Dao of Money

Chen Ren knew he was going to be alone sooner or later.

Actually, it was a definite possibility he had already prepared himself for.

He knew very well that if Princess Yanyue was still on this floor, she would also be trying to find him. She was not the kind of person who would simply leave without trying. Chen Ren believed that much about her.

But a week went by and she didn’t appear. Before he even knew it, a month passed as well.

By then, there was no point denying it anymore. Whatever had happened during the storm, whatever direction she had been thrown, and whatever choice she had made after that, the truth remained the same.

Chen Ren was alone now.

If he was right, then Princess Yanyue had probably searched for him too. Maybe she had spent days crossing the changed desert, calling his name into empty sand the same way he had called hers. Maybe she had found nothing, just as he had found nothing. In the end, she might have decided it was better to disappear like that instead of forcing a final goodbye between them.

He could understand that. It was easier when you didn’t have to face someone you knew might not survive for long.

Her disappearance made his survival harder too. A large part of their food and supplies had been in her spatial ring. Chen Ren still had some left, but not enough to be careless with. After going through everything, he realised he had around six months of food if he ate once every three days.

That was not reassuring.

He couldn’t rely only on qi yet. His body had not reached that point, and there was no qi in the air for him to recover easily. Training became the only thing he could do to keep his mind occupied, aside from arguing with Wang Jun.

The head, naturally, acted offended that he had been left here to die with him.

“At least you don’t need food,” Chen Ren said.

That only started another argument.

Still, in the end, Chen Ren found a solution to the food problem. As it turned out, he didn’t need to look anywhere else but his own spatial ring.

There was something inside it he had completely forgotten about. A gift from City Lord Xiangrui himself. Something Chen Ren had never truly expected to use, but now seemed like the only reason he could last longer than a few months in this dead desert.

The summoning dice.

It was one of the treasures Chen Ren had obtained on the fifth floor, mostly because Lord Xiangrui had deemed it useless. The chances of getting anything valuable from it were too low, and most cultivators would not waste their hopes on a treasure that could just as easily summon trash.

But here, even water or food was a blessing.

And as it turned out, the dice managed to solve his food crisis in a big way.

There was still a good chance it would summon something useless. In the first week alone, it gave him a rag twice. Once, it gave him a chipped wooden cup that looked like it had been stolen from some poor inn. Wang Jun had laughed at that until Chen Ren threatened to bury him halfway in the sand.

But on other days, the dice gave him things that actually mattered. A waterskin filled with clear, delicious water, a loaf of bread, a few buns wrapped in cloth, and even dried meat.

A small bag of fruit that looked strange but tasted sweet enough that Chen Ren nearly wanted to cry.

Those things didn’t solve everything, but they solved enough. He no longer had to count every bite like it might be his last. He still rationed what he had, but the dice gave him hope that he could keep going for much longer than he first thought.

Even if it did nothing else, that alone made it priceless in this desert.

Chen Ren remembered City Lord Xiangrui saying there was a small chance the dice could summon other treasures too. There was no guarantee, of course. With this kind of item, luck decided everything. Still, Chen Ren desperately wished it would bring out a return ticket.

That was the only thing he truly needed.

A return ticket.

Unfortunately, he could only use the dice once a day, and things didn’t change simply because he wanted them to. Chen Ren knew that better than most. If a person wanted to achieve something, they had to make it possible themselves.

That was what he had done again and again inside the pagoda.

Things had worked out for him many times, but not because he sat around waiting for luck to save him. He had pushed events, taken risks, made deals, used whatever resources he could find, and forced everything to move in the direction he needed.

Somehow, all of that had led him to the very end of the pagoda. A dead desert, a talking head, and a dice that sometimes gave him bread.

It was almost funny.

But thinking about the negative side of things would not help him, so Chen Ren kept practising.

He slowly settled into a routine.

His days usually began with whatever food he had last received from the summoning dice. Sometimes it was bread. Sometimes it was dried meat. Sometimes it was water and something small enough that Wang Jun mocked him for calling it breakfast. Still, food was food, and Chen Ren had learned not to complain about anything that kept him alive.

After eating, he trained by doing mind cultivation.

He had already reached the first step, but that did not mean he was finished. If anything, it only made him understand how much more there was to master. He kept refining his focus, sharpening his control, and pushing himself to hold the state for longer without letting his thoughts scatter.

Once that was done, he trained body cultivation and soul cultivation with Wang Jun’s help, then moved on to the other techniques.

Being alone changed the way time felt.

He only needed to sleep a few hours a week now, so it truly felt like he had all the time in the world. Of course, he had also had plenty of time when Princess Yanyue was with him, but back then, many hours had been spent talking with her. The limited qi on the floor had been part of the reason, but it had not been the only one.

