Chen Chuan glanced at the location of the Progenitor Company. Its corporate headquarters was situated in Titlan-Heimer State, one of the Federation's five great states.
This state lay in the central-northeastern region of the Federation. Geographically, it could be grouped with the East Coast, yet the Progenitor Company had long provided financial backing to the West Coast Faction, while its entanglements with the East Coast Faction appeared equally deep.
The Gao clan possessed extensive connections within both political parties, and members of its branch families held critical posts on both sides. On the surface, this resembled hedging bets—an enduring tradition of the prominent clans of the Eastern Continent—yet strictly speaking, the entirety of the Progenitor Company belonged to the centrist camp.
In the Federation's political climate, centrists generally found it difficult to gain a foothold. But as a global megacorporation and a core member of the Consortium, the Progenitor Company possessed the standing to make that choice.
The Progenitor Company commanded immense military might, which served as one of the bedrock pillars ensuring its existence. First and foremost, its security forces formed a massive military apparatus that rivaled the Federation's regular frontline corps.
Heimer State had once been the ancestral homeland of the First People and the site of their sacred mountain, making it a naturally dense population center. Bolstered by over a century of development under the Gao clan, it was home to nearly a sixth of the Federation's native population, alongside a vast influx of foreign immigrants.
The corporation had established branch subsidiaries across the globe, controlling immense wealth and resources. Furthermore, it possessed world-leading biotechnology, providing technical support and services worldwide. The armed doll units it manufactured even formed the backbone of the armed forces in numerous regional nations.
Moreover, through its longstanding donations, it maintained excellent relations with national martial arts academies across various countries, including Great Shun's Wuyi Academy.
The leverage it could exert was unimaginable.
Chen Chuan knew very well that confronting them directly with brute force was far beyond his current capabilities. To exist as an independent power within the Federation, the Progenitor Company had to possess formidable higher-echelon strength beyond conventional military assets; it would not surprise him if they harbored martial artists beyond the fourth limit.
Even so, according to his original plans, unraveling the truth and resolving the matter would not necessarily require taking on the Progenitor Company's full might. Still, without sufficient martial strength as a foundation, achieving even that much would be entirely impossible.
His goal was to gather the resources he needed while in the Federation. If he could elevate his strength by another tier and advance into the realm of the Profound Mystery View, his chances would undeniably improve.
Although he now possessed the Jade Bone Paste given to him by Mr. Zhuan, training was most effective when all three resources were gathered and used together. Therefore, his priority was to assemble the remaining two resources. Even if he could not secure all of them at once, obtaining a modest amount would allow him to begin practicing beforehand.
Among the resources provided to the diplomatic delegation, the government was only responsible for supplying ordinary practitioners. As for the few martial artists among them, the Martial Artists Council provided some cultivation stipends.
These were extended even to a Longevity View martial artist like him, but upon inspection, the stipend was only enough to sustain an ordinary martial artist for half a year, and its quality was quite mediocre.
To him, it was a drop in the bucket. Given its subpar quality, using it would yield negligible benefits, if any at all—it was better left untouched.
Fortunately, they had encountered an entity from the other side ambushing the convoy along the way, and he had eliminated it. Under normal circumstances, such an ordeal represented a substantial expenditure of energy even for a Longevity View martial artist. More importantly, the complex perils the delegation might face on this mission clearly exceeded earlier estimates.
This gave Delegation Leader Xie a valid justification to request a dispatch of superior resources. Chen Chuan had already learned that this new batch would be of very high quality and would be delivered with the utmost haste, arriving in about ten days.
In this matter, he owed Delegation Leader Xie a favor. The higher-tier resources required by martial artists were tightly guarded, and every faction held vested interests in them. One needed only to look at the Purist Faction's internal dynamics to realize that if things were so guarded within, extracting resources from the outside was exponentially more difficult.
It was only because the delegation's affairs touched upon national interests, requiring steady progress, and because Delegation Leader Xie had firmly insisted on it, that such a supplementary allocation had been granted.
As for the expressions of gratitude promised by the two Federation officials, nothing had materialized yet. But since they had brought it up, they would certainly deliver something. However, Great Shun and the Federation were rivals rather than allies, so they would never offer anything he urgently needed. What they ultimately provided would likely hold some formal significance without directly translating into combat capability, so there was no reason to place much hope in it.
Another point that demanded his attention was that he needed to achieve a breakthrough in both body and spirit simultaneously. Naturally, his spiritual cultivation would also consume resources, in amounts no less than what his physical form required.
While this path was far more grueling than breaking through in a single aspect, it was an unavoidable necessity. Fortunately, the difficulty of obtaining the necessary materials would not necessarily increase by much.
Before their departure, Teacher Xue had pointed out two directions. One was to search for the lost sacred grounds or sacred valleys of the First People; if found, the sacrificial customs of the First People suggested that most of the resources he needed would be preserved there.
