Dao of Money

As it turned out, Wang Jun’s idea that the whole floor was a trial of endurance proved true in the end.

Before Chen Ren knew it, months had passed. Maybe even a year.

He did his best to keep track of time, but that was not easy in a place where every day looked the same. There was no sunrise that felt different from the last, no season, no rain, no changing wind, and no sign that the world was moving at all. Because of that, Chen Ren only had an estimate.

During that time, both he and Princess Yanyue changed mentally and physically.

Being trapped in an endless desert for so long, with no idea when they would be able to leave, was not easy on anyone’s mind. Training helped, but only to a point. There was only so much a person could do before the silence began pressing on them again.

The lack of qi made it worse.

There was no qi in the air, so replenishing what they used took time. That meant they had a limited amount they could spend each day. If they used too much, they would be forced to sit quietly for more than a day while their bodies slowly recovered.

They learned to be careful because of that.

They trained only as much as they could afford. They studied, tested small ideas, and tried not to waste even a little qi. Any pills that could help them recover faster were kept for emergencies. Neither of them was willing to use those unless they truly had no other choice.

And there were only so many books one could read.

So, to keep themselves from losing their minds, Chen Ren and Princess Yanyue talked.

At first, during the early months, most of those conversations were simple. Chen Ren asked about the knowledge she had gathered over the years, and about her upbringing as a princess. Yanyue had been taught many things as royalty, far more than Chen Ren had expected, and she was usually willing to speak about them.

She talked about court rules, noble families, the way alliances were formed, and the kind of lessons imperial children were forced to learn before they were old enough to understand why those lessons mattered.

She even had theoretical knowledge about how sects were run. That, more than anything, caught Chen Ren’s attention.

As it turned out, sect management was far more complicated than he had imagined. A sect was not just elders, disciples, resources, and a few rules written on stone tablets. There were levels of authority, divisions of responsibility, inner and outer systems, resource halls, punishment halls, mission halls, teaching elders, guest elders, contribution records, treasury oversight, and a dozen other things that all had to work together.

The more Yanyue explained, the more Chen Ren realised how shallow his understanding had been. Running a sect was also about structure. And if he ever wanted his own sect to truly grow, he would need to understand that.

Chen Ren had only wanted to understand the structure of Guardian sects so he could see if there was anything useful to take from them.

As it turned out, there was far more than he expected.

Guardian sects had people at every level, handling matters both big and small. There were the obvious halls, like the ones responsible for missions, resources, punishments, and teaching. But there were also smaller departments that Chen Ren would never have thought of on his own.

There was even a cleanup pavilion.

According to Princess Yanyue, their entire duty was to use water-aspected techniques to clean blood after major duels, purify ponds and streams around the sect, and make sure the water bodies remained clear of waste or poison.

Chen Ren had stared at her for a while when she explained that.

It sounded ridiculous at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. A large sect was almost like a small city. People fought, trained, ate, lived, and made messes every day. If no one handled those small things, they would eventually become big problems.

Yanyue continued explaining more departments after that, and each one gave Chen Ren a clearer picture of what he might need in the future. Of course, he didn’t think he needed cultivators for everything. Mortals could handle many of those jobs well enough, and from what he knew, most of them would probably be happy to work in a sect if it gave them safety, steady pay, and a better life.

Aside from sect management, Princess Yanyue also had a great deal of insight into politics.

She spoke about how things might change for Chen Ren if they ever left the pagoda. With the Guardian sects already interested in him, and with everything he had done inside this place, his name would likely spread far across the empire. That kind of attention would bring opportunities, but also danger.

She warned him that people would approach him. If he wanted to survive that kind of attention, he would need backers of his own.

It was overwhelming to think about, but it was the least of his worries at the moment.

He already had Princess Yanyue, and everyone knew they were moving together. That alone should stop many people from acting too openly against him. More than that, though, he couldn’t help feeling a little excited.

