Meanwhile, the world... well, it kept spinning faster and faster.
SBA's new custom enhancement series triggered this new global paradigm. While the highest-grade enhancements remained strictly limited to citizens, fragments and variants leaked onto black markets through espionage and insider betrayal unlike before. There is no entity like Han Chen to do the work.
Western firms started reverse-engineering fragments of it. Military-grade unstable variants began circulating on foreign black markets—some dangerously more unstable and powerful than the base versions available from SBA worldwide. But that was enough, apparently.
Suddenly, foreign syndicates, shadowy clans, desperate oligarchs—they all flooded the black markets, begging not just for protocols worldwide, but for any scrap of power they could get their hands on.
The result? These half baked military-grade unstable variants circulating like poison—volatile cocktails promising strength but delivering agony instead. For them it is more profitable than trafficking psychoactive drugs.
Reports trickled in. A mercenary in Jakarta whose muscles literally liquefied mid-fight. Elderly capitalist who used it as a last chance to get a bit more lifespan by genome optimization died in agony. A smuggler in Marseille who lost his mental sanity, turning an entire city block into... well, a charnel house.
Power had a price tag now, and it was often paid in blood and collateral damage. They'd moved to ban the enhancements entirely, trying to curb the problem at its root. Some of it found its way back to their own nation. Even though the ban was effective, testing continued in secret labs.
The Vacuum of Control
Within the nation, similar events occurred, but they were rarer since people could actually buy legitimate items from the company with citizens benefits after undergoing checks. Still, there were demands for more power, more greed and more unrestrained needs. Surely who wouldn't mind having a body that's always fit without doing the hard work.
The government couldn't stop the intrusions and planned kidnappings of state-affiliated research groups from SBA. Government can't control all time as martial artists are not that easy to eliminate considering their strength and factions, even within the ruling party.
This vacuum of control—it was Han Chen's absence writ large.
Unlike Han Chen, whose absolute power could silence dissent with terrifying finality, chose people wisely, governments had to deal with unknown attackers, foreign intelligence snooping around, martial artists, conflicts, loss of personnel from various powers.
Without his iron-fisted oversight, secrets bled from SBA like arterial spray. Foreign intelligence agencies, emboldened by their stolen fragments, fueled sanction wars that choked global supply chains. Proxy conflicts ignited, no longer fought with just drones and infantry, but with speed-enhanced commandos and spies intruding, whose bones snapped under the strain of unstable augmentations.
The Old Order's Rage
The old order writhed in outrage. For centuries, true power had belonged only to those who earned it through grueling martial cultivation or warrior training—a path demanding discipline, sacrifice, lineage. These clans watched their ancient prestige evaporate, especially after the government takeover when there should have been stricter control of recipients and mental profiling.
But unlike what expected, the access is easy and scale has been overblown. Cost went down and the privilege felt lost.
Using money power to threaten, now works. Unlike when Yue Lan was in full power with Han Chen's backing, even though it was with underhanded soul manipulations and direct killings, Han Chen was successful in maintaining a peaceful progression.
Government consists of oligarchy secretly in control by public deception, without control in place wishing for the fruit costs them very much as being put into all sorts of problems.
Now, any billionaire's spoiled heir and his 48 lackeys could afford to buy the reflexes of a decade-trained disciple (though still below master level), inflating their ego without earning an ounce of true respect. Their has been never more cases of power misuse.
Internal conflicts erupted between traditional military command, panicked politicians, and enraged martial clans who saw their birthright commodified, more importantly lose of control and intimidation. The government's headache wasn't just the violence — it was the nature of this power.
Martial artists especially master level and beyond, traditionally adhered to codes, intervening only for justice or protection at least publicly, that's what they project. This new, easily purchased power knew no such restraint, especially the higher grades after years of revision unlike when initially introduced.
Add to that half done stolen research of medipods of SBA, enhancers and variants from it promoted in black markets advertised power of master levels. Greedy ones accepted it. Apart from some gruesome deaths and mutations, some-people just got lucky. Its sudden nature triggered some primitive mentality in those people, fueling unchecked ambition and brutal, public outbursts over simple misunderstandings.
Han Chen himself intervened silently to erase people like this, after their mental profiling failed clearly didn't expecting such lose of control much later. Even though, it was less than a handful. So the adoption seemed positive and evolutionary back then.
Governments, their backs against the wall, scrambled for control. Their answer? Legislation. Look what got introduced? CCC, the cultivators civil code. Suddenly, their rigorous modelling for quantifying power, responsibility and restraint wasn't just relevant; it was the bedrock of survival. Their framework gained explosive momentum, even amidst fierce opposition from traditionalists who go against it every time a court referenced it to sentence an augmented bank robber or a clan elder defying containment.
The legal world transformed overnight. Their work, alongside similar journals, became gospel, rebranded as the MBRC—the Multimodal Being Regulatory Chapter, consisting of the Transhuman and Martial Cultivation Integration Framework modeled parallel to CCC.
It became the only model offering a parallel structure to manage both Martial artists and the newly enhanced. Even Han Chen's old college guide, recognizing the scale of the shift, called to congratulate them—a rare nod to the nation's legal metamorphosis.
Public Recognition
Han Chen and Hye Won were by no means low profile anymore, not that they intended. Their financial strength gradually became known, and achievements in business across both companies slowly got released from some sources.
