Dual Realm Exchange System

Every man desired beauty.

There was no need to talk fancy and pretend otherwise.

At the crudest biological level, males were wired to seek attractive partners, spread their bloodline and react rather enthusiastically whenever certain combinations of face, figure and femininity appeared before them.

Human civilization had spent thousands of years building various walls around that troublesome instinct.

From law to social expectations, personal morals, ethical standards and family obligations.

And perhaps most effectively throughout history, religion and its simple ordinance of ’keep it in your pants unless the relationship permits otherwise’.

For any healthy man with active testosterone, life was therefore something of a prolonged negotiation between the head above his shoulders and the far less reasonable fellow below his waist.

Plenty of men had lost that negotiation, and as a result, some lost marriages, some lost careers, and some lost kingdoms.

A few civilizations probably had footnotes somewhere reading, ’And then the ruler saw a beautiful woman and everything went to shit’.

Damian Baines was not magically exempt.

If he were, Ophelia Linus would never have succeeded in dragging him into a tryst.

That woman might not even rank among the hundred most beautiful faces Damian had encountered since transmigrating.

Pure facial beauty alone placed women like Mu Qingyao and Shen Xueyi several leagues above her, while even Shen Lian and Lin Meiyu were hardly lacking.

Ophelia’s body, though?

Good lord!

That figure was basically a succubus using a passive Charm Art!

Damian did indeed possess his own morals.

They simply had limits.

For casual relationships, those limits were fairly straightforward.

He had experienced such things on Earth before, and provided both people understood what they were doing, nobody was being deceived and no hidden commitments were being violated, he saw little reason to turn ordinary adult desire into a theological debate.

Marriage was different, very different.

A woman he intended to share the rest of his life with could not merely be attractive enough to make his pants uncomfortable.

Naturally, beauty mattered a lot.

Pfft, of course it mattered!

Damian was not going to perform some ridiculous virtue signaling and claim he could happily marry someone he felt absolutely no attraction toward because ’inner beauty was all that counted’!

Inner beauty indeed counted a great deal, but so too did the outer packaging.

Yet, marriage as a whole demanded considerably more than just those two.

We had to look at her behavior, beliefs, values, temperament, compatibility, and the things she loved and hated.

We had to assess how she handled anger, stress, power and temptation, how she treated people beneath her, and how she acted when Damian himself was wrong.

And perhaps most importantly, whether their relationship could actually survive time.

Damian was also not particularly attached to the idea that men had to chase women while women sat elegantly upon some metaphorical throne waiting to accept or reject petitions.

Most of his own romantic experiences had happened because the other party made the first meaningful move.

If a woman wanted him, she was perfectly capable of saying so.

Shen Xueyi had just demonstrated that principle with all the subtlety of a brick through a window.

The concern was elsewhere.

Damian did not particularly doubt either woman’s loyalty.

Shengyuan resembled the ancient Chinese cultures he vaguely knew from Earth in enough ways that certain patterns were obvious. Marriage here was not treated as a temporary arrangement to be reconsidered whenever someone became bored.

A wife entered a household, a husband took responsibility of her, and both were expected to remain there through thick and thin.

Even back on Earth, Damian remembered how differently older generations spoke about marriage. Divorce had existed, naturally, but the social threshold for ending a marriage had been far higher in the generations before his own.

People could be unhappy, quarrel, and sometimes spend years wondering why they had ever married that irritating bastard across the breakfast table.

Yet many remained because vows were considered vows.

Modern culture had moved strongly in the opposite direction. That brought plenty of benefits, especially for people trapped in genuinely abusive or destructive marriages, but it also meant dissatisfaction itself could sometimes become enough reason to walk away.

Damian had no interest in judging an entire civilization’s romantic ethics.

He simply knew what he himself feared, and that was binding a woman to his chariot only for her to regret that decision thirty years later while remaining beside him purely because duty demanded it.

That life would be miserable for both of them.

Would Mu Qingyao ever feel such regret later on? Probably not.

Would Shen Xueyi? Also probably not.

Their personalities and upbringing made such a possibility small.

But there was another version of the same problem that Damian considered far more realistic.

They could remain perfectly loyal while never truly choosing him.

That was the issue.

Mu Qingyao wanted her father saved, while Shen Xueyi wanted her mother saved, and both desires were honorable.

Damian would have thought less of them if those things meant nothing.

The issue was that both women were apparently willing to place marriage itself upon the negotiating table to achieve those goals.

Again, admirable.

But dangerous.

Because what did ’willing’ actually mean when every alternative was ’worse’?

People loved talking about free choice as though every decision happened on a clean white page.

Reality was messier.

A starving man technically chose whether to steal bread.

A desperate employee technically chose whether to accept terrible working conditions.

A daughter watching her parent die technically chose whether to marry the strange, powerful man who might be able to save them.

Choices existed, but that did not mean every choice carried equal weight.