He had simply liked speaking with her. Now, there was no one to take those hours except Wang Jun, and even Wang Jun could only argue for so long before one of them got tired of the other.

Body cultivation and soul cultivation didn’t require the qi in the air, so he was able to practise them more often. That helped a lot. He had already learned the basics of the new techniques, so most of his work now was refinement. He repeated movements while adjusting qi flows, which led to strengthening control. The head would also find small mistakes and correct them before they become habits.

Hence, the days passed, and Chen Ren improved.

His qi control grew significantly better. His hold over his aspect became sharper. Even without using qi, his body could now perform feats that would have seemed ridiculous to him not too long ago. He could run longer, strike harder, and move through the desert with far less effort than before.

He and Wang Jun also kept moving.

Sitting in one place had become too boring, and although Chen Ren knew the chances of finding the common lift were slim, he could not bring himself to stop searching completely. So every two days, he walked for a few hours, looking for anything different in the endless sand.

There were not many such places.

The desert was vast and empty, but not entirely without features. Once, he found a circle of large boulders standing in the middle of nowhere, as if someone had placed them there long ago and forgotten why. Another time, he discovered an empty cave half-buried beneath a slanted ridge of stone.

He used that cave for a week. It felt almost luxurious to sleep somewhere that wasn’t open sand.

Unfortunately, even there, he found no beasts.

If the fifteenth floor truly had living creatures, they were hiding far better than anything Chen Ren had faced before.

Because there wasn’t even a single sign of one.

He would have liked to see some proof of life, even if it was dangerous. A footprint, a bone, a distant shape moving across the sand, anything that proved the desert was not as empty as it looked. In the end, he knew that hope was hollow, but for some reason, a part of him still held on to it.

At least the lack of beasts had one benefit. He could sleep without worrying too much.

Whenever he did rest, he did not have to keep one eye open for something stalking him through the sand. The floor was harsh, but in that one way, it was also strangely safe.

And that gave him the perfect chance to do something he had been wanting to attempt for a long time. Reach the peak of the foundation establishment realm.

And maybe even break through.

He and Wang Jun had talked about it many times. If there was a way to use the pagoda’s restrictions to escape this floor, it might be through cultivation. The pagoda had always been meant for those in the foundation establishment realm. If Chen Ren was no longer in that realm, then perhaps the pagoda would have no choice but to throw him out.

It was only a theory. Maybe a desperate one, but all in all, it was a theory.

Still, he felt qi trickling into him every day from his businesses on the fifth floor. That flow hadn’t decreased much, which meant his foundation was still being fed from the outside, even here. He didn’t know whether it would be enough to truly make the leap, and he didn’t know whether the pagoda would simply allow him to ascend and leave.

Still, it was the only logical path he could think of.

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He would’ve attempted it sooner, but for a long time, he had focused on strengthening his basics. Advancing meant nothing if all he gained was a slightly stronger body and a little more qi. If his foundation was weak, then the next realm would only make those flaws larger.

Even Wang Jun had told him not to rush. And after more than a year of training, Chen Ren finally felt ready.

There was also one more thing he wanted to try. He wanted to call out to the golden dragon.

If the dragon could hear him, then maybe it could help. He truly didn’t know how much power it truly had, or whether it could affect the pagoda at all, but at this point, he could not afford to ignore any possibility.

If there was even a small chance the golden dragon could show him a path out of this place, then he had to try.

But he doubted the golden dragon would actually appear.

Still, when he compared his possibilities, the golden dragon was the only one that might be able to break through even the restrictions of this pagoda.

The problem was that seeing it wasn’t something he could do whenever he wished. It was more like seeing a comet that only passed once in a hundred years.

Even then, he couldn’t help trying.

He found a comfortable place to sit, crossed his legs, and began to meditate. His breathing slowed, and his mind gradually sank inward as he moved toward his star space.

A part of him expected nothing. Another part of him still wanted to see even a glimpse of gold moving through the darkness.

But when he entered the star space, there was no sign of the dragon.

Everything looked the same as before.

Darkness stretched in every direction, vast and quiet, while stars illuminated the space around him. Each one represented one of his businesses, shining with the qi they continued to send him even while he was trapped in the desert. There was no golden shape between them, no ancient presence, no pressure that made his soul tremble.

Only stars.

Chen Ren guessed he would have to burn a large amount of qi if he wanted to truly call the dragon forth. Even then, there was no guarantee it would answer. In a place with no qi in the air, wasting that much of his own reserves was not a small matter, and he was not sure he wanted to risk it without a better reason.

So instead, he focused on the stars.

At least they looked healthy.

He hadn’t received any news from the outside world for a long time. He didn’t know what had happened to his sect, his businesses, or the people managing them. But looking at the stars gave him some reassurance. They were full of qi, steady and bright, with no signs of fading or breaking apart.