The other direction was the Tianji Sect.
According to the map, the Tianji Sect was located in Bayende-Weishu State in the south-central Federation, one of the nation's five great states. Nearly the entire population of the state was composed of Tianji Sect believers. If he could truly find predestined affinity there, providing a few resources would pose no difficulty whatsoever for the Tianji Sect.
After some reflection, he concluded that he definitely had to pay that place a visit. However, he would likely remain here for a while yet; sorting through and coordinating Great Shun's interests in this region would take the delegation at least a month, if not longer.
Yet that did not mean he would idle away his time doing nothing.
In truth, from the moment he departed the mainland until now, he had never once set aside his cultivation.
Even without sufficient resources, the Compendium contained methods passed down by martial artists of the past for practicing during the Period of Cold Silence, specifically designed to help martial artists advance their cultivation when materials were scarce.
According to the martial artists who compiled the Compendium, however, this method was at best a means of maintaining one's cultivation to keep from falling behind; one could hardly expect substantial improvement from it.
Yet as he practiced, he discovered that he could actually sense his strength steadily increasing, and at no sluggish pace.
Upon examining himself, he reasoned that this was likely because he had attained the Longevity View only recently. Much like when he had first broken through to the fourth limit, the aberrant tissues within his body were continuing to grow and push him upward, and employing these cultivation techniques undoubtedly accelerated the process.
He estimated that this momentum would taper off in two or three months at most, so it would be best to secure sufficient resources before this window closed.
Having sorted out his thoughts, he rose from his seat, brought over his luggage, and retrieved the jade tablet Teacher Xue had gifted him. Placing it on the desk before him, his glabella flickered faintly as his spirit delved inside.
The information within the Compendium did not reveal itself all at once; it required advancements in one's spiritual power to unlock. Compared to when he had first obtained it, he could now read far more content, and what he focused on was the subsequent cultivation methods for the Visage of Man.
After reading for a while, a passage he had been unable to see previously caught his attention.
After the Longevity View, a practitioner established a connection with the other side, drawing upon an inexhaustible stream of energy. This step was also the key to reaching the next realm.
At the highest degree of mastery, even if the self were severed, every remaining part would still remain the self. For instance, with a martial artist of the Visage of the Aberrant, even if their body was shattered and only a small fragment remained, as long as their cultivation was profound enough, they could regenerate completely.
The same applied to practitioners of the Visage of the Divine; so long as a wisp of divine presence endured, they had the chance to reconstitute themselves.
The Compendium stated that encompassing both was the truest path for the Visage of Man, and the subsequent descriptions aligned with his thoughts: both body and spirit had to break through.
Yet precisely at this juncture, a dilemma arose.
Someone had raised an objection, arguing that for a practitioner of the Visage of Man to merely break through the mysterious mechanism with body and spirit sequentially was still flawed.
While this appeared unified and harmonious on the surface, disparities remained. Depending on which aspect broke through first, one's power would lean toward either the Visage of the Aberrant or the Visage of the Divine. Although the two might seem exceptionally close, they failed to achieve true, seamless completion, invariably leaning heavier to one side.
This person contended that such an approach was essentially no different from the Visage of Man practiced by their predecessors, falling far short of the perfection originally envisioned.
This argument had sparked considerable debate. Judging by the spiritual imprints preserved within, many who participated in compiling the text had been drawn into the discussion. In the end, the argument gained widespread acceptance, primarily because this step did not stray from the core principle of "preserve the true form and gather the spiritual visage" within the realm of Bearing the Mysterious Mechanism.
Since a problem had been identified, a solution had to be found. The records showed that these predecessors had pooled their wisdom around this issue, seeking a breakthrough method.
Yet perhaps because this training method was derived purely through theoretical deduction, several seemingly viable approaches turned out to be castles in the air, clearly unusable in practice. Running contrary to their original intent, they were overturned one by one, leaving these figures stuck at this bottleneck for an extended period without progress.
Most of those involved were martial artists of the Visage of Man, yet unexpectedly, the one who ultimately proposed a breakthrough was a practitioner of the Visage of the Divine.
He argued that if addressing the issue internally from within the practitioner could not resolve it, they might as well solve the problem from the outside.
Chen Chuan was about to read further, but at that exact point, the information above blurred, drifting between clarity and obscurity.
He knew this meant his spiritual tier was not yet sufficient to perceive the entirety of the text, but he had clearly touched upon it. It mattered little; under these conditions, even if he did nothing, he would likely be able to read it in a day or two.
With that, he set the object down and stowed it back into his luggage. Just then, Gao Ming's voice came through the boundary credential. "Cousin, the check-in procedures are complete."
Chen Chuan nodded and said, "All right, I'm on my way." Picking up his luggage and taking hold of the Xuejun Saber, he stepped out of the airship cabin. Glancing at the unfamiliar city before him, he descended from the mooring tower amid the salutes of guards presenting arms.
Chapter 1065