Damian leaned back inside the command tent and looked toward the exit through which the two women had just left.

What they desired most could soon be granted without condition.

Mu Jianhong could be restored.

Lan Ruyue could probably be repaired as well.

Then?

Then Damian wanted to know what remained.

Would Mu Qingyao still look at him the same way once her father’s life was no longer hanging over their relationship?

Would Shen Xueyi still calmly say yes to becoming his wife once Lan Ruyue no longer needed anything from Damian?

Put more crudely...

Would either woman still willingly lie beneath him and allow him to penetrate her after Damian had removed every practical reason compelling her toward his bed?

Cough, while that was a crass way to frame it, it did underline the issue quite well.

Damian did not want obedience masquerading as desire, nor gratitude masquerading as love.

Relationships were exchanges when stripped down far enough.

Every friendship, partnership, family bond and romance existed because the people involved gained ’something’ from one another, even if that something was merely affection, companionship or the pleasure of making the other person happy.

Pretending otherwise was hypocrisy.

The beauty came when the exchange grew beyond its original reason.

That was Damian’s test for them, a hurdle they would have to overcome.

...

Naturally, neither Mu Qingyao nor Shen Xueyi appreciated being told they could simply walk away afterward.

Both tried to speak immediately.

Damian refused to hear it as he pointed toward the tent entrance.

”Neither of you is promising me anything today. I will save your father, Qingyao, and I will do what I can for Elder Lan. After that, when neither of you owes me anything and your families aren’t hanging over your heads, you can decide what you actually want.”

Mu Qingyao’s expression tightened.

”You think my feelings are merely gratitude?” she questioned.

”I think you’re angry enough right now to promise something specifically because I questioned them, which makes the answer useless.” Damian replied calmly.

That stopped her.

Shen Xueyi looked thoughtful.

Damian continued before either woman could begin another offensive.

”The answer I care about comes afterward, not now. If you still want me then, fine. If you don’t, also fine. I’m not collecting wives like Contribution Points.”

Mu Qingyao’s lips twitched despite herself.

Eventually, she and Shen Xueyi left the command tent, and neither woman looked particularly pleased.

Once they left, Damian released the breath he had been holding and rubbed both temples.

”Trouble...”

Ning Ruomei wanted to trap him, Mu Qingyao wanted to strangle him for battlefield recklessness, Shen Xueyi had accepted an accidental marriage proposal, Lan Ruyue apparently possessed a ruined cultivation foundation, and Mu Jianhong still needed to be fully restored.

Perhaps fighting thirty-four demonic cultivators had been the relaxing part of his day.

He sat quietly for several minutes.

”I really could use your guidance Dad. And you’d be better at handling this kind of stuff Mom.” The young man muttered to himself in a daze.

Eventually, he regained his bearings and remembered something capable of improving his mood immediately.

Skill Points, specifically two hundred and forty-two of them.

Damian smiled.

”Now we’re talking.”

...

Power for its own sake had never been Damian’s greatest obsession.

He wanted strength obviously, because only an idiot transported into worlds containing monsters, cultivators and wars would voluntarily remain weak.

However, Damian was not drunk on killing.

He did not dream of endlessly stacking power simply so he could stand atop a mountain screaming that the heavens were beneath his feet.

His greatest advantage had never been his current strength.

It was his ability to create strength.

For himself, for his retainers, for allies, and for anyone he eventually decided deserved the investment.

That meant professions mattered, a lot.

Damian opened the Shengyuan section of the and entered the Hundred Arts category.

The five professions he had already decided upon appeared before him.

For Alchemy, Spirit Planting, Arrays, Artifact Refining, and Talismans, each began cheaply, ridiculously cheaply.

[Hundred Art: Alchemy.]

[Learn Cost — Low Grade One: 1 Skill Point.]

[Hundred Art: Spirit Planting.]

[Learn Cost — Low Grade One: 1 Skill Point.]

[Hundred Art: Arrays.]

[Learn Cost — Low Grade One: 1 Skill Point.]

[Hundred Art: Artifact Refining.]

[Learn Cost — Low Grade One: 1 Skill Point.]

[Hundred Art: Talismans.]

[Learn Cost — Low Grade One: 1 Skill Point.]

Five points learn the basics of each, huh?

Damian purchased all of them and the result hit immediately as knowledge flooded into his mind.

Alchemy brought recognition of common medicinal properties, basic furnace handling, material sequencing, flame control, refinement stages and the instincts required to judge whether a crude Grade One mixture was about to become medicine or expensive charcoal.

Spirit Planting followed with soil preparation, Spiritual Energy requirements, irrigation, herb compatibility, growth disorders, harvesting methods and the subtle visual signs separating healthy spiritual plants from damaged ones.

Arrays dumped basic formation geometry, energy-node placement, formation flags, plate structures, Spirit Stone routing and the foundational logic behind linking several inscriptions into one functioning whole.

