“Haha, well that went well”

He chuckled as the previous part of the meeting went through his mind.

“Wu Long, do you trust that Luo Family old racoon? He seems overly suspicious of you”

Shen Min cut to the core of her worries as he smiled.

“Haha, of course I don’t trust him. I’ve only known him a little and have no way of verifying his motives”

“But then why did you tell me to participate not using my Light side?”

“Because I oppose using your light side as bait as far as I can help it”

Wu Long chuckled as she widened her eyes at his statement.

“But you…”

“Yes, I agreed to you using that tactic, but I never said I would not interfere when I’m around. Besides, if it is him you are worried about, he’s the one we need to get Mingyu’s parents to the safety of our side as well as an old acquaintance of General Feng who I do trust”

“Heh, It’s not like my Father is a good judge of character seeing as their third comrade, Nin Family Patriarch seems to be on the other side of the barricades now. Not to mention the case of my little brother”

Feng Yi sighed as she also did not like the Luo Family Patriarch doubting and contradicting Wu Long at almost every turn of the meeting.

“The main reason I allowed him in this meeting is because I had Old Yen follow him”

Wu Long chuckled as the beauties widened their eyes.

“But…”

They looked to the door where Old Yen presumably stood by.

“Haha, a souvenir from Madam Liang when I met her and Old Man Zhao, an illusion talisman we created at the time”

He chuckled.

“I control it remotely for now, but it has to stay within a certain quite close distance from me and a better eye will find out the trick, but there are no people here who are that perceptive”

“I see… but still. By the way, what happened to the ruse of the ‘unknown backer’ you have used before? I thought you could move safely because of it before…”

Shen Min then remembered Wu Long’s use of the opponent’s overthinking that worked all the way to his meeting with the Emperor in the capital not long ago, which suddenly seemingly lost all its power.

“It is the escalation of the opponents movements in response to the sudden improvements of the Spiritual Qi. That ruse works well in peaceful times, but as Gu Zhen was ramping up his preparations he would have soon began to test the ‘mysterious backer’ theory since he could not leave it alone anymore, which would have crumbled on the spot at the first sign of scrutiny.

So instead of letting him make sure I really had no mysterious backer, I dropped the pretense on my own, acting in a more careful way to show that the ruse is up, which still did not confirm it all the way but made it that more dangerous to check. Basically, since it was coming to end anyway, it is just a way to use what was left of that ruse to play with his mind a little”

He innocently spread his hands, bringing smiles to the beauties around.

“Hahaha, you can be so mean” .

Ye Ling shook her head as she heard that explanation.

“But jokes aside, we do have to think of the worst case situation in which all our plans fail”

Sui Luxiao sighed as she thought about the complex situation which was easy to derail into a complete wreck.

“I would not have started all this if I did not think of that. I just don’t want those outside of us here know that if push comes to shove I can still handle the situation since that would cause them to lose tension, just… I’d like it not come to that”

Wu Long shook his head, as thinking about what if everything were to go in the worst direction possible was the first thing he did. He did not act with confidence if he could not back it up. He did not like to tiptoe, but it did not mean he threw caution to the wind. Leaving things to chance with no contingency was the very embodiment of a walking deadman in his view.

It was not like he always counted on using those final means, since it was always the very last method, but he did not expect meeting cultivators beyond Essence Awakening Realm either.

Nor did he expect for the time of conflict to suddenly come so much faster at the drop of a hat. If he expected these he would have made a few backup plans without having to rely on the last resort, and he in fact did, just not those that would work in the current state of events.

“You can’t!”

Ye Ling felt something in his words and revealed a rare look of deep worry bordering on anger. 𝘪𝑎.𝒸𝘰

“Hah, is it that bad?”

He asked as he looked at her and she looked away, sitting back as she half-stood up before.

“You know it is, why ask?”

As she answered, the others looked on with surprise at the usually calm beauty whose tranquil mind resembled a surface of a mirror, with no blemishes, only for it to now become a lake that a stone was thrown into.

“Um…”

Hua Ziyan raised her voice and Wu Long gently smiled with a nod.

“You see, the drastic means I am talking about using are of the dangerous variety like burning one’s blood essence, igniting one’s soul sea or using forceful empowerment techniques with great side effects and other such methods to temporarily gain great strength or in our case unleash more of our potential. But as you can guess it comes at a price of a permanent damage with varying degrees of effects depending on which method you use and how far you go with it.

The reason I asked her the question before, is because Ling’er has used such means once in her past life so she is more apprehensive of me using such means, knowing what is it like from experience”

He then slowly explained as everyone’s eyes turned to Ye Ling. Feng Yi has only recently learned of Wu Long, Ye Ling and Wu Mengqi’s situation with past life, and had yet to digest that so this conversation instantly turned a little surreal for her.

“Have you never wondered about the fact that Ye Ling who was a high level cultivator in her past life would have a lifespan much much longer than I would have lived even if I achieved Mortal Transcendence?

Granted, she has lived many years before meeting me, but there was a reason she had so little time left that just spending it with me robbed her of her chance to advance. And that is because at one point in time, facing impossible odds, she used more power that she could handle using these forceful means, crippling her cultivation enough that she spent most of her lifespan mending the damage without being able to advance”

Wu Long explained for Ye Ling who simply sighed, closing her eyes to regain the tranquil state of mind she was usually in.

“And I would be correct in stopping you. Think about it, your talent right now is already…”

As she opened her eyes again, she started speaking, stopping halfway as she realized where her words headed.

“Haha, no need to be so polite about it, we all know it Ling’er”

Wu Long lightly laughed while the girls around couldn’t help but smile at the situation and Ye Ling’s face as she froze.

“Anyway, what if you use any of those methods? It would become impossible for you to advance further!”

She then regained momentum, making the others serious as this was not an option.

“Haha, Ling’er. First of all the degree to which I would have to suffer consequences would be reduced as I would not need to raise strength as much as you had to back then, and secondly, in that hypothetical scenario I would be using several high-level techniques to offset the damage and bring down the cost of using such means.

Not to mention that my Golden Dragon Yang Body was designed with such methods in mind in the first place, and the Chaos Refining Body Tempering Art made my physique far more resilient to these types of shock”

He lightly laughed as he explained. He also knew far more ways to recover from that damage, but it did not ease Ye Ling’s worry.

𝑖.𝘤ℴ𝘮