Dao of Money

Chen Ren chewed on the omelette the Watcher had made for him as he looked across the various screens displayed in front of him. Even after watching them for a while, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the number of cultivators still entering the pagoda.

It had only been a week since he implemented the first set of new rules, but they already seemed to be working well enough. More and more climbers were reaching the fifth floor, which was exactly what Chen Ren wanted.

Even now, he could see groups of cultivators fighting the swordsman on the tutorial floor together before moving on to the arena floor. There, they were now allowed to duel other climbers as many times as they wanted without immediately being kicked out of the pagoda for losing.

That didn’t mean there was no difficulty involved.

If a cultivator lost ten fights against other climbers, they would be forced to fight one of the arena beasts or fighters before they could move on. If they lost that fight as well, they would be kicked out of the pagoda and wouldn’t be allowed to enter again for an entire year.

Compared to the previous rules, these were considerably more relaxed. Some of the floor lords had pointed that out as well. The lords of the first few floors didn’t seem to care too much, but even they thought Chen Ren had made things easier than necessary.

Chen Ren remained adamant about it.

After all, his entire goal was to get more cultivators into the pagoda and push them toward the higher floors. If they were eliminated within the first four floors, how was he supposed to benefit from them?

There weren’t even any proper civilizations on those floors where he could suck the climbers dry.

That was why he had allowed cultivators to form groups from the beginning. He had also made information about what they needed to do on each floor much easier to find.

Of course, Chen Ren hadn’t changed much when it came to the other floors. If he made everything too easy, he would get cultivators on the top floor often, and that was something he couldn’t allow.

So instead, he had chosen to make the beginning easier while leaving the later floors mostly untouched.

At the same time, he had asked the Watcher to start expanding the fifth floor.

It was already enormous, but according to him, there was still room to stretch the spatial space further and create more things for the climbers to do. Chen Ren thought that was probably the best direction they could take. The more there was to do on the floor, the longer cultivators would stay there.

He had wanted to do something similar with the sixth floor as well, but the Zombie Queen had refused.

She still had her disagreements with some of the other floor lords and didn’t want anyone interfering with how she ran her floor. Chen Ren hadn’t pushed too hard, though after a few discussions, he had at least managed to get her to consider lowering the requirements for moving forward slightly.

That was enough for now.

Either way, the next few floors were going to be extremely difficult for the climbers, and Chen Ren had no intention of changing that.

There were other things he could do instead.

One idea he had been considering was creating guides and information pamphlets for the first five floors and selling them outside the pagoda. It would give climbers a better idea of what they were walking into while also creating another source of income for him.

And that was only one possibility.

There were plenty of other things he could introduce, and once the taxes from the floor lords started coming in properly, Chen Ren was certain he was going to become extremely rich in no time.

More importantly, all of it would also bring him qi.

Just thinking about that was enough to make him want to close his eyes, drift off to sleep, and let time make him stronger and richer.

He had barely started to do so when Wang Jun’s voice rang out. “You do know you have a lot of stuff to do, right?”

Chen Ren turned around and looked toward Wang Jun, who was sitting on a podium nearby, going over several sketches of puppets and the mechanisms inside them.

“You don’t have to tell me. I was just trying to take a nap.”

“You should do that after you reveal to everyone that you’re actually alive.”

Chen Ren went quiet at that.

The head was right.

He had been so busy going through the inheritance and taking over his duties as the lord of the pagoda that he hadn’t properly spoken to any of his allies yet. Most of them were outside the pagoda, but Anji and a few of the alchemists were still inside.

He couldn’t exactly leave them working here without any explanation when he now owned the entire pagoda.

There was also quite a lot he needed to explain. Chen Ren just had no idea where to begin. Still, he couldn’t keep running away from it forever.

With a sigh, he got up from his seat, picked up Wang Jun, and stored the puppet blueprints inside his spatial ring.

The head immediately looked annoyed.

“What are you doing now?”

“Going to explain everything that happened. We’ll pick up Anji first, then head outside.”

After saying that, Chen Ren looked ahead and called out, “Watcher, you there?”

Five seconds later, a tear appeared in the space to his right.

The Watcher stepped through it and gave Chen Ren a small nod.

“What do you want me to do for you, Lord Eternal?”

Chen Ren grimaced.

He really didn’t like that name.

“It’s creepy how you come here every time Chen Ren calls your name,” Wang Jun said. “It’s like you’re always watching over him.”

The Watcher chuckled. “Well, I am the Watcher, Senior Wang Jun.”

“You just inherited the perverted qualities of your creator.”

The Watcher only smiled at that.

Chen Ren ignored the two of them and said, “Can you open a portal to Anji? Preferably directly into her office, but make sure she’s alone first.”

The Watcher nodded, though instead of opening the portal immediately, he asked, “Does that mean you’ll be leaving the pagoda, Lord Eternal?”

Chen Ren slowly nodded.

“Yes. I think it’s time. I need to check on the sect as well. Besides, you already gave me the portal stone. I’ll place it there so I can return whenever I want. You don’t have to worry about that.”

