Inside the top-secret conference room.
A deathly silence reigned.
At that instant, the air itself seemed to freeze solid.
Huo Zhenshan’s hand, holding his teacup, stiffened in midair.
The tea in the cup even rippled faintly as his muscles tensed without warning.
The imposing demeanor Nie Changkong had just put on instantly collapsed.
Those eyes of his, accustomed to weathering storms and waves, now widened round. His eyeballs nearly fell straight onto the table forged from deep-sea meteorite iron.
The two men stared at Su Yu as though he were an alien.
Their minds buzzed.
Cash it out?!
A nation-defending battle armor set, and a future slot for a god-tier mech.
And you want to convert them into cash?!
Nie Changkong felt his blood surge in his chest, his throat going dry.
He stared fixedly at Su Yu’s hard, stern, utterly serious face.
This kid wasn’t joking!
He meant it!
“Su Yuan…”
Nie Changkong swallowed, his voice trembling.
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
“That’s nation-defending battle armor!”
“That’s a mech capable of increasing combat power tenfold, perhaps even a hundredfold, in the future!”
“That is a national treasure forged from the finest stellar meteorite iron and abyssal artifacts that Great Xia has to offer!”
“Is that something money can buy?!”
Huo Zhenshan set down his teacup as well.
The brows of this nation-defending Martial Saint drew tightly together, forming a deep furrow.
He looked at Su Yu.
His eyes were filled with incomprehensible disbelief.
“Young Su Yuan.”
Huo Zhenshan’s voice was low, carrying the oppressive authority of a man who needed no anger to inspire fear.
“For ordinary people, money may indeed be able to buy almost anything.”
“But for high-ranking martial artists, especially those at the Martial King or Martial Emperor level…”
“Money is nothing more than a meaningless string of numbers!”
“The truly top-tier resources, heavenly treasures, divine weapons, and rare armaments are all obtained through barter or exchanged for military merit!”
“What use do you have for so much money?”
Su Yu sat in his chair.
His expression was calm, still as an ancient well.
What use?
To top up, obviously!
As long as he had money, the system could conduct limitless deductions, allowing him to grow endlessly stronger.
Once his vitality reached ten billion, a hundred billion, a trillion!
His body itself would become the strongest mech!
One punch could blast apart an abyssal plane!
Naturally, Su Yu could not possibly say any of that aloud.
He merely looked at Huo Zhenshan, his tone entirely candid.
“Martial Saint Huo, everyone follows a different path toward the Great Dao.”
“I like money.”
“So money is all I want.”
Huo Zhenshan fell silent.
He looked into Su Yu’s deep, clear eyes, which held not the slightest hint of wavering.
For a moment, he was speechless.
However—
Before Huo Zhenshan could continue trying to persuade him, Su Yu’s next action dealt this nation-defending Martial Saint a second devastating blow.
Whoosh.
With a flick of his wrist, Su Yu took out the Demon Saint-grade demon core Huo Zhenshan had just given him from his storage ring.
A fist-sized black crystal.
It radiated a heart-palpitating aura of abyssal origin.
It lay quietly on the table of deep-sea meteorite iron.
Su Yu extended two fingers and placed them on the demon core.
Then he gave it a gentle push.
He slid this priceless Demon Saint-grade demon core back in front of Huo Zhenshan.
“Martial Saint Huo.”
Su Yu raised his head, his eyes brimming with undisguised anticipation.
“Since you said this thing is priceless on the black market…”
“Then…”
“Could I trouble the military to buy back this demon core as well?”
“Could you settle it all in cash together with the battle armor and the mech slot?”
Boom!
It was as if an invisible thunderbolt had crashed down inside the top-secret conference room!
Huo Zhenshan was stunned again.
His face, as steady and unyielding as some primordial mountain range, began to twitch uncontrollably.
His blood pressure shot through the roof in an instant!
A Demon Saint-grade demon core!!!
Huo Zhenshan roared inwardly in utter despair.
This was a Demon Saint-grade demon core!
It contained the purest abyssal origin and the laws of the Great Dao!
For any Martial Emperor—or even Martial Saint—stuck at a bottleneck, this was an invaluable treasure!
As long as one removed its violent energy, then slowly absorbed it and comprehended its mysteries—
It could greatly deepen a martial artist’s understanding of martial will!
It could save a martial artist a full century of arduous cultivation!
A hundred years!
A hundred years of relentless refinement, day and night!
A hundred years of life-and-death enlightenment!
This was a gulf of time that martial artists had to fill with their very lives!
And now—
You were telling him that you wanted to trade this priceless treasure, capable of saving a hundred years of cultivation, for money?!
Could a hundred years of cultivation be measured in money?!
How much money could buy back a hundred years of youth and insight?!
