Dao of Money

As it turned out, Han Qingshi was an even better ally than Chen Ren had expected.

The man did not seem particularly interested in what was actually hidden inside the fourth city. Chen Ren guessed Han Qingshi assumed it was treasure, and that was enough for him. What truly interested him was the act of breaking through the [Grand Aegis Array] itself.

According to Han Qingshi, accomplishing something like that would be enough to make his sect view him in an even better light. More than that, it would cement his place as the strongest of his generation, along with all the other advantages that would come from being tied to a feat no one else had managed.

Princess Yanyue agreed with him.

She said that if breaking the array was truly possible, then even her father would want to know how they had done it.

Chen Ren did not particularly want the emperor’s attention.

But that was a problem for another day. For now, the only thing he cared about was reaching the master lift.

So he began to explain the plan.

He went over each part in as much detail as he could, without rushing because if he wanted everyone there to agree, then they needed to understand exactly what they were stepping into. He explained how he had gathered treasures from the first five floors, how the lottery had worked, how two city lords might help them, how he expected the siege itself to unfold, and why they would need flying ships to get close enough to the array before the real work began.

As it turned out, that last problem had already solved itself.

They did not even have to go looking for the ships.

Princess Yanyue told him she had found more of them in the second city, which meant they could begin the plan immediately if they chose. Even so, after hearing everything Chen Ren had laid out, she still did not look entirely convinced that it would be enough to break through the whole array.

According to her, they might crack the first layer, maybe even second, but not more than that.

But Princess Yanyue was clear on one point. In her eyes, they were not getting through the third layer.

Han Qingshi thought there might still be a chance. Even Yalan seemed willing to believe it was possible. But Yanyue did not bend on that part, and the more Chen Ren thought about it, the more he understood why.

She had grown up in the capital.

To someone like her, the [Grand Aegis Array] was not just another formation. It was the kind of thing people spoke of as though only an immortal might truly be able to break it. And not even the city lords were near that level of power.

That did not mean she was unimpressed by what he had put together.

When he had explained that he had almost secured the support of two city lords, her eyes had widened so much that for a moment he thought they might actually fall out. The whole shape of his plan was clearly unlike anything she had ever imagined someone could even attempt. But her belief in the array itself remained untouched.

Still, there was one thing she had to admit. There was little real risk for most of them.

Chen Ren latched onto that at once.

“As I’ve already said,” he told them, looking directly at Princess Yanyue, “there’s almost no direct danger to us in the plan.”

He kept his eyes on her as he went on. “Yes, the array might fire back. But I seriously doubt it has anything like a proper aiming system built into it, and most of what we’ll be doing is attacking from range anyway.”

Han Qingshi gave a snort. “I’m not exactly good at that.”

Yalan let out an immediate huff. “You could always solve the problem by throwing yourself into the array with those chains of yours.”

Han Qingshi smiled as if she had said something entirely reasonable. “I might do exactly that.”

Yalan huffed even harder at that. Chen Ren cut back in before the two of them could derail the conversation any further.

“The point,” he said, “is that all of us stay back—other than Han Qingshi, if he really insists on it—and do everything we can to break the array from a distance.”

He looked over the group again.

“We don’t need to tear the whole thing apart. We just need one opening.” He held up a hand for emphasis. “A hole big enough for a person to get through.”

Princess Yanyue spoke up almost immediately. “What about the layers? We could get trapped between them. We also don’t know how quickly they will recover.”

Chen Ren clicked his tongue. “I’m not planning to enter the array until all three layers are broken and even if we only get a few seconds, that’ll be enough. We just need a way inside.” Then he added, “For what we gain, the risk is still small.”

Yalan purred in agreement. “On the surface, yes.” But then her eyes narrowed on him. “What I still don’t understand is what you offered the city lords to make them help you. They wouldn’t move for kindness.”

Chen Ren let out a dry little breath. “Nothing I can’t handle. Anyway, only one of them has truly agreed so far. City Lord Xiangrui is still undecided, but if I’ve judged his personality correctly, he’ll come through when it matters.”

