Li Chen was not surprised by this at all. After all, the waters of Great Qian ran far deeper than outsiders imagined. People such as Hu Meiniang and Yue Dongyang each had powerful experts behind them, and their contests of strength involved the entire Great Qian Dynasty and its foundations, even the authority to rule the Righteous Qi Continent.
The dynasty's public enfeoffments and the kings' struggles for supremacy were all products of the various factions checking one another and making mutual compromises. Once their conflicts flared and the balance broke, the powerful experts behind them would inevitably step forward.
"There was never any such thing in this world as refined gentleness or an ancient well without a ripple. There were only stakes too small to warrant coming out in person."
"When their very foundations were touched, forget Primordial Spirit Great Powers-even the gods in heaven would have to descend to the mortal realm and fight it out themselves."
Li Chen had never believed in the magnanimity of powerful experts, nor did he buy their air of breezy detachment and indifference to honor or disgrace. Those were merely questions of capacity and appetite.
Cultivators and gods were not mercenary only because the cultivation provisions they needed and the foundations of their growth differed from those of ordinary people, not because their natures were inherently loftier.
Grace and dignity were born of comparison. When those below gazed up at those above, they naturally saw elegance without equal and dignity without limit.
As he pondered, Li Chen peered into the distance with the Thousand-Mile Eye. Vast purple qi had turned into a sea of clouds that filled the sky, surging like waves across the entire eastern side of the Sacred Capital.
Amid this phenomenon of surging worldly qi, which ordinary people could