Tribulation of Myriad Races

The Eastpart City was bustling with activity.

After entering the city, the people of the group split apart. The Cloudbreach from Great Song followed Su Yu and politely asked, "Master Cui, where are you staying? Great Song has several houses in the city. The environment there is quite good. If you don't mind, you can take a rest in one of our houses."

Su Yu smiled, "Sir, you're too polite. Honestly, I might not have the time to forge any weapons during this visit. I can simply take a rest in Great Ming's place."

The Cloudbreach felt regretful. He said, "In that case, let me send you over. It has been a few years since your last visit. A lot has changed. You might not be able to find that place easily."

"I'll be troubling you, then."

Su Yu did not reject the offer. The earthdragon started pulling the carriage toward their new destination. He could see numerous signboards hanging on the sides of the road.

Great Zhou Consulate. Great Qi Consulate. Great Xia Consulate.

All thirty-six prefectures had their consulates in the city. These consulates were meant to serve the lone travelers from their respective prefectures. Before long, they arrived at a large compound.

Great Ming Consulate.

It was massive and magnificent. Two golden dragon statues could be seen right in front of the main entrance. These were the sculptures of Zhu Tiandao's personal mount. In fact, each consulate here had its own unique characteristics.

But the term unique was no longer suitable to describe the Great Ming Consulate. This building looked more like the residence of a local tycoon. It was massive, magnificent, and surrounded by wide roads. In fact, just its main gate was already double the size of the other consulates.

Compared to Great Ming Consulate, Great Xia Consulate seemed more like the residence of a beggar. Basically, one was a building in the upper-class area while the other was a building in the slums.

Two soldiers stood guard in front of Great Qin Consulate. But outside Great Ming Consulate, eight soldiers were standing guard. They looked incredibly impressive. A more ignorant person would probably thought that Great Ming was actually the strongest prefecture of the Human Realm after seeing all these consulates.

Even the Cloudbreach from Great Song couldn't resist being shocked. He said, "Great Ming is truly...What can I say? When I came here a few days ago, this place wasn't this big. Why did they expand their consulate again? It's not like they get a lot of visitors here. Don't they need money to keep expanding the place?"

He was speaking the truth. Great Ming Consulate did not get a lot of visitors because the people of Great Ming loved staying at home instead of coming to the battlefield. For them, this was a place only warriors should visit.

As for warriors, they would be attached to the military most of the time. Very few of them were lone travelers. Meanwhile, Great Xia Consulate welcomed a lot more visitors, but it was actually much smaller than Great Ming Consulate.

Su Yu laughed. He wasn't surprised. He asked curiously, "Is the land here expensive?"

"Yes." The Cloudbreach explained, "This place is near the main headquarters yet is not a military base. It is also protected by the Invincibles due to its proximity to the military base. It basically offers a high degree of safety and freedom. Most long-term travelers of Allheaven Battlefield want to get a place of residence here, but the price of land and property here is terrifyingly high. A small building of about three hundred square meters is worth no less than three thousand merit points."

Basically, one would need to fork out at least ten merit points per square meter. Was that expensive? That was excessively expensive. One needed to kill three early-stage Cloudbreaches on the battlefield to earn three thousand merit points. But that would only be enough to buy a small building in the city. And without enough money, one could forget about getting a place of residence here.

The sight of the consulate left Su Yu quite speechless. This place was probably tens of thousands of square meters in size, right? Yeah. That was most likely the case. This whole building had probably cost them hundreds of thousands of merit points.

Including the other expenses, they must have spent millions on this building alone. Great Ming was truly rich.

No wonder Zhu Tiandao was always so generous when talking about money. He was completely unlike Marquis Xia who was eternally stingy. If possible, he would probably split a single merit point into two before using them, pretending like each half of the merit point was actually one merit point.

Right after the carriage stopped, one of the guards in gold stepped forth and asked, "Which lord is visiting? Do I need to notify the consul?"

Su Yu had a gentle smile as he replied, "I'm Cui Lang. Is Senior Brother Liu still the consul here?"

The guard appeared rather confused when he heard the name. But soon, he reacted, "Are you the recently advanced peak profound weaponsmith, Master Cui?"

The Great Song Cloudbreach said with an envious tone, "Master Cui forged a weapon with seventy-two golden stripes a few days ago. Your information is outdated."

This guard had only received news about Su Yu's advancement during his time in Great Xia. That was old news.

Su Yu did not even need to say anything else. The large gate swung open as a chubby middle-aged man walked out. With a hearty laugh, he said, "Is this Junior Brother Cui? Your name has been spreading widely as of late."

The chubby man wore a wide smile on his face as he said, "Junior Brother, it has only been a few years, but your transformation is truly shocking."

This was a Mountainsea, but he was acting very amicably.

Su Yu hopped off the carriage and said, "Senior Brother Liu, are you still the consul? During my previous visit, you promised to provide me with a divine beauty. I still remember that promise."

