Right Prime Minister Cao Dean's residence.
After advancing to Great Scholar, Cao Dean should have gone to an Ancient Land to cultivate. However, the Battle of Ning'an had thrown the Jing Kingdom into turmoil, and he had stayed to stabilize the court alongside the other officials.
After the Battle of Ning'an ended, the imperial family had intended to send Cao Dean away for training. Who would have thought he would pull strings with his friends at the Sacred Academy and obtain an edict?
Under rules established years earlier, if war threatened the nation or the Human Race after someone became a Great Scholar, participating in a major battle and earning military merit could count as one training expedition to an Ancient Land.
The Battle of Ning'an's scale and the military merit earned there were exceedingly rare on the Saint Origin Continent. Any Great Scholar who participated could count it as one such expedition, so Cao Dean still held the position of Right Prime Minister.
Everyone at court knew why Cao Dean clung to his position and refused to leave.
Cao Dean had made his name in his youth, then suffered some setbacks in middle age. After years of riding the court's rising and falling tides, repeatedly suppressed by the Left Prime Minister, his temperament had changed. His rough edges had been ground smooth, his fighting spirit was gone, and his potential was exhausted. He no longer wished to advance his Literary Rank.
Nor did he lack wealth, so he would inevitably focus on power and position next.
Rising from Right Prime Minister to Left Prime Minister would become his greatest goal.
However, Cao Dean had spent years building his influence in the Jing Kingdom. His disciples and old associates were everywhere, he had friends at the Sacred Academy, and he