That told him things were going well enough.

His alcohol and pill businesses looked like they had grown a lot during the past year or so. Chen Ren was not too surprised by that. Before entering the pagoda, they had already planned to expand into different cities. Their buyers were clear, their market was already interested, and the sect had enough capable members to handle the work.

It was strange. He was trapped at the end of the pagoda, alone in a dead desert, yet somewhere outside, his businesses were still growing without him. That thought made him feel a little better.

Even if he was stuck here, everything he had built had not stopped moving. Sadly, the noodle business and the others had not grown as much.

That was also true for the perfume and cloth businesses. Their stars looked steady, but not much brighter than before. Still, they had not taken a hit either, and Chen Ren could appreciate that. In a world where nothing truly remained stable for long, having a business that simply continued without collapsing was already valuable.

At least, he liked to think so. Other than those older businesses, there was also a new star in the sky, and it shone brighter than all the rest.

It was his new business on the fifth floor.

He had already known it was a huge success inside the pagoda. That made sense. Everyone here was a cultivator, and cultivators always needed resources. But now, seeing its star inside his star space, he realised he might have underestimated just how successful it had become.

He didn’t think he had ever seen such a large star before.

It was less like a star now and more like a globe of qi, bright and heavy, growing larger with every passing moment. Even as he watched, it seemed to expand slowly, as if more and more power was being fed into it from the fifth floor. The sight called to him, tempting him to use it.

To advance.

For a moment, he wondered again if he should use all that qi to call upon the golden dragon instead. If there was enough power here, maybe it would hear him. Maybe it would come. Maybe it would know a way to break through the fifteenth floor’s restrictions.

But that was still a gamble.

The golden dragon was healing, and he had no idea whether it would answer him even if he burned everything he had gathered. Wasting that much qi on a hope could leave him with nothing, and he could not afford to be careless now.

In the end, he made his decision.

He would focus on breaking through the foundation establishment realm.

With that decision made, he began pulling the qi from the star space into his body. He started slowly, as he always did.

First, he drew from the smaller stars, letting their qi flow into him in thin streams. The energy entered his body, moved through his meridians, and gathered inside his dantian. He circulated it carefully, allowing it to replenish him without rushing the process.

After living in a qi-less desert for so long, the feeling was almost overwhelming. It was like drowning after going too long without even a sip of water.

Qi filled him again, spreading through places that had felt dry for months. His body reacted at once, almost greedy for it, but Chen Ren forced himself to remain calm. If he lost control now, all that power would become a problem instead of a blessing.

So he breathed slowly and kept drawing it in.

The stars shone above him and qi flowed.

For the first time in a long while, he felt as if the path forward was not entirely closed.

The experience was far more overwhelming than the last few times.

He still kept circulating the qi. He pushed it through his body, guided it through his meridians, and slowly realised that he was able to handle it far better than before. The flow was smoother. His control was steadier. The qi no longer fought him at every turn the way it once had.

That was probably because of all the training he had done. Before he knew it, he had already drained the qi from two stars.

But there were still more left.

After not advancing for so long, his dantian felt hungry. It pulled at the qi as if it wanted more and more, refusing to be satisfied by the small streams he had taken in so far. He felt that hunger clearly, and instead of resisting it, he continued drawing in more.

One star after another dimmed as its qi flowed into him.

By the time he had gone through most of his businesses, he already felt as if he had jumped at least two stars. His body was stronger, his meridians fuller, and his dantian brighter than it had been in a long time.

But that was nowhere near enough.

If he wanted to break through the foundation establishment realm entirely, then he needed to make sure every drop of qi he absorbed was used properly. He could not afford to waste any of it. Not here after spending so long trapped in a desert where qi did not exist in the air.

With that thought in mind, he finally turned toward the largest star. The moment he reached for it, the qi rushed into him like a meteor.

His whole body was covered in qi at once. The power flooded through him too quickly, filling his meridians, pressing against his flesh, and surging toward his dantian with terrifying force. He tried to slow it down, to take it in piece by piece, but it was as if he had opened a door he could no longer close.

The largest star poured everything into him. Chen Ren clenched his teeth.

He couldn’t let any of it go to waste. So he let it drown him.

He held onto as much as he could, forcing the qi to move through the right paths even as pain tore through his body. More and more of it entered his dantian, gathering there like a storm trapped inside a single point. His meridians burned. His skin prickled. His bones felt as if they were being squeezed from the inside.

But he kept going. He refused to let the qi break him.

Instead, he pushed himself to his limit and kept absorbing more.

Every breath became harder and every moment felt like it was stretching forever. The pain—it grew sharp enough that a scream finally tore from his throat.

But even then, he held on with only one goal fixed in his mind.

He wasn’t going to stop at the peak of the foundation establishment realm.

He would go beyond it.

***

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