Conflict

In fact, before his rebirth, when Lan Yi first entered the Artificial Divine Realm 1909 trial, he had a connection with Philia.

To him, it was all ancient history.

To avenge Huo Yuanjia, who had been poisoned, Lan Yi went on a spree of assassinations against the Dongyang people, especially the merchant guilds and military officials behind the scenes, in this era where surveillance and communication were extremely underdeveloped.

Although the assassinations were successful, he was met with a city-wide manhunt in retaliation.

After several near-death experiences.

Lan Yi was saved by Philia's daughter, Scathach, a young lady who fancied a chivalrous thief. She hid him in the home of the President of India. The subsequent events were rather explicit, involving the butler and the young lady, the butler and the madam, intense scenes in the bathroom before and after, and day-and-night encounters that I'll skip for three thousand characters.

Especially Philia's intelligence, competence, assertiveness, and drive were qualities rarely found in women of that era.

Thinking back now.

Lan Yi found it still somewhat amusing.

Who hasn't done something absurd and scandalous in their youth?

"Immortal Master, if you need it, I can go and fetch Madam Philia now."

Zhao Sikong stood by like a shadow. If he didn't speak, it was hard to detect his presence. As Lan Yi's shadow, he was adept at reading people and assessing situations.

With Zhao Sikong's mental power.

He could fetch someone without anyone noticing.

"No need. To kill me, her husband will drive her over in an hour."

Lan Yi paused, then sighed helplessly.

"Along with them will be their dozen or so impractical assassination plans, none of which would succeed even if I stood there and let them try. Perhaps I should let that President know that I intend to seek pleasure with his wife in the office, and then see if a ship's cannon can blast me to pieces."

That rabble was truly ridiculous.

They didn't even need Philia to leak information, nor did they need Liu Baiyuan to eavesdrop. After completing the planning stage, the rabble directly or indirectly reported the assassination plan to the Martial Artist group that very night.

Clearly, there were few fools. It seemed like everyone was acting foolishly together, but in reality, only a few were truly foolish; the rest were all trying to sell the fools for a good price.

For the foreigners who had clear minds and had witnessed Lan Yi's terrifying power.

What was a mere cuckold?

Even if it were revenge for a father's murder, they would still smile and endure it now.

"Immortal Master, why risk yourself? Those ironclad ships, as soon as they approach, Geng Liangchen and I will capture them for you."

Zhao Sikong did not want Lan Yi to take risks.

He did not know the extent of Lan Yi's power, but taking risks was unnecessary. Immortal Master now bore the crucial responsibility of making Star Han glorious and great again. For this goal, anyone could die, but not Immortal Master.

Moreover, mere ironclad ships.

For a Spirit Cultivation Practitioner who could race across the sea on foot and whose mental power could ignore ironclad plating, as long as the enemy didn't flee, boarding and capturing them was a certainty.

Besides, they weren't without ironclad ships either.

The Qing Imperial Court's Yangtze River Fleet, which had been persuaded to surrender by Ghost Heavenly General Geng Liangchen, possessed ironclad ships. While these ironclad ships would be extremely ineffective in a cannon duel against foreign fleets, they would be incredibly easy to use for carrying Spirit Cultivation Practitioners to close the distance.

At this very moment.

The surrendered ironclad ships had already set sail.

They had already set out, carrying Martial Heavenly General Huo Yuanjia and Ghost Heavenly General Geng Liangchen, two Spirit Cultivation Practitioners, to search for the traces of the foreign fleet sailing south.

These ignorant fools.

Lan Yi didn't need to rush to act.

Originally, Lan Yi hadn't planned to act. He still had the anger from being scolded by the Imperial Court to vent, and the various factions in the south that had achieved self-preservation needed to be purged. So, his original plan was to stay put today, and after completely annihilating the so-called Punishment Fleet members, he would head north.

But Philia's secret letter made Lan Yi change his mind.

Philia was right.

Given his current status, having a Western woman conduct interviews and build momentum would be more effective than his own thunderous but less impactful punitive measures for the Qing Imperial Court, which generally suffered from xenophobia.

After all, Lan Yi was from Star Han.

He couldn't truly carry out uncontrolled massacres. If he did, the River Civilization of this world would be finished. As the top psionic cultivator of the River Civilization, although Lan Yi had caused world annihilation and killed people genealogically, he still had some integrity for the sake of civilization.

If half the country was determined not to be part of Star Han, and under the harsh and brutal methods of the Martial Artist group, they completely defected to the foreigners, then the subsequent northern expedition would take too long.

Using Philia and other foreign journalists to build momentum for himself.

This became the optimal solution.

The great powers were not united. If the momentum was successfully built, even if a wild boar wearing a dragon robe wanted to sell himself, the great powers, after assessing their strength and losses, would not buy it. Instead, they would default to the Far East, which their power could not reach, being the sphere of influence of this rising Divine Emperor.

"Go and prepare to deal with the upcoming farce," Lan Yi signaled Zhao Sikong to withdraw.

"As Immortal Master commands," Zhao Sikong bowed respectfully and slowly disappeared into the dark corner of the wall.

A moment later.

Lan Yi, who appeared to be sitting in a daze, saw blue and white lotuses slowly emerge in his eyes, and his black hair instantly extended into white hair that moved without wind. In just a few seconds, these anomalies returned to normal, but Lan Yi's face instantly turned extremely pale, and he almost spat out a mouthful of blood due to extreme depletion.

As the psionic energy from the psionic furnace nourished him, the feeling of his head being split open by intense pain subsided slightly.

"As expected, there's no cutting corners with the Dharma Form."

"Even if I force the Mindscape to condense using past experiences and insights, I still can't fool the body's instincts, which haven't truly cultivated Martial Arts."

"As expected, Daoist Arts and Martial Arts clash fundamentally."

Daoist Arts are about reason, while Martial Arts are about brute force.

In the Qi Cultivation stage, Lan Yi could cheat and take shortcuts by consuming psionic energy, directly forcing his body to reach the peak of Qi Cultivation in the most perfect way.

But starting from Spirit Cultivation...

There was no way to continue this rapid advancement.

The Self-form and Human-form were still manageable; they could be explained through Daoist Arts knowledge. However, once the Dharma Form began to interfere with reality, attempting to explain it with Daoist Arts knowledge would only result in the Dharma Form losing its spiritual essence, turning into an external demon, and backfiring on oneself.

For Lan Yi, who was still in the Refining Destiny Clusters realm, this backlash meant losing control of his thoughts. He would be unable to stop himself from harming himself due to his fractured mind.

Lan Yi realized.

As a reborn individual, the first hurdle he would face in dual cultivation of Dao and Martial Arts was resolving the ideological conflict between Martial Arts and Daoist Arts. This hurdle shouldn't be able to kill reborn individuals, as there were plenty of solutions.

This was interesting.

"This also means that after the first Artificial Divine Realm, my old friends will be at most at the Daoist Arts Refining Destiny Clusters stage, and their Martial Arts will only be at the Human-form level?"