Chương 82: Banking on his Potential

The Yale Flying Aces team sat in a windowless conference room deep within the training complex. Major Isabella Santiago stood at the front, a projection screen behind her displaying the College Flying Aces National Championships bracket. Yale had received a first round bye, going straight to the semifinals. A privilege of being the Ivy League conference champions. At the semifinals they would face the Big Ten conference champions. Ohio State.

"The Buckeyes are solid but unremarkable." Santiago clicked past their roster without lingering.

"Leo could handle them alone if he wanted to." She pulled up the schedule.

"We'll review Ohio State on Friday before the game. Put together a quick plan. Texas A&M should also have an easy time against Alabama in their semifinal." Santiago's expression hardened.

"The real focus of the next two weeks is preparing for the Aggies in the finals." The screen changed. The Texas A&M Aggies' maroon and white logo filled the display.

"The SEC champions have assembled a superteam backed by the Lockheed and Martin families." Santiago's expression hardened.

"They originally built this team to beat Mateo's divine domain. The national championships was going to be their proving ground for a next-generation assault formation." Leo's hand shot up.

"Lockheed Martin? The defense contractors?"

"The two families behind the company, yes." Santiago went to the next slide.

"A victory on national television against the divine domain would give them the leverage to push for military adoption." The image showed five figures arranged in a serpentine pattern. The lead position formed a massive draconic head, jaws open and wreathed in azure flame. Two figures flanked it as clawed limbs, while a fourth sat at the center, clutching a sphere of condensed spiritual energy. The fifth trailed behind as a whip-like tail.

"Would they have won?" Leo asked.

"They would have folded the moment Mateo summoned his true divine serpent." Santiago's tone was matter of fact.

"Lockheed Martin prepared for many contingencies. But no one expected Mateo to be able to briefly summon that serpent." Leo thought about the vast serpent that Mateo had summoned from a cloud of grey qi, how it unleashed its will and divinity. He had only been able to resist it with the help of the Bulldog Army in the stands.

"So the Thousand Talents program wasn't as simple as everyone thought." Santiago shrugged.

"No one can calculate the future. There will always be hidden variables that defy prediction."

"The strong don't need to predict anything." Harry leaned back in his chair, arms crossed.

"They just take credit for the victories and pin the failures on someone else." Santiago's jaw tightened. She clicked to the next slide without comment. The slide showed the five starting flyers of the Texas A&M Aggies.

"Sloane Savoy of the European Legacy Cults will serve as captain, taking the dragon head position." Santiago pointed to a sharp featured young man with pale eyes and platinum blonde hair.

"Aurelia Windsor, princess of the British Royal family, takes the center position as the flaming pearl." The second portrait showed a woman with auburn hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her expression carried the practiced neutrality of royalty.

"Damian Lockheed and Roman Martin serve as right and left claws respectively." Two more portraits, both young men with athletic builds and confident smiles.

"Hayes Huntington rounds out the formation in the tail position." Leo straightened.

"Hayes Huntington. Is he related to Zhao?"

"Cousins." Harry's voice was flat.

"Which is why Zhao had to leave the training camp this morning." The room went quiet.

"Everyone here trusts Zhao with their lives," Harry continued.

"But there are too many stakeholders involved now. Too many families with too much money on the line." Leo felt a twist of disappointment.

"Zhao understood the situation," Vicky said, a little bothered.

"He said he hoped stepping out now would make things easier for everyone. Including his cousin." Santiago let the moment pass, then resumed her briefing. The next three hours were exhaustive. They watched every recorded match from Texas A&M's season, breaking down formations, identifying tendencies, cataloging the strengths and weaknesses of each Aggie player. Santiago paused the footage constantly, highlighting positioning errors, pointing out tells that preceded specific attacks.

"The Azure Dragon formation relies on overwhelming power and area suppression," Santiago explained as they watched the Aggies dismantle their quarterfinal opponents.

"Against Leo specifically, it counters through sheer defensive strength. Our intelligence suggests the flaming pearl position will have access to a Tier Four spiritual qi source, giving the formation nascent soul level power." Leo watched the azure dragon tear through enemy Flyers like they were made of paper.

"There is a fatal weakness." Santiago froze the playback.

