‘Well, that cost me an arm and a leg…’

Zhang Dong looked at his ever-dwindling spirit point pool. After teleporting all over the place and finally scanning the map he was running on reserves. Luckily it was a worthy investment as now he would be able to copy the design.

It was something that he didn’t fully understand, the map was connecting to something in this world. It wasn't satellites but something similar, it was receiving information that created this display. Without his AI there would be no possible way of him accessing this outer source.

Bob gave him a roundabout explanation of how this worked. They were in a sense just using the Long Clan maps password while accessing this database on the outside. There didn’t seem to be any firewalls or roadblocks that prevented two of these maps from existing at the same time.

Zhang Dong’s best guess was that whoever created it either didn’t believe that anyone would be able to copy the design or didn’t care. Besides a system user, there would probably not be anyone capable of doing this. The system users were part of this whole predicament and perhaps there even was a way to buy a similar map on the system store.

‘That about covers it… should I go or look around some more…’

There were other people in this room with him, while at first, they did seem somewhat unwelcoming after a while they just started ignoring his presence. With the war having started they probably had other things to worry about. But for some reason, they didn’t really seem to be panicking too much.

‘This war room is a bit too silent… I’d expect there to be some grumpy-looking general shouting at people and ordering them to move out…’

The Long Clan’s main area was right in the middle of the empire. The enemies were flowing in from all directions and there seemed to be more than just three empires flowing in. From what he could tell there were five or six of them.

From the east side came the ones that he interacted with, the toothy ones. From the west side, there was the Emerald Phoenix Empire that he had visited before. This empire came from the upper east side while from the bottom east there were sightings of strange men in golden armor. Then from the north, he also heard of two distinctive camps being formed.

Zhang Dong's city was in the southwestern regions. There he would either meet with the monster-like people that he already tousled with or another empire altogether. In his mind, it would be better to face off against opponents that he had already met.

They were all body refiners that weren’t that great at attacking from range. Those bony body spears might have looked deadly but in reality, it would be hard to hit a very mobile cultivator from range. The best way would be to keep distance as they were clearly more suited for close-quarters combat and pelt them with a vast array of ranged attacks.

“So, about that Goliath thing that my brother mentioned…”

“I apologize but this is not something I can give you information on Golden Dragon. The Azure Emperor is the only one that can answer your question and at the moment he is away.”

Before leaving he was also interested in this thing that the Azure Emperor mentioned. From the name, he figured it to be some kind of large beast or construct? Maybe it was some kind of huge flying ship that would make his Argonaut look like a child’s toy? Regretfully no one was willing to disclose any information and he was not too keen on hanging out with his brother that much.

While Long Qing seemed like a cheerful fellow to hang around with, he wasn’t much different than other cultivators. This he proved by denying aid to him, it was clear that he only cared about his own city and the people living in it.

The map in this chamber clearly showed the movements of the invaders but they were just waiting. From what he could tell, they were anticipating the middle-sized sects and the smaller clans to all be forced back towards the middle of the empire.

Probably after gathering all the nascent soul masters under their own banner would they start their counterattack. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Heavenly Crane Sect along with the Long Clan forced the smaller sects to act as meat shields.

They would probably send out some of their nascent soul masters to direct them. Only if the situation became dire, would they act and offer up some of their own resources. This wasn’t a bad plan but this depended on the strength of their opponents. If they waited too long, the enemies could become too powerful to resist and at that point, they would have lost most of the middle-sized sects.

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‘What about me… I can’t just fly around and rescue people…’

Zhang Dong found fault in this tactic but he also couldn't deny it. As a leader himself, he knew that everyone was working with limited resources. They couldn’t just offer up aid and put their cultivators at risk to save other sects. Without knowing if the other party returned the favor later it was better to not risk losing your devoted sect brothers.

‘I guess I’m not that much better than these guys…’

After giving out a sigh he remained in this chamber for a moment to look around. Besides the map, there wasn’t really anything of note. Without having any allies in the Long Clan, there was not much he could affect.

