Thirty miles outside Meteor Rain Mountain stands a pavilion called Falling Rain Pavilion.
Legend has it that eleven years ago, the Rain God was stripped of divinity here.
As the site of a god's fall, this place is perpetually battered by howling winds and relentless storms, yet the area affected is remarkably small—only a hundred meters in radius. One must step inside to truly feel the wrath of divine sorrow.
After eleven years of wind and rain, the land within a hundred meters of Falling Rain Pavilion has transformed into a bottomless lake.
A few small boats drift on the lake's surface, carrying water-aligned cultivators who come to meditate on the dense Rain Dao laws concentrated here.
However, the Rain Dao laws here are exceptionally potent. Unless one has reached the Nascent Soul stage, attempting to levitate above the water is impossible—the torrential downpour would crush lower-level cultivators, forcing them to bow their heads or even drown in the abyssal depths of Falling Rain Lake.
Yet for those who have attained Nascent Soul, the Rain Dao laws here seem almost trivial. The fragments of divine law are incomplete, offering limited enlightenment value—hardly worth more than a passing glance.
This makes Falling Rain Pavilion something of an awkward attraction: those who need it can't access it, while those who can access it find it flavorless.
But since it exists, it must have its purpose!
After thorough investigation, the local City God and Earth Deity decided to develop it into a third-tier cultivation tourist site.
They crafted special artifacts—unsinkable boats—and hired professional punters. Their advertising campaign boasted: "No need for 998! No need for 888! Just 2,998 spirit stones for a ticket! Enter Falling Rain Lake to admire its beauty, feel the howling winds, comprehend the truths of Rain Dao... and perhaps even discover a hidden wisp of the White Tiger's Soul-Slaying Power, waiting for its destined inheritor!"
What are you waiting for? Don't just dream—act now!
Tickets are sold daily, limited to just five hundred. First come, first served!
"Fellow Daoist, one ticket please."
Chen Dalei, clad in a dark blue Daoist robe, strolled up to the nearly deserted ticket booth and softly roused the napping attendant.
He wasn't here as a casual tourist—this was the meeting place arranged with his first "Chosen One."
The Golden Core stage ticket-seller glanced at Chen Dalei and shook his head. "Only Foundation Establishment, eighth layer? I'd advise against it. Too dangerous..."
"Why so?" Chen Dalei pointed at the rules displayed on the signboard. "It clearly states Foundation Establishment cultivators and above are eligible."
The attendant gave him a strange look. "You're not from around here, are you? Came to Falling Rain Pavilion without doing any research?"
Chen Dalei nodded slightly. "Indeed, my first visit. Is there some nuance I should know?"
The attendant suddenly perked up.
"Ah well, I've got time to kill. Let me enlighten you!"
"Five years ago, Falling Rain Pavilion was famous across the region as a divine fall site. Not just water-aligned cultivators came to study its laws—others flocked here too, just for the spectacle. Business was insane! All five hundred tickets would sell out in less time than it takes to drink tea. Reservations were booked months in advance!"
"Those were glorious days! My commission alone was staggering. After selling tickets, I'd even have time to set up a side stall selling local specialties. My monthly earnings? At least this much!"
He proudly held up five fingers.
"Five thousand?" Chen Dalei ventured a guess.
Though Chen Yi had recently given him hundreds of millions in spirit stones to spend freely, Chen Dalei had grown up poor. In his experience, a Golden Core cultivator earning five thousand a month was exceptional!
Back in his wandering cultivator days, he'd scrape by on a mere hundred or two per month—barely enough to sustain his cultivation.
Even Golden Core earners typically made one or two thousand monthly, or three to four thousand if backed by a major faction.
Even with improved economic conditions now, how much higher could it go?
Five thousand was already impressive. Surely not fifty thousand?
That would be absurd. In his era, even Nascent Soul experts rarely saw such sums unless they controlled entire industries.
"Too small! Think bigger!" The attendant scoffed, his lips quirking smugly. "Fifty thousand!"
"A full fifty thousand spirit stones—piled up like a small mountain! Honestly, I'd just reached Foundation Establishment back then. First time seeing that much wealth, I nearly lost my mind! I couldn't even meditate properly, just hugged my spirit stones all night!"
"Truth is, I got lucky. If the old City God hadn't handpicked me, I'd probably still be breaking my back in the spirit mines. Not that mining's bad—it's cultivation too! Every rogue cultivator starts somewhere. But being a ticket-seller at a third-tier attraction? Now that's boundless opportunity!"
"See, that first windfall let me jump from early Foundation Establishment to Golden Core's third revolution in just eight years. Ah, what a beautiful life!"
Chen Dalei: "..."
Wait—fifty thousand a month right out of Qi Refinement?!
Foundation to Golden Core in eight years?!
What kind of fairy tale was this?!
Chen Yi, observing covertly, also found the story bizarre.
Truly, the Eastern Sea region bred no idle hands—even a random ticket-seller had such flair!
If nothing else, the man's money-grubbing skills were top-tier!
By the standard compensation for outer members of the incense merit system, his base salary should've been three thousand spirit stones, plus 0.1% commission on sales.
Selling five hundred tickets daily at 2,998 stones each would net him 1,500 stones in daily commission—totaling around fifty thousand monthly with base pay.
That was already the income ceiling for his rank!
Yet his side hustle earned him fifty thousand?
What was he selling—divine artifacts?!
Back then, he'd only been a lowly Foundation Establishment cultivator. What could possibly have that kind of profit margin?
Chen Yi could confirm the man wasn't lying—but how had he done it? Let's see... Hah, clever indeed!
With his methods, Chen Yi could easily trace the truth, but Chen Dalei lacked such means. All he could do was marvel and ask the obvious question:
"Fellow Daoist, you're truly extraordinary! How did you manage it?"
iaobai: "Councilor Dad, front me some funds. I want to hire ten thousand professional miners for a project!" [Five-Star Mission Issued: Capture the leader of the Blood Heaven Pirate Gang, who is on the run in the Radiant Star Sector. It is said the gang has over a hundred members. Proceed with caution.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, lend me the family's hundred-thousand-strong Lu Army!" [Seven-Star Mission Issued: Subdue a juvenile Void Dragon Beast.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, I'm taking your tamed Void Dragon Beast King out for a family reunion!" I said, System, don't you have any slightly more challenging missions? You're just not up to par! [Nine-Star Mission Issued: Become the Human Councilor.] Lu Xiaobai: "Dad, there's a small matter I'd like to discuss with you..."
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