"The flaming pearl serves as both power source and structural keystone. If the formation breaks even once, the pearl shatters." She turned to face the room.

"You only have to beat the dragon once." The briefing continued. Santiago outlined their training schedule. Professional practice partners would arrive tomorrow to replicate the Azure Dragon formation. Unlike the Florida game, where they had gone in blind and suffered a setback from an unexpected black tortoise configuration, they would be thoroughly prepared this time. A quick dinner break followed. The Defenders filed out to a separate conference room where Coach Williams waited to give them their own briefing.

Santiago addressed the remaining Flyers.

"What I'm about to show you is classified at the consortium level." She clicked to the next slide.

"This is the Dragonslayer formation." Five positions appeared on screen, arranged in a configuration Leo didn't recognize. It looked like the letter "F".

"This formation has been custom developed to account for Leo's unique abilities," Santiago said.

"Your existing lifebound weapons will be modified and reforged to support it." She pointed to each position in turn.

"Rockefeller. You're the shield. Primary defense. Your gravity arts will protect the formation and deflect incoming fire." Harry nodded, studying the diagram.

"Walton, you're the spear. Primary offense. Park-Sinclair, you serve as the charge accumulator. You'll build and channel spiritual qi to empower Walton's strikes." Santiago traced the spiritual qi channels on the diagram.

"Together, you'll generate enough penetrating force to reach Tier Four levels. That should be sufficient to pierce the dragon's defenses." Vicky and Jimbo exchanged glances.

"Medici, you're the center. Heart position. You will receive spiritual qi from the defenders and transmit it to various positions."

"Chen." Santiago turned to face him directly.

"You're the head. Your omnidirectional awareness will track incoming attacks and direct the entire formation. Every decision flows through you." Leo sat up a little straighter.

"You're the keystone of our entire strategy." Santiago's voice went flat.

"And right now, you're the weakest link of the formation." The room went still.

"You haven't entered Foundation Establishment," she continued.

"Which severely limits our options for increasing your combat power. There is only one physical aspect we can enhance in the time we have." Leo frowned.

"I thought I was close to the ceiling for Qi Refining. What's left to improve?" Santiago smirked and clicked to the next slide. Leo's spiritual root profile filled the screen. Wood: 25 | Fire: 15 | Earth: 26 | Metal: 13 | Water: 61"Your spiritual roots," Santiago said.

"The foundation upon which all cultivation is built. Since we only have two weeks, our options are limited. We'll be focusing on consumables, pushing each of your spiritual roots to at least forty." The numbers on screen shifted. Wood: 40 | Fire: 40 | Earth: 40 | Metal: 40 | Water: 61 If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. A murmur rippled through the room. Leo heard someone whistle low.

"The Divine Particle Re-Forging Essence," Harry said quietly.

"They're actually giving it to him." Santiago nodded.

"The consortium pooled its profits from the Harvard game to purchase it." Vicky turned to Leo.

"That's exceptionally expensive, Leo. None of us have ever taken anything at that level."

"Consider this an advance on your future performance." Santiago's smiled.

"This will push your total spiritual root baseline to two hundred twenty one. Over twice the normal human baseline of one hundred." Leo did the math in his head. His current total was one hundred forty. An increase of eighty one points spread across four elements.

"The long term benefit is efficiency," Santiago continued.

"Your daily cultivation time drops to four hours. That's four extra hours every day for the rest of your life." Four hours. Leo thought about what he could do with four extra hours daily.

"An immediate benefit you can experience right now," Santiago said.

"Right now?" Santiago pointed behind them. Leo turned. A black suitcase sat on a table near the door, secured with multiple formation locks. He hadn't noticed it when they entered.

"The consortium wanted you to have it as soon as the briefing concluded," Santiago said.

"The absorption process takes approximately six hours. You begin after we're done here." Leo stood and walked toward the case. The locks disengaged as he approached, recognizing something in his spiritual signature. The lid swung open. Inside, nestled in protective foam, sat five crystalline vials. Each one glowed with a different elemental light. Green for wood. Red for fire. Brown for earth. Silver for metal. The fifth vial was empty, its slot marked with a water symbol.

For years, everyone had talked about immortal potential like it was some abstract concept. Now it sat in a foam-lined case, bottled up and ready for him to drink.

