The Monster Mastermind's Painstaking Intentions (Please, Monthly Votes...)

A faintly malicious, mocking look surfaced on Girl's Face once more. She laughed at herself. "On the surface, everything in Dragon City seems to be moving in a better direction—people have rebuilt law, morality, and order; through the Ten Great Expeditions, they dealt heavy blows to the monster tribes entrenched around Dragon City; and after ten years of the Great Construction Era, they transformed the ruined city beyond recognition.

"Yet beneath this flourishing facade, the Nine Super Enterprises have grown like nine tumors, expanding wildly and without restraint.

"They have intercepted most of the benefits from the city's development, monopolized most vital positions and key channels, and stopped at nothing to steal cultivation resources.

"Amid the piling up of astronomical resources, the powerful figures controlling the Super Enterprises have also become stronger and stronger, advancing at breakneck speed and covering a thousand miles a day. So-called Transcendental and Saintly is no longer an exaggeration; it has truly allowed the powerful to glimpse the hope of standing above ordinary people.

"The powerful have become Peerless Experts. The Peerless Experts have formed their own Cultivation Families, Powerful Clans, and sprawling, deeply entrenched interest groups too big to fail. Even as they steadily consolidate their rule, they constantly widen the gap between themselves and ordinary citizens, gradually becoming two classes—or even two different species.

"In the early days after Dragon City's crossing, although it faced calamities both natural and man-made, such as the Crimson Dragon River flooding, zombies running rampant, Primordial Virus leaks, and shortages of supplies, the gap between people was relatively small. Even those bandits who claimed mountains as kings and ran wild in tyranny could be thrown to the ground by ordinary citizens through sheer numbers, courage, secretly excavated weapons, and a little luck.

"But as Dragon City developed with