The portal stone was something the Watcher had made himself. It possessed spatial properties that allowed two places to be connected, using qi to travel between them.

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The amount of qi required wasn’t small, but it was still extremely convenient.

With it, Chen Ren could manage both the sect and the pagoda without constantly having to travel between them the normal way.

If possible, he wanted more of the stones. A proper teleportation network would make things far easier, but unfortunately, they weren’t simple to create. According to the Watcher, it would take at least a year or two before he could make another one.

As Chen Ren thought about that, the Watcher spoke again.

“If you’re going outside, should I inform the other lords? You’ve already decided which two you’ll be taking with you, right? They were quite excited when they heard about it.”

Chen Ren nodded. It was the last thing he wanted to deal with, but he had already promised them. There was no way he could back out now.

He could only hope they wouldn’t cause too much trouble outside.

“Just bring them outside. We can all leave together from there.”

The Watcher nodded and lifted his left hand. Another tear opened in the air beside him, and he gestured toward it.

“Go through this and you’ll arrive in her office. Use it again afterward, and it will take you outside the pagoda. I’ll join you there with the lords once I explain a few things to them about the etiquette of the outside world.”

Chen Ren briefly wondered what kind of etiquette they could possibly learn in such a short amount of time, but he decided not to ask.

Holding Wang Jun, he stepped through the tear. The very next second, he found himself standing inside Anji’s office.

Anji stared at him as if she had just seen a ghost.

She must have already been startled by the tear appearing in the middle of her office, but before she could call for help, Chen Ren and Wang Jun had stepped

through it.

Her shock was obvious. Her arms trembled slightly as she stared between the two of them.

“Sect Leader Chen... Master... is it really you two?”

“Of course,” Wang Jun immediately said. “Who else could it be? I see you’ve been eating well in my absence.”

Chen Ren frowned at him. “Don’t be crude. We haven’t seen Anji in so long.” He turned back toward her. “Sorry. I wanted to come see you earlier, but things were rough, and I ended up getting into a lot of trouble. But I’m finally here now, so I’ll explain everything.”

Anji slowly nodded and let out a long breath of relief.

“You better. I’ve been sick with concern.”

Chen Ren knew she meant it. If he had seen the names of his allies suddenly disappear from the rankings, he would have been worried sick as well.

To Anji’s credit, she hadn’t abandoned the shop to go searching for them. She had stayed here and kept things running, and that alone deserved a large bonus.

Smiling at her, Chen Ren said, “First of all, you can relax. Nobody died. Yalan, Princess Yanyue, Li Xuan, Zi Wen, the twins—every one of them is fine and already out of the pagoda. Things just became complicated, and they had to use their return tickets.”

Anji blinked at that. “But you didn’t, Sect Leader Chen.”

“Well, things just ended up working out for me and Wang Jun.”

The head snorted.

“That’s more than a small overstatement. I nearly died so many times because of you.”

Chen Ren glared at him. “It’s not like I was doing great either.” He turned back toward Anji. “Either way, why don’t you get someone else to take over here for now? I want to leave the pagoda and meet the others before I explain exactly what happened. It’s a long story, and I don’t want to repeat myself several times.”

Anji nodded. “Give me ten minutes.”

She started toward the door, only to stop halfway and look back at him.

“By the way, Sect Leader Chen... are you Eternal?”

Chen Ren’s expression immediately changed. “Why do you think that?”

“It’s just a guess. Instinct, if you want to call it. Besides, you suddenly appeared through that tear, and I’m sure it came from another floor. That’s not something just anyone can do.”

Chen Ren smiled, wondering if Anji had always been this perceptive. Thinking about it, he guessed she probably had.

“Yes, I am. I’ll explain that too once we meet the others.”

Anji simply nodded before leaving the room.

Chen Ren and Wang Jun waited for her, and around ten minutes later, she returned alone.

“I talked to the others and told them I’ll be leaving. Tao Liu will stay here and take care of things with his alchemists, so we don’t have to worry about the pagoda residents taking over the shop.”

Chen Ren nodded. “Did you tell him everyone is safe?”

“I did. He was pretty relieved. The others were too, though I think they were even happier to hear that you’re leaving.” She chuckled. “You terrified them with all your orders.”

Chen Ren shook his head. “They were reasonable. We were just starting out.”

He pointed toward the tear that was still flickering with spatial qi.

“Let’s go.”

Before stepping through, Chen Ren placed Wang Jun at his side and activated the talisman that made the head invisible.

After making sure it was working, he and Anji walked through the tear together.

The spatial qi flickered around them, and five seconds later, they found themselves standing in the Corpse Lands.

Fortunately, there were no cultivators nearby. They had appeared deep inside the forest, with the wall visible through the gaps between the trees.

From there, the two of them began making their way toward it.

The wall slowly grew closer as they moved through the forest, but just as they stepped out from between the trees, a loud voice suddenly rang out.

“You damn Chen Ren! Where have you been all this time?”

***

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