The absorption process took Leo past midnight. He was exhausted by the time he got back to his dorm, but sleep felt impossible. His meridians felt the same. His dantian felt the same. But something fundamental had changed. The closest he could describe it was like discovering a color that had always existed but his eyes had never registered. He should rest. Let his body recover. Give his meridians time to adjust to their new quality.

Instead, Leo sat cross-legged in his dorm at the training facility, and inserted his ID card into the spiritual qi outlet. He settled into proper meditation posture, legs crossed, spine straight, hands resting on his knees. Two years of daily cultivation sessions had made the position second nature. Through the wall, he sensed his dorm's connection to the training center's spiritual vein. A thin trickle of qi traveled through the building's internal formation channels and arrived at the node in his bedroom.

The familiar silver luminescence emerged, the same glow he had separated countless times since stepping into the Qi Refining realm. He extended his hands, palms up, fingers spread. A small sphere of undifferentiated potential qi pooled in between his palms, waiting for him to shape it. Leo's fingers began to move. His right index finger traced a spiral pattern through the qi sphere, and a thread of green energy separated from the mass. Wood Qi.

Before, Wood Qi had clung to the undifferentiated qi like the last bit of ketchup in a bottle. His spiritual root of twenty-five meant the element resisted him, forcing him to coax it into distinction. Now the green thread snapped free with eager anticipation. Both hands worked in concert, fingers dancing through patterns. Yellow for Earth. White for Metal. Red for Fire. Blue for Water. Five threads extending from the central sphere, each vibrating with its distinct elemental nature.

He had performed this separation thousands of times. But he had never felt the elements like this. Before his spiritual roots were improved, manipulating the elements had felt like giving instructions to strangers. He could direct them, but they moved with reluctance, forcing him to maintain constant effort. When his Water spiritual root improved to sixty-one, the Water Qi responded to his intentions with familiar ease, flowing where he willed without resistance. Now every element moved like that.

The Qi answered him before he finished forming the thought. He understood why high spiritual roots made spell arts easier. Before, he had studied the elements like vocabulary words. Now he spoke them as a native tongue. One complete cycle of the Five Elements Spiritual Technique. The whole process felt like breathing. Leo checked his internal state. The pool of refined Qi in his dantian had grown by an amount that would have taken him ten minutes before.

He grinned and reached for the next portion of his daily allotment. The cycles blurred together. Each separation came easier than the last, each absorption smoother. He found himself experimenting, testing how fast he could split the elements, how cleanly he could guide them into his meridians. The Qi responded to every adjustment. The flow stopped. Leo blinked and checked the time. Three hours and fifty-seven minutes. A full day's cultivation in less than half the time. He almost felt disappointed it was over.

Leo climbed into bed and pulled the covers up. He reached for his phone and typed a message to the team group chat. Going to be late to morning practice. Had a long night. See you around noon. Leo set the phone aside and stared at the ceiling. Three years ago, he'd been sitting in his bedroom trying not to have a panic attack. A transmigrator with no system, no goldfinger, no old grandpa in a ring. Now he lay in a bed at Yale's Flying Aces training complex.

His spiritual roots had just been enhanced with medicine that even Harry Rockefeller couldn't afford. He had a lifebound sword engraved with Forbidden formations that let him fight Nascent Souls. He had friends who followed him into danger without hesitation. His eyes drifted to the doorway. His military cap hung on a hook by the door. The ranked insignia caught the first gray light of dawn filtering through his window. He'd helped kill six Nascent Soul Lords. He'd defeated the divine child.

He'd done things that should have been impossible for a Qi Refining cultivator. Maybe this is what it felt like to be the protagonist of a story The two weeks before the national championship passed in a blur of drills and strategy sessions. Although the Bulldogs didn't have much time, they made up for it with resources. On Monday afternoon, two days after their game with Harvard, twelve formation masters arrived simultaneously, each one assigned to a specific player.

Leo's assigned formation master met him at an auxiliary building that had been converted into a workshop.

The man was small, shoulders permanently hunched from years of delicate formation work.

"You've been busy with this sword." He rotated Leo's Eclipse under an examination machine.

"I count three major restructurings." Leo watched from a respectful distance.

