Dao of Money

The golden flames came at Chen Ren like the flames of hell themselves.

They brightened the sky around him, flooding everything in gold, and when they struck, the heat was worse than anything he had ever experienced. It felt like his skin, bones, and soul were all burning at the same time.

But now he understood something. The illusion was as strong as he made it.

It was not weak. Chen Ren knew that much. This trial had power, and the pain it created was real enough to tear at his mind. But in the end, it was still built from his fear. It was the fear of the golden dragon, the fear of being used, the fear of being punished for failing a path he had never asked for.

And Chen Ren wasn’t going to die by its hands anymore.

As the flames swallowed him, lightning covered his entire body. It wrapped around his arms, legs, chest, and head, forming a bright layer that fought back against the burning gold. The flames pushed against him, but Chen Ren pushed harder, forcing himself through them instead of turning away.

The dragon roared.

Its tail swept through the sky, aiming to smash him apart.

Chen Ren moved at once.

The lightning dome was still intact around the battlefield, and he teleported to the highest point he could reach. The tail passed beneath him, tearing through the space where he had been only a moment before. Before the dragon could follow, Chen Ren pushed more lightning into his legs.

He still had no idea how he was floating in this open sky, but he knew how to move through it now.

That was not enough.

If he wanted to land a real blow, he needed speed. So he shaped lightning beneath himself, forming something like a sword of pure lightning to act as a foothold and guide.

Outside the illusion, this probably would not have worked. His control over his aspect was not that good yet.

But here, the rules were different. If the illusion could use his fear against him, then he could use his will against it. The lightning answered him more cleanly than it ever had before, and with it, he shot forward through the sky as more flames and primordial qi rushed toward him.

He dodged what he could and burned through the rest.

By the time he reached the dragon’s body, his whole frame was shaking from the strain, but he did not stop. Chen Ren clenched his fists, gathered lightning around them, and slammed the first punch into the dragon’s neck.

The impact sent a crackle of lightning across its golden scales.

He punched again, then again.

He targeted the same area, refusing to spread his attacks across the dragon’s massive body. The neck was his best chance. If this thing was truly a dragon, even an illusion of one, then striking the throat again and again had to matter eventually.

The golden dragon twisted, primordial qi surging around it as if angered by the defiance.

Chen Ren kept hitting it.

Every punch carried more lightning than the last, and with each strike, he forced himself to believe one thing.

This dragon could bleed. This illusion could break. Chen Ren pushed his will into the attack.

He focused his intent on one thing, forcing every punch to dig deeper into the dragon’s neck. He wanted to create a hole in its flesh. He wanted to make blood flow. If the illusion was shaped by what he believed, then he would believe the golden dragon could be wounded.

As he kept punching, heat suddenly washed over him from above.

Chen Ren reacted at once and formed [Starlight Armour] around his body.

Before, he had not been sure whether the technique would make any difference. The dragon had seemed too strong, too far above him, and the primordial qi had torn through his defences as if they were nothing. But now he knew that was not the full truth.

The flames struck him.

They tore over his body, burning hot enough to make his teeth clench, but the armour shone around him and held. Starlight spread across his skin, taking the worst of the fire and keeping his body from being swallowed completely.

As soon as the flames ended, Chen Ren turned. He already knew what the dragon would do next.

Its tail came at him immediately, sweeping through the sky with enough force to turn him into pulp. This time, he used the telekinesis technique in a different way.

He focused on the huge tail and pushed all of his will into it. He didn’t want to control it completely, that was impossible. He only needed to slow it down.

The tail dragged against his intent for a brief moment, its speed dropping just enough. He moved at the last second, letting his control fade as he slipped away. Without him there, the tail continued its path and smashed into the dragon’s own neck.

The golden dragon cried out.

Primordial qi moved around him, trying to grip his body again, and Chen Ren teleported before it could close. For the next five minutes, he focused only on staying alive while dealing as much damage as possible. He moved through the lightning dome, struck whenever he found an opening, and avoided the attacks that would have killed him instantly.

It was not easy.

The whole sky was filled with qi that moved on the dragon’s command. Flames came from above, primordial qi gathered below, and the dragon’s body itself was large enough to turn every movement into a threat. But Chen Ren was quicker now, and more importantly, he understood the shape of the trial.

This was a battle of will and intent.

If he feared the dragon the way he had before, then he would keep dying. The illusion would crush him, heal him, and crush him again until his mind broke. But if he treated this place as something closer to a simulation, then the fear lost some of its grip.

And honestly, it was almost fun. After all, it was not every day he got to fight the golden dragon.

It was a great way for him to test his skills.

In the end, even if he died, he would be revived. That didn’t mean he wanted to die again, but once he learned how to fight the dragon properly, it became easier to avoid the worst of its attacks. After that, he only came close to dying once, when golden flames rolled over him while he was focused on keeping away primordial qi that had turned as sharp as glass.

He suffered several burns from it. Nothing that stopped him.

