These were, of course, nothing more than polite pleasantries on Jiang Chen's part.
Ancestor Bitter Bamboo let out a dejected sigh. "Fine. At this point, there's nothing left for me to fuss over. But I've submitted to you — was what you said earlier for real?"
He hadn't forgotten what Jiang Chen had proposed just moments ago.
"Help you break through to mid Heaven's Domain? Charge toward the great Heaven's Domain?" Jiang Chen asked with a half-smile.
"That's right. If that can truly happen, then my stepping down as Divine Temple Master of the Barbarian Race may not be such a bad thing after all. You should count yourself fortunate, Ancient Nuo King. If I hadn't willingly transferred the Staff of Authority to you and gained the Temple's recognition, forcing the consecration ritual would have likely brought down divine punishment."
A cold sweat broke out across the Ancient Nuo King's body.
He had seized his position from Ancestor Bitter Bamboo, yet still needed the old man to personally endorse the transfer of the Staff of Authority. When he thought about it carefully, the Ancient Nuo King couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.
But, as Jiang Chen had said — the victor takes all, and the vanquished are criminals. That was simply the way of things.
…
The anticipated war and carnage within the Barbarian Race never erupted. Through the coordinated efforts of Jiang Chen and the Ancient Nuo King working from both inside and outside, the thorn in the side that was the Barbarian Race had been successfully resolved.
Now that the Ancient Nuo King was in power, once he returned to the Barbarian Race, there would inevitably be purge after purge — cleansing every tribe that had betrayed him.
After that, he would establish his dominance everywhere, ensuring that every single Barbarian knew that from now on, the Barbarian Race answered to the Ancient Nuo King and no one else.
As for Ancestor Bitter Bamboo, bound by Jiang Chen's spiritual restriction, there was no chance he would ever cause any fresh trouble for the rest of his life.
Jiang Chen was in need of capable people at the moment, and felt that simply killing Ancestor Bitter Bamboo would be nothing short of a colossal waste.
That was why the idea had struck him to take the old ancestor as his servant.
He had thrown the offer out casually at first, fully expecting Ancestor Bitter Bamboo to refuse — a warrior could be killed but not humiliated, after all.
And true to his expectation, Ancestor Bitter Bamboo had initially refused. But in the end, he'd done a complete one-eighty and agreed to Jiang Chen's proposal.
Someone like Ancestor Bitter Bamboo certainly wouldn't be kept inside the Young Lord's Manor. Instead, Jiang Chen settled him in the Glazed Royal City, arranging a separate courtyard for the old man's residence.
This was essentially house arrest, but it was also a carefully considered arrangement.
With a gold-standard fighter like Ancestor Bitter Bamboo stationed in the Glized Royal City, what need was there to worry about hidden powerhouses among the human race coming to stir up trouble?
Ancestor Bitter Bamboo, for his part, hadn't complained about anything. He was perfectly clear on his current status — he was Jiang Chen's captive, Jiang Chen's servant.
Everything from the past had little to do with him anymore. With Jiang Chen's support, the Ancient Nuo King would surely be able to keep the Barbarian Race under control, so that wasn't something he needed to worry about either.
Jiang Chen had resolved the Barbarian Race problem with remarkable ease.
However, his mood was far from relaxed as a result. He knew that the human territories contained numerous Border Stele Realms.
The one in the northwest was merely one of them.
Several other locations also harbored Border Stele Realms. Only the Nandou Li tribe's site had been repaired by Jiang Chen — though exactly how effective the repair was, even he couldn't say.
…
One day, Jiang Chen sat in meditation, deep in contemplation, when a thought suddenly crystallized in his mind.
"The overall situation in the human territories may not be entirely settled, but at least the strategy is now clear. The state of affairs is stable for the time being. Even if other Border Stele Realms were to break open, it wouldn't cause the same kind of widespread panic as before."
Jiang Chen could feel it — the human territories had been growing stronger through one trial after another.
Now, the major sects had all gradually departed from the Glazed Royal City and returned to their own domains.
One piece of good news after another began to trickle in.
Peerless and Well in the Well had both comprehended the laws of heaven and earth, refined their Heaven's Domain decrees, and stepped into the Heaven's Domain realm in succession.
The Glized Royal City suddenly boasted two Heaven's Domain cultivators.
Not long after that, the Huai Mountain duo refined their Heaven's Domain decrees as well, and both stepped into the Heaven's Domain realm as well.
At the same time, Coiling Dragon refined an Emperor-realm sarira, pushing his cultivation to the peak of the Emperor realm — only a single step remained before he could break through to Heaven's Domain.
Of course, Coiling Dragon had only just broken through, so Heaven's Domain was still a ways off for him. But even this news had sent spirits soaring throughout the Glized Royal City.
Beyond that, the most dramatic advances had come from Little Xuan and Little White.
As descendants of the True Dragon and Grand Year White
And Little White, the Grand Year White Tiger, had advanced continuously from cubhood and was now approaching the Emperor realm as well.
The True Dragon clan and the Grand Year White Tiger clan seemed to have entered into an unspoken cultivation rivalry, neither willing to concede to the other.