Dao of Money

Chen Ren acted fast.

He yanked a talisman from inside his robe and lit it with a spark of friction. A thin barrier of qi burst to life in front of him at the exact moment the bone shards flew.

The shards slammed into the shield like arrows.

They bounced off in every direction, spinning wildly through the chamber walls and floor. A few hit with such force that thin cracks spread across the glowing surface of the barrier. By the time the light flickered dangerously, the barrage finally stopped.

Chen Ren let out a shaky breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. A fraction of a second later, the barrier popped and dissolved into the air.

Across the chamber, the ivory slasher huffed in frustration. Its horns lengthened with a sharp crack, bone grinding as the points extended like spears. Then it lunged, stabbing straight toward Chen Ren.

But even without qi reinforcement, Chen Ren was too fast. There was enough room in the chamber for him to move freely, and he leapt aside again and again—a blur dodging the deadly bone spear.

While he moved, his hands were never still.

He pulled talisman after talisman from his belt and threw them at the beast. Each one sparked with a different attack the moment it burned.

Fire boomed outwards, blasting chunks of bone from the slasher’s armor. Lightning snapped and danced, mostly deflecting off the hard surface until it found one of the thinner sections between the bone plates. Then the beast snarled, body twitching as the electricity tore through the exposed flesh. Earth spikes erupted from the floor… and crumbled uselessly off its outer bones like thrown twigs.

Chen Ren clicked his tongue in annoyance. Earth talismans were a lost cause.

But he had more.

Although he couldn’t use much qi, scribbling a few talismans everyday was not taxing on him and he had done that every night since he stepped foot in Red Peak City, only for this one battle. The beast grunted with each explosion and spark that struck true. Bone fragments littered the ground, and sparks jumped between the shards.

Chen Ren did not know if cracking the bones actually caused the beast pain. But there was no doubt about one thing: It made him more and more furious.

The ivory slasher soon realized that its horn strikes were not landing well enough to stop Chen Ren. With a frustrated snort, it suddenly lowered its body, the bone shrinking, and charged straight at him with frightening speed.

Chen Ren’s eyes widened. He leapt upward, clearing its back by a hair, but he had miscalculated its intentions.

The beast elongated the bones along its spine in an instant.

One of those jagged spikes slammed into him mid-air.

Pain exploded across his back. The impact hurled him through the chamber like a kicked doll. His body hit the ground hard, rolling several times before he crashed against a wall. His armor tore open. He felt skin split beneath it, warm blood soaking through the fabric.

“That bone is sharper than what the book warned me about…” he cursed silently, clenching his teeth. Another reason to blame Yu Murong and his outdated trash of a bestiary.

Yalan’s voice reached him across the bone and dust. “Are you okay?”

Chen Ren pushed himself up, biting down the wave of pain. “I’m fine,” he said, voice strained. “It’s just tougher than I expected. But I’ll handle it.”

When he looked back toward the ivory slasher, he saw its eyes locked onto him.

There was something different in them now—A spark of cold amusement. A mocking glint as if it was calling him weak.

Anger flared hot inside Chen Ren’s chest. He knew some beasts could gain intelligence as they neared higher tiers, especially ones raised in the dense qi of the sinkhole… but to be openly mocked by a creature he planned to kill?

That, he could not allow.

The beast kicked off the ground to charge again. Chen Ren’s hands flashed faster than thought.

Dozens of talismans burst around him in a ring of fire and lightning. Sparks rained through the chamber as the attacks hammered into the ivory slasher again. Flames melted bone fragments. Lightning crawled under plates and left thin trails of smoking flesh.

The ivory slasher roared and thrust its horns forward. Bone shards lifted again—hundreds of them—floating and spinning like a storm of knives.

Chen Ren planted his feet. He did not retreat and created another talisman barrier around him that soon got bombarded by bone shards.

Inside it, he burned talisman after talisman, forcing every one of them to fire at the perfect moment. Explosions detonated across the beast’s hide, chipping more and more bone armor away and exposing soft patches of muscle beneath.

Parts of the bone armour broke down to become shards which the ivory slasher happily used against him. Chen Ren didn’t mind. If he carved away enough of that armor, flesh would show. Flesh was all he needed.

A lightning talisman finally slipped between two bone plates and bit into living meat. The beast spasmed and cried out, hooves scraping the stone.

Chen Ren did not waste that pause. He yanked a tier two talisman from his belt and snapped it alight. The air in front of him rippled. Hundreds of small, explosive wind blades spun into being, their edges hissing like snakes. With a flick of his wrist, he sent half at the ivory slasher and the rest upward toward the ceiling which was filled with more of its bone.

Bone burst from the ivory slasher in white sprays as the blades shredded plate after plate. Above, the grown ribs cracked apart; thick lengths of bone sheared free and crashed down onto the beast’s back and skull. The slasher bellowed, stumbled, and bolted—only to smash shoulder-first into the far wall.

