Chapter 706: Mi Fang – What? Long Fu Challenged Me!

Through pure and lively magic glass, Mi Fang admired the snowscape outside his window.

This was the Ice Sculpture Capital.

Even though the wind and the snow was heavy, they did not fall here, for many alchemy formations reduced them to specks of pure white snowflakes.

These snowflake specks were minute, and outwardly emitted feeble gleaming radiance, and in the capital’s waning lights, they appeared tranquil, noble, and graceful.

Every time he looked at this kind of snowscape, Mi Fang would not want to leave.

He stopped in front of his wide window, hand on a hot drink, looking satisfied and content.

This house was located in the central zone of the capital, not only was the land extremely expensive here, but one had to have influence to purchase it.

And Mi Fang had struggled for over 20 years through his own power to be qualified to stand here and appreciate the snowscape.

At first, he had been a human who came from abroad to pursue his studies in the Ice Sculpture Kingdom.

Mi Fang came from humble beginnings and understood how to climb his way up.

His luck was pretty good. Heaven had given him a gold level bloodline aptitude and a beautiful complexion. Even though he was amongst elves, he was very delicate, pretty, and handsome.

There were many kinds of beauty, and every race had different esthetics. Dwarfs held ruggedness in esteem, devils like malevolence and frightening looks, and elves like delicate and gorgeous looks.

Mi Fang’s features were very close to elven esthetics, and this caused numerous elven women to welcome him in.

When he was still a student, he sharply sensed that this was an advantage of his he could greatly exploit.

He maintained close relationships with many female elves, causing many people to be resentful. Many suitors began to challenge him in succession, publicly initiating duels.

At first, Mi Fang regretted it, thinking he went too far and drew in big troubles.

After hesitating for a good while, he summoned his courage and accepted a duel. After winning the duel, he realized he was being treated differently and suddenly realized there was a better shortcut than flaunting his male beauty.

“It was duels!” Mi Fang exclaimed in admiration.

The dueling culture seemed to have originated from the legend of the heroic duel, and it was quite popular in the Frost Continent and in the Ice Sculpture Kingdom. Duels weren’t just a widespread recreation amongst the masses, it permeated all aspects of life, and every social class was involved in them. Countless citizens used them to resolve disputes and decide how to allocate benefits.

Duels were so important, and from the beginning the Ice Sculpture Royal Family promoted them widely and often added fuel to the fire.

Mi Fang had a deep impression of them. He remembered that after losing, many challengers were not enraged over perceived humiliation, on the contrary they were pleased and acknowledged their allegiance to him, with a few even becoming his followers!

The dueling culture was the foundational gene of the kingdom.

So long as you won the duel, everything was easy to deal with.

Everyone would determine that you were stronger, admire you, serve you, and would back down willingly.

Even if you were an outsider and not an Ice Sculpture citizen, even if you weren’t a snow elf and were a human.

After learning how beneficial duels were, Mi Fang changed his style and engrossed immense energy into researching Ice Sculpture duels.

Each duel was both a challenge and an enormous opportunity!

Mi Fang wasn’t attending to one thing and losing sight of another, rather he was doing a two-pronged approach.

On the one hand he got close to snow elf women, and through all kinds of intimate relationships, he acquired plenty of cultivation resources, information, and more. While on the other hand, he was actively preparing to win the next duel.

Through the subsidies of his lovers, he overcame his lack of resources and enormously increased his dueling win rate. These dueling victories brought renown that projected his charm across the winds and waves. Because the many suitors he provoked from his pursuit of love became his dueling opponents.

Mi Fang firmly controlled both aspects of this, acting in concert with both to form a positive cycle that allowed his personal strength to rise little by little.

In the wake of his rising renown, he gradually caught the eye of the Ice Sculpture Kingdom’s high class.

When he became a gold level, his life reached its greatest turning point.

A gold level expert was the backbone of a region, and sufficient for the high class people to toss him an olive branch.

Finally, Mi Fang took a clan’s olive branch and became a member of the Jing Xiang Clan.