After saying that, Chen Ren looked over at everyone gathered there.

“But until Shrey arrives, we need to prepare for the siege ourselves. That shouldn’t take more than a day.”

Han Qingshi nodded. “I can bring in my junior disciples. I doubt any of them would say no to helping with something like this.”

“That would help,” Chen Ren said. “If Zi Wen makes it to the eighth floor by then, even better. But even without him, we can get everything ready.”

The others gave their agreement easily enough, but Chen Ren watched Princess Yanyue more than anyone else.

She stayed silent a while longer, her eyes moving from him to the distant fourth city and back again. At last she let out a breath and said, “I still think this may fail. But I suppose there’s no real harm in trying if there’s even a one percent chance it might work.”

That drew a grin from Chen Ren. “One percent is more than enough for me to bet on it.”

***

Although Chen Ren had already looted most of the marked locations on the first five floors, the eighth floor still held plenty worth taking—things that could actually help during the siege.

At its height, the floor had probably been one of the wealthiest in the entire pagoda. It was full of puppets, mechanisms, secret chambers, and all sorts of protected caches, and with the information from the book in his hands, Chen Ren did not need long to start finding them.

Of course, knowing where something was and actually getting it were two very different matters.

Most of those places were still guarded. Some had traps. Others had puppets left behind to protect whatever treasure remained there. But Chen Ren had something far more useful now than when he first entered the pagoda.

He had people. And not just people—strong ones.

So he sent them out, and while doing so, he made sure to arm them properly for the work.

Yalan received rings that enhanced the fire aspect of her attacks, something that suited her far better than any ordinary weapon ever could. The twins each got new weapons as well, along with bracelets that could raise a shield strong enough to block one strike even from a meridian expansion realm cultivator. For people who had spent most of their time on the edge of survival, scavenging for scraps and fighting to stay alive, that kind of protection was enormous. When Chen Ren handed the artifacts over, the way they looked at him made it seem as if he had returned to them as some long-lost father.

Li Xuan got a new sword aligned with the lightning aspect.

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Chen Ren had already decided he would let him keep it permanently, especially because it was part of a pair. The second blade in the set was a flying sword, which only made the gift more valuable.

Princess Yanyue chose several rings for herself, each with different useful effects. She had no particular need for another weapon. With the bow technique she already possessed, most of the artifacts Chen Ren had available would only have been a downgrade in actual combat, and she seemed to know that perfectly well.

Chen Ren also kept more than a few artifacts for himself.

Most of the ones he chose leaned toward defense, but the most important among them was a pair of gloves Li Xuan had found on the fourth floor. They suited Chen Ren almost perfectly. Not only did they strengthen each of his lightning-aspected attacks, they also carried a martial technique tied specifically to the artifact itself—one that allowed him to create shields of air in the middle of combat.

Apparently, the gloves had originally been made for a dual-aspected cultivator.

Now they were his.

And he had no intention of arguing with how well they fit him.

He even offered Han Qingshi a few artifacts on a temporary basis, but the man turned them down. According to him, his sect had already found more than enough useful items of their own before he split off to look for his sect members.

Once the big brute left, the rest of Chen Ren’s group spread out as well.

They moved through the first three cities—none of which had arrays blocking access—and started digging up anything that might help even a little during the siege. The twins headed back toward the first city. Princess Yanyue stayed in the second alongside Li Xuan and her royal guards. Chen Ren and Yalan, meanwhile, made for the third city.

That one felt different from the others almost immediately.

It seemed to have been some kind of center for entertainment and art in its prime. Giant statues stood throughout the streets. Large halls rose on either side, the sort that had probably once been theatres or performance grounds, and at one point they even came across the remains of what looked unmistakably like a circus.

Under other circumstances, Chen Ren thought he might actually have enjoyed wandering through a place like that properly.

But that was not why he was there.

So he kept his attention on the loot.

And in the end, the city’s nature turned out to be useful in its own way. Wealthier people had clearly frequented this place back when it was alive, and as a result, the quality of the artifacts hidden there was noticeably better than in the other cities.

