Daring to Astonish the World

On Dragon Head Platform, the last echoes still lingered.

Meng Jingchun was the first to recover. He looked at the dark-robed figure on the jade dais, unable to calm the emotions surging through him.

He had served the Imperial Court for years and met no fewer than ten Dao Foundation Real Persons. He had even met provincial officials of the Fourth Divine Ability Realm. Yet never had anyone, in a mere handful of words,

laid bare the stagnation in his Dao Heart and shown him the road ahead. More startling still, Chen Yuan's talk of "daring to lead the world" was no empty boast. This young prefecture lord truly intended to do it.

He was not testing the waters, weighing his options, or taking things one step at a time.

He truly meant to venture out.

Meng Jingchun turned those words over in his mind several times. The more he thought about them, the more he felt that the boldness behind them surpassed everything he knew of the Dao Foundation Real Person realm.

He had read of Heavenly Sovereigns' Merit Achievements in the Imperial Court's secret archives. That was how such people acted: a word from them shook mountains and rivers; a single thought set the tide of events crashing forward.

The man before him had not yet formed his core, but he already possessed something of that bearing.

He drew a deep breath and cupped his hands. "Prefecture Lord, your words have struck like thunder in deaf ears. I have cultivated for half my life knowing only how to preserve what exists, not how to forge ahead; knowing only how to evade disaster, not how to meet the tide. Now that I have a chance to enter the fray, I cannot let it go to waste."

Ji Changgge followed