If his name spread that far, his businesses could spread with it. And if his businesses spread, he would become even richer.

When he said that out loud, Yanyue looked at him with open surprise.

Chen Ren did not understand why. To him, it was the most natural thought in the world.

“You really can think of ways to make money from anything,” she said.

Chen Ren only smiled and continued asking questions.

There was no reason to waste knowledge when it was being freely given. He asked about sects, noble families, imperial customs, taxes, trade routes, regional powers, and anything else that might be useful later. Some of it was too distant for him to care about immediately, but he stored it away all the same.

One day, he knew that knowledge would be helpful. Aside from that, Chen Ren’s mind cultivation also progressed quickly.

Thankfully, he didn’t make himself brain-dead by mistake.

After about a month of painful practice, careful qi control, and more headaches than he cared to count, he finally reached the first proper step. It was not a huge breakthrough in terms of raw power, but he could feel the difference. His thoughts were clearer, his focus sharper, and his control over qi had become a little more refined.

Once that happened, he spent more of his time trying to learn the Sky-Grade telekinesis technique the floor lord had used.

And Chen Ren had to admit, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to use it as well as the floor lord had.

Even lifting and moving grains of sand had taken him more than a week. At first, he could barely make them tremble. Then he managed to push them a little. After that, he could lift a few into the air, only for them to scatter the moment his focus slipped.

The technique worked well with mind cultivation, which was probably why Wang Jun had also approved of it. A large part of it was using intent with qi to manipulate objects in the surroundings. It sounded simple when written in a manual.

But in reality, it wasn’t simple at all.

There were problems attached to it—weight, shape, and the fact that different objects felt completely different to move.

Chen Ren started with sand because there was plenty of it around him. Once he made some progress, he moved on to smaller objects. Pills, stones, broken bits of metal, and even daggers from his spatial ring. Each one felt different under his control. A pill rolled too easily. A dagger resisted because of its shape and weight. Sand was light, but hard to gather properly.

He soon learned that the difficulty increased depending on how large and heavy something was. Even if he managed to push an object into the air, moving it around smoothly was a completely different matter. Lifting a dagger was one thing. Making it turn, strike, stop, and return without wobbling like a drunk bird was another.

All of this made the technique far harder than simply pushing lightning onto his fist or creating shapes from an aspect he could already manipulate at will.

But honestly, it was fun.

He hadn’t realised how much he missed this kind of training.

With everything he usually had to deal with, proper technique training had always been pushed to the side unless it involved something immediately necessary, like soul cultivation or body cultivation. He improved mostly by earning money, buying resources, and using them to grow stronger. Because of that, he had ignored a large part of what it meant to be a cultivator—having a lot of techniques.

With his spatial ring, it had worked well enough.

He carried talismans, pills, treasures, and all kinds of strange things that could give him different effects when needed. If he lacked a technique for something, he usually tried to find an item that could do the same job.

It was not a bad way to fight. In fact, it had saved his life more than once.

But while learning the telekinesis technique, Chen Ren understood that he was adding something entirely different to his abilities. It was a new way to fight, one that could grow with him and make every weapon or object around him part of his attack.

Funnily enough, Wang Jun was not screaming at him while he learned it.

At least, not with this technique. That was because the severed head was trying to learn it himself.

As it turned out, Wang Jun had no intention of sitting around forever and only reading books. A technique that allowed him to manipulate objects with his mind was one of the few powers he could actually use in his current state, and he had no intention of letting that opportunity pass.

Chen Ren understood why.

The old head had been powerless for a long time. For someone who had once reached the domain manifestation realm, being reduced to a talking head that needed to be carried around must have been unbearable, even if he tried to hide it behind insults and arrogance.

So, every few hours, Chen Ren found himself gaining a fellow disciple. Though for Wang Jun, learning the technique was far harder.

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He had no actual qi to work with. All he had was soul qi, and even that was not in a large amount. So while Chen Ren tried to move grains of sand, pills, and daggers, Wang Jun spent his time modifying the technique so it could adapt to soul qi instead.

