“Hear me out brothers and sisters of the sect, the Patriarch put his trust in us and we will make true on it. As you might know, the demonic menace is done with but another enemy on the level of the demi-humans remains. We will organize a task force to get to the bottom of that island, failure is not an option!”

Zhang Zhi was performing a speech at a gathering of commanding officers. The Sect had a similar ranking system to the army which was decided mainly by a person’s cultivation and skill level. However, this didn’t mean that the most potent fighter would always be giving the orders. Everything was run through a special brain unit that brought out the best strategies and the one in charge had to finally decide on one.

“Has the intelligence unit prepared the information?”

“We have, Commander Zhi.”

“Very well, I’ll leave it up to Elder Changpu, she will present us their findings.”

“Thank you, Commander Zhi.”

A woman that looked to be in her fifties took a step forward toward the stage. There a large screen flickered on to present the findings of their scout units. There were photos of the strange island from all sides that they could.

“As you can see the island is but a reproduction and its true size is hidden under the deep water. Without the proper equipment, we were unable to gather information about the true size of it. These beings are aquatic in nature and our people had to retreat.”

“Elder Changpu, aren’t the new underwater ships ready to set out? As I recall the armory unity called them submarines?”

“Ah yes, the new products from the main sect that the Patriarch helped to design, it's truly a blessing that he is with us.”

The elders nodded in agreement. The underwater ships and weapons had been produced at the main sect and then transported through the teleportation gates. With them to aid them they hoped to be able to close the gap between the person and sea creature. They were equipped with various projectile weapons that should even be able to harm a nascent soul master and were designed to be especially deadly in underwater combat.

“Trouly, it wouldn’t be possible without the Patriarch’s knowledge, it is a mystery why he is so wise!”

“It must be because he is the Golden Dragon!”

“Indeed, if it was up to me he would be sitting on the throne and not that Azure Emperor… what has he done for us or the people?”

“That isn’t wrong but… should we be saying these things…”

“Why not? We are the United Element Sect, we are not inferior to any of the other sect or the Long Clan!”

“That’s right, as long as we have the Patriarch we need to fear no one!”

The room burst into cheers after the conversation shifted toward the sect leader. Everyone here didn’t try to deny this fact, their leader was in their eyes at least on the same level as the Azure Emperor. With no point of reference, they assumed that he would be victorious in a fair fight and for now it seemed that Long Qing was remaining silent.

There could be many reasons why he wasn’t interfering with the United Element Sect. The most reasonable one being that they just had other things to worry about with the invaders everywhere. However the sect loved Zhang Dong, to them, it must have been another reason. Long Qing was just afraid of a direct confrontation and losing face against his brother, the Golden Dragon.

“Please calm down brothers and sisters, this is not the time we must discuss our plan, otherwise we will bring shame to the Patriarch if we are forced to seek his help again.”

Zhang Zhi brought everyone's attention back to the screen. It was important to him that they are able to confront the enemy by themselves. Most if not all of the main battles were victorious thanks to Zhang Dong being involved. Zhi as well as the other elders knew that this couldn’t continue. They needed to show to their Patriarch and also to the world that they could win even without their strongest fighter getting involved.

“Aye, the Long Clan rarely involves the Azure Dragon in their dealings, we must do so as well, otherwise no one will take us seriously without the Patriarch's direct involvement…”

Soon the conversation returned to tackling the strange island. On the screen, they placed the diagrams of the sea creatures guarding the whole place. The weak spots had been found and would be used to bring victory to their next war expedition. After all of the equipment and personnel were ready they would begin their mission.

…

‘They do that a lot, maybe it's because my favorability rating is too high?’

Zhang Dong had left his people to their own devices but kept an ear out. Thanks to his faction system and Zhi that was now a prestige unit being at the gathering he could easily hear what they were talking about. It was embarrassing to hear them praise him every second that they could. Some of the praises were true but others were just trying to crawl up Zhang Zhi’s posterior by praising the man he adored.

