A month had passed since the Zhang Clan recaptured their old city. At the moment the clinic people were bowing to an old man that had a fu manchu mustache and beard. They were giving him their farewells as he was leaving the clinic and leaving it to a new physician instead. He had stayed in the city for a bit longer, making sure that the police station was up and working correctly.
He wasn’t sure if his people would be as lenient as he hoped them to be, so he made sure to stay and correct them during the judging processes as well. They weren’t perfect but it was in working condition, he would check up on them later but it looked like they were doing fine and sticking to the guidelines that he had written down.
Thanks to the changes in the city, the Zhang Clan mine enterprise had gotten quite a bit more workers and they were quite cheap. The, of course, were the incarcerated criminals, now wearing slave collars, some of them having their cultivation crippled or lowered. Matt made sure that the criminals actually earned their keep and not just lazed around in prisons bored out of their minds.
It was time to move on, he nodded at the workers and headed out his next stop would be the new Zhang Clan estate which was now occupied by Zhang Zhi the new city mayor who was also the police chief. His amazon wife had already moved here along with their child, he was just here to bid the two farewell.
“Zhang Zhi, I’ll be leaving this city to you, be sure not to destroy it too much like last time…”
He chuckled to himself, the samurai styled man blushed a bit as he recalled the day that he destroyed a couple of houses while chasing this Patriarch’s ‘Master’.
“Don’t worry about Master, you probably won’t see him again, he likes to keep to himself, so no need to feel down about it.”
He gave the man a reassuring pat on the shoulder and a Patriarch brand smile to go with it. A small energetic one-year-old was getting held up by a large lady, Matt just petted her head which made the toddler smile.
“Patriarch, you should go visit the old Matriarch once in a while, she used to talk quite about your time in the secret ground before I left the old Clan.”
Zhang Daiyu said while holding the child in her hands, she was previously a member of the Feng clan but in this world, women took on the names of the clan’s of their husbands.
“Oh yes, didn’t want to bother her too much, I bet she is busy cultivating and all…”
Matt gave out a weak laugh, not really knowing how to reply. He was somewhat interested in the Feng Clan Matriarch, but he didn’t really know how to court her. He had zero dating experience and the women in this world were far different than the ones back on Earth.
“Oh, think she should be attending the Dao Festival at Jade Grass city, they always host it every five years and all the clans attend it, you should go visit it, Patriarch.”
The woman gave Matt a little wink before heading out with her child, he soon bade both her and her husband farewell as he was ready to head out.
He already knew about the festival, but to be precise it was more of a tournament for the junior’s to attend to it was also quite a popular betting event. It was more or less a place to show the skills of the younger generation, the age cut of was at twenty-one. His two disciples were going to compete in it, along with some other young members that med it to the foundation establishment level.
You could compete at the age of sixteen, but no one was counting on you to win. Reaching the foundation establishment stage before the age of twenty was quite rare, but not that difficult if you had a clan backing you with cultivation resources. Zhang Dong gave the two the okay to take part in the tournament, but he would probably miss it as he wanted to finally upgrade himself to the nascent soul level.
He counted the resources he had and came to the conclusion that after absorbing all of those spirit stones, he would probably need to wait a couple of days. After that, the system would give him enough passive points from the clan building section. He didn’t really want to go there and be stuck in some foreign town, this was quite the serious jump in power which needed to be done in secret.
He knew that the Dark Palm Sect goons would be knocking on his door if they found out. He had just the spot to level up though, it was in the medallion treasure that blocked out any energies from sipping out of it. He could upgrade himself in there, then train some nascent soul techniques.
‘I’ll probably be able to craft a Heaven grade weapon after I jump that realm’
To make a heaven grade weapon you needed a couple of things, first were the materials that were very hard to come by as those sects liked to buy or steal them off everyone. The other thing was that it was extremely hard to produce a weapon of a higher realm than at what the blacksmith was at. It would be possible with some external help or some specialized treasures that fed the crafter spiritual energy, that was required to produce a higher-tiered item.
So you would need like a team of core formation experts providing spiritual energy to the master blacksmith that was forging the weapon, or substitute it with some item that gave that crafter the required Qi energy for the crafting process.