Chen Ren moved.

He closed the distance in three quick strides. A wide patch of the beast’s back lay bare—ragged, bleeding, and finally free of bone armor. He snatched up a fallen shard shaped like a sword and drove it down with both hands.

The point sank in. The book had said the flesh beneath the plates wasn’t hard to pierce; for once, the book was right. He leaned all his weight into the makeshift blade, driving it deeper, angling for organs.

Then he felt it—A shiver under his palms. A ripple ran through the ivory slasher’s hide, the same telltale vibration as before.

Chen Ren tore his hands back on instinct, boots already pushing off the beast’s spine—just as the flesh beneath his strike bulged and white spikes began to bloom.

He leapt back just as a cluster of new bone spikes erupted from the ivory slasher’s back. The wound he had made still bled, but the beast had already grown a ring of fresh bone around it to push the weapon out. The shard he had used as a sword clattered uselessly to the ground.

The slasher turned, its breath sharp, its eyes burning with fury. Chen Ren understood then—this battle was not going to end quickly.

Not with tricks alone.

The next thing he knew was more shards floating upward.

This time, they were joined by large chunks of bone torn from the chamber floor itself. The pieces hovered, spinning with lethal intent.

Chen Ren cursed under his breath and activated another tier two talisman. A defensive one as a barrier of qi sprang up in front of him, but it only lasted seconds under the assault of the large bone boulders. Cracks soon raced across its surface and it shattered.

He jumped high, barely avoiding the first wave. The ivory slasher roared like a storm breaking loose.

Bone shards flew everywhere—fast, sharp and unstoppable. Chen Ren sprinted, rolled, and slid across the chamber floor to keep from being skewered. The larger boulders crashed into stone walls and exploded into new fragments, turning the air into a whirling cloud of blades.

He could not avoid everything.

Thin cuts tore into his armor. One shard grazed his cheek, slicing a clean line that burned instantly. Blood leaked down his jaw. Pain flared hot, but he ignored it.

He threw talismans—many, many talismans. Wind blasts. Fire bursts. Lightning arcs.

But the attacks vanished in the storm of flying bone, blocked or redirected before they reached flesh. Every time he tried to land a clean hit, another bone fragment came for his throat.

Minutes passed like that and the slasher didn’t manage to put an end to him.

He was still running. Still breathing. Still alive. And maybe that was what finally pushed the beast to its limit.

The ivory slasher stomped hard, and all the airborne shards and boulders suddenly stopped midair, dropping to the ground with a dull rain of clattering bone. The creature gave a low, furious grunt that echoed through the chamber.

Then it charged.

The horns grew longer, even faster than before. Bone spikes burst from its skin in every direction, turning its entire body into a moving wall of bone spears.

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Chen Ren’s eyes narrowed. He had been waiting for this.

His hand snapped downward to his belt.

His fingers wrapped around a pill he had specifically requested from Hun Tianzhi while sending Yalan there. He had saved it for last, and now it was time to use it.

Chen Ren rolled it into his palm. As the ivory slasher thundered closer, he tossed the pill high and snapped a bolt of lightning at it.

The arc struck true.

The pill detonated in midair, releasing a rushing wave of fire. The flames hit the ivory slasher point-blank and hurled it backward. It screamed, tumbled through the smoke, and crashed against a wall of its own bone boulders.

Chen Ren did not wait.

He flung three talismans in quick succession. Chains of condensed qi snapped into existence and shot across the chamber. They wrapped around the beast’s legs and torso, biting in tight. The ivory slasher heaved, lowered its head to charge again, and found itself pinned.

Tier two bindings would not break that easily.

As it struggled, Chen Ren moved for the finish. He tore open his pouch, pulled out a fistful of matching talismans, and burned all of them at once.

The air whistled.

Hundreds of qi swords flickered into being and hovered around him in a matter of seconds, each blade thin, bright, and cold. He sent them forward with a single sweep of his arm.

The ivory slasher ripped one chain free, but it was too late.

The swords fell like rain.

They drove into every exposed seam and soft point he had carved open: between plates, under the ribs, along the neck, through the belly. Steel-light sank to the hilt. Blood burst in dark colour across the bone-strewn floor.

The beast toppled, writhing. Fresh bone tried to grow and was cut down as new blades struck. Chunks of plate slid free. More blood poured out, pooling beneath it in a spreading lake.

Chen Ren stood with his chest heaving, eyes locked on the creature.

For a heartbeat, he almost pitied it.

Then the ivory slasher’s struggles weakened. Its breaths turned ragged. At last it lay still, eyes lifted toward him—wide, glassy, and dimming.

The chamber fell quiet except for the drip of blood and the soft hiss of fading talismans.

For a moment, Chen Ren saw defiance burning in those fading eyes. The ivory slasher glared at him with the stubborn pride of a beast that refused to bow.