The public was captivated: this man and woman retiring obscenely wealthy before thirty, yet whose empire kept growing. Details of his staggering wealth and the pivotal, almost casual roles he'd played in building two corporate giants—now SBA and Chen Energy Enterprise—began to surface. While he'd studied law, the world now saw him as a business oracle, his legal genius seeming almost secondary.
Yet the CCC and MBRC borrowed heavily from his research's core modeling. He worked closely with NovaGen, often seen beside Yue Lan—the global icon whose company had "gifted humanity knowledge and power." Their public appearances fueled intense speculation. Were they partners in business? Or something more? The rumors swirled, adding another layer of mystique to the man whose past academic work was now the blueprint for governing super humans.
Chase of power, began to re-enter public consciousness. Not just as myth, but as science and medicine apart from martial arts. And always—at the center—was that company with Yue Lan as a founder, only .. she stepped of on her own by the fifth year Han Chen left.
Her retreat came with some... maliciousness, you could say. Around that time, rumors started spreading that persistent genetic enhancements—along with some defects—were now heritable in offspring. An impossible feat before the latest stages of SBA research.
Thing is, Han Chen had developed earlier prototypes with genetic locks and deliberately kept anything else from circulation. Not just for profit—it was proven and designed to remove complications in children and gain market approval. Anything more advanced... well, current science wasn't ready to swallow it.
But unraveling these safeguards wasn't that difficult after years of advancements. Though 'can' doesn't mean 'should,' right? Without knowing how to mitigate possible defects in offspring, you shouldn't just... excitedly market it or even let rumors get out. Now there was suddenly this whole diaspora of critics against it. Every day that golden fruit created more problems.
It got redirected back to Yue Lan, but control wasn't hers anymore. Those who'd taken the earlier versions had been tested widely and were known not to cause such defects. That series of scientific reports, notifying news and sudden legal warnings silenced people trying to misdirect and bring her down as soon as their campaign launched. The AI systems Han Chen had gifted weren't just for removing online penetration—this kind of functional stupidity and targeting was also accounted for. With her retreat, the defenses he established also went offline permanently.
Dr. Sophia is still the lead scientist, but direction of research isn't hers alone. " Dr. Xia" notes were credited under Dr. Sophia's name and she publicly rejected its credits though many argue she is. The research he left also went inaccessible ever since Yue Lan exited. It was by design.
...
Coming back to their private life in the following years. They grew more closer and trained more actively. Both wives learned more about cultivation and its way of life and their ideologies began to mirror Han Chen. Han Chen is now 30 years old.
His cultivation advanced to middle realm golden core. Core is enlarged in size and essence is more refined. Spirit sense grew nearly few hundred miles more. Strength grew accordingly. The girls advanced to foundation building realm seven under training.
Since their growth needed practice targets, Han Chen found some. Yue Lan took her first kill of a human, although the person managed to almost seriously wound her due to her inaction and carelessness. It was one hell of an event.
Despite the power difference her conscious found it difficult to kill a person, even when he was found attempting groping a child after luring her over midway when they found him, and again despite having multiple records of arrest already, his power and status always got him secretly out. Well Han Chen didn't even act when he plunged a short knife into her shoulder, but eventually her survival made her act, instantly killing him. Well a bit of trauma recovery, hey we have an experienced girl..
Of course by then missing cases of multiple martial artists with repeated rape offenses and some psychos who just wanted to watch the world burn, were also reported without any clues.
...
Extra info dump for coming chapters
Martial progression beyond Grand Master Realm:
Enlightened Grand Master represented a realm of profound internal energy mastery and the ability to manifest inner strength as tangible aura. Han Chen termed this manifestation "momentum"—a martial presence that reflected the practitioner's style and accumulated experience. Combat instincts reached supernatural levels of precision, with vulnerable points on opponents appearing to illuminate in the practitioner's perception, while approaching danger triggered precognitive awareness.
Martial King marked the commencement of deeper bodily refinement, awakening blood-energy within the practitioner. This stage required the body to transition from mundane essence to subtle dependency on weakened spiritual energy for continued advancement. Conventional nutrition and tonics became insufficient fuel for progress. Blood qi began exhibiting characteristics similar to early-stage spiritual cultivators, enabling the use of advanced concepts that transcended traditional martial arts—manifestation of spirit fire, spirit rain, and basic qi techniques from standard refining stages became achievable. Intuitive abilities expanded into manipulable senses capable of deceiving lower-realm opponents. No combination of weaker practitioners, regardless of numbers, could pose a legitimate threat.
Martial Overload constituted the perfected state of Martial King, initiating gradual qi and soul transformation. This transitional phase facilitated rapid growth in both aspects, enhanced through specialized formations or scripture-guided cultivation in spiritually abundant environments.
Martial Supreme achieved the convergence of three flowers at the crown—each representing condensed manifestations of lifelong martial momentum, refined essence, and transformed soul, collectively forming a structure analogous to a qi foundation. Practitioners gained sensitivity to elemental energies and heavenly qi patterns, enabling advanced techniques utilizing these forces. The ability to perceive and sever souls became accessible. Physical transformation commenced with rapid regression to younger appearances, extending lifespan to approximately 300+ years.
Han Chen had also developed scriptures for even higher transformations—Martial Saint, Grand Sovereign, and Martial Deity—but had decided against revealing these advanced stages to avoid overwhelming his parents. Martial Deity represented a soul-transformation stage comparable to Nascent Soul cultivation, with combat capabilities matching his own true cultivation level.