Cultivation Pet Shop

The day after their trip to the stone cutting house, Xin'er was still admiring the large chunk of Frozen Nether Iron that she had found.

The store offered to buy it from her at a reduced price since they did have to sell this to others to make a profit. But the price that they offered was much more money than she had ever seen in her life.

Lin Fan decided not to interfere because he knew that this would be a chance to learn for Xin'er. At the same time, he wanted to see how far this store would take it if she said no so he could understand what he needed to do to take care of them.

But to his and the store's surprise, Xin'er offered them half of the Frozen Nether Iron on her own initiative.

The store still paid for this Frozen Nether Iron and then gave her a premium membership so that she would keep coming, but this didn't mean a thing for Xin'er since she was already bored of this.

She then offered a bit of it to Lin Fan and Angela. Angela declined since she didn't really have a use for this, but Lin Fan hesitantly accepted a bit in the end.

This Frozen Nether Iron was a rare mineral and he needed these kinds of minerals for his Iron Eater Bone Artifact. So even if it was a bit embarrassing accepting this from Xin'er, he still took it and fed it to the Iron Eater Bone Artifact.

After that incident, everything had been calm and quiet as they opened the store like normal the next day.

But something sudden also happened that day.

In the afternoon, there was a sudden announcement that came from the Mu Stellar Kingdom's Royal Palace.

It was a decree from the royal palace that stated that the succession would be starting.

All of the princes would be entered into an event that would decide who would become the crown prince and one day take over as king.

As for what the event was, that was to be announced the next day.

When this decree was released, naturally it created a large stir. Of course, that stir was only among the nobles and not the common people.

For the nobles, this was the event that they had been waiting for the entire time. So without any hesitation, they called back all the important members of their family and locked themselves up in their manors to discuss what they would do.

After all, many of the nobles backed one of the princes and if the prince that they backed were to take the throne, there wouldn't be a shortage of benefits for them. So naturally they needed to do all they could to support the prince that they backed during the succession race.

At the same time, all of the princes finished up everything that they were doing and headed back to the capital city.

All of them wanted to be there when the succession rules were announced so no one would be able to get an advantage over the others. Especially those princes that had a lower chance of winning the succession race.

In short, there were many people that started making moves as soon as the succession race was announced.

But that also included the nobles that belonged to the neutral faction.

They were able to remain the neutral faction because they had enough strength to maintain their neutrality. But that didn't mean that they were fools that stayed out of the succession race completely.

They knew that even if they were the neutral faction, they still had plenty of influence and they could exchange that influence for more power.

Only with more power would they be able to maintain their neutrality when the new dynasty was formed.

So they couldn't sit still either.

If this was Lin Fan from before, it wouldn't matter to him what this succession race was like, but now it mattered to him. That was because anything related to the royal family was related to Xin'er.

As long as Xin're was in his life, he would have to care about what happened to the royal family…

So while he wasn't willing, he contacted the Dongfang Family after the news was announced.

To his surprise, the one who met with him was actually young miss Dongfang.

After he arrived, she didn't waste any time as she asked, "Didn't you say that you weren't interested in the succession race? Why are you suddenly interested in this matter?"

Lin Fan shook his head and said, "I said that I wanted to remain neutral, but you should have heard about what happened in my store recently. I just want to make sure that nothing bad will happen to me."

Young miss Dongfang narrowed her eyes to look at Lin Fan for a few seconds before giving a nod.

She had indeed heard about what had happened in his store with the princes. After all, it was a big matter that involved three princes, one of which was the powerful second prince. It was impossible for her to not know about this matter.

Since that was the case, she could guess Lin Fan's intentions and she didn't have any doubts towards his words.

So after asking what he wanted to know, she gave him a general overview of the situation.

The favoured ones in the succession race were the first prince, the second prince, and the fourth prince as Lin Fan already knew.

However, what Lin Fan didn't know was the personality of each of the princes.

Well, he did know the personality of the fourth prince since he had met him at the stone cutting house before, but that was only a glimpse of the fourth prince's personality. The personality that young miss Dongfang told him about was even worse than he thought.

In short, the first prince and the fourth prince were not good people.

The first prince relied on his succession rights as the first born to draw in the conservative ministers, which created a powerful faction.

