After berating Furin until his face was red with shame, Lord Ross still had no choice but to continue flattering Locke.
Ross saw Locke as the cornerstone for expanding the business guild. How could he possibly assign a driver of unknown background to serve Locke?
The Furin family had been driving for the Ross Guild for three generations. Trusted deeply by Lord Ross, Furin had been entrusted with the important task of serving Locke.
From Ross's perspective, as long as Furin stayed close to Locke, he would always have a channel of contact with the mage in the future.
Unfortunately, Furin's performance over the past two months had failed to gain Locke's approval, forcing him to abandon other plans and extra profits just to follow Locke to this village.
"Lord Locke, it's like this…"
"I noticed that your village grows herbs highly beneficial for warriors' training. I was wondering if you could help facilitate a deal so that some of the herbs could be sold to me."
"Of course. As for the price, please rest assured, Lord Locke. I would never let the villagers down."
Failing to secure his usual trade routes, Ross had no choice but to divert to Pu'er Village mid-route, exchanging the goods he had intended to resell for Pu'er herbs, which offered much lower profits.
Not only were the profits low, but Lord Ross even had to pay the villagers a premium price to purchase the Pu'er himself.
Locke gave Ross a slightly surprised glance.
This guy… had some cleverness after all.
His own parents in this life had been ordinary people from a fantasy world, always thinking of ways to improve the lives of their family.
Over the past few days, Locke had subtly conversed with his parents. They were content with their current life.
Although Locke had the power to take them to a better city and provide a better life, all his suggestions had been refused by Mr. and Mrs. Manra.
Generations of their family had lived here, and they had no desire to leave.
In the past, they worried about Locke's safety on the battlefield. Now that he had returned, their greatest wish was simply to see the two brothers grow up, marry, and have children.
As for immortality or other grand ambitions, those were merely fantasies to them.
Now, Locke only wanted to spend a full lifetime alongside his parents during his cultivation journey, and then… let things be.
Ross's decision to purchase Pu'er at a premium price would indeed increase the villagers' income significantly.
Locke couldn't help but nod in approval at this action.
"Very well. Cole, since Lord Ross intends to purchase Pu'er in the surrounding villages, take him to see the village chief."
"Understood, Big Brother."
Cole nodded and led Lord Ross toward the village chief's home.
At hearing Cole address Locke as "Big Brother," Ross's eyes lit up with a new plan forming.
In the end, Lord Ross got exactly what he wanted.
A twenty-year-old young man was naturally curious about the outside world.
After hearing about the situations encountered along Ross's trading route, Cole ultimately agreed to join the Ross Guild as a member of its guard unit.
Of course, Ross's offer came with a significant promise.
He pledged that if Cole joined the guild, he would secure a Douqi Manual for him before Cole reached the peak of level-six warrior strength.
A Douqi Manual—a martial technique capable of breaking through the level-six barrier.
Consider Captain Carlet, the most talented warrior in Pu'er Village, who reached level six in his twenties.
Yet without a Douqi Manual, Carlet remained a level-six warrior even after all these years.
Faced with such temptation, Cole did not hesitate and accepted Ross's invitation outright.
Locke had no comment on Cole's choice.
After all, Locke understood that no matter how close the relationship, one could never make life-altering decisions for another.
After seeing the Ross Guild off with his parents, Locke returned home, exchanged a few words with them, and then began his cultivation.
He meditated to comprehend the intricacies of the laws, restored his spiritual energy, absorbed the water element from the surroundings, and refined it into mana…
Occasionally, when tired of cultivation, Locke would patrol the nearby mountains, using a few beasts to test his newly developed techniques.
Although he had grasped the profound laws, using the "Unity of Heaven and Man" to channel them into a "Heaven-and-Earth Force" to enhance spells, achieving the full potential of the laws required creating techniques that harmonized with his understanding.
In Locke's view, the profound laws were like the digits 0 through 9. Understanding the laws was learning these numbers.
Techniques were like spells, applying the laws through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to achieve offense and defense.
Addition and multiplication amplified the laws' destructive power.
Subtraction and division mitigated the opponent's use of the laws, reinforcing defense.
Beyond this, there were more advanced applications, like exponentiation.
The same numbers in the hands of an elementary student versus a mathematician produced entirely different results.
Similarly, the same laws in different hands could yield vastly different outcomes.
Locke was still learning the basics of 0 through 9.
Yet this did not prevent him from practicing higher-level applications of the laws simultaneously.
Compared to others, Locke had an advantage.
Based on the laws he had understood, he already had numerous directions for development. He only needed to explore how to maximize their effect.
Many of the techniques used by gods in the Panlong Universe were created during their study of the laws, often by accident.
For most gods, deliberately creating offensive or defensive techniques was extremely difficult.
After analyzing the Water Mist Technique and comprehending the subtle "Illusory Mist" law, Locke began planning for his future.
This era was the most chaotic and dangerous in the Coiling Dragon Universe.
Even among the seventy-seven supreme gods, nearly thirty had perished.
These fallen gods had yet to be fully replaced, even after more than a thousand derivatives.
(Translator's notes:There really isn't a proper unit of measurement for this but just take a derivative to mean about a couple trillion years.)
(End of Chapter 15)