He kept moving through the lightning dome, teleporting from one point to another as he struck the dragon’s enormous body. Honestly, punching it hurt. Its scales and skin were rough, and there were many times he felt cuts open across his knuckles even when his fists were coated in qi.

But it was also extremely satisfying.

There was something thrilling about moving around such a huge creature and landing blow after blow against it. Even if the dragon was an illusion, even if he was only fighting something created from his own fear, it still felt like he was standing against a heavenly beast and refusing to back down.

After realising that his will was the core of winning this battle, Chen Ren pushed the lightning dome further.

He made it much bigger.

The structure expanded around him, lightning stretching through the open sky until it finally surrounded the golden dragon as well. It was a huge step for him. In training, he had never been able to create [Thunder Dome] on this scale. But here, he could do it. Qi filled him as if it were endless, and as long as his will held firm, the technique obeyed.

The dragon was still too large to be easily trapped.

It moved within the dome, its massive body twisting through the lightning as primordial qi surged around it. Several times, that qi tried to break through the structure completely, pressing against the dome with enough force to make it tremble. But Chen Ren was connected to the technique now, and he refused to let it collapse.

Whenever the primordial qi pushed, he pushed back.

His lightning clashed against the golden energy again and again, and though it took effort, he held the dome together. Then he teleported around the dragon’s back, appearing wherever he found space, striking with his fists, elbows, knees, and everything else he could use.

As it turned out, a heavenly beast had no weak point. At least not one Chen Ren could find.

The golden dragon was almost impenetrable. Its eyes had resisted his boulders. Its neck barely gave under his punches. Its back, tail, and sides were all covered in scales too strong for his attacks to properly break. There were no soft spots for him to aim at, no hidden wound he could exploit, and no simple trick that would bring it down quickly.

But it was something he had expected.

He didn’t need the fight to be easy. He only needed to keep proving, with every strike, that the dragon was not something he had to fear helplessly.

After all, a heavenly beast could only be defeated through overwhelming strength.

If this dragon had been real, Chen Ren would not have even tried. He knew his limits well enough for that. But the fact that its body had no easy weak points did not mean he could not harm it at all.

Actually, the battle gave him a lot of chances to further train his skills.

He practised teleporting around the dome, using his lightning aspect in different ways, creating projectiles, wrapping it around himself like armour, and testing how much of the dragon’s body he could control at once with the telekinesis technique.

As it turned out, that was not much.

If he truly wanted to control part of the dragon, then he had to aim for something small. A section of its tail. One claw. A single nail. Anything larger than that was too much for him to move properly. Otherwise, the best he could do was slow the dragon down by pulling against its movement from the opposite direction.

That was still useful.

It helped him escape several attacks, and more than once, it gave him just enough time to teleport away before the dragon’s tail and claw crushed him. But no matter how much he tried, he was nowhere close to killing the golden dragon.

He had made it bleed in several places.

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Small wounds had opened along its neck, back, and tail from repeated attacks, but none of them mattered enough. They were not the kind of injuries that would bring down a heavenly beast. At most, they were proof that Chen Ren could hurt the illusion if he believed strongly enough and struck hard enough.

That was not enough. He needed something better. Something that would make the dragon cry out properly and give him a real opening to finish this trial.

But what was that way?

As Chen Ren thought, the dragon roared.

The force of the sound threw him off balance, and sharp knives made from primordial qi rushed toward him from the side. Chen Ren moved at the last moment, barely escaping as the blades brushed past him and cut shallow lines across his arm and shoulder.

He teleported away at once, appearing near the back of the lightning dome. The dragon turned its massive head toward him.

Then it opened its mouth.

“Just give up,” it said. “You are not going to defeat me, no matter how persistent of a cockroach you are. You will only be crushed.”

Chen Ren grunted in response. “I never thought you were much of a talker. I should have realised you were an illusion much earlier with how many threats you keep giving out.”

The golden dragon snarled.

Its mouth opened wide, showing rows of sharp teeth, and the next second, lightning flashed across its body.

Chen Ren stared. The dragon had not used lightning until now. But instead of dread or fear, something else flashed through Chen Ren’s eyes.

An opportunity.

An idea bloomed in his mind, and he knew immediately that this might be the way to kill the illusion, and he immediately moved to test it out.

Lightning crackled around the dragon’s body and lashed toward him like whips meant to scorch him apart. Chen Ren teleported around them, moving through the dome as fast as he could. The dragon’s lightning was overwhelming, but because of that, it was also easy for him to sense. It filled the space with sharp energy, and Chen Ren could feel each strike before it fully reached him.

Even when some of it brushed against him, he could endure it. What he couldn’t afford was to slow down.

So he kept moving.

The lightning chased him through the dome, tearing across the sky behind him, but he didn’t stop. He teleported from one point to another, changing direction whenever the dragon tried to trap him. Before he knew it, he had closed the distance between them again.

To escape the next wave of lightning, he appeared directly in front of the dragon’s face.

The golden dragon’s eyes bored into him as if it wanted to devour him whole.

Chen Ren kept looking.