This was the outcome of his careful selection.

Although the Jing Xiang Clan was not as strong as the Han Yu Clan or the Li Jian Clan, they had a very strong foundation in magic medicine, and even though the Ice Sculpture Kingdom had high level alchemy, the Jing Xiang Clan was enormously competitive.

And Mi Fang was an outstanding pharmacist.

Of course, this was not the reason why he didn’t join the Han Yu or Li Jian Clan. Although these top clans were disposed to recruit him, they weren’t willing to let Mi Fang become a member of the clan and were more inclined to hire him to some important position. For example, the Li Jian Clan’s San Sha Man Tuo who held a position in the navy.

“If I wasn’t just a gold level, but a saint level, then my status would be entirely different.”

“A pity, I won’t ever have that chance in my life.” Mi Fang knew his bloodline potential had been completely exhausted and understood the gold level was the peak of his life.

The Jing Xiang Clan had many core gold levels, of high and low status.

For the next ten years, Mi Fang strived to climb the ranks of his clan.

He had become a son-in-law of the Jing Xiang Clan and greatly reduced his playboy lover flings. But he didn’t give up dueling, instead participating in them every so often to maintain his reputation.

He had participated in many duels, and in the wake of his accumulated experience, he gained many insights, seldom losing and often winning.

“In the end, duels have their limits. Or to be more precise, I have my limits.”

Mi Fang’s bloodline potential was exhausted, and after padding out his equipment to the pinnacle, his combat strength had hit a ceiling too.

There were far fewer gold level duelists than silver level ones.

Mi Fang also meticulously filtered his opponents, greatly reducing the available pool.

Duels were giving him less, so to make progress, Mi Fang had to turn his attention elsewhere.

The Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps’ appearance allowed him to find a new golden opportunity.

The Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps coming out with a dedicated mount potion opened up an unexplored market. When Mi Fang learned of this news, he felt like he was seeing a new world of great abundance.

He sallied out in full strength, maneuvered from top to bottom, and spent a large amount of capital and connections to become the Jing Xiang Clan’s provisional person in charge for this market.

Since then, the dragon rider potion was an instant hit and had fiery sales, exceeding industry expectations and attracting the eyes of countless people. 

The Jing Xiang Clan reacted, wanting to get involved, but it was Mi Fang who seized that critical opportunity.

From the lowest rungs, Mi Fang had climbed to this height, so naturally he had talent.

He made an all-out effort and actively followed up, reversed engineered parts of the dragon rider potion with all speed and used it as a base to modify, obtaining the Jing Xiang Clan’s mount potion product from it.

Such magic medicine needed a large amount of testing before it hit the market.

But Mi Fang knew the importance of seizing market share, and chose to take a risk, standing his ground against the opinion of the masses and threw this mount potion into the market at once.

His gambling paid off.

The Jing Xiang Clan’s mount potion was comparable to the dragon rider potion. It was barely any different and didn’t have any undue side effects. 

Thus, the Jing Xiang Clan business venture paid off, and Mi Fang stabilized his position, truly becoming the person in charge of this project.

This success motivated Mi Fang, causing him to become more proactive.

“The magic medicine business is the core benefit of the Jing Xiang Clan. I have become a son-in-law and have been a member of the clan for almost ten years before I was able to get into this field and become the person in charge of it!”

“The mount potion business has vast prospects, and now I have gained a foothold in it. I only need to take constant initiative to grab onto greater power, position, and benefits.”

“I can climb higher!”

Mi Fang knew his many shortcomings.

For example, he was a human, and in the end, the Ice Sculpture Kingdom was led by snow elves. Even though he joined the Jing Xiang Clan, and even though he was in a loving relationship with his wife and children, he would never truly rise the ranks of the Jing Xiang Clan’s highest echelons. 

He had already reached the limits of his bloodline, and attained the ceiling of his individual strength, and the Jing Xiang Clan limited his influence according to his capabilities, one he had reached.

