Chapter 90: The Fastest Gold Star Administrator

By the time Zhao Ying'er was done with him, Fang Che felt as if he had been completely mummified.

"Did I really sustain that many injuries? You've wrapped me in enough bandages to treat ten people!"

𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"You should be thankful I left a few of the more minor injuries unbandaged!" Zhao Ying'er scoffed with a roll of her eyes.

Fang Che shook his head in exasperation, then stepped into the graveyard to retrieve his and Zhao Ying'er's swords.

The two of them hobbled down the hill together, leaning on each other for support.

"Should we go check on the caretakers? Why hasn't anyone shown up even after we made such a massive commotion?" Zhao Ying'er asked.

"Don't bother. They've most likely already been killed," Fang Che sighed.

A look of sorrow and resentment surfaced in Zhao Ying'er's eyes as she echoed Fang Che's forlorn sigh.

***

On the way back, Fang Che sent a message to Yin Shengong through his Five Spirit Parasite: "Master, the Church of Light has sent someone to assassinate me, but I was able to kill him. According to him, everyone in their church has been ordered to come after me."

"Was he assassinating Administrator Fang, Night Demon, or Starlight?"

"Administrator Fang."

Yin Shengong couldn't even be bothered to respond anymore.

You killed so many of them as Administrator Fang, of course they'll send people after you!

***

That night, a large number of Protectionists were sent out to the Graveyard of Heroes and the wine shop, where around ten more demonic church members were killed.

Fang Che received four hundred merit points for slaying a Warlord and one hundred more for uncovering the wine shop as a secret demonic church stronghold.

Additionally, he had killed two Lords earlier in the day, which equated to two hundred more merit points, amounting to a total of seven hundred.

That took his overall total to 20,470, close to five hundred points beyond the minimum gold star administrator threshold!

The entire Hall of Protectionists was astonished.

He was the fastest in history to achieve this rank.

It had taken him less than a month to go from a third-rank administrator to a first-rank one, absolutely obliterating the previous record!

Even Chen Ruhai and Fan Tiantiao were rendered completely speechless.

"If only our people could work as hard as Fang Che..."

"You can't expect this out of everyone! He's benefitting from both sides by progressing up the ranks in the Hall of Protectionists, so he has double the motivation!"

"That's true."

"I'm going to skip the promotion ceremony. It's just going to be a massive eyesore."

"Same. I'll leave it to Hall Master Song."

"How about we have a drink together tonight?" Chen Ruhai suggested enthusiastically. "Your place or mine?"

Fan Tiantiao took a glance down at Chen Ruhai's foot, then said with a cold expression, "I'm not in the mood to drink."

Chen Ruhai immediately took off his shoe in a fit of rage.

"You asked for it! I kindly invited you for a drink, but you just had to piss me off, didn't you?"

Fan Tiantiao immediately fled the scene, dry-retching as he went.

***

That night, as Fang Che trudged his way back home, he felt as if his body were about to fall apart at the seams, and he was so exhausted that he didn't even go to the branch helm.

Everyone in the Unmatched Escort Agency was waiting to be tested on the legal code, and they were bewildered by Starlight's absence. They were worried that he would suddenly arrive in the middle of the night to test them, so they stayed up the entire night, continuing to memorize the legal code!

Zhao Wushang, Zheng Yunqi, and all of the incumbent escorts were feeling very uneasy.

Why didn't the helmsmaster come last night? Did something happen?

They had received around a dozen more jobs over the past few days, and they were hoping to test everyone tonight, then have them go out on escort assignments the next day, but it seemed that those plans would have to be delayed.

Zhao Wubai and Jiang Bin returned to the branch helm in the middle of the night.

They had just returned from an escort assignment, and a sense of foreboding instantly welled up in their hearts at the sight of everyone's sympathetic expressions.

"What's wrong?"

"We're going to be tested on the legal code tonight."

The two of them were absolutely parched from their escort assignment, and they had only just gulped down some water, only to instantly cough it back up at this terrible news.

Their faces turned deathly pale as they hurriedly ran into their rooms.

"Where the hell's my legal code?!"

Zhao Wushang and Zheng Yunqi exchanged a glance with one another, and both of them heaved a forlorn sigh.

"Let's wait until after the test before we recruit more people."

"Even if we're going to recruit more people, we have to do so in moderation," Zheng Yunqi said. "I feel like Helmsmaster Starlight is already beginning to grow impatient with us."

