Chapter 159 Communication

Wanyan Shen's defense caused the anger of Mo Shouchen and Xiang Ming to subside slightly. Although the two elders knew that Wanyan Shen was exceptionally skilled at winning people's hearts, seeing him treat Chen Mu with such courtesy at this moment still brought a sense of triumphant pride to them. After all, they knew that with Chen Mu's talent, he was bound to become the disciple of Senior Huang Ru. Therefore, Wanyan Shen was considered perceptive and wise to think of getting on good terms with Chen Mu so quickly. Once Chen Mu grew and matured in the future, just borrowing his name would be enough to make their City Lord's Estate even more prosperous.

The tea party continued. After pacifying everyone, Wanyan Shen began to communicate and interact with the direct descendants of various prestigious noble families, essentially establishing good relationships with all of them.

During the conversations, Wanyan Shen introduced a request for an alliance in a very natural and unobtrusive manner. After befriending these young talents from prestigious families, his next step was to have these young geniuses put in a good word with their respective elders regarding taking a side in the City Lord election.

As long as seventy percent of the influential forces within the city chose to stand on his side, this first phase of preparation would be complete.

As for the second phase, it was to build momentum—building momentum for his campaign for the position of City Lord. Originally, many cultivators within the city already believed that Wanyan Shen would be the next City Lord.

If he could mobilize these people to further support him, it would also constitute a considerable bargaining chip.

Actually, Wanyan Shen still had many backup plans, but these were minor moves not worth mentioning. However, today he had encountered an even more brilliant and formidable chess move, and that was the appearance of Chen Mu.

As long as he maintained a good relationship with Chen Mu on this matter and eventually pulled Chen Mu into his faction, then even if his own father disagreed with him becoming the City Lord, he would have to yield out of respect for Senior Huang Ru.

After all, if he could establish a good relationship with Senior Huang Ru, then upon taking office as the head of the City Lord's Estate, he could leverage Senior Huang Ru's reputation to stabilize the turbulence of the mayoral succession. Even after ascending to the position of City Lord, he figured that Vice City Lord Huo Tianshu would not easily let the matter rest. As for Yang Jue, he did not care about him, and Fu Wenxin was a prideful and aloof person who likely wouldn't engage in such a stubborn, sore-loser behavior, or so Wanyan Shen thought.

Wanyan Shen also seized the opportunity to chat casually with Chen Mu and the two elders, Mo and Xiang. Previously, he hadn't sought them out because the three individuals from the Minghuan Chamber of Commerce had projected an unapproachable demeanor that made conversation impossible. However, because of Wanyan Shen's earlier defense of Chen Mu, the two elders of the Minghuan Chamber of Commerce were in a much better mood and thus began chatting with him. As for Yao Juanjuan, she was directly ignored by Wanyan Shen.

Wanyan Shen also probed Chen Mu indirectly, trying to find out his background and origins. After all, how could such a genius character possibly be a mere rogue cultivator? What frustrated him, however, was that he failed to glean any useful information regarding Chen Mu.

Due to Wanyan Shen's enthusiasm and his innate affable temperament, Chen Mu truly could not find any fault with him. Even though he had some suspicions about whether Wanyan Shen harbored any ulterior motives, the lack of evidence made it inappropriate to display unwarranted hostility.

Moreover, Wanyan Shen genuinely managed to evoke some goodwill from Chen Mu. This was the true terrifying aspect of Wanyan Shen; relying on his affable and gentle demeanor, no matter what schemes he harbored, one could detect no malice in him.

However, Chen Mu did not immediately forge a deep friendship with Wanyan Shen either. He merely put up a friendly facade on the surface while remaining constantly vigilant underneath.

Because he always felt that something was amiss, though he could not quite put his finger on it. This intuition of Chen Mu's had helped him survive dangerous situations on several occasions. Although this time might not necessarily be dangerous, he always felt that Wanyan Shen was playing a game of chess, and a very large one at that.

If he were to get entangled in this chess game, he would likely come into conflict with formidable figures, so he preferred to stay out of it.

Nevertheless, it would not do to turn Wanyan Shen into an enemy either. Therefore, he simply responded to Wanyan Shen with a surface-level, friendly agreement, letting the latter believe that a good relationship had already been established between them.

While chatting, Chen Mu ate the spiritual fruits. These fruits were truly exceptional. Chen Mu was not eating them simply out of gluttony; rather, these fruits had the effect of increasing cultivation speed and accelerating the absorption of primordial energy.

Furthermore, they contained a massive amount of primordial essence. Absorbing them could enhance one's strength quite a bit. In the time he had been inside eating until now, his strength had indeed improved slightly, and he could faintly sense the threshold of the mid-stage Primordial Core realm.

However, because it was still too early for him to breakthrough and his foundation was not yet solid enough, he needed to temper his realm to the absolute limit before making the breakthrough. Therefore, he wanted to eat more spiritual fruits to absorb the pure primordial energy within them, allowing it to transform and enter his dantian to be absorbed by the purple-gold primordial core. In this way, the primordial core, still in its early stage, could further strengthen and grow, waiting for the opportune moment to step into the mid-stage.

Just at that moment, several young geniuses stepped forward and entered the circle where Wanyan Shen and Chen Mu were conversing, causing Wanyan Shen to furrow his brow slightly.

Noticing the slight displeasure on Wanyan Shen's face and fearing they might be mistaken for troublemakers, the young geniuses hurriedly explained, "Young Master Wanyan, please do not misunderstand. The few of us have come to exchange cultivation insights with Young Master Chen Mu to mutually verify our paths of cultivation. We harbor absolutely no intention of stirring up trouble."