Also, heaven grade items were a lot harder to process for a weaker cultivator, took quite a bit of time to hammer that special spirit ingot into shape. It was even harder if you didn’t have a hammer that was also in the heaven grade, thus it was much easier to try it after reaching the nascent soul realm.
Matt headed out, his flying sword was upgraded to a perfect graded earth treasure and with the boost in his cultivation, he could make the trip in under a day now. He could probably do it even faster if he actually pushed his cultivation to the limit, but he wasn’t that much in a hurry.
The people in the villages that saw him wooshing by just bowed out of respect, eyes wide open as the passing man produced shocking thunderous sounds. He made sure to fly high up in the sky, if he did it close to the ground he could do some damage to the fields and livestock.
He left Moonlight City early in the morning and arrived at Spirit Spring City early in the night, the familiar scenery filling his field of vision as he made his return.
‘Still quite the sight for sore eyes!’
He breathed in the Qi rich air, the many springs in the city were glowing with light along with all the lanterns. The place looked the best at night, the illumination made it look quite otherwordly. He slowed down his descent, taking in the sights no one stopping him, the guards just bowed and turned their heads and went back to work.
This city was his home and he was slowly treating it like that. The people also started growing on him, his old grandpa was quite the funny character even at this age he was sneaking out into the night trying to woo the young ladies that fell for his charade. He tried talking him out of it, but in return, he got bombarded with questions about his own relationship problem.
After he was settled in at his Patriarch position he was always bombarded by his Clan members with the question about getting married. His grandpa wanted an heir to the throne or something, he even got many marriage proposals from other Clans. His friend Huo Qiang was quite forceful, trying to push one of his sisters on him.
The only clan from the area that didn’t send any eloping requests was the Feng Clan, that was due to the fact that the person that was suited to marry him was the Matriarch herself. She blocked any schemes that her granny had about sending the letters, Feng Maling finally gave up on that notion and just tried to bring it up whenever she met anyone from the Zhang Clan that could pass the message on.
Matt was the type of person that the more you bothered him with something, the less he wanted to do it. So he locked himself up training his skills for the past year, trying to evade the looming danger of marriage and responsibilities.
He descended into the main hall, the spirit water gushing all around him and revitalizing his soul. He expected his two disciples to pop out and ask him some questions, the two buggers always kept nagging him for pointers and insights into their Dao. Now that he actually took the time to practice his techniques he was able to point the two in the right direction, that B+ potential wasn’t just for show as the two absorbed the knowledge like sponges. Luckily training and cultivation was a slow process, so he didn’t have to spend that much time with the two kids.
The one to greet him this time around was his cousin and the mother of his disciples.
“Greetings Patriarch, glad that you made it back, how was Moonlight City?”
They chatted for a while, he found out that he just missed them by a couple of hours the kids and other clan members headed to Jade Grass City for that festival thing.
“The two were quite saddened that you didn’t come with them, but don’t worry they know that their master is a busy man. Also, don’t worry, the spear arrived and Xue’er was quite happy with it.”
“Hah, well glad that they are keeping their noses out of trouble.”
Zhang Dong replied while talking to his family members, the woman was close to reaching the core formation level due to the betterment in the cultivation techniques and her latent talent.
“Can’t be helped, but I’ll give them a little surprise after they return, think that the festival will take a week or two, right?”
Zhang Jie nodded and wondered what this surprise would be, the two parted ways soon enough and Matt headed back to his room. He jumped into his cushy bed and looked up to the ceiling. His eyes on that status page as he was counting down the days till he hit that ten million.
He already had a couple of magic techniques that he wanted to learn, he already absorbed the knowledge thanks to his system but performing techniques meant for a nascent soul cultivator could harm a core formation practitioner so he couldn’t really train them just yet.
One of those skills was a giant sword formation, he would summon thousands of Qi blades that shredded into his opponent. The sword formation had some variations but was quite draining. There was one ability that let you summon a gigantic lightning bird, it looked like a phoenix only made from electricity.
The old techniques could also be upgraded and used, his Avatar Form would reach new heights and the condensation technique would probably allow him to momentarily fight even stronger foes. He just needed to wait a couple of days for his points to gather, he had already absorbed all the spirit stones and beast cores that he could and now it was time to wait. But not like he was in a rush, there wasn’t anything dire happening at the moment and the kids were out of the house so he had lots of time to train and get stronger.
“Soon…”