Huo Zhenshan stared at Su Yu.
He even suspected that this peerless prodigy, who could kill a Demon Saint with a single spear thrust, had had his brain squeezed out of shape by the Demon Emperor’s pressure during the battle just now.
This was simply beyond reason!
What a waste of heaven-sent treasure!
Nie Changkong, seated beside them, had already given up thinking altogether.
He covered his face with both hands and leaned back in his chair.
He wore the despairing expression of someone thinking, “I don’t know him. He’s not a student of our Capital Martial University.”
The conference room sank into a dead silence that lasted a full three minutes.
Only the faint black glow emanating from the demon core slowly flowed through the air.
Huo Zhenshan drew a deep breath.
He forcibly suppressed the urge to slap Su Yu awake.
He closed his eyes.
Thoughts raced through his mind.
Calm down.
I have to stay calm.
Huo Zhenshan repeatedly reminded himself.
The young man before him was no ordinary martial artist. He was a supreme prodigy who could confront a Demon Emperor head-on at the age of eighteen.
For a genius of this caliber, perhaps it was understandable that his way of thinking differed from that of ordinary people?
Huo Zhenshan began forcefully talking himself into it.
In truth, looking back across the history of Great Xia’s martial world—
The truly formidable martial artists who stood at its pinnacle often had all sorts of strange quirks.
For example, the Overturning-Seas Martial Emperor who guarded the Eastern Sea.
Despite possessing cultivation capable of overturning rivers and seas, he was obsessed with collecting bits of scrap metal from the ocean depths.
He even gathered the skulls of high-ranking sea beasts, turning them into exquisite figurines that filled his entire Martial Emperor palace.
Then there was the Winter Martial Emperor, who had once guarded the northern abyssal frontier.
He was decisive in killing and cold-hearted by nature.
Yet in private, he had an unusual fondness for knitting sweaters from beast fur.
He even forced every legion commander under his command to wear a pink sweater he had personally knitted before heading to the front lines to kill enemies.
To ordinary people, such eccentricities were bizarre to the extreme.
Some might even call them perverse.
But once one reached the Martial Emperor realm, one could live as one pleased. So long as no harm came to humanity, such hobbies were hardly a problem.
Huo Zhenshan opened his eyes again.
His gaze settled once more on Su Yu.
This “Su Yuan” before him possessed combat strength comparable to a Martial Saint and absolutely had the potential to ascend to the rank of Martial Emperor in the future.
He liked money.
He was obsessed with wealth.
He would even give up divine weapons, rare armaments, and cultivation resources for the sake of money.
That… seemed to be nothing more than a particularly unusual quirk, didn’t it?
At least it was far more normal than enjoying murder and arson, or wearing pink sweaters.
Having worked through this point, the knot in Huo Zhenshan’s heart loosened somewhat.
He looked at Su Yu, and his expression regained its authority and calm.
“Su Yuan.”
Huo Zhenshan spoke, his voice echoing between the walls of deep-sea meteorite iron.
“Do you truly want nothing but money?”
Su Yu nodded without hesitation.
“Nothing but money.”
Huo Zhenshan fell silent for a moment.
He raised a finger and lightly tapped it against the tabletop.
“Very well.”
“Since you insist, the military can meet your demand.”
“But before that, there is something I must make clear to you.”
Huo Zhenshan looked at Su Yu. His tone was remarkably calm, yet it carried the weight and gravitas unique to a pillar of a great nation.
“Su Yuan, the Great Xia’s Dragon Coins are fundamentally different from the fiat currency of peacetime.”
“They are not merely a string of virtual figures in the banking system, created at will with the military’s approval. Nor are they worthless paper printed on the flimsy backing of credit.”
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
his freshman year, Su Bai accidentally bound the "Indulgence Tycoon System." 【Sleeping in? Reward: +$1,000】 【Spent $288 at a street barbecue stall? Cashback: +$2,880】 【Dropped $14,396 on in-game skins? Special reward unlocked: A brand-new Porsche Panamera!】 Luxury cars, penthouses, corporate shares, financial empires… College life was all about living freely and doing whatever he pleased! … When the adorably naive academic genius faced family medical bills and financial struggles, Su Bai waved his hand dismissively: "Your future is on me." "Wuwu~ Big Brother is so good to me! I’ll become a scientist to repay you!" When the genius girl got bullied by a shady professor? Su Bai casually dropped a billion-dollar investment, forcing the university to grovel and beg for her return. A company’s funding chain collapsing? Su Bai smirked—cash was the one thing he’d never run out of. Years later, when people traced the rise of the AI prodigy beauty, who was the man behind her success? Not just that—Su Bai also became the tsundere campus belle’s unattainable dream, the contrast senior’s daily necessity, and the beautiful counselor’s emotional anchor…
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