The problem was that quality alone did not mean usefulness.

Not everything they uncovered was something Chen Ren could actually use in a siege. A lot of the artifacts they found were valuable, but not the kind of valuable he needed.

Too many of them were made for luxury, convenience, or private amusement rather than anything useful in a siege. There was one umbrella he uncovered that had wind and force runes worked into it so that, when opened, it could carry a person gently down from high buildings like a glider. Another item was a set of coins that would always land on whichever side the one tossing them wanted.

Then there was the pair of glasses. Those, apparently, could see straight through walls—and clothes.

The moment Chen Ren realized what they did, Wang Jun laughed so hard beside him that he felt like he would choke on his laughter, and for quite a while after that, the old head would not stop making comments about it. Yalan, for her part, only gave Chen Ren a long, unimpressed huff when she understood what the item was for. Whatever absurd ideas Wang Jun entertained, Chen Ren had no intention of using the glasses for anything shameful. As far as he was concerned, they were going to sit in his spatial ring untouched until they got back.

Still, useless curiosities were not all the city offered.

Using his sensing technique, Chen Ren was able to sort through the clutter and pick out the artifacts that might actually matter. There were enough of those to make the trip worthwhile, and the best of them all had been hidden in the largest building in the third city.

Unfortunately, that treasure had not been unguarded.

The moment Chen Ren got his hands on it, the trap tied to the building activated. Water began pouring into the place almost instantly, flooding the room so quickly that if Yalan had not shifted into her larger true form, grabbed him, and jumped straight through the roof, there was a very real chance he might have drowned before he made it back out.

By the time they landed outside, the room they had been standing in was already almost completely full.

And judging by the strange color of the water, drowning would probably not have been the only problem. It almost certainly carried poison—or something worse that Chen Ren had no interest in testing directly.

After that, they raided only two more buildings.

From those, they pulled out two additional artifacts that might actually be useful during the siege. Once that was done, Chen Ren decided it was enough. They had already spent half a day inside the third city, and as much as there was still left to dig through, he had no desire to burn more time there when too much else still needed to be done.

Getting more artifacts might have helped, but Chen Ren knew there was a point where more stopped mattering.

In the end, those items were only for support. Useful, yes, but not the true weapons meant to crack open the array. More than that, he had a growing feeling that if he kept pressing his luck through the third city, he would eventually run into trouble that was not worth whatever prize waited at the end of it. Every hour, more cultivators were climbing upward, and even if most of them were probably still gathered around the first city, Chen Ren had no desire to take risks he did not need to take.

So he stopped.

He and Yalan returned to the second city, the one they had chosen as the starting point for the plan and the one closest to the fourth.

When Chen Ren got back to their meeting place, Li Xuan, the royal guards and Princess Yanyue were already there. A short conversation with them told him they had uncovered a few more items of their own, though nothing either of them believed would make a major difference once the siege truly began. Chen Ren did not mind. By then, he had already accepted that most of what they were collecting might not matter as much. He told them what he and Yalan had found, and that was enough.

The twins returned about two hours later.

They looked worse than when they left.

Apparently, they had run into disciples from Soaring Sword Sect somewhere along the way. The other side had recognized them as people moving with Chen Ren, and that had been enough to turn the meeting hostile. In the end, the twins had managed to escape, but only barely, and because of it they came back with just a single artifact to show for their efforts.

They looked disappointed in themselves.

Chen Ren did not let that sit for long. He told them it was fine, and for once he meant it fully. Coming back alive was worth more than any treasure they might have died trying to drag here.

About an hour after that, Han Qingshi arrived as well.

He brought with him a group of his fellow cultivators, and they had the unmistakable look of people who would rather have been almost anywhere else. None of them seemed particularly happy to be there. Still, with Han Qingshi standing in front of them as their senior brother, none of them said anything against it.

And just like that, everything was ready.

It was time for the siege.

***

A/N - You can read 30 chapters (15 Magus Reborn and 15 Dao of money) on my patreon. Annual subscription is now on too. Also this is Volume 2 last chapter.

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