"What makes you say that?" Zhao Wushang asked. "He didn't really throw much of a tantrum this time, and it feels like he was generally quite accepting of what we've done."

"Honestly, I would feel safe if the helmsmaster had thrown his usual tantrum. Right now, I feel rather uneasy," Zheng Yunqi said.

"Why? Isn't this what the helmsmaster wants? Didn't he say that he wants to establish some ties with the main church through us?" Zhao Wushang asked.

"Do you really think the helmsmaster cares about that?" Zheng Yunqi scoffed.

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it! The helmsmaster doesn't care about establishing ties with the main church at all! Right now, he's only a helmsmaster of the One Heart Church. How many years would it take until he could actually make use of any connections to the main church? Furthermore, all of us are just branch lineal descendants of our clans.

“Even if there does come a day when he'll need to make use of his connections to the main church, how much will we actually be able to help him? Only a few of the direct lineal descendants of our clans have died during the Parasite Ascension Project, and there are still many left! Do you not understand that?"

"I do," Zhao Wushang said in a dejected manner.

"Helmsmaster Starlight hasn't taken part in the Parasite Ascension Project, so he has very little use for us. Has it not occurred to you that the helmsmaster still hasn't added us contacts?"

"You're right!"

Zhao Wushang instantly understood what Zheng Yunqi was implying.

"Unless Helmsmaster Starlight is blessed by some kind of incredible opportunity, the highest official rank he'll most likely be able to reach in this lifetime will only be hall master, and even then, he'll only be a hall master of a subsidiary church. Perhaps if he progresses exceptionally well in his cultivation, he could become an elder and ultimately make it to the main church to serve as an enforcer of one of the altars.

“That is the only path that he can take! This is why he's kept us to develop his branch helm. Have you not noticed that prior to our arrival, Helmsmaster Starlight was basically the only member of this branch helm, with the exceptions of those Grandmasters? This branch helm is solely under his control, and that's why he's so eager to take it to greater heights. Once the Unmatched Escort Agency is fully established, his position will also be firmly established.

“This escort agency is even more massive than the average branch hall, so the One Heart Church will be sure to take it very seriously. Once we leave, there will be a shortage of personnel, and a new injection of people will be required to pose as armed escorts. Only then can the branch helm continue to exist under the guise of a legitimate escort agency, is that not correct?"

"It is," Zhao Wushang replied with a nod.

"The problem is that there aren't going to be many people in the One Heart Church fit to take our place as armed escorts. He's a helmsmaster with no future, who would be willing to serve him? Hence, he can't recruit too many armed escorts. Right now, we already have around seventy to eighty people, and that's most likely already a cause for concern for Helmsmaster Starlight.

“I would say that two hundred armed escorts is most likely the highest number of people that he would be willing to accept, and even that may be a bit of a stretch, so we have to be prudent with the people that we recruit in the future. Otherwise, my guess is that Helmsmaster Starlight will start killing people to reduce the numbers."

Zhao Wushang nodded in response with a look of admiration in his eyes.

"That's really impressive, Old Man Zheng. I didn't think of any of that."

"It's not impressive at all," Zheng Yunqi said with a wry smile. "I've been constantly thinking about these things recently. I've always felt like the helmsmaster doesn't really have much of a reason for keeping us, and only now have I managed to think of a motive that makes sense for him. Helmsmaster Starlight is truly an extraordinary man.

“Even as a low-rank Lord, he was able to exert complete dominance over a ninth-rank King like Liu Hanshan. Sure, he was only able to do so thanks to Pope Yin's authority, but would any of us have been able to replicate his feats had we been in his place? He manufactured a reason to keep us, then used our power to establish this escort agency.

“Right now, the escort agency has gained legitimate status, so even after we leave, there's no way that anyone else from the One Heart Church can take over the reins from him. His authority over the Unmatched Escort Agency is impossible to challenge! From there, he used our power to strengthen the escort agency's ties to the authorities before once again using our power to uproot all of the branch helms of the other factions!

“Right now, the One Heart Church is the sole dominant force in the entire prefecture, leaving the other people from the main church with no one else to turn to! I personally experienced all of this, and even then, it still took me several days of racking my brains to understand all of Helmsmaster Starlight's machinations, yet he was able to accomplish all of this while barely doing anything himself!

“He's constantly trying to make himself appear like some vulgar thug, but if you think that's all he is, then you're a fool!"