But then… the fire dimmed. Its head lowered. Its body shuddered once. And it went still.

Chen Ren remained cautious. He approached slowly, each step measured, preparing to leap away if it lashed out again. When he finally reached its side, he extended a hand and pressed lightly against its blood-slick hide.

He expected a reaction, but there was nothing. His thoughts were confirmed when Yalan spoke.

“It’s dead,” Yalan said as she padded up beside him, confirming what he already suspected. Her gaze traced the ruined plates of bone and the many puncture wounds. “You did a great job chipping away at its armor. It would have been easier if you used your lightning.”

Chen Ren nodded, breathing a rough laugh. “It would have. Let’s hope I can actually use more of it once Qing He finishes preparing the beast bath.”

“For that,” Yalan replied, “you need to bring her the ivory slasher’s body. Those baths take time to make.”

She took a slow look around the cavern, eyes glinting as they landed on the scattered remains—broken bone shards mingled with intact plates.

“We should take everything we can. You should have plenty of space in your spatial ring,” she said.

Chen Ren lifted a brow. “Bone armor for everyone sounds like a great gift.”

Yalan snorted, tail flicking. “Bone armor isn’t simple to craft. Some beast bones contain explosive marrow. But this one seems safe enough. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have killed it so quickly.”

Chen Ren huffed. “I don’t think that was fast at all…”

He knelt beside the ivory slasher and summoned his spatial ring’s aperture. Light rippled across the corpse before it vanished entirely into the pocket dimension. Its size made no difference; the ring swallowed it whole in moments.

The real challenge lay around them.

Everywhere Chen Ren looked, pieces of the ivory slasher’s bones glittered faintly under the moss-light. Big slabs. Thin spikes. Curved plates the size of shields. He sighed under his breath. Their fight had turned a solid beast into hundreds of fragments.

And each fragment was valuable.

He knelt and placed a hand on the nearest shard. His spatial ring pulsed faintly as he pushed his intent through it. One bone vanished. Then another. Then another.

But there was no “select all” option in this world.

Every piece had to be taken by hand—mind guiding ring, ring swallowing bone. Over and over.

Minutes stretched into nearly half an hour. By then his back ached, and blood still dripped from the cut on his cheek and back. He took a healing pill and a bone-mending pill while he worked, swallowing them dry. Warmth spread from his stomach, easing pain and knitting fractures in his ribs where the spike had hit him earlier. He didn’t stop moving while the pills worked.

At last, the cavern floor was bare.

Chen Ren stood, dusted the dried blood from his sleeve, and looked into the deeper tunnels—dark as a starless night, heavy with thick qi that almost hummed. A small part of him wanted to go down farther.

But the smarter part of him—the part that wanted to keep breathing—said no.

He had a beast corpse, enough bones to build a small army’s armor, and a body that felt like it had been tossed off a cliff twice already. Staying longer would only feed the sinkhole another idiot.

“We are leaving,” he said.

Yalan was more than happy to agree.

They hurried back through the tunnels. No beast dared cross their path—either too afraid of Yalan’s fire or smart enough to recognize a killer when they smelled one. When the light of the entrance finally showed ahead, Chen Ren almost sighed in relief.

Together, they jumped upward, qi flaring under their feet. They caught onto rocky outcrops, used footholds to climb, and launched themselves again. Up and up, until the oppressive darkness was behind them and open air filled their lungs.

Back on solid ground, Chen Ren glanced around. The clearing was quiet. Too quiet.

No Luo Feng. No Zhou Ping. No carriage.

His brows furrowed, heart tightening for a moment—

“Look there,” Yalan said, pointing with her tail.

Not far from the sinkhole’s edge, a small fire flickered behind a patch of tall rocks. Figures sat around it, silhouettes shifting as they talked. The carriage was parked behind them. Chen Ren’s shoulders eased.

He walked closer, boots crunching lightly on gravel.

Luo Feng spotted him first and jumped to his feet. “Sect Leader Chen! You’re back. Do you want some meat?”

Chen Ren shook his head. The idea of food made his exhaustion worse. “No. I just want to sleep.” He scanned the group. “Everything okay here?”

“Yes,” Luo Feng said proudly. “We handled any beasts that came near. None gave us much trouble.”

Chen Ren nodded once, satisfied. He looked up toward the distant red-tinged mountains—where Red Peak City perched on high stone.

“Good,” he said. “Let’s move. We’re not stopping until we reach Meadow Village.”

Excited shouts rose at his words, and Chen Ren let himself smile. For once, luck and effort had lined up. He had left Red Peak with the medallion, hefty profit, and his life—no drawn blades in the streets, no clan rage snapping at his heels. He thanked the heavens in quiet, honest relief.

He did not know—could not know—that far away, beyond the plains and mountain ridges, a pair of eyes were already on him.

***

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