from corrupted substances, I could increase their potential to a certain degree.

“The key to this is piling resources into them. This is what some martial arts masters do to ensure their legacy continues. Even so, the person receiving the resources is the deciding factor in whether they can reach higher limits. Aside from talent, a martial artist’s drive and determination are the most important factors determining whether they can go far.

“If they have enough resources, work hard, and are motivated, they can absolutely turn the impossible into possible. If they don’t have motivation and refuse to train, then even if they have all the resources in the world, they won’t go far.”

His mother was the perfect example. She wasn’t especially talented, but from his inherited memories, he could tell that she had firm determination and motivation. After getting enough resources, she managed to reach the Third Limit before going missing.

She was no longer young, but she still didn’t give up. She continued pushing forward, and that determination affected her mutated tissue. It pushed toward a higher limit.

Chen Chuan went to the side to pour some water for himself before saying, “Honestly, if you want to possess a certain degree of power, you don’t have to become a martial artist. As technology continues improving, implants will give normal people hope to become stronger too.”

“Using implants is indeed another way to get strength for normal people.” Nian Qian nodded as he remembered his comrades. Many of them only knew a bit of martial arts, but with the help of medicine and implants, they gained impressive fighting power. That was why if a person wasn’t especially talented, they didn’t have to walk down the path of a martial artist.

“As technology continues improving, perhaps fewer people will want to practice martial arts,” he lamented.

“Perhaps, but that’s not necessarily a good thing,” Chen Chuan commented. Martial arts led to the evolution of the self. The power a martial artist gained belonged entirely to themselves. Meanwhile, implants depended on an entire ecosystem. Without it, those with implants would immediately lose their fighting power.

Right now, they had martial arts to learn and get stronger. This path was still available to them, so those with talent could become successful on their own. If one day technology advanced to the point Nian Qian mentioned, most people at the bottom rung of society would end up relying on implants and wouldn’t be able to carve out their own paths.

Even after all this time, the people of the upper-class society continued to chase after certain things. The evidence for that was in his mother’s memories.

Suddenly, his Realm Pass rang, and he answered, “It’s tomorrow? Alright. Got it.”

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