He could either try waiting here to convince his brother to help out but he was sure that he would be told to take his people and move them here. But they would probably only allow him to bring the most elite members from his sect and family. The rest of the citizens would be then left to fend for themselves.

“Well, tell my brother that I’ll be returning to my own sect.”

The man he was talking to looked to be in charge here. He was not one of the three high elders that he met before. Luckily he was taking his status as the Golden Dragon seriously.

“I will pass on the information so that it reaches the Azure Dragon’s ear, but it would be faster if lord Golden Dragon visited the Azure palace himself, the Emperor should be coming back soon, it shouldn’t take more than a week.”

“A whole week?”

“Yes, because of the coming invasion we must be careful of anyone trying to infiltrate our area, only the Emperor has enough skill to see through disguises.”

“Ah, is that so…”

It seemed that Long Qing served a similar role of a spy detector like he did to his own sect. There would probably be a lot of panic due to these invaders. During this, it would be smart to replace some of the refugees with spies.

In this world filled with disguising techniques, some of the prominent cultivators could even be replaced. If such a thing occurred they would be sitting on a time bomb without knowing when someone would stab them in the back.

‘I guess I could just call him with my system… but not like he can show me his superweapons while he is out…’

Zhang Dong had gone through all the books and through some of the clan’s secrets. He did not know everything but it would need to be enough. Without any proper pull here, there was also no way of prying away some of the clan’s resources out.

For the time being, he would need to rely on his own people. They had been taking over the lands of the once active Dark Palm Sect, now these lands were theirs.

“I’ll be leaving then.”

After checking everything out he decided to use the teleportation station to get out. The crystal they gave him was also very interesting and Bob was already trying to examine it. It would require more spirit points to crack so for the time being it was put on the backburner.

…

“Husband, you have returned? Are you alright? Have you been eating enough?”

After getting out of the war room, Zhang Dong went to a more secluded location and teleported back to his new home. He used the faction teleportation to arrive at the location of his wife. The moment he popped out, Liena jump on him as if she was afraid that he was a ghost or something.

“Eating? Well, I didn’t really have time to make any stops but don’t worry, I had somebody nourishing pills with me.”

He could only smile while petting Liena on the back. During his chase for Wang Long, he made many stops along the way but not to take a break. For someone of his caliber, this would be enough as at this point his body was far removed from regular humans. He could survive months, perhaps even a year without eating anything.

“How are you though? Have the kids been good?”

“The children? Yes, every day you are out they ask me where you are… I’m slowly running out of excuses, you should go visit them if you have the time. You do have time now, right?”

“Well…”

Zhang Dong gave out a sigh, he would really like to enjoy his time with his children and lovely wife but he couldn’t. There was so much going on outside that he didn’t know if they would have a home to return to the next day. Any of the empires could pop up in their lands and it would end in a bloody conflict.

“I’m not sure I will have that much to spare in the coming days, you know what is at stake yourself…”

Everyone had been informed about the state of affairs. The evacuation of the sect didn’t go through last time so they didn’t need to worry about that anymore. Their citizens from the city started flocking back though as they were left in the forest area to survive in tents while battling beasts in the wild.

“I know but at least show that you are alive, it will mean a lot to them.”

Zhang Dong nodded as he knew that to his family he was gone for five years. He had returned only recently and they were probably worried that in the coming war he would vanish yet again. His relationship with his kids had been somewhat rekindled but he knew that if he wasn’t there again it would quickly deteriorate.

Thus he made a decision to go see his children while also contacting various members of his sect via his system. Someone like him that was a powerful cultivator could easily multitask so playing patty cake with his daughter and talking to Huo Qiang at the same time wouldn’t be that hard.

‘So, you have secured it?’

‘Yes, it looks the same as it did. Will we be going through the tests again? I don’t think we can enter it at this point, will the juniors be tasked with this?’

Huo Qiang asked while looking at a familiar ruin. It was the same one where he and Zhang Dong met for the first time and also the place where part of the Dark Palm sect just vanished. Now it was in their territory and waiting to be explored again.