It was a questionable attempt at first. After all, that was not a small change. He was not simply adjusting the way the technique flowed through the body. He was changing the foundation of it and forcing something created for normal qi to work with a completely different kind of energy.

But in the end, Wang Jun actually managed it.

That alone showed Chen Ren why the man had once been able to reach the domain manifestation realm.

No matter how much of a bastard Wang Jun come across as, he was still a genius.

Even if he could only maintain the technique for two minutes at a time, his control over it was far better than Chen Ren’s. While Chen Ren’s dagger still wobbled in the air like it wanted to fall at any moment, Wang Jun could make a few grains of sand move in clean circles around him, slow and steady, as if they were following invisible tracks.

It was annoying.

It was also impressive.

The limited amount of soul qi Wang Jun had meant he could not control heavier items yet. The head, naturally, vowed to change that.

Chen Ren had no doubt he would manage it eventually. Wang Jun worked on the technique day and night. When he was not practising it, he was modifying it. When he was not modifying it, he was complaining about the flaws in the original manual and how the maker clearly had no imagination.

And when he was not doing any of that, he helped Chen Ren select more techniques to add to his arsenal.

They had collected many manuals by now, so they did not lack options. The floor lord’s collection alone had given them plenty to study, and with Princess Yanyue agreeing to share some of the techniques she knew, the number only grew larger. She spent most of her own time practising poison techniques, but she still gave Chen Ren access to a few things as repayment for all the help he had given her inside the pagoda.

That was when Chen Ren realised something. Having options was good. Having too many options was a problem.

If he could, he would have learned everything he saw. After all, what else was there to do in this desert? There was a real chance that he might have enough time to learn most of them if they remained trapped here long enough. But even then, he knew that spreading himself too thin would only make every technique shallow.

In the end, he decided to focus on two more techniques besides the telekinesis technique.

With the limited amount of qi he could use each day, even that was already pushing it. He would have to train them on different days, rotating between them so he did not drain himself completely.

Still, no matter how much he looked through the manuals, he couldn’t decide.

Each one seemed useful in its own way. One gave him better offensive power. Another could improve his defence. Another would help movement, another could hide his presence, and another looked like it might pair well with lightning.

After watching him hesitate for too long, Wang Jun finally lost patience.

“Enough,” the head said. “At this rate, you will die of indecision before the desert kills you.”

Chen Ren looked away from the manuals. “I am just choosing carefully.”

“You are wasting time carefully,” Wang Jun snapped. “There is a difference.”

In the end, Wang Jun chose for him.

According to the head, Chen Ren already had three types of techniques that covered the basics well enough. He had offensive methods, defensive methods, and movement techniques. Combined with his items, lightning, body, mind, and soul cultivation, that made him more versatile than most cultivators at his level.

But Wang Jun said that was still not enough. Because surviving fights was not only about attacking, defending, and moving.

It was also about controlling the battle before the enemy realised what was happening.

According to Wang Jun, most of Chen Ren’s current techniques were defective.

They were fine at a lower level, but they would barely do anything once he faced stronger opponents. Chen Ren could not really disagree. [Starlight Armour] was still useful, but most of his other techniques came from the Chen clan. They were low-grade techniques, and while they had helped him before, they were no longer as effective as he wanted them to be.

Instead of making him learn completely unrelated techniques, Wang Jun chose ones that could build on what Chen Ren already knew.

That way, Chen Ren wouldn’t be starting from nothing.

The first technique was called [Thunder Ape Manifestation].

It was a lightning-aspected offensive technique that required the cultivator to form the shape of a thunder ape around their body. Not a full transformation, but a large shell of lightning that moved with them. The technique created claws, strengthened speed, and gave the user a brutal close-combat style that matched the nature of a thunder ape.

If mastered properly, Wang Jun said it could give Chen Ren the destructive power of a grade-five beast.

