At the back of the business district, the area that divides the "handle" and the "blade," stands a very tall and strange building. This building is the tallest on Endless Tide Island, standing 1 kilometer tall.
It had a smooth, narrow shape like a long needle pointing at the sky. Its walls shone with a translucent glass plate, enabling one to see the interior and activity inside, unlike traditional wooden buildings that regularly appear in the typical cultivation world.
Glowing characters ran up its sides—it was the name of the building and the lord of this protruding island, a name that everyone knew well.
This is the headquarters building of the Endless Wealth Company.
…
Xia Zhenxue walked through the crowd in front of the headquarters building; the glass doors opened automatically when she got close.
She stepped forward, passing through the glass door into the headquarters building. interior, before entering the reception hall, she met a checkpoint where two guards were waiting to check her identity.
The cultivation base's aura emitted from them was strong, on the same cultivation realm as her, the True Body Realm cultivators.
Normally, True Body cultivators were treated with respect; they could become head of small factions on the continent. It was a surprise that they were working as guards on this small island.
"You guys know me, why don't we skip this part?" Xia Zhenxue spoke lazily.
One of the guards shook his head and said in a serious tone,
"Apologies, Miss Xia, but rules are rules. The last one who tried to skip protocol is now hunting pirates in the South Sea." He said with a little unease while thinking about what his former coworker had to face against the pirates.
There are multiple groups of pirates that roam all over the South Sea. They are very dangerous; their reputation for cruelty has stood for a thousand years.
There is even a rumor that the Pirate King of the South Sea is a Spirit Integration Realm cultivator. Fighting these pirates is a dangerous task, even for True Body cultivators like him.
Another guard, seeing the line behind Xia Zhenxue beginning to pile up, urged,
"ID, please," he said in a calm tone.
Xia Zhenxue rolled her eyes. She didn't understand why it had to be so annoying. Then she mentally ordered to open the ID, and the transparent display appeared before her.
She allowed the guards to see it.
Ding!
[The Endless Wealth Company - Employee Identification Card]
ID Code: NHR-7H-MDC-001739
Name: Xia Zhenxue
Trust Level: 4
"Verified. Welcome, Miss Xia. You're cleared to enter." Guard No.1 said before, let Xia Zhenxue pass the checkpoint.
She moved forward and walked past another set of glass doors, which led her to the reception hall.
The reception hall is large—larger than it appeared through the glass wall from the outside. This is because the interior building had a spatial expansion formation installed.
The decoration is simple, and it is clean and shiny. It's a strange style, unlike anything she has ever seen, but it looks oddly luxurious. The first time she saw it, it surprised her quite a bit.
'Was it called… mo—modern style?' she thought. She didn't pay attention well when she was introduced to it.
She didn't waste time, flying upward along the sky path within the building that allowed cultivators to fly.
She flew past many floors and landed on the 77th floor.
When she stepped onto the floor and entered the area with the golden glass door not far from the sky path, she could immediately sense the tense atmosphere in the air as she stepped inside.
There were many cultivators on the 77th floor. They were all contract-signed employees who possessed the Employee Identification Card, their expressions serious and gloomy, as if they were deep in thought before a tall box with a bright screen.
But not all of them were like this—some expressions were excited while staring at the screen, some even yelled with joy as if they had won a lottery.
When they sensed a presence appear on the floor, they turned their heads toward Xia Zhenxue's direction to see who it was.
They bowed to show respect upon noticing she was a True Body Realm cultivator.
She accepted the bow and gestured for them to return to what they were doing, then walked to one of the available tall boxes that no one was using.
When she stood before the tall box, she used her Employee Identification Card to activate it.
The bright screen seemed to identify her ID. Then, a woman's voice devoid of emotion appeared in her mind.
Ding!
[Welcome to Endless Wealth Exchange]
…
The 77th floor served as an exchange spot—but not an ordinary one, not to person to person, but employee to the company. Here, things could only be exchanged using the precious Wealth Points.
This was her third time coming to this place.
The first time, she had recklessly spent all her precious Wealth Points on some expensive cultivation resources that she later regretted.
That was because she didn't pay attention when her mentor guided her about how the company worked, but she soon learned that if her trust level increased, higher-grade items would appear for her to exchange!
Even a Legendary Divine Grade treasure that only appeared once in a thousand years was available!
To have such a legendary treasure available for employees to exchange, she could not help but wonder about the company's origin and its owner—Lan… Lan Shengheng?
Whatever his name, she didn't remember; she thought she should pay more attention next time.
The cultivation resources she exchanged were expensive and rare, but they could still be found in the exchange market or at auctions.
However, in the Endless Wealth Exchange, she could see countless items she had never seen or heard of before, and the descriptions of the items on the screen sounded almost like a scam—how could such profound treasures exist?
But she believed the company wouldn't ruin its reputation over a small scam against its own employee.
Wealth Points: 51,500 WP
Xia Zhenxue gazed at her precious Wealth Points, which she had earned from completing numerous missions over the past few months.
To earn this large amount of points in such a short time, she achieved it by choosing the hardest missions, the most difficult ones—she even risked exposing her identity because, when facing a powerful enemy, she had to display her full strength and activate her bloodline to defeated the enemy during one of these missions.
She worked so hard like this because there was a treasure she was aiming for. It wasn't a Divine Grade treasure, since that was too expensive—the lowest price for a Legendary Grade item was 1 million Wealth Points.
She was aiming for a Heaven Grade treasure—a high-tier one among this grade as well. She scrolled through the screen to find the treasure she was aiming for.
…
Item Name: Ice Purification Crystal
Grade: Heaven
Description: A rare crystal infused with the Essence of Ice Law. It can purify and refine Ice-type Spirit Cores, raising their quality to Heaven Grade.
Cost: 50,000 Wealth Points
Warning: All items obtained from the Endless Wealth Exchange are bound to Endless Tide Island and cannot be taken outside the island.
…
Her lips curved up as joy began to rise within her heart when she saw what she was looking for.
It was something she had been searching for for almost a thousand years. Despite being born with the bloodline of a divine beast, Heaven did not seem to let her life be easy—her spirit core was only of mortal quality.
Being born with a mortal-quality core would be fatal for most, as their cultivation speed would be too slow to break through to the next realm before their lifespan ended.
But she did not face such a problem; her bloodline had helped her progress along the cultivation path, and her cultivation speed was not inferior to those with a Heaven Grade core.
In the early centuries of her journey, she managed to raise her spirit core to Earth Grade due to a lucky encounter, which made her cultivation speed significantly increase. Even though it did not reach the same level as the Divine Grade she had heard about, it was definitely close.
But when it came to something that would help her advance her spirit core to Heaven Grade, she had never found a single clue—let alone a way to reach the Legendary Divine Grade, which hadn't been heard of in terms of anyone being born with it or a treasure that could raise one to that grade in over ten thousand years.
Yet, the company had it. She saw multiple treasures within this exchange that could raise one's spirit core to the Divine Grade, but the price was so high she wouldn't be able to get it for at least a hundred years.
Xia Zhenxue calmed herself down, placed her space ring on the screen, and pressed the exchange button. She saw her 50,000 Wealth Points disappear, and then she sensed the treasure appear inside her space ring.
She walked out of the Exchange Area, intending to find a safe spot to use the treasure and advance her spirit core to a higher grade.
As she was about to enter the sky path, she sensed someone approaching her from above. She looked up and saw the woman who used to mentor her.
"Xia Zhenxue, the Director wants to meet you," Lan Yueli said, her tone of voice not very welcoming.