Matvei had no room to think that far ahead. Simply keeping his life and gaining the Witch Ancestor's "protection" seemed like an immense stroke of luck. At those words, he felt as though he had been granted a pardon and immediately kowtowed three times with resounding thuds, his voice trembling with tears and a trace of relief:
"Your disciple Matvei pays his respects, Master! Thank you for taking me in! I will obey your every instruction and never dare defy you!"
Looking at Matvei prostrate at his feet and calling himself his disciple, Li Chen finally revealed a faint smile of satisfaction.
The perfect moment to enter the Holy Capital and bring the entire chessboard under his control had arrived.
This was a game of countering each move as it came, played on a chessboard where only emperors could compete.
Ivan was still far too green. Of course Li Chen had guessed that this was Romanov's scheme.
Since Li Chen had accepted Matvei as his disciple in his guise as the Witch Ancestor, he naturally intended to do more than go through the motions.
During his stay at the Witch Ancestor Sacred Land, he personally spent a small portion of the resources in his grotto-heaven to clear Matvei's meridians and forcibly raise his cultivation by a substantial margin.
He lifted Matvei from his previously unremarkable realm into the ranks of cultivators worthy of being shown off.
Li Chen also "painstakingly" tailored several cultivation arts for him that appeared profound but actually contained enormous backdoors and flaws, and bestowed a wealth of radiant, spiritually potent "heavenly treasures" and protective magic treasures upon him.
He even personally took him to the treacherous terrain on the sacred land's outskirts for "training."
Whenever they encountered a ferocious demon beast or a seemingly dangerous restriction,