Artifact Refining delivered metallurgy, spiritual material handling, tempering, energy channels and the elementary process of constructing an object capable of accepting and conducting Qi.

Talismans finished the assault with paper preparation, formation ink control, brush pressure, inscription rhythm and the method of locking a simple supernatural effect into a disposable medium.

Damian remained seated for several moments afterward.

”Holy shit...”

He knew things now!

More importantly, he understood what his hands were supposed to do!

With the basic entry level of each skill gained, the advancement costs into higher tiers appeared.

To advance to Mid Grade One required two points whereas achieving High Grade One required three.

Naturally, Damian purchased them across all five professions, and the information came in waves.

The five professions reached Mid Grade One, then High Grade One!

[Grade Advancement Available.]

[High Grade One → Low Grade Two.]

[Cost: 10 Skill Points.]

Crossing into Low Grade Two jumped to ten points?

Damian paused, but still confirmed the upgrade for all five anyway.

The influx this time was heavier, far heavier.

Alchemy expanded beyond simple medicinal processing into real pill refinement logic, ingredient conflict management, impurity separation, furnace pressure and dozens of Grade Two production principles.

Spirit Planting suddenly became less about ’keeping plants alive’ and more about manipulating the environment around them in terms of soil quality, energy density, companion planting, formation support, transplantation and controlled maturation.

Arrays became an entire language in which nodes interacted with one another, flow direction mattered, and feedback loops appeared.

The difference between a stable formation and an exploding one could come down to a tiny imbalance in energy routing three components away from the visible failure point.

Artifact Refining evolved similarly, while Talisman knowledge deepened into increasingly complex inscription patterns and energy-storage principles.

Damian closed his eyes and tapped the table. ”Okay, this is getting serious.”

Then he noticed the pattern in pricing.

To reach Mid Grade Two cost fifteen Skill Points whereas High Grade Two was worth twenty.

And Grade Three Low Grade seemed to be... one hundred?

Damian whistled in amazement.

So the rule was linear progression within the smaller stages, and brutal escalation between major grades?

Which actually explained something he had noticed about the for a while.

Valoria and Shengyuan did not price progression the same way because their advancement structures were different.

In Valoria, a Level 5 enemy gave five Skill Points whereas a Body Tempering Level 10 cultivator, roughly somewhere in the same power range as the level 5 Valorian, gave ten Skill Points.

At first glance, Shengyuan looked like free money, right?

Fight the cultivation-world equivalent and receive almost double the payout!

Unfortunately, spending told the rest of the story.

Valorian ability advancement moved between broad mastery grades such as Novice and Journeyman.

One purchase could represent an enormous qualitative step.

Shengyuan professions were sliced more finely.

There were the Major Grades, which were numbered one to nine and were equivalent to each of the known cultivation realms, and each Major Grade was split into three Minor Grades from Low to High.

In Shengyuan, it seemed that each Minor Grade demanded its own payment, balancing things out between both realms.

”Huh.”

So the System had not forgotten basic economics.

Tsk!

Damian continued, and all five tradeskills advanced to Mid Grade Two.

Thirty-one Skill Points had been invested into each profession so far, so five professions meant one hundred and fifty-five points spent and eighty-seven remained.

Damian looked toward High Grade Two, requiring twenty points each and Low Grade Three at a hundred.

”...Motherfucker.”

He could not reach Grade Three Low Grade while keeping the professions even, not without crippling the others.

And that would defeat the purpose of his actions.

So Damian followed his priority order.

Alchemy first.

Twenty points invested to enter High Grade Two and the knowledge avalanche nearly made him dizzy.

Complex furnace states, medicinal extraction, refinement timing, Grade Two pill structures and ingredient substitutions poured into his mind until Damian genuinely felt capable of walking into an ordinary Shengyuan alchemy room and humiliating people who had spent years learning the profession.

Spirit Planting came second, taking another twenty.

Arrays were third and Artifact Refining fourth.

From two hundred and forty-two Skill Points a few minutes ago, he now only had seven points remaining to his name.

As for Talismans, Damian kept them at Mid Grade Two.

After all, he was a Mage, and Spell Scroll creation came part and parcel of .

Of course, Talismans occupied a broader range than spells did, and had better uses, which was why he even bothered to learn them to this point.

However, compared to Alchemy, Spirit Planting, Arrays, and Artifact Refining, it could wait.

Damian remained motionless as he slowly smiled.

The first stage of his plans had been acquiring resources through buying, selling, testing, trading and finding value where two civilizations failed to recognize it.

That stage had worked beautifully.

Now?

He no longer needed to remain merely the middleman carrying miracles from one side to another.

He could understand, modify and produce them, combine systems around them and eventually build industries that neither realm had ever seen.

Damian leaned back as excitement replaced the day’s accumulated stress.

His plans had officially entered the second stage.

It was time to ramp things up!