He didn’t know whether that was an exaggeration, but the technique certainly looked powerful.

According to Wang Jun, cultivators who used beast-inspired techniques were always dangerous. They copied their instincts, their movement, and the way their bodies were meant to kill. [Thunder Ape Manifestation] would be especially useful when Chen Ren had to face several enemies at once, since the lightning shell could tear through anything that came too close.

The second technique was called [Thunder Dome]. Despite the name, it was not purely defensive.

The technique allowed a cultivator to create a dome of lightning over a large area. Once the dome was formed, the cultivator could move through it almost like teleportation, appearing at different points inside the structure. They could also use the dome itself to launch attacks, sending lightning down from any direction.

That made it both a movement technique and a battlefield control technique.

In some ways, it could even act as defence, since anyone trapped inside the dome would have to deal with attacks from every side while Chen Ren moved freely through it. If he learned it properly, it would help him a lot in battles where space and positioning mattered.

Unfortunately, it was also the hardest technique of the three.

[Thunder Dome] required far better control over the lightning aspect than Chen Ren currently had. It was not enough to simply release lightning and shape it. He had to maintain a stable structure, connect every part of the dome, and keep enough awareness to move through it without tearing the whole thing apart.

It also consumed a large amount of qi. Because of that, Chen Ren could only practise it once a week. Even then, each attempt left him exhausted.

The third technique, at least, was not something that consumed a lot of qi. Not in the way most techniques did.

It was not a lightning technique either. It was something called a [Qi Tattoo Art], and Chen Ren was lucky enough to find it in one of the manuals Princess Yanyue had taken from the eighth floor.

The idea behind it was simple.

A cultivator created tattoos across their body using materials similar to the ones used for talismans. The difference was that these tattoos were not single-use. They could be recharged with qi and activated when needed, giving the cultivator different buffs, attacks, or effects depending on the design.

Wang Jun told him to learn it for one simple reason, it would increase his strength.

If Chen Ren used the right qi tattoo, he could even use different aspects through it. That alone made it valuable. Unlike talismans or pills, the tattoos would not run out as long as he had enough qi in his body to activate them. They would stay with him, hidden under his clothes, waiting to be used.

According to Wang Jun, a cultivator always needed different kinds of moves.

Straightforward attacks were useful. Defences were useful. Movement techniques were useful. But hidden moves were the ones that often decided life and death, and qi tattoos were perfect for that. An enemy could guard against a sword, a fist, or a lightning technique. They would have a much harder time guarding against something drawn onto the skin and activated without warning.

Unfortunately, Chen Ren didn’t have the materials needed to make proper tattoos yet.

That didn’t stop him from studying them.

He spent hours learning the strokes, memorising the patterns, and understanding how qi was supposed to move through each line. Some tattoos strengthened the body. Some released bursts of force. Some stored small amounts of qi for emergencies. Others could create simple elemental effects if the correct materials were used.

Wang Jun, of course, was not satisfied with only copying the basic versions. He began working with Chen Ren to develop better ones.

They had enough simple tattoo patterns to use as a foundation, and Wang Jun believed they could combine, adjust, and improve them into something more useful. Chen Ren didn’t fully understand every change the head suggested, but he trusted Wang Jun’s skill enough to follow along.

Like that, more time passed.

They didn’t move around as much anymore. There was still no sign of the common lift, no sign of an exit, and no sign that they would be leaving the desert anytime soon. But Chen Ren slowly grew used to the rhythm of life on the fifteenth floor.

He woke up, trained, studied, talked, rested—and repeated.

It was not the life he wanted, but it was a life he could endure. More than that, he was improving. His mind cultivation was growing, his telekinesis technique was becoming smoother, and the new techniques gave him something to work toward.

For the first time in a long while, the desert did not feel like it was only taking from him.

It was giving him time.

And then, just as Chen Ren began to settle into that rhythm, the floor decided to throw something big at them.

***