— Mo Xingyao Study —
At Mo Xingyao's study room at the top of the Thousand Treasure Pavilion, Mo Xingyao sat behind a large desk, gritting her teeth and glaring at Wei Chen.
"I don't care! Pay me 30 million!" Mo Xingyao started throwing a tantrum.
Wei Chen couldn't help but let out a wry smile. How could he have known that there was a vault right under the cultivation chamber? Within his spiritual sea, his only focus had been to increase his cultivation as much and as fast as possible.
So, when his spiritual sense detected a massive amount of spiritual qi nearby, of course he extended his sense toward it and tried to draw the spiritual qi into his dantian.
It was a basic operation when cultivating, how could he have known that his black hole core was so perverse that it could pull spiritual qi from a pile of spirit stones even through the thick floor and walls of the vault?
Okay… maybe he had some inkling, but the point is…
It was an accident!
"Hey… Miss Mo, didn't I tell you it was an accident? Do I look like someone who walks around with thirty million spirit stones in his storage space?" Wei Chen smiled wryly.
"Then sign the damn IOU!" Mo Xingyao snapped, slamming the IOU on the table for him to see.
Wei Chen's eyes narrowed as he read the document.
"During the payment period, the debtor can assign tasks and work to the debtee, and the debtee has an obligation to follow the arrangements for 100 years in return for cancel the debt. The debtee is bound to the debtor during the contract period unless another contract is formed between the two parties to state otherwise."
Wait… isn't this basically indentured servitude!?
"Oi oi, young miss, I have my own things to do, you know. Putting me on a leash for 100 years like this, isn't it too much? I admit I was at fault for accidentally burning your precious spirit stones, but isn't this going too far?" Wei Chen sighed.
"Then pay me 30 million right now!" Mo Xingyao threw another tantrum, slapping her desk again. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, it was clear that seeing her wealth go up in smoke was too much for her to handle.
Sigh…
Wei Chen let out another sigh. It's not gonna end, at this rate. Then, he came up with another idea.
"Hey, lady, give me an hour, and I'll find a collateral for you, okay?" Wei Chen said.
Mo Xingyao paused but still glared at him as if he had killed her father.
"Fine! But that collateral must be worth at least the value of the debt you owe! Understand!?" Mo Xingyao snapped, slapping her desk once again.
Honestly… She really likes slapping that desk when she's frustrated, Wei Chen thought as he watched her antics.
"Okay, got it. It won't disappoint you. Don't bother me for this one hour, okay?" Wei Chen said before turning around, waving his hand, and leaving the study room.
After Wei Chen left, Yin Lan, who had remained silent until now, spoke.
"Young Miss, should I send someone to follow him?"
Mo Xingyao shook her head. "No… I want to see if that bastard will run or not. It's just one hour. Let's wait."
— Wei Chen's room —
After Wei Chen left Mo Xingyao, he returned to the room she had prepared for him. He took out the broadcasting orb, opened the redeem shop, and began browsing the rewards that his meager amount of points could buy.
Then he noticed something unusual, the number of points in his UGC pool had increased since the last time he checked. He remembered having around 2,700 UGC before, but now it showed 5,842 UGC.
It seemed that his actions had somehow saved some people. Since the increase wasn't very large, he guessed that the people affected were probably of lower cultivation levels or perhaps even mortals.
Wei Chen couldn't recall when exactly he had saved anyone. Other than his dispute with that elder, he hadn't gone out of his way to do much of anything.
But come to think of it…. there were many mortals in this city. If he hadn't been there drawing the attention of that elder and the Heaven Spire… something sect, then perhaps if Mo Xingyao had refused their demands, those people might have vented their anger on some poor sods mortals instead.
Since he was there taking all the aggro, those people had only targeted him.
The more Wei Chen thought about it, the more he was convinced that must have been the case.
After coming to that conclusion, Wei Chen decided he would find some time later to test this theory. He then pushed the thought to the back of his mind and began choosing the "collateral" among the redeemable items.
He needed to find something cheap but highly valuable in this realm. What should it be? A cultivation method? Those things were quite expensive, and he wasn't sure if it would come back to bite him later even if he found one, so… that was a no.
An artifact? Same problem as the cultivation method, it might cause trouble for him if he wasn't careful. Still a no.
Cultivation resources? Maybe. But what kind of cultivation resources could possibly fetch a price of thirty million?
With this in mind, Wei Chen entered the search conditions: price below 3,000 UGC and category set to cultivation resources. He wanted to read the descriptions of each item to find the most impressive-looking one he could use to dupe that girl.
It needed to be a useless resource or trinket that looked amazing but did nothing. Most importantly, it had to be something that wouldn't come back to bite him later.
When the search results appeared, there were a lot of items on the list. But after reading through most of them, Wei Chen didn't think any could possibly fetch a high price of thirty million.
To understand how much thirty million spirit stones really was, an average large sect without ties to trading or auction houses had an annual income of around twenty-five to thirty million spirit stones. Meanwhile, leading sects like the Heaven Sword Sect earned around forty to fifty million spirit stones per year, depending on their circumstances.
In years when they produced many powerful weapons, discovered new spirit stone mines, or explored secret realms, their income could increase significantly.
Secret realms, in fact, were a major source of income for sects that didn't involve themselves in trading, such as the Sky-Severing Demon Valley, which had the Thousand Treasure Hall as its main money-maker.
Large sects usually had several secret realms or spirit stone mines under their control, while smaller sects, such as the Sword Manor had only meager income from selling the swords or artifacts they crafted themselves.
Smaller sects lacked the military strength to seize and maintain control over valuable resources like secret realms or spirit stone mines. Most of them relied on craftsmanship to survive, much like Sword Manor.
Alchemy sects, however, were the exception. Alchemy was directly tied to cultivation growth, progress, and power. Pills could be converted into resources, so even small alchemy sects were generally better off than other sects of similar scale.
Most of the top-tier sects also maintained their own alchemy branches. It was a necessity for them to control their internal resource supply and reduce dependence on imports.
All in all, thirty million spirit stones could be considered equivalent to the annual income of an average large corporation on Earth.
For easy comparison, an average sect would be like Hershey, Clorox, or McDonald's, while the Heavenly Sword Sect would be on the level of Microsoft or Google.
Sword Manor, on the other hand, was more like Apple during its startup phase.
As for that guy Ximen Hao, Wei Chen thought his wealth must be comparable to JPMorgan or BlackRock back on Earth. That was the scale of wealth Wei Chen attributed to the Ximen Clan.
That was how valuable thirty million spirit stones were, and now he was about to find a cheap but impressive-looking resource or trinket to fool that girl.
After half an hour of searching, he finally found it.
…
'Samsara Severing Sword Shards' Price: 2,800
Description: One of the many shards of the sword once used to sever Samsara. In the end, the powerful immortal who wielded it failed in his attempt to overturn Samsara, suffered backlash from the Dao Law, and died. The blade itself was shattered into many pieces.
However, this incident left a mark on Samsara, causing occasional flaws that allow certain powerful souls to cheat death.
PS. This item has no special properties other than being used as a paperweight.
…
Seeing this, Wei Chen let out a smile. A glorified fancy paperweight? Perfect!
Without thinking too much, he immediately bought the item.
A shard of a sword with a sharp edge and a bit of weight appeared in Wei Chen's hand. He quickly wrapped it in a piece of cloth. From what he could tell, there was truly nothing special about it.
With the scam item in hand, he walked back to Mo Xingyao's study.