The praises that he received were fine but some parts were problematic. Long Qing was brought up and disrespected by his own people. If the Long clan ever got wind of it then it could cause some friction. It wouldn’t be strange if people from his faction got into a dispute with the Long Clan over things like this. His side was clearly disrespecting the current Emperor, it was as if they wanted Long Qing to be replaced.

‘This isn’t good but their faith in me borders on fanaticism already, after Wang Long died my name began to be spread even more…’

Zhang Dong knew that this was all problematic. The only reason there was no friction on the surface between the Long Clan and his side was due to the war. If they started killing each other then the invaders would only profit from it. For the time being an uneasy truce had been established but when all of this was over then it would explode.

‘The sooner we get rid of the Emerald Phoenix Empire and those underwater beings, the sooner I might have to clash with the Emperor…’

He was not afraid of battling Long Qing, his power was vast but it wasn’t above his. The biggest problem was the woman that would be there. What would the overseer do after his victory over the Long Clan? Would she not notice that the mind control didn’t work?

‘What is her plan… if Long Qing dies then so will she and her family if we consider the usual rules of this world. At best I would need to imprison them somewhere to ease the minds of the people, two Emperors can’t exist at once and their kids would have a right to the throne…’

The administrator had some kind of mind-affecting skills. There were also ways of producing clones and flesh puppets. Perhaps after Long Qing was killed or imprisoned she would exchange herself for another person.

‘Wait… would she do something like that?’

Zhang Dong, who was in the middle of crafting a new sword, almost dropped his hammer. The crafting abode was still in his possession and it was one of the places where no one could bother him. During his crafting session, he continued to overthink and a terrible thought entered his mind.

What if that Empress exchanged the Azure Dragon for the Gold Dragon after all was set and done. What better place to examine the system holder than being at his side constantly. If he thought about it more it did make sense. When all was said and done the system holder would become the new Emperor of this empire. To monitor everything she would need to remain close to the people in power and switching from Azure to Gold would be the easiest method.

Now, this was a true problem, his mind raced to rationalize this possibility. He had planned to take it slow, as long as he didn’t give himself away then perhaps the Overseer would remain passive through all of it. Even if it took him a thousand years he might finally be able to achieve the immortal stage himself and break this cycle. Could he sacrifice his dear wife for all of it though or anyone else? She could replace anyone and he would need to watch, even if it was not a close family member could he just let something like this happen?

‘Shit… I might have been overestimating how much time I have…’

While his plan was to get stronger he now needed to keep his family members away from the Azure Emperor. If a war broke out between them then perhaps it would be better to prolong it as much as he could. This didn’t change the fact that he needed to take care of the current problem which was the fish people in the north.

“I need to finish this thing first…”

In his hand, he had a long piece of metal that was slowly taking shape. His spiritual energy flowed into it while he continually delivered hammer strikes. Crafting in this world was a lot different, the hammer was only used to inject his Qi with more force but in general, this force was used to mold the item into shape.

With time a curved blade with one sharp edge started to appear. This would be the new weapon that Zhang Zhi would use in battle. The highest heaven grade weapon that he could produce would belong to his first prestige unit.

‘Think they used to call these blades Odachi.’

It was infused with both water and holy energies. With the water elemental infusion that went above the norm, he hoped to bridge the gap. The battles that would be taking place would be fought near large bodies of water. This blade should be something that took his enemies off guard and boost Zhi’s current power level to someone at the great circle.

“It’s quite long but it shouldn’t break that easily…”

After giving the sharpened edge a poke he could feel his flesh being injured. It was even able to injure him who had a powerful body refining skill. With this, the blade would be able to deliver damage to even an Emperor-level threat now it just needed a few finishing touches before the battle started.

“I still need to make those gauntlets for Qiang and that new fan for Liena, who should I start with first…”