After gaining full control of the city, Jack headed back to his study room. Being a City Lord wasn’t simply partying and entertaining people but rather you had to actually work as well. Currently, he did not tangle with the budgets for the various departments or developments but rather brought himself up to speed with all the previous records. Currently, he was looking over the stack of papers that were the complied list of all the City Security related reports.

The stack of paper’s was divided into three sections: Thefts, frauds(tax evasion, false merchandise etc.) and fights. There weren’t a lot of thefts and frauds thanks to Dragon Cross’s strict supervision and people’s over all knowledge on the things they wished to buy but the number of fights was actually astonishingly high.

What made Jack burrow his brow was that most of these were related to fights between various other Major Clans and Sects or them fighting against Dragon Cross. It was obvious that the various Clans and Sects were actually putting pressure on Dragon Cross by having their younger generations “duel” Dragon Cross members. Dragon Cross was a large, actually the largest, Sect in the entire Cosmos.

The number of Disciples Dragon Cross had was nearly uncountable and to equally develop the entire Sect’s juniors was impossible even if Dragon Cross had thousands of times more resources. Those that were strong in these situations were not in Virbeth, they were either out tempering themselves or cultivating at the Headquarters.

Taking advantage of Merchant Hall not having any combat oriented Disciples, the Clans and Sects frequently request duels with them and basically cream them. This has caused quite a feud between the Dragon Cross Disciples and the various Sects and Clans, even causing them to fight when they see each other in the City.

There was once even a prominent Disciple in the Merchant Hall that got himself crippled as an aftermath of a duel like that. When Merchant Hall went to demand an explanation, all they got as answer was, “Oops, you know youngsters, they can’t hold back their fists.” Reading this particular report, Jack’s mood became even worse than before.

Finally, after reading through the entire stack, he let out a long deep sigh as he mumbled, “These pricks need to be taught a lesson...”

“Yes they do.” Immediately after Jack’s murmur, a grim voice sounded in the room. Startled, Jack raised his head and saw a plump man sitting on the couch. Recognising the figure of Shu, Jack relaxed a little. However, he still pondered how he had got into the room without Jack even noticing.

Jack tried to connect to the Core and feel his presence then but all he could do was feel that he was still in the Merchant Hall Headquarters. This made him quite puzzled as he looked at Shu with a tilted head. Shu just smiled as he said, “You must be wondering why you can’t feel my presence here?” Jack slowly nodded his head, indicating that it truly was what was on his mind.

Shu smiled and said, “Well, this is a simple Incarnation Technique. This “being” you see in front of you is completely made of Energy, so it is no surprise that you can’t “feel” it.” As Shu stated matter-of-factly, his gaze wandered to the stack of papers on Jack’s table.

He then said seriously, “You truly are hard working. You immediately started going through the records.” Jack then also looked at the stack of papers before smiling bitterly, “Well, I wanted to know what I got myself involved in.”

Shu nodded his head as he praised Jack in his heart, “No wonder Master has such high expectations of him. Even though he had all the time in the world to look over those past documents, he did it so fast.” After thinking about that, Shu looked at Jack seriously as he asked, “So, what are your thoughts after reading those reports?” Hearing the question, Jack just let out a deep sigh as he shook his head, “I have no idea what is going through those idiots heads….”

Shu was startled by the answer but before he could even let out a smirk, Jack started explaining, “First of all, it doesn’t matter whether this City is bound by Dragon Cross or not, they had no right to contest over it like they currently have been.” Hearing Jack’s explanation, Shu nodded his head indicating that he understood the reason Jack thought as he did.

Seeing this, Jack continued, “Second of all, what is the merit of picking a fight with Merchant Hall?” Shu’s eyes narrowed as he asked, “Explain it in more detail.” Jack just said, “Well, Merchant Hall is compromised of non-combat oriented people. What so called “honour” can those Clans and Sects obtain from throwing their pampered and spoiled “prodigies” against people that have next to nothing to do with combat?”

As Jack asked it like that, Shu just started laughing loudly as he answered him, “Completely right! However, you missed one crucial point in the second one.” Hearing this, Jack’s ears perked up as he asked, “What point?”

Shu put on a serious expression again as he said, “Dragon Cross is the biggest Sect in the Cosmos. Even though we are divided into Four Halls that develop in different directions, all of our Halls are strong. Since all our Halls are strong, they try to undermine our reputation by picking on our weakest links, in this case, the Merchant Hall.” Hearing the explanation, Jack’s confusion cleared up a bit.

