The Small Goal Was Way Too Small

"Whew, I'm exhausted!"

Lu Mingyuan flopped onto his soft bed and let out a feeble sigh.

He'd spent the entire day improving the plow and laying a solid foundation for his next divine ability. To make matters worse, he'd used the few Human Luck Points he had left to speed up his thoughts tenfold, thinking nonstop for the whole day.

By now, he was utterly exhausted.

He'd spent more than thirty-six Human Luck Points today alone.

One Human Luck Point doubled the speed of thought for a full hour. At the maximum tenfold speed, that meant he spent nine points per hour.

Today, he'd accelerated his thoughts on and off for about four hours, which was why he'd spent so much.

At his current level, with one and a half inches of Talent Qi, Lu Mingyuan could generate only one and a half Human Luck Points per day.

He generated one and a half points a day, yet had spent thirty-six. His spending far outstripped his earnings by more than twenty times.

He was bleeding points.

If Lu Mingyuan kept this up, his remaining thousand-odd Human Luck Points would last barely more than a month.

Fortunately, he didn't plan to be so extravagant for long—just a few days or so. Besides, hardly anyone used the tenfold acceleration continuously.

It wasn't that people were stingy and wanted to save their Human Luck Points. They had good reason to avoid doing so.

Setting aside whether the brain could handle it, accelerating the speed of thought tenfold also increased the rate at which one's lifespan was consumed by ten times.

In other words, if someone had enough Human Luck Points to waste and enjoyed tenfold acceleration every moment of every day, their lifespan would shrink to a tenth of what it had been.

If they'd originally had a hundred years to live, they'd now have only ten.

Losing nine-tenths of your lifespan was no small matter.

And what it consumed was the lifespan of the soul—the kind no medicine could cure or restore.

Once the soul's lifespan ran out, a person might appear perfectly healthy when their time came, but their soul would already be gone, their thoughts no longer moving. They'd be as good as dead.

So this acceleration of thought couldn't be used carelessly. You had to plan it out.

As for lifespan, as far as Lu Mingyuan knew, the human body in this world could live for about a hundred and twenty years at most, while the soul could last as long as two hundred. So as long as you didn't accelerate thought recklessly, it wasn't a big problem.

For now, then, Lu Mingyuan didn't need to worry too much about his lifespan. He was young, after all, with plenty of time ahead of him.

It was his brain that got tired from accelerated thinking. He had to keep taking breaks.

He could skip the breaks, of course, but running at high speed for too long burned through a lot of energy and made the brain heat up. Without rest, he might literally cook his own head.

Lu Mingyuan had come to this world because of working himself to the bone, so he stuck strictly to a routine of ten minutes of full-speed thinking followed by five minutes of rest. He didn't want to collapse again without knowing whether there'd be another life after this one.

So now it was time to rest. Lu Mingyuan didn't want to think about anything. He just wanted to lie in bed and relax.

If only he could scroll through his phone. Lying in bed, scrolling, and thinking about nothing—that was the ultimate dream of a lazybones.

Lu Mingyuan's thoughts drifted.

Luckily, there were no phones in this world, but there was the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network. It was still the internet, so it wasn't all that different. There was just one small regret...

There weren't any pretty girls on the internet here. Without pretty girls, it was missing one of its biggest attractions.

Not that Lu Mingyuan had ever looked at them with anything but appreciation. He definitely hadn't had any other thoughts.

He pulled his wandering thoughts back on track and started browsing the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network.

Let's see... How many copies of my divine ability have sold? More than yesterday?

Wait...

Lu Mingyuan rubbed his eyes. He couldn't believe the number in front of him.

Was this... a mistake?

No way. How could the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network make a mistake?

Then how could there be so many?

No matter how he looked at it, there was no way sales could have jumped from less than three hundred thousand to over forty million in a single day.

This wasn't just an ordinary surge. It had multiplied several times over.

Wasn't this a little absurd?

Had everyone gone crazy?

Lu Mingyuan could hardly believe it.

He had complete confidence in his divine ability, but surely it couldn't be selling this well.