Wanting to break through this limit was very difficult. Thinking of taking a small step beyond it was as difficult as ascending the heavens.

In the end, personnel of large high level organizations generally possessed enough political acumen to know that power was above all else.

The Jing Xiang Clan were nobles, and any noble family, including those of the Sheng Ming Empire, had the administrative consensus that the core should be strong while the branches were weak. Mi Fang was not a snow elf, and couldn’t even be considered a branch, the main members who controlled territory would never let an outsider like him in.

However, in reality, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps gave Mi Fang a rarely seen golden opportunity.

Mi Fang did all he could to grab hold of this opportunity and break through his past limits!

Following the constant success of the Jing Xiang Clan mount potions, Mi Fang’s position and influence in the clan slowly rose.

This progress is beautiful.”

This kind of feeling intoxicated Mi Fang, and also spurred him on to climb higher, he wanted to tenaciously cling onto this unique chance and would never relinquish his grip on it!

Therefore, although he was a duelist, Mi Fang had complex emotions about the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps.

On the one hand, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps was the duelists’ enemy, and to this day, the bodies of Jia Bing, Lin, and the Axe Gang Leader were still in their hands.

On the other hand, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps gave Mi Fang an immense opportunity. Such an opportunity might only appear once in his life!

“I want to defeat these mercenaries and use them as a stepping stone for a higher position!”

Mi Fang’s greater motivation to deal with the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps was complicated.

He already analyzed, “The Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps is the strongest in two areas.”

“First is the medicine they are selling. The three mount potions are of excellent quality; a professional can determine from a bit of reverse engineering and recipe analysis that they are refined and ingeniously designed.”

“Second is Long Fu’s enormous prestige. Long Fu killed Teng Dong Lang as a silver level. This wonderful start exceeds the hard work of many duelists’ lifetime achievements.”

Compared to Long Fu, Mi Fang’s battle record paled in comparison.

Mi Fang would have never though he’d be able to be in the limelight as a silver level.

Although his battle talent was excellent, he was not to the level of the dragonman youngster or Zong Ge.

“My bloodline potential falls well short of Long Fu’s.”

“His dragonman bloodline is clearly oriented towards battle and has a strong advantage. While my human bloodline is a production type bloodline.”

Therefore, in each duel, Mi Fang did not have it easy; to take steps forward, he had to secretly pay many things.

Every dueling opponent was prudently chosen, many tactics were planned, and he would arm himself with everything he had and deploy many magic medicines beforehand.

Each duel was an extremely risky opportunity, so he had to grasp certainty as much as possible.

He almost always fought at full strength, to the extent that he took too much medicine, causing a good deal of residual effects. Nowadays, those residual effects still tormented him.

This was just a small part of what he had to pay to reach the current position he climbed to.

Even though he prepared for battle with all he had, he could still lose.

He never had a winning streak like the dragonman youngster.

However, the consequences for losing were lighter than he envisioned. The Ice Sculpture citizens did not belittle or despise the losers that much, on the contrary, many times, many of them awaited the loser returning in a swirl of dust to bravely challenge experts.

“This is my dueling spirit!”

“Victory or defeat is just the result of a single duel, and in terms of the endless duels in one’s life, persevering with challenges was the best response.”

When Mi Fang grasped this concept, he was selected.

He became one of the duelists.

With regards to this important status, he did his best to keep it confidential, and not even his wife and children were aware of it.

Through his lovers, Mi Fang achieved a crucial start to accumulate assets through constant duels. The dueling spirit was how he made progress as an individual, and he was in complete agreement with it.

He had never been preached to, inspired, or received a divine oracle, yet he was a duelist with a dueling spirit.

It was precisely this intrinsic spirit that spurred him on and showed the way to constant improvement and advancement.

What he wanted to do now was to step on the heads of the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps to keep advancing!

“The Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps has formidable alchemy technology, and in the short time, I can only trail behind them.”

“But their other advantage enables me to make a move.”

