LIGHT NOVEL Chapter 226 - A Bit Bewildering
“With the strong support of the President of Imperial Capital University, the school has implemented a system where students can exchange academic credits for cultivation potential-enhancing elixirs. In just five months, one-third of the university’s students have used these elixirs. Apart from three cases of failure due to individual physical conditions, all the others were successful,” Deputy Officer Chen remarked with admiration.
“This has significantly strengthened the overall capability of Imperial Capital University. What’s remarkable is that this transformation has been quiet and subtle, without drawing external attention,” Prince Arthur noted with satisfaction.
“It all stems from Mai Dongzi’s selflessness. She was willing to teach such a valuable therapeutic support technique to others. While this decision might seem foolish to some and has drawn criticism from the Xi family, no one can deny that this child has a truly admirable character,” Deputy Officer Chen praised.
Prince Arthur remained silent, but it was clear he agreed. Mai Dongzi had always been someone who prioritized the greater good over personal gain.
“Mai Dongzi is truly extraordinary. She mastered sound therapy techniques in such a short time and even created her own therapeutic support technique for cultivation. Previously, there were at most two or three students at Imperial Capital University who could reach the sixth level, and they were all seniors in their third year or above. But since Mai Dongzi joined the university, her influence has resulted in thirteen sixth-level cultivators within the school,” Deputy Officer Chen continued, expressing his deep admiration.
“It’s the eve of chaos, and subtle changes happening beneath the surface are normal. Other nations are experiencing similar phenomena to varying degrees,” Prince Arthur said calmly.
“Your Highness, look at Mai Dongzi’s two cousins, Jiang Zixuan and Zhuang Huaiya. Jiang Zixuan is understandable—his double-S cultivation potential makes it less surprising that he reached the seventh level as a metal-type ability user in less than four months after the semester started. But Zhuang Huaiya, with only a 3A cultivation potential, has reached the sixth level as a sophomore. Not to mention Mai Dongzi herself, a seventh-level early-stage warrior and an eighth-level early-stage mental ability user. I feel that keeping Mai Dongzi confined to the university is a waste of her talents. Your Highness should place her where she belongs,” Deputy Officer Chen suggested.
He glanced at Prince Arthur, who had reached the ninth level as a warrior two months ago, and felt increasingly that Mai Dongzi and Prince Arthur shared many similarities, particularly in their monstrous cultivation talent.
“Now that information about the impending apocalypse has started to leak, the recent activities of the aristocrats and elites in the Blue-Black Empire have escalated. This needs to be curtailed; otherwise, if ‘they’ notice, it will put us at a greater disadvantage. Assigning Mai Dongzi to the military would draw too much attention. It’s better for her to remain at Imperial Capital University and quietly influence those elite students,” Prince Arthur responded with firm resolve.
Deputy Officer Chen’s suggestion had been intended to create an opportunity for Prince Arthur—a chance to bring Mai Dongzi closer to him. However, Prince Arthur showed no inclination toward this idea, and Deputy Officer Chen quickly fell silent.
Over the past few years, Prince Arthur had always acted with thorough consideration, rarely allowing personal feelings to influence his decisions.
Though his feelings for Mai Dongzi were evidently different, he did little more than monitor her progress and offer assistance when necessary. There had been no other expressions of his affection.
If not for the times Deputy Officer Chen had observed Prince Arthur’s unusual attention toward Mai Dongzi—especially during the incident when she was severely injured in a human bomb attack and Prince Arthur lost his composure—he would never have believed the prince had special feelings for her.
Yet despite these emotions, Prince Arthur had no intention of bringing Mai Dongzi to his side, nor had he made any overt gestures. He simply allowed her the freedom to grow. Deputy Officer Chen found this behavior baffling.
But then again, Prince Arthur had always been an enigma. Although the deputy officer spent most of his time at the prince’s side, save for when the prince was asleep, he was constantly amazed by how Prince Arthur seemed to acquire future-predicting information from unknown sources.
The information predicting the future had, by now, been half-proven true.
Initially, King Guga was skeptical of the intel Prince Arthur shared, but as more predictions turned out to be accurate, his stance shifted, and he began to support Prince Arthur.
The most terrifying and severe prediction, however, was confirmed when, following Prince Arthur’s clues, they captured intelligent extraterrestrial beings. This was further corroborated indirectly by Zhao Fanni, Bai Zhizhi, and several others who seemed to have been reborn from the future.
King Guga now believed in the impending apocalypse with 90% certainty, prompting him to grant more military authority to Prince Arthur.
Meanwhile, Queen Du and the Second Prince, who were constantly scheming to wrest power from Prince Arthur, found themselves suppressed by King Guga. He feared their actions might cause significant internal strife, reducing the Blue-Black Empire’s chances of survival.
“Your Highness, I received some intel yesterday. It seems that the V Nation also has reborn individuals. Rumors about an impending alien invasion of the Dagula Star System are spreading like wildfire across their online networks. Recently, a wave of emigration has surged within their country, and this trend is now spreading to other nations. It could trigger another wave of panic,” Deputy Officer Chen reported with concern.
“According to the reborn individual’s claims, the Dagula Star System will face a massive alien invasion. V Nation will be the first to fall, with the entire nation annihilated within just five days of the invasion. This reborn individual has made several predictions in the past that have been verified, which is why their warnings have caused such widespread alarm.”
Prince Arthur frowned in worry. This was indeed troubling news. Such drastic changes in V Nation might alter the course of future events.
He had always been cautious about making significant changes, fearing they might draw the attention of certain “observers,” who might then adjust their strategies, plunging the Dagula Star System into an even graver crisis. This was why he had been subtly working to change the cultivation landscape of the Blue-Black Empire without making grand moves.
The Goya civilization’s technological advancements (enemies) were over a thousand years ahead of the Dagula inhabitants. Even if the apocalypse was announced, the people of the Dagula Star System wouldn’t be able to catch up in just a few years. Furthermore, without firsthand exposure to Goya’s advanced technologies, they wouldn’t even know which direction to focus their efforts on.
Thus, Prince Arthur had concentrated his efforts on strengthening cultivators, aiming to increase their power levels to secure more survival opportunities during the apocalypse and win vital resources for the Dagula people.
It wasn’t that Prince Arthur lacked sympathy or disapproved of V Nation’s self-rescue efforts. The problem was that the drastic actions in V Nation could lead to worse consequences, resulting in more deaths.
However, given the vast distance separating the Blue-Black Empire and V Nation—practically spanning the entire Dagula Star System—the two nations had almost no interaction. The Blue-Black Empire was in no position to influence V Nation or urge them to act more discreetly, leaving Prince Arthur feeling helpless.
“Assign someone to specifically monitor developments in this area. Report back to me as soon as there’s any new information,” Prince Arthur instructed gravely.