What Shu said was actually right, even though the Four Halls all had different directions in their cultivation paths, all Four Halls were without a doubt strong. However, from Shu’s words, Jack understood the big “but” that was in the sentence. The Four Halls are all strong BUT only the Enforcement Halls junior generation was stronger than other Sects and Clans. The other three Halls had a strong senior generation that no one dared to pick a fight with but their juniors were quite average in strength and were quite a bit weaker than those prominent brats specifically nurtured and spoon fed since young by their Sects or Clans.

Merchant Hall was in charge of dealing with finances and resources of the Sect, so their main focus when grooming juniors was management and trading. Forging Hall was in charge of Artefact Forging, so their juniors had to learn a vast number of metals/woods/other resources and their properties used in forging. Healing Hall was in charge of dealing with the injured of Dragon Cross and also Pill/Elixir Concocting. Their main focus in grooming their juniors was making sure they understood a persons body inside and out with being able to recognise all sorts of herbs.

Besides the Enforcement Hall, none of the three other Halls focused on personal cultivation or fighting techniques. What the Major Clans and Sects were currently doing, repeatedly requesting duels with Merchant Hall Disciples, was akin to having a grandmaster swordsman duel with farmers for the title of Champion.

Jack then shook his head as he could see the logic in Shu’s words but still had one helpless opinion of his, “Third point why I think that these guys are all idiots, is simple: No alliance has been able to topple the firm position Dragon Cross has climbed to, why in the Seven Hells do they think that they are qualified to actually pick a fight with us so blatantly?”

Hearing this reason, Shu laughed even harder than before and then said, “Well said! They actually do not hold any qualification but rather they know that because our Sect is going to take part in the Planar War soon, we have no other option than to endure for the moment.” Jack’s brows furrowed as the term “Planar War” was mentioned again.

Jack asked in a slightly irritated tone, “Are you going to tell me what the hell is a Planar War?” Shu seemed to have expected this as he smugly answered, “You see, there are other Planes out there besides our own. A fight between Planes is called a Planar War and they are held at fixed intervals. Every 100 billion years, every Plane has a chance to challenge another Plane.”

Shu then took a deep breath, “If the Challenger wins, they gain control of the loser’s Plane until the next War but if they lose, they have to pay an extremely huge amount of resources as tribute. In addition, a Plane can only be challenged once every ten Wars by the same Plane no matter the outcome.” Jack raised his hand as he said, “Wow, wow, wow, stop! Give me a moment.”

Jack then closed his eyes as he quickly went over all of the things Shu had just said and established a logical connection between them. Shu however looked a little embarrassed as he thought back to the rapid talking he did.

He gave no chance for Jack to understand what he was talking about before he dumped new information on him. Learning from his mistake, he continued with breathers in between as he saw that Jack indicated for him to continue.

He took a breath as he continued, “There is no way to stay at the sidelines of the Planar War and that goes for us as well. Our Dragon Cross will deploy 4 out of 5 Dao Seeking experts on our side alongside with 90 percent of the Origin Realm experts. Every other major power has to deploy at least 80 percent of their Origin Realm experts.”

Jack fell into thought as Shu took a little break to let it all sink into Jack. It would take no fool to realize that if Dragon Cross sent out all of their Dao Reserve, then it would be screwed. Jack raised his head in confusion but before he could ask, Shu seemed to know what he was thinking about as he said, “During a Planar War, all fighting amongst the powers of the Cosmoses is strictly forbidden. Should for example we go to participate in the War and come back to Dragon Cross being destroyed and all of our resources distributed, the Heavenly Cosmoses would send us reinforcements to annihilate all the powers involved and rebuild Dragon Cross.”

Hearing this, Jack was surprised. It seemed like the Planar War was something extremely important for the lofty Heaven Cosmoses to come to their help if something happens to the bases of the powers participating in the war. Jack asked, “Do all of the other power’s know this as well.”

Shu nodded as he said, “Yes, the Planar War is something that directly determines the fate of a Plane. How can we give our all in the War if we have to worry about our home being ransacked while we are gone?”

Jack nodded his head in enlightenment after hearing Shu’s explanation. Jack then asked, “What are the requirements to participate in the War? Are there any rewards in return?” Shu crossed his hands on his chest as he said, “Well, for cultivators, they have to at least reach the Origin Realm. However, Origin Realm people are the basic soldiers with Dao Seeking being the Commanders and Heaven Realm being the Generals. The rewards are directly tied to your contributions. The higher your contributions, the more things you can exchange for. However, for Wizards, it is different.”

Hearing this, Jack’s ears perked up as he felt that something very unpleasant was coming his way. “Usually, someone at the level of Wizard has to take part in the War but in your case specifically, you have to participate at the stage of ArchMage.”

Hearing this, Jack stood up as he slammed his hands on the table, “Why in the fucking Seven Hells do I have to participate when I am so weak?!”