Mi Fang, one who relied on duels to get rich, naturally knew that if Long Fu lost, his prestige would be reduced and that would be an immense attack against their mount potion business.

The Jing Xiang Clan could take advantage of that to rise and supersede the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps to take hold of more of the national market.

Mi Fang moved actively in accordance with this notion.

Zong Ge was poisoned because of him. Until Zong Ge went through the Wine God Trial, this problem could not be resolved.

However, Mi Fang was intimidated by Zong Ge’s toughness and never dared to personally take the field.

Mi Fang believed the enemy was still formidable and needed to be weakened further, patiently waiting for a good chance.

He Gai Tou followed up, helping Bing Yang make things difficult for Long Fu.

As a duelist too, Mi Fang decided to come to his aid. Regretfully, despite Bing Yang’s reputation, he wasn’t strong enough. In their duel, Bing Yang wasn’t able to weaken Long Fu, instead it fomented the latter’s power.

Before Mi Fang could find a better method, he heard some new information.

Because of Bing Yang’s signature [Beautiful Future], the medicinal effect of the Frost Aura caused Long Fu to be promoted to the gold level!

Hearing this news, Mi Fang’s first reaction was to sneer. He believed that Long Fu was only pretending to be a silver level, he should actually be a gold level. Many people agreed on this viewpoint. Snow Bird Harbor City Lord and Tan Mo believed it was like that too.

Soon after, Mi Fang’s second reaction was that his eyes lit up, he could see a new opportunity from within this!

He suddenly noticed that after Long Fu became a gold level, there were now many more chances to deal with him!

Previously, Long Fu was only a silver level and finding other silver levels to not just publicly challenge him, but also defeat him, was too difficult!

Bing Yang was once a gold level, and when he fought “Long Fu”, he was suppressed the entire time and met a tragic end.

Now that Long Fu publicly declared himself a gold level, and had also directly beaten back “Hua Tang”, he had displayed his power.

This allowed Mi Fang to see many opportunities – other gold levels could challenge Long Fu directly. This wouldn’t incur gossip and spite, as the masses disdained the strong bullying the weak.

But Mi Fang would never do the job himself.

Even now, Zong Ge’s horrific achievement of killing three gold levels alone still severely deterred the duelists.

Mi Fang wanted to agitate ignorant gold levels to continuously impair Long Fu. But before he could start scheming, new information followed, one that overwhelmed him somewhat.

Overnight, it seemed the entire nation learned of the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps having a falling out with the Li Jian Clan.

“Wonderful!” Mi Fang felt this was good news.

Putting himself into their shoes: Long Fu was a gold level who pretended to be a silver level. His name was being circulated nationwide right now, and the mount potion sales were flourishing and making a fortune every day. Now that the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps had a tentative foothold, would they need to keep on enduring?

The Li Jian Clan was not necessary for the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps.

However, their benefits were not allocated in accordance with their contributions, who would put up with that?

At least Mi Fang believed that if he were Long Fu, he wouldn’t ever resign himself to that!

Additionally, Mi Fang analyzed that now was the best opportunity for the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps to have a falling out with the Li Jian Clan.

Because the Li Jian’s Second Navy had been routed on the front lines and their influence had cratered. The kingdom’s top brass was extremely dissatisfied with the Li Jian Clan!

“The Li Jian Clan has sunken to their lowest point, if they aren’t cut off now, when will they be?”

“These rumors should have been spread by the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps.”

Soon after, Mi Fang inquired about a new rumor.

In the rumor, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps wanted to discuss collaboration with the Jing Xiang Clan!

“Wonderful.”

“It doesn’t matter who we work or don’t work with? The Jing Xiang Clan is better at magic medicine than the Li Jian Clan. It is only natural that it is more profitable to collaborate with us.”

Mi Fang did not think this was abrupt.

In fact, he always followed this with interest. According to the internal information he collected, the Alchemy Guild was close to acting and forced the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps to sign a betting agreement.

Although the specific substance of the agreement couldn’t be determined, Mi Fang guessed this was the Alchemy Guild finally acting!