"Is that a problem?"

"This will be the end of the road." The formation master set the sword down on his workbench.

"Every time you restructure a lifebound weapon, you stress the spiritual foundation. The bond between cultivator and treasure can only stretch so far before it frays." He pulled out a set of formation engraving tools.

"I will remake your Eclipse into a coordination nexus. It will let you push your awareness directly into your teammates' divine sense during combat. They'll feel your intentions."

"But?"

"But this is the last major modification I'd recommend." The formation master began sketching preliminary formation lines in the air above Eclipse.

"One more restructuring after this and you risk the bond degrading entirely. You'd need a completely new lifebound weapon." Leo thought about his Eclipse. Enzo Ferrari himself had just converted it back to its original form last week. It was the first thing Leo had laid eyes on when he transmigrated, floating in a display case at Costco. And soon it would reach its final form.

"I understand," Leo said.

"Do it." The formation master nodded and reached for an engraving tool.

By Thursday, Leo and his Flyer teammates moved like a single organism. The Yale Flyers launched from the practice arena in their Dragonslayer formation, rising to meet an azure dragon head-on. Their sparring partners, hired Flyers replicating the Aggies' azure dragon formation, executed their pass with crisp, professional movements. Leo had already mapped their attack vector before they completed the turn. Leo shifted Harry left, sent Vicky foward, and ordered Jimbo to transfer his charged spiritual qi.

Through the coordination nexus, his teammates moved like extensions of his own limbs. In the early drills, there had been resistance, a slight delay as each Flyer processed Leo's intentions and translated them into action. But after dozens of repetitions, that gap had vanished. Leo thought, and the Flyers moved as one body. Below, the fort pulsed with activity. Dee and the second Gunner knelt at their flak cannons, but their barrels pointed downward, inactive.

Instead of firing, they channeled a steady stream of spiritual qi upward through their lifebound treasures. A second squad of hired cultivators unleashed a barrage of spell arts at the fort's walls. Shawn's voice cut through the chaos, directing his five Soldiers as they threw up layered barriers.

Leo's father arrived on the Tuesday after their easy win against Ohio State in the semifinals, four days before their game with Texas A&M. Mr. Chen worked as an investment banker at a mid-tier firm in Hartford, a job Leo had never fully understood despite years of dinner table explanations. He spread documents across the conference table in the administrative building.

"One percent equity stake in MGM Resorts International, with ten times voting rights." His father pointed out the numbers on the documents.

"That's what I negotiated for you." Leo stared at the numbers.

"Dad, what do you think? Should I take this?" His father nodded.

"The one percent equity is worth around ninety million, give or take. The ten-times voting multiplier?" He tilted his hand back and forth.

"Harder to price. Depends on how contentious future decisions get. Could be worth another thirty million in implied control premium. Could be worth nothing if everyone agrees on everything."

"So it's a good deal?"

"It's a fine deal." His father tapped the ownership chart on the next page.

"But that's not why you should take it." Leo looked at the chart. The equity distribution showed hundreds of names, but the largest blocks belonged to his teammates.

"MGM will be owned primarily by your teammates' families," his father said.

"The Rockefellers are taking eight percent. The Waltons, six. The Park-Sinclairs and Medicis are splitting another seven between them. You'd be a minority holder, but you'd be in the room with them." He pointed at Leo.

"Investment banking is about relationships. Money comes and goes. Deals close and new ones open. But the people you build trust with, the families you partner with on something meaningful, those connections last." His father smiled.

"You can't buy that with money." Leo nodded slowly, then frowned.

"Dad, I still don't actually understand what investment banking is." His father leaned back, and Leo recognized the look. He was about to get the speech again.

"Investment banking is about turning human potential into immortal potential." Leo waited.

"We connect the people who have capital with the people who have potential. We build the relationships and the structures that let human beings become something greater than themselves. A company that lasts a hundred years. A fortune that spans generations." He spread his hands.

"Cultivation turns qi into power. Investment banking turns money into institutions. Both are paths to immortality." Leo had heard variations of this pitch at least a dozen times over the years, even before he transmigrated. Although the cultivation analogy was interesting, it still didn't make any sense to him.

"So you're an overpaid cheerleader." His father's eye twitched.