Preparing to Make a Killing

Zhou Xuan suppressed his inner ecstasy and hurriedly pricked his fingertip, squeezing a drop of essence blood onto the dusty Qiankun Bag.

Hum!

The moment the bead of blood seeped into the fabric, a faint spiritual light flashed.

Zhou Xuan immediately felt a tenuous, ethereal mental connection establish itself between him and the Qiankun Bag.

With a thought, he probed his divine sense into it.

An independent space of several dozen cubic meters—roughly the size of a room—appeared clearly within his perception.

The walls were smooth and the space was stable, devoid of the violent aura that had previously threatened to shred everything to pieces.

It worked!

Zhou Xuan's mouth curled up, and he nearly laughed out loud.

He licked his parched lips and tossed the Blazing Fire Bead he kept for emergencies, the three Qi Gathering Pills he had just acquired, and the damaged Black Iron Shield all inside at once.

Looking at his empty hands and the bulging pouch at his waist, a sense of security he had never felt before surged in Zhou Xuan's heart.

With this thing, he wouldn't have to rack his brains hiding treasures under his bedboards or live in constant fear every time he obtained something valuable.

One hundred Gold-Touch Points—money well spent!

He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the remaining two hundred and thirty-five Gold-Touch Points on his system panel, and fell into deep thought.

Upgrading his spiritual roots required one thousand points; he was still a long way off.

Relying solely on that "explosive fairy" Zhang Ling, while stable, was ultimately just waiting to be fed; the efficiency was far too slow.

He had to find a way to take the initiative!

A thought flashed through his mind like lightning.

Gold-Touch Points!

The conversion of this stuff seemed to depend solely on the total amount of spiritual energy contained within an item itself, which was completely disproportionate to its market value!

He suddenly remembered the twenty low-grade spirit stones Liu Ruyan had given him.

Twenty low-grade spirit stones had converted into sixty Gold-Touch Points.

In other words, one low-grade spirit stone was equal to three Gold-Touch Points.

And in the market at the foot of the sect mountain, what could one low-grade spirit stone buy?

Having spent so long in the chore department, Zhou Xuan was poor, but he was not without perspective.

He knew very well that one low-grade spirit stone could buy roughly one to two of the lowest-tier rank-one demon cores!

So, how many Gold-Touch Points could a rank-one demon core convert into?

Zhou Xuan's breathing suddenly quickened. He clearly remembered that when he had found a tattered, ruined demon core in the trash heap before, the system prompt had indicated it could be converted into 4 Gold-Touch Points!

A complete one would have to be at least 4 points!

If he was lucky and could trade one low-grade spirit stone for two rank-one demon cores, that would mean trading a cost of 3 Gold-Touch Points for 8 Gold-Touch Points!

Back and forth, that was a net profit of five points!

Isn't this just a "white wolf with empty gloves" scam?!

Zhou Xuan's eyes grew brighter and brighter, his mind racing at an unprecedented speed.

It wasn't just demon cores!

There were the spirit stones themselves!

Within the sect, it took one hundred low-grade spirit stones to exchange for one mid-grade spirit stone.

But Zhou Xuan knew very well that this was not an equivalent exchange!

The total amount of spiritual energy contained in one mid-grade spirit stone was, at most, equivalent to eighty low-grade spirit stones.

The reason it was expensive was entirely because the spiritual energy in a mid-grade spirit stone was purer and easier for a cultivator to absorb and refine, saving a massive amount of time.

But did that matter to him, Zhou Xuan?

No!

The system's absorption and conversion didn't care if the spiritual energy was pure or impure; it only looked at the total amount!

If he could get his hands on a mid-grade spirit stone, convert it into one hundred low-grade spirit stones, and then let the system absorb them.

Wouldn't that be like using the material of eighty spirit stones to earn the material of twenty extra spirit stones out of thin air?

This was practically a system-level bug!

"I'm really going to strike it rich this time!"

Zhou Xuan trembled with excitement. He felt as if a golden path paved with spirit stones was slowly unfolding beneath his feet.

He suppressed his inner ecstasy and cast his gaze back onto the broken shield he had just tossed into the Qiankun Bag.

The most urgent task was to secure his first pot of gold!

With a thought, he retrieved the crack-riddled Black Iron Shield once more.