Hearing this, Wanyan Shen's expression returned to calm. He then smiled and said, "Since you are here to exchange cultivation insights, you might as well all join in. After all, Brother Chen Mu's realm and alchemy attainments are truly extraordinary; no doubt he possesses a unique set of insights."

Hearing this, everyone felt a stirring of interest. Those who had dared not approach before now walked over completely. They also wished to listen to the cultivation experiences of Wanyan Shen, Mo Shouchen, Xiang Ming, and those Primordial Infant realm experts. They also wanted to cross-reference Chen Mu's experiences with their own, especially since Chen Mu's realm was visibly rock-solid, and even the direct descendant genius of the Luo family had been defeated by his hands, indicating that Chen Mu was definitely a cultivator who had opened up well over a hundred meridians in the Primordial Meridian realm.

Consequently, everyone gathered around and began discussing cultivation insights. Chen Mu found it rather boring; after all, the things they spoke of were truly insignificant. In their understanding, the purple-gold primordial core was the absolute pinnacle, and the cultivation insights they discussed amounted at most to how to open up over a hundred meridians in the Primordial Meridian realm as much as possible, how to build a decent foundation of primordial energy, and how theoretically to maximize the probability of forming a purple-gold primordial core.

Yet these matters were practically superfluous to him. After all, Rou'er's teachings surpassed these by an unknown margin and had successfully enabled him to form a top-tier purple-gold primordial core. Furthermore, he knew a method to elevate the quality of the primordial core that these people were completely unaware of—which was enhancing one's bloodline power.

However, this method likely would not work for the cultivators of the Azure Firmament Continent unless they belonged to an ancient clan with archaic heritage capable of using such a method to elevate the quality of their primordial core.

Now it was Chen Mu's turn to share something. Chen Mu also held back a bit, claiming that he had relied on sheer luck to break through to the realm of over a hundred meridians in a short period of time. As soon as these words left his mouth, everyone rolled their eyes internally.

If you don't want to talk, just say so; using such a lame excuse to fob us off, where is your conscience?

However, Chen Mu immediately moved on to the main points. He selectively shared some of Rou'er's concepts and understandings, leaving the numerous cultivators utterly shocked.

Through these concepts, everyone discovered an entirely new world, and many paths that they had never attempted on the Azure Firmament Continent were now laid open before them.

The Primordial Infant realm experts like Mo Shouchen were also exceptionally shocked. Mo Shouchen and Xiang Ming were slightly better off, as they had already guessed that Chen Mu might be from some secluded aristocratic family—even though it was a complete misunderstanding.

As for the Primordial Infant realm experts like Wanyan Shen, they were truly struck dumb with astonishment. They were filled with doubt and uncertainty: Chen Mu was definitely not a rogue cultivator; where would a rogue cultivator find mastery over such exquisite and peerless cultivation Dao? It seemed there must be a massive faction standing behind Chen Mu as well.

After sharing some concepts, Chen Mu selectively discussed some of his own cultivation experiences and then brought up another matter: there existed an even higher quality of primordial core above the purple-gold primordial core.

This statement immediately caused an uproar among the crowd. It wasn't that this concept had never been mentioned before, but no one had ever been able to prove it, so it had always been dismissed as idle talk.

Thus, someone immediately stood up to refute Chen Mu's viewpoint, saying, "That is impossible! No one on the Azure Firmament Continent has ever been able to achieve anything beyond the purple-gold primordial core, which proves that no one can attain a quality higher than it. This legend of something above purple-gold is absolute nonsense."

Chen Mu shook his head and smiled, saying, "No, things beyond purple-gold do indeed exist, but I must keep the source of this information confidential, so don't ask me where I learned it."

These words immediately shocked everyone present. If Chen Mu hadn't spoken such profound insights regarding cultivation earlier, they definitely would have thought Chen Mu was just talking nonsense and bragging wildly.

However, some of Chen Mu's theories and insights had indeed opened up their understanding to new horizons, so they all began to half-believe him, waiting for him to continue.

Chen Mu continued, "Above the purple-gold primordial core, there is another quality called the Nine-Colored Primordial Core. A purple-gold primordial core can be formed once one has opened over a hundred meridians, but wanting to form a top-tier purple-gold primordial core requires more than just a hundred meridians; only by opening one hundred and eight meridians can a top-tier purple-gold primordial core be condensed."

Hearing this, everyone was shocked. So things above purple-gold actually had a name: the Nine-Colored Primordial Core.

Regarding Chen Mu's insight, everyone nodded in agreement. What Chen Mu said was correct; it was rumored that those who reached the pinnacle of the purple-gold primordial core were peerless geniuses with one hundred and eight meridians.

Chen Mu continued, "Therefore, one hundred and eight meridians are the starting point for condensing the Nine-Colored Primordial Core. Furthermore, condensing the Nine-Colored Primordial Core requires forging an ultimate foundation of primordial energy before there is a chance to crystallize it. This Nine-Colored Primordial Core requires an ultimate foundation, a vast amount of heavenly treasures, extraordinary fortuitous encounters, and supreme destiny all converging into one individual for there to be even a possibility of success. Therefore, even members of top-tier factions find it impossible to successfully condense a Nine-Colored Primordial Core."

Hearing this, everyone fell into a daze, feeling that such a thing was too illusory and ethereal. Thus, someone hurriedly asked, "You say this Nine-Colored Primordial Core truly exists; then why has no one ever condensed this core to this day?"

Chen Mu also sighed softly and said, "Because condensing this Nine-Colored Primordial Core is as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns even in the Immortal Domain. How could there possibly exist anyone in the Azure Firmament Continent capable of condensing a Nine-Colored Primordial Core?"