Chapter 37: The Limitations of the Royal Court

The wound was chafed by the cold sea water beneath the waves. Quan Zhi—no, Wang Sun Zhi—gasped, forcing himself to endure the pain. Around him, the enslaved merfolk were emaciated, almost nothing but skin and bone. Wang Sun Zhi led these slaves southward, not knowing how many kilometers they had traveled.

He was of royal blood.

Yet even his family name had been stripped from him—what a disgrace that was!

His younger brother, Quan Xu, that is, Wang Sun Xu, cared little for such honors, choosing to remain meekly within the royal court, unwilling to venture out to reclaim their family name or expand their territory.

To Wang Sun Zhi, this was a humiliation; he was ashamed to be his brother’s kin. So, he selected five hundred merfolk slaves and journeyed to the unknown southern seas, intending to build his own city-state there.

His ancestors had once carved out the royal court through hardship, and Wang Sun Zhi believed he too could achieve such greatness, forging a new glory in the uncharted southern waters.

Yet perhaps he had overestimated himself, and underestimated the difficulty of starting from nothing.

This wound was shallow, but for some reason Wang Sun Zhi’s nerves felt confused, and even his vision was blurring—he could barely see.

Was he to die here?

No, impossible! He would not die—he could not die!

He still had to achieve great deeds, train an elite army, and storm back to the royal court to reclaim the throne that belonged to him and his father!

Though Wang Sun Zhi had never met his grandfather, the founding king of the royal court, he had gleaned from elders’ fragments of conversation that the old king’s favorite child was his own father, and he had often said, “This child is fit to be king.”

Yet when the old king died, he left the throne to King An.

And then his father disappeared under suspicious circumstances… Wang Sun Zhi was convinced something was wrong—that King An had murdered his father, tampered with the royal testament, and stolen the throne that rightly belonged to their lineage!

Fueled by this uncertain resolve, Wang Sun Zhi cleared his mind, emerging from the haze.

Around him, the merfolk slaves stared numbly; seeing Wang Sun Zhi recover, they began to cheer and leap with joy.

Within the royal court, Wang Sun Zhi was scorned and seen as the disgrace of the royal blood, but among slaves, he was still a noble by birth. If he were to die, the slaves would have to be buried with him… Of course, now he was no longer considered royalty, but the slaves knew nothing of this.

To them, anyone from the court was noble, and especially someone called “Wang Sun,” the noblest of the noble.

What did “Wang Sun” mean?

It meant the descendant of the king!

Wang Sun Zhi ignored the slaves, took a deep breath, gazed at the unfamiliar sea, and after simply tending his wound, spoke: “Here it shall be.”

“My city-state will be built right here. From now on, this place is mine. The city will bear the name Zhi City!”

From this day forward, he would carve his name into this land and make it truly his.

And those who scorned him in the royal court—all of them could perish!

...

Three centuries of peaceful development had brought the kingly power of the merfolk to its zenith.

The merfolk court paid little heed to the temple. Only a handful of handmaidens of previous kings served there; the court had neglected the temple for three hundred years.

This was by King Quan An’s design.

Perhaps there were gods in the world, but the experience of the founding king had taught Quan An that the gods were supreme and cold.

Everything of the merfolk court, perhaps in the eyes of the gods, was merely a pastime.

Once, the founding king had been favored by the gods, chosen as their servant, traveling the world with them.

Blessed by the gods, the old king worshiped them in his later years, but received no divine favor.

Now, the current rulers believed themselves unrelated to the gods. Rather than loudly worshipping, they preferred to save those resources to build one great city-state after another, so the merfolk king would truly rule the seas—not merely boast of it.

Before the worship of the Prime God could fully take root among the merfolk, Quan An deliberately severed the connection, letting the Prime God become a legend, not a symbol of the merfolk.

He did not want to be like the founding king, whose every achievement was credited to the Prime God, as if he were merely a lucky favorite.

He wanted the king to be the symbol of the merfolk tribe: the god is god, the king is king.

God and king—they were different.

Gods remained in the hearts of the merfolk, but the king was their true ruler, their supreme being!

Not only the king but the royal bloodline itself was mythologized.

In these three centuries, Quan An’s greatest achievement was not the founding of seven cities or the establishment of laws, but endowing the royal family with a sacred aura.

Slaves, commoners, officials—

These three classes of merfolk could rise step by step, eventually attaining the status of officials.

But to climb higher, one needed royal blood.

Yet royal status was not so easily obtained.

To streamline the royal family, Quan An even abolished the royal identity of many members.

Even his own children were not exempt. His three children retained the right to the royal surname, but his grandchildren could only bear the title “Wang Sun,” and their children would be called “Gong Sun.”

Only when a branch became king of the merfolk could they reclaim the royal name.

Those merfolk stripped of royal status were not demoted further, but granted a new rank—Noble Kin.

This meant being of the same clan and house, with a position second only to the royal family in the court.

Moreover, Noble Kin who achieved merit could be granted royal status.

It sounded odd—royals and noble kin were hard to distinguish—but regardless, this strange hierarchy had fueled thriving growth in the merfolk court, and merfolk city-states spread across the Eastern Sea.

Yet as for the future of the merfolk court, Liang Yuan remained noncommittal.

Cultivators had emerged; though their current abilities were pitiful, the future would not necessarily be so bleak.

At this thought, Liang Yuan was struck by an idea.

There was a Bifang on land—so why not a creature beneath the sea to rival the Bifang?

With this notion, Liang Yuan’s interest was piqued.

But seeking to reach the heights of the Bifang was too time-consuming; he wanted a pure replica, something he could mass-produce.

Scanning the ocean, Liang Yuan quickly spotted his target.

Or rather, his first experiment.