"System, repair it!"

[Ding! Detected damaged low-grade magical tool--Black Iron Shield (damaged). Do you wish to consume 50 Gold Points to perform an enlightenment repair?]

"Yes!"

Fifty points!

What a damn rip-off!

Zhou Xuan felt a pang of heartache, but he gritted his teeth and confirmed the action.

A soft golden light enveloped the entire Black Iron Shield.

Visible to the naked eye, the cracks on the surface of the shield vanished rapidly, as if a wound were healing.

The originally dull and lusterless shield surface began to glow with a deep metallic sheen once again.

[Ding! Enlightenment successful! Congratulations to the host for obtaining a low-grade magical tool--Black Iron Shield (intact).]

Zhou Xuan weighed it in his hand with satisfaction. Although this thing was only the lowest-grade defensive magical tool, he could sell it at the market for at least seven or eight low-grade spirit stones!

Fifty Gold Points converted to roughly the cost of seventeen low-grade spirit stones.

A total loss!

Yet, a sharp glint flickered in Zhou Xuan's eyes.

That wasn't how you calculated the profit!

Where did this shield come from? Picked it up in a junk pile! The cost was zero!

He had created value out of thin air!

He immediately perked up and dumped all the junk he had scavenged today out of his storage bag in one go.

"System, repair this broken talisman!"

[Ding! Repairing the damaged Sharp Metal Talisman requires 5 Gold Points.]

"Repair!"

"What about this broken sword?"

[Ding! Repairing the broken Green Edge Sword requires 12 Gold Points.]

"Repair, repair them all for me!"

Zhou Xuan chuckled happily, like a tireless repairman, enlightening and fixing the items that were worthless in the eyes of others one by one.

Golden light flickered incessantly within the dilapidated wooden hut.

Soon, his haul for the day had been completely repaired.

A brand-new talisman, a sword gleaming with cold light, and several miscellaneous small magical tools lay quietly on the floor.

Although they were all first-tier scraps, in Zhou Xuan's eyes, they were all shiny spirit stones!

He stuffed all these items into his storage bag with satisfaction and began to calculate.

Tomorrow was the day the laborers of the Miscellaneous Affairs Department had their rotation off.

They only got one day a month to go down the mountain to the market to buy daily necessities or try their luck.

Perfect!

Tomorrow, he would go to the market at the foot of the mountain and set up a stall!

Zhou Xuan grinned, as if he could already see piles of Gold Points beckoning to him.

He lay on his bed, feeling the power of the third stage of Body Tempering flowing slowly through his body. An unprecedented sense of satisfaction and anticipation for the future made him almost too excited to sleep.

The night outside grew deeper and deeper.

The foul stench and poisonous mist that never dissipated from the Miscellaneous Affairs Department seemed to have grown a bit thicker.

Just as Zhou Xuan's consciousness began to blur and he was about to drift into slumber.

A sound of extremely light footsteps suddenly came from outside the house!

The sound of feet stepping on dead leaves and soil was deliberately kept very low, but in the deathly silence of the night, it sounded exceptionally clear!

Zhou Xuan's body tensed in an instant!

He snapped his eyes open, no trace of sleepiness left in them, replaced only by cold vigilance!

Someone was there!

Almost by instinct, he rolled off the bed in one motion, simultaneously blowing out the dim oil lamp on the table.

The wooden hut instantly plunged into pitch-black darkness.

Zhou Xuan held his breath, like a sharp leopard, and silently crept to the edge of the window, listening intently to the movement outside.

The footsteps stopped in front of his wooden hut.

Immediately after, a man's voice, suppressing both nervousness and greed, drifted into his ears like a mutter, intermittent and broken.

"Don't blame me."

"If I kill you, I can get a medium-grade spirit stone."

"A medium-grade spirit stone... with it, I might actually have a chance to become an outer sect disciple in this sect examination!"

"It's your own bad luck; who told you to offend someone you shouldn't have."

The voice muttered outside the door, as if trying to bolster its own courage, or perhaps searching for an excuse for the crime it was about to commit.

Zhou Xuan hid in the darkness, his blood feeling as though it had frozen in that very instant.

A medium-grade spirit stone!

To buy the life of a servant like me!