However, the first prince was very spoiled and willful since he was the first prince. He was flattered by everyone and didn't have a grasp of reality, often letting his subordinates control him.

The fourth prince was the opposite of this.

He was a very ruthless and cunning person.

He was able to gather many of the remaining ministers under him through schemes and plots, often forcing these people to come under him.

It was even said that many of the underground forces in the capital were controlled by the fourth prince.

Only the second prince was different.

He wasn't someone who was raised up because of his blood right succession or because of plots, he was someone who pulled himself up with his own power.

He was a genius of cultivation and a genius of studying, so he showed his power very early.

He was the first prince to break through to the World Realm and was the prince that the king relied on the most when it came to policies.

It was said among the people that if the second prince were to take the throne, a golden age would come to the Mu Stellar Kingdom.

It was just too bad that if the second prince ever gained too much power, the first and fourth prince would immediately put aside their differences to suppress the second prince. The second prince didn't care about that since all he cared about was the prosperity of the Stellar Kingdom, so he let them do what they wanted.

That created a delicate balance in the succession race.

But now that the fuse had been lit by the Stellar King, the other princes were also making moves.

"From what information we've been able to gather so far, the other princes are starting to create alliances so they can compete with the three frontrunners. However, there isn't a single alliance that can match even a single prince. It all depends on how many of them decide to work together in the end, but it seems very likely that one of the three princes will be able to take the throne."

As she said this, young miss Dongfang couldn't help giving a sigh.

It was clear that she had some opinions about this, but she didn't say them out loud.

Lin Fan also had the same opinions since out of the princes that he had met, he felt that the second prince was the best choice.

The second prince was someone that was clearly the best choice, but because of the circumstances that he faced, it was very hard for him to succeed the throne.

So many people were certainly feeling shaky about the future of the Stellar Kingdom.

But that didn't matter to Lin Fan.

The only person that he couldn't allow to take the throne was the fourth prince because of what had happened at the stone cutting store. He knew that once the fourth prince took the throne, he would certainly be back for Xin'er…

That was not something that Lin Fan could allow.

But at the same time, there really wasn't a way for him to do anything. After all, it was unknown what the method of deciding the succession was and even if he did know, he didn't have a close enough relationship with any of the princes to do anything.

So after hearing all of this, he could only give a sigh and end the meeting with young miss Dongfang.

But before he could leave, young miss Dongfang suddenly asked, "Have you had any luck with the search?"

Lin Fan was confused at first when he heard this, but then he thought of what she meant.

The handkerchief that she had given him and the person that she asked him to look for.

It seemed like she was quite anxious to find this person…

Lin Fan didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing…

But he certainly couldn't say that the person that she was looking for was Xin'er before knowing why she wanted to find Xin'er.

So after hesitating a bit, he said, "We still haven't found anything yet, but I've gotten everyone to keep an eye out for this person."

Young miss Dongfang gave a nod before revealing a vacant look.

Lin Fan hesitated a bit more before asking, "Can I ask why you're looking for this person?"

Young miss Dongfang's eyes suddenly narrowed when she heard this and she looked at Lin Fan with a sharp look.

After a long period of silence, she suddenly said, "The owner of this item is part of our Dongfang Family, so we want to find them and bring them back to our family."

Lin Fan couldn't help feeling strange when he heard this.

He knew that the item was a token with the Mu character carved on it which represented the Mu Stellar Royal Family, but now young miss Dongfang was saying that Xin'er was from the Dongfang Family…

Could it be that Xin'er's mother was still alive in the Dongfang Family and was looking for her?

Lin Fan once again felt a strange feeling as this thought passed through his mind, but he didn't allow any of this to show on his face.

Instead, he looked at young miss Dongfang with a strange look.

After all, he never expected her to actually tell him any of this, so he was very surprised when he heard this from her.

Young miss Dongfang could understand why he was looking at her like this, but she didn't say a thing.

Even though she didn't know why she had suddenly answered this question, there was something deep down inside of her that told her that she should tell him this. It was as if she was hoping for something from him.

But she was disappointed as Lin Fan just gave a nod and didn't give her anything that she wanted.

So like this, the two of them left the meeting with doubts towards the other side.