"Hahaha...cough, cough. Uhm...that was a joke! A joke! Don't take it seriously. If I were capable enough to get you something like that, why would I stay here as a consul?"

This chubby man with the surname Liu came from the Great Ming Cultural Research Academy. He had graduated many years ago. Five years ago, he advanced into the Mountainsea Realm. His current cultivation level was unknown.

Su Yu had asked Cui Lang about the Allheaven Battlefield before leaving. According to Cui Lang, he had a friendship with Consul Liu, but the two weren't close. After all, he was only a Skysoar back then. The only reason the two could befriend each other was the fact that both were the students of Sunmoons. But that was how things were.

Cui Lang was now a Cloudbreach and a pseudo earth weaponsmith. Consul Liu had heard of that, so he was exceptionally polite in Cui Lang's presence. "Junior Brother, you should have told me in advance about your visit. I would have sent someone to welcome you right in front of the portal. How could I let a stranger escort you here?"

"You're too polite, Senior Brother." Su Yu turned to face the Great Song Cloudbreach and said, "Thank you for everything, Sir. I will be staying in the Great Ming Consulate for several days so you can look for me if you need any help with your weapons. You only need to come with the materials. I might have some trouble with earth weapons, but profound weapons won't be a problem. I can forge you a profound weapon if you're interested."

The Cloudbreach was overjoyed as he hurriedly said, "Let me thank you in advance, Master Cui. If you need to go to the headquarters, feel free to contact me!"

After a short chat, the Cloudbreach took his leave.

Consul Liu said, "Junior Brother, you're too generous. Normally, a weaponsmith will charge at least hundreds of merit points to forge a profound weapon. At times, the price can even go as high as thousands of merit points. All he did was show you the way here..."

Su Yu indifferently said, "It's fine. That's no big deal. For me, forging a profound weapon is the same as casually swinging my hammer a few times."

Consul Liu couldn't help but raise his thumb upon hearing those words.

"You're truly different nowadays, Junior Brother. I'll be relying on your care from now on."

"No!" Su Yu lazily said, "Stop joking with me. Senior Brother, you must have profited greatly after so many years here. Just look at how big your waist has grown. Be careful lest I report you to the prefect."

"Please don't!" The chubby man laughed and said, "I didn't earn that much. In fact, I never took any of the funds allocated by the prefect. Just look at this place. All the money was spent here. Which consulate can compare against ours?"

Su Yu nodded and started walking inside while talking, "Yeah, yeah. I understand. This place is so big and nice. You can probably earn tens of thousands of merit points per year secretly renting some of the rooms out. Why would you need to resort to something as stupid as corruption?"

"..."

An awkward expression appeared on the chubby man's face. He switched to voice transmission, "Please, Junior Brother! Please have mercy! I didn't take any of the funds allocated by the prefecture! It would be a waste to let these rooms remain empty, right? In this compound alone, there are thirty-six buildings. I spent millions of merit points building this place up. I have never stolen from the prefecture. Nobody is as clean as me!

"I'm only renting twelve of the buildings out. I only earn about twelve thousand merit points per year, but I still need to take care of maintenance, wages for the staff here, and receiving important guests. After all those expenses, I don't even have much left for myself. In a good year, I would only have about two or three thousand merit points left."

Su Yu laughed, "Why are you using voice transmission? It's not like nobody is aware of this. Even the prefect knows this. He has merely been keeping silent about it. In fact, he even praised you before for being smart. Since all those rooms are going to remain empty, you might as well rent them out. I only found out about this from my teacher. I didn't notice anything during my previous visit."

"Heh..."

Consul Liu laughed. That was great to hear. As for whether he would really only earn thousands of merit points per year, well, Su Yu was sure that the real number was bigger. But he wasn't too bothered about it. He said, "Senior Brother, you need to get me a nice place to stay. There are no guests as of late, right?"

"Nope. Excluding the renters, me, and the staff here, there is only a Mountainsea here. He arrived several days ago on official business. He's an elder from the war academy. Do you want to meet him?"

"No. It's fine." Su Yu said, "Since he's here on official business, I won't be disturbing him. By the way, I heard Prince Hongwen is here. Where is he?"

"He's inspecting the army at the Heavenly Dao Army's encampment. He will be here in a few days."

The two conversed cordially.

The Great Ming Consulate was massive. They were within the Allheaven Battlefield, but there were actually elegant pavilions and gardens in this compound. There were also elegant bridges, streams of water, and fountains all over the compound. Even Su Yu couldn't resist cursing when he looked around. This was way too luxurious.

No wonder people were willing to fork out over a thousand merit points per year to rent a house here. In fact, the demand was actually higher than the supply. If Consul Liu did not put a limit to it, he could probably rent the entire consulate out. What a good businessman.

In comparison, Great Xia and the other prefectures seemed quite brainless. They only needed to invest several million merit points and they could easily earn the money back in about two or three decades.

For cultivators, that wasn't a long time at all. It was basically the same as getting someone else to pay for the place.