For a long time now, the strongest entity in the domain, the Alchemy Guild, hadn’t reacted much.

It was abnormal.

As he worked and managed, Mi Fang never forgot about the Alchemy Guild.

To him it seemed that because of unjustly distributed benefits, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps abandoned the Li Jian Clan and chose the Jing Xiang Clan to stand off against the Alchemy Guild!

“I didn’t expect this, instead of creating an opportunity, I waited for one to come by.”

As for Mi Fang, a duelist, collaborating with the enemy?

There were no problems whatsoever!

“I can work with them while also dealing with them secretly!”

Wasn’t feigning cooperation while targeting them surreptitiously not the easier way to render meritorious service?

“Wonderful, too wonderful for words.”

Therefore, after learning of this information, Mi Fang immediately dispatched a subordinate to send the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps an invitation letter. He invited Long Fu to a face-to-face meeting and stated he looked forward to them working together. 

And now, he was waiting for his subordinate to return.

Thump, thump, thump.

Not long after, the study door bell rang.

“Come in.” Mi Fang knew the subordinate with the invitation letter had returned, and he couldn’t help but smile at that.

However, the subordinate brought back a challenge letter.

Mi Fang opened it and read it, his expression changing, “Long Fu…wants to publicly challenge me?”

The subordinate also provided other information, “Lord Mi Fang, there are new rumors spreading through the capital. The propagators have already been confirmed to be the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps.”

“The rumors state: our clan has kicked around and looked down upon Long Fu during business negotiations as an outsider, forcing Long Fu to publicly challenge you Lord Mi Fang. He wants to use this duel’s outcome to advance this negotiation.”

Mi Fang: ?!

He soon reacted, subconsciously squeezing the challenge letter between his fingers, twisting the paper.

“This is Long Fu garnering support to force me into this duel.”

“Crucially…”

“I have no way to decline; I can only take up his challenge!”

“Damn it.”

In the public eye, Long Fu was just a newly promoted gold level with low combat strength. While Mi Fang was a long renowned and veteran gold level.

Therefore, this dueling invitation was the weak fighting the strong.

If an expert like Mi Fang declined, his prestige was bound to take a dive.

Pivotally, this duel was composed of complex elements, it concerned the lucrative mount potion benefits!

Pressure on Mi Fang not only came from the public, but also from the Jing Xiang Clan. After all, he was a foreigner, and the reason why he could sit stable in his current position was due to his outstanding achievements, which none could find fault with.

“If I shirk battle, I definitely suffer reprimand!”

“Malicious. Long Fu’s move this time is too malicious.”

“He is bullying me!”

Perhaps Long Fu wanted to negotiate, but only after he won the duel. If that happened, then the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps would hold an enormous advantage in the negotiations.

“Long Fu is treacherous, while simultaneously being extremely overbearing!”

Mi Fang’s brows tightened, and anger turned his complexion white.

He was furious and resentful, but at the same time, he was even more nervous. Panic emerged from deep within his heart and quickly spread.

Because Mi Fang was very self-aware.

“If I rely on just myself, I will lose.”

“Them spreading such rumors means its impossible they are looking to lose this duel. They are very certain they will win!”

The pressure on Mi Fang was massive.

He thought of Zong Ge’s terrifying combat achievement.

He knew the Axe Gang Leader and the other two were no ordinary gold levels, all of them were duelists!

“With this method, just losing is the best outcome, I might lose my life!”

“More than one duelist has been slain by Long Fu’s hands.”

The study inside was as warm as spring, yet Mi Fang was overflowing with cold sweat.

This was the greatest crisis he had ever faced.

“I must arm myself fully!”

“I must draw support from the Jing Xiang Clan and ask the other duelists for help!”

“Damn it, we obviously have a lot of people, yet in this duel, I am the only one going into battle.”

“Damn it, why is there such a lousy rule!”

Mi Fang couldn’t sit still, he immediately got up, pushed the door open, and ran out at top speed.