Before the dragon could attack again, he raised his hand and focused as much as he could. He did not aim for the eyes. He did not aim for the head. Those had already proved too hard to damage properly.

This time, he aimed for the teeth the dragon had exposed when it opened its mouth.

Focusing on all of them was impossible. There were too many, and the dragon’s presence pushed against his mind like a wall. But Chen Ren did not need all of them. He only needed a few.

He found three teeth with his intent.

Then, gathering every bit of strength and will he could manage, Chen Ren pulled.

At first, the teeth resisted.

He had expected that.

The golden dragon was still a heavenly beast, even if it was only an illusion. Nothing about it would come apart easily. But Chen Ren didn’t let go. He kept his intent wrapped around the three teeth and pulled with everything he had.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then the dragon screamed.

The sound shook the lightning dome as one of the teeth finally loosened. A moment later, another followed. Then the last one shifted as well. Blood burst from the gums, spilling down the sides of the dragon’s mouth and falling into the empty sky below.

Primordial qi and lightning rushed toward Chen Ren at once.

He immediately pushed his own qi out to protect himself, but he didn’t cut his connection to the teeth. He could feel them now, three sharp points caught in his will, half-loosened but not yet free. The dragon thrashed, trying to pull away, but Chen Ren held on and kept pulling.

It took nearly a full minute of focus before the teeth finally came out. The golden dragon screamed again.

Blood rolled from its closed mouth, thick and bright, dripping past its golden scales. There was so much of it that Chen Ren felt confidence rise inside him.

He was on the right path. This was how he could kill it.

The dragon was distracted by pain, and Chen Ren did not waste the chance. The lightning dome around them shimmered, and in the next instant, lightning flashed from every direction. Bolts struck the dragon from all sides, crashing against its body in a storm of white-blue light.

Until now, Chen Ren hadn’t used the dome’s offensive function properly.

He had known it would not be enough on its own. Most of what he had done so far was to test the dragon, to understand how strong it really was and how much of the illusion could be pushed back. But now that he had finally landed a proper strike, there was no point holding back.

It was time to go all out.

Chen Ren unleashed another technique.

A huge amount of lightning burst from his body and wrapped around him, growing larger and thicker until it formed the shape of an ape. Lightning claws extended from his hands, power covered his shoulders and back, and the whole form crackled around him like a living beast.

[Thunder Ape Manifestation].

He had practised the technique many times, but using it like this felt different.

The lightning shell moved with him as if it were part of his body, making every breath feel heavier, stronger, and wilder. For a moment, he didn’t feel like a human cultivator trapped inside an illusion.

He felt like a king of beasts.

And the golden dragon in front of him was no longer something he could only fear.

It was a card Chen Ren had been saving until now. But what he was about to do next required it.

With the shape and strength of the thunder ape wrapped around him, Chen Ren moved. He shot toward the dragon’s mouth while it was still struggling from the pain of losing its teeth. Lightning lashed out to strike him, but the ape manifestation took most of the damage, its bright shell crackling as it held around his body.

The dragon’s tail swept toward him again.

Chen Ren forced his intent against it, slowing it just enough before he reached the dragon’s face. Then he grabbed the edges of its mouth with his now-giant hands and pulled.

The dragon resisted immediately.

Its jaws tried to snap shut, and its whole body shook as it thrashed inside the lightning dome. Even with [Thunder Ape Manifestation] strengthening him, opening its mouth took far more power than Chen Ren had expected. The dragon’s strength pressed against him like a mountain, and for a moment, his arms trembled under the pressure.

But he didn’t let go.

Lightning roared around his body as he pulled harder, forcing the dragon’s mouth open inch by inch. As soon as he created enough space, he pushed out the telekiness technique again and focused on the teeth inside.

The dragon tried to bite down.

Chen Ren held its mouth open with both hands, teeth grinding dangerously close to him as the pressure increased. His focus was divided between keeping the jaws apart, maintaining the ape manifestation, resisting the lightning, and controlling the teeth, but he forced himself to endure it.

One tooth loosened.

Then another.

They tore free one by one, falling into its mouth as blood poured from the torn gums. The golden dragon roared in pain again and again, the sound shaking the dome until several lines of lightning flickered and nearly broke apart.

It became impossible to keep its mouth open any longer.

Chen Ren pulled away at once.

But before he retreated, he wrapped his intent around the fallen teeth and dragged them out with him. Now that they were no longer attached to the dragon, they were much easier to control. They floated around him like massive golden blades, still wet with the dragon’s blood.

Below him, the golden dragon writhed.

Chen Ren knew it would recover soon. So he moved to finish it.

He raised the teeth high into the air, gathering lightning around them as he pushed every bit of strength and will he had into the attack and he slammed them down.

The teeth fell like spears.

They struck the golden dragon’s eye with all the force Chen Ren could gather, and this time, the eye did not stop the attack. The teeth pierced through with a wet sound, sinking deep as blood and golden light burst out together.

The dragon screamed.

And for the first time since the trial began, the sound carried real fear.

***

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