Heavenly Dao Engine
Chapter 603 - 603 0397 Chen Wenbos Whereabouts_2

Chapter 603: Chapter 0397: Chen Wenbo’s Whereabouts_2 Chapter 603: Chapter 0397: Chen Wenbo’s Whereabouts_2 Qi Tian dispatched Deng Chuanliang not too late, but he still underestimated the cunningness, or rather the fear of death, of the crown prince. Before Deng Chuanliang even arrived at the capital, the crown prince had left the palace and vanished without even returning to the Crown Prince Manor.

It took a great deal of effort for Deng Chuanliang to finally confirm that the crown prince was hiding in the National Master Manor, under its protection.

The National Master Manor was the most substantial of the three Great Master Mansions. Each year, half of the cultivation resources allocated by the royal court to the three mansions went to the National Master Manor alone. The remaining half was divided up so that the Guardian National Master Manor received thirty percent and the Imperial Master mansion merely twenty.

In addition to the resources allocated by the court, the royals bestowed a large amount of cultivation resources each year. Moreover, nobles and princes from all over the country were always eager to make connections with the National Master Manor, finding all kinds of excuses each year to send heaps of cultivation resources their way. This is not to mention the various businesses owned by the National Master Manor, including medicinal mountains and spiritual stone veins they had opened up, which made the Manor immensely wealthy.

To deal with Qi Tian, Junior National Master Sun Xingbiao practically emptied the treasury of the National Master Manor, but he only took from the cultivation resources. He left untouched the manor’s fixed assets, including the defensive barriers which the Manor had erected at a great expense. Being hidden within the barriers, even a Gold Core cultivator like Deng Chuanliang wouldn’t be able to harm him.

These barriers also had the effect of identifying one’s identity. Even if Deng Chuanliang stole the tokens of other cultivators from the National Master Manor, he wouldn’t be able to enter the defensive barriers because his personal spirit fluctuations simply couldn’t be recognized.

Deng Chuanliang found the situation tricky. While keeping a close eye on the crown prince hiding in the barrier, he used a Message Paper Crane to report back to Qi Tian.

Qi Tian instructed Deng Chuanliang to leave the National Master Manor. He had already asked the Imperial Master Mansion to contact the mole they had inside the National Master Manor to secretly monitor the crown prince. He then ordered Deng Chuanliang to seek out the whereabouts of Chen Wenbo, the junior mansion master of the Guardian National Master Manor. The crown prince was difficult to kill for the moment, but there was no need to keep Chen Wenbo alive.

Deng Chuanliang followed the order, but soon he realized that Chen Wenbo had disappeared. Initially, he thought Chen Wenbo was hiding with the crown prince within the barriers of the National Master Manor. However, after employing certain methods, he confirmed that Chen Wenbo was not there and couldn’t even be found at the Guardian National Master Mansion. Chen Wenbo had disappeared completely from the capital of Great Zhao, and no one knew where he had gone.

Deng Chuanliang reported the situation to Qi Tian, expressing his concern that should Chen Wenbo escape from the Cultivation World of Great Zhao to Wanjie City, it would be nearly impossible to find him. If Chen Wenbo only sought to escape, there wouldn’t be many issues, however, if he decided to make a comeback or seek revenge after his escape, he could hire countless people from organizations in Wanjie City such as the Wanxue Tower to cause trouble in Great Zhao, and no one could stop them.

Qi Tian didn’t have a better solution to Chen Wenbo’s disappearance. His only choice was to have Deng Chuanliang continue searching for him while identifying key figures from the Guardian National Master Mansion and National Master Manor. These people were the key power holders of the two manors and the most likely to oppose Qi Tian. To solidify their victory, it was necessary to discern and screen these people, deal with the hard-liners, and show no mercy.

What Qi Tian didn’t know was that Chen Wenbo didn’t leave Great Zhao. Instead, at the order of the crown prince, he went to Chi Di and several other surrounding nations to connect with local cultivators and discuss strategies for opposing Qi Tian.

To keep his position as the crown prince, he abandoned his dignity and responsibilities as a heir to the country, and actively sought peace with nations they had been fighting against for many years.

He had to do this to secure his position. Killing Qi Tian was a definite way, but relying on the power that the crown prince could mobilize was already unrealistic. While external help was an option, the resources he could mobilize had dwindled. Each time he hired someone to deal with Qi Tian, it came at a high cost, and now the cultivation resources he could gather had been depleted. He was unsure of how he would account for this to his father, Emperor Tian Rui, when he returned from seclusion.

No money left!

This is the current and true reflection of the Crown Prince, Chen Wenbo and others. If they had been a little frugal at first, they would still have some cultivation resources left. They would not stay in Great Zhao, but would have exiled to Wanjie City or other places. The world is vast, they would always have found a place where Qi Tian could not find them. Yet now, due to their financial embarrassment, they couldn’t even leave if they wanted to. Especially with places like Wanjie City, where you can’t get by without some financial backing. Even survival could be challenging, let alone cultivation.

Chen Wenbo was tasked with reaching out to cultivators from all sides. If they could be persuaded, they could be urged to offer their cultivation resources, which would be gathered together to hire assassins in Wanjie City to kill Qi Tian, either openly or covertly.

Of course, whether these gathered cultivation resources would really be used to kill Qi Tian was a matter for further discussion. Either way on this matter, they would not be at a loss, and if handled well, they could even profit from it and make up for previous losses.

However, while the idea was appealing, when Chen Wenbo began to implement it, he found it was not so simple. Chen Wenbo was groomed by the Guardian National Master Manor as a successor. Although Wu Tie, the Mansion Master of the Guardian National Master Manor, intended to train him, Chen Wenbo was, after all, a junior Mansion Master, and many of the hardships he endured were merely surface level and did not penetrate to the core of his being. Now that the Crown Prince had sent Chen Wenbo on this mission alone without any attendants, Chen Wenbo was somewhat unable to bear it.

Chen Wenbo was initially able to endure it, but after leaving the border of Great Zhao, he had had enough. When he saw a continuous range of mountains, Chen Wenbo decided to stop travelling, find a place in the mountains to rest. When he felt rested, he would start out again.

It was during this rest that something went wrong.

The mountain Chen Wenbo chose for rest was not an ordinary one. If we go back in time, something of great significance had happened here. Numerous cultivators gathered here to dig for treasure underground.

However, in the end, no treasure was unearthed; instead, a large tomb was discovered, containing numerous zombie demonic beasts. Among them, the most remarkable thing was that these zombie demonic beasts were all submissive to a barefoot male cultivator.

This barefoot male cultivator caused Qi Tian no small amount of trouble. He seized an opportunity to chase Qi Tian so relentlessly that Qi Tian had nowhere to go. It was only by Qi Tian’s cunning use of a Teleportation Array Disk that he managed to teleport himself to Wanjie City, thereby evading the barefoot male cultivator’s pursuit.

During that time, the barefoot male cultivator was undoubtedly Qi Tian’s nightmare.

When Qi Tian used the Teleportation Array Disk to leave, it still had one use left. The Teleportation Array Disk had fallen into the hands of the barefoot male cultivator.

Upon obtaining this Teleportation Array Disk, the barefoot male cultivator had focused all his energy on finding Qi Tian, hoping to obtain more similar Teleportation Array Disks, something he himself was unable to do.