By his calculations, he'd already made over four billion today. Would he break through ten billion—or even a hundred billion—tomorrow and take the title of richest man?

At that moment, Lu Mingyuan suddenly felt that an ordinary small goal was no longer enough. He needed to raise the bar.

He should at least aim to break through one billion—or ten billion—in a day. Otherwise, it just wouldn't look impressive.

He let his mind run wild.

Suddenly, a chill ran down Lu Mingyuan's forehead, like a basin of cold water had been dumped over him.

Wait... He probably couldn't protect all this wealth.

To be honest, in all his years in this world, Lu Mingyuan had never heard of an individual owning this many Qi Luck Points.

The ones who could hold that many Qi Luck Points were all major powers, like the three great dynasties, the Hundred Schools of Thought, or the heads of the various races...

But those powers had plenty of expenses, too. It wasn't like Lu Mingyuan, who only had himself to feed and no family to worry about.

To be honest, with so many Qi Luck Points, he didn't even know how he was supposed to spend them.

And Qi Luck Points weren't like money, which could lose its value. They held their worth. In the nearly thousand years since they'd appeared, their purchasing power hadn't depreciated at all.

By that logic, he was in even greater danger.

Lu Mingyuan drew a deep breath, stroked the faint stubble on his chin, and thought in silence.

A moment later, as if he'd figured something out, a look of relief finally appeared on his face.

Good thing he'd used a different account. They shouldn't be able to trace him.

Still, he'd have to be even more careful from now on. And he had to completely separate himself from "Anonymous," leaving not the slightest connection between them. Otherwise, if someone followed the trail back to him, they'd raise him like a fattened pig before slaughtering him.

From now on, "Anonymous" was "Anonymous."

And "Road Under Feet" was "Road Under Feet."

There wasn't a shred of connection between us. Not one bit.

Only after making up his mind did Lu Mingyuan finally let out a breath of relief.

He had so much wealth now that he couldn't help feeling uneasy. To be honest, he'd never seen that much money in his previous life; he'd only heard about it. Getting so much all at once was bound to make his thoughts gallop and his spirits soar.

Luckily, Lu Mingyuan had lived two lives and managed to stay calm. He'd also prepared himself for the possibility of getting rich overnight. Otherwise, he might already have let something slip, and then he'd really be in trouble.

After all, "earning a fortune with your life, then dying before you can spend it" was one of life's greatest misfortunes.

Lu Mingyuan didn't want to end up that way.

So he kept reminding himself to be even more cautious in the future.

Right... He'd just act as though there was no account called "Anonymous."

No, Lu Mingyuan only had one account, and it was called "Road Under Feet." He couldn't afford an alias, and he had no intention of buying one.

The young man lying on the bed thought this over with great seriousness. Then he blinked, his eyes full of innocence.

After coming to terms with it, Lu Mingyuan looked at the long string of digits again, and his heart was entirely unmoved. It seemed he'd reached the state of "a heart still as a lake."

Well... At least on the surface.

Once he'd settled that matter, Lu Mingyuan turned his attention to the comments below [Peerless Spirit-Stabilizing Great Divine Ability—Mathematics: Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage].

Gentle and Adorable Jiang Zichun: Thank you, Master, for your divine ability. It helped me win. Thank you! Thank you!

An Jia Youyi: Master's divine ability is amazing. Youyi bows in admiration!

Gentle and Adorable Jiang Zichun: Master, the divine ability works great, but there are too few problems. Could you add some more? I'm begging you to add more problems.

I Have a Dream: Master, please add more problems. There are too few right now.

Looking at these amusing comments, a rare smile slowly appeared on Lu Mingyuan's face.

He didn't know about the others. But those two, "Jiang Zichun" and "An Jia Youyi," were definitely two gentle, adorable beauties.

Lu Mingyuan would stake his life on it.

Of course, it wasn't because they'd said nice things. This was pure intuition. That was simply what his gut told him.

Yes, intuition.

But they thought there were too few problems?

Lu Mingyuan closed his eyes and thought it over for a moment. There probably were too few—only a little over three hundred.

But then a meaningful smile appeared on his face.

The smile sent a shiver down the spine.