Chương 61: A Price He Can't Pay (3/3)

I mean… that makes sense. He understood the structural vulnerability of her position perfectly—the way her fingers had curled against the mahogany table's edge, the faint tremor in her voice when she spoke of the City Lord's watchers. It was standard geopolitics: a cold-war arms race where one side was about to acquire a nuclear deterrent.

But… Shi Yan tilted his head a fraction of an inch, the movement so slight that the dripping water from his bamboo hat's brim barely shifted its rhythm. His hidden gaze rested steadily on her through the woven veil of his rain-soaked hat, pale irises tracking the minute tension in her jaw. Does that look like my problem? That is purely your problem, girl.

His facial muscles didn't move—not a single twitch in his cheek, not the slightest narrowing of his eyes—but a deep, cynical sigh echoed in the back of his mind, reverberating against the distant drumming of rain on paper-paned windows. He was a foreign soul shoved into a violently oppressed society, existing solely on borrowed time and biological fuel. Every breath he drew carried the mineral scent of wet stone and the cloying sweetness of cassia incense, reminders that this world was not his, would never be his.

He wasn't a knight errant or a righteous hero from the orthodox tales—the kind who strode through mountain passes with swords gleaming and righteousness blazing. He operated on the simple, brutal logic of a Private Military Contractor: you do not fight a war for a client whose payout comes after you are likely dead.

Can I just switch factions? His finger tapped rhythmically and soundlessly against the fabric of his dark cloak, the calloused pad making no noise against the rain-dampened weave. The sodden carpet beneath his boots squelched faintly as he shifted his weight.

Take the three hundred spirit stones, the five thousand silver taels, and walk away. Even if no other faction accepts me, I can just buy a new Cadaver Writ, move to another city, and hide in the mud, right? Why should I do this massive, suicidal storyline quest just to preserve your seat of power?

That was his initial, immediate instinct. Evade the unquantifiable threat. Preserve the asset. Survive. The kind of cold calculus that had kept him breathing through firefights and extraction zones in his previous life.

It was a perfectly sound tactical choice—until… he recalled what his status screen looked like. The amber lamplight flickered against the invisible interface that only he could perceive, casting shifting shadows across the translucent text.

[Host Entity:] Foreign Soul Merged [Heavenly Alignment:] NULL (Daoless) [Vessel Status:] STABLE [Current Dao Embers:] 35, 275 Dao Embers [ATTRIBUTES] Physique: 55 (Tier-2, Mid / Roaring Hearth) Might: 55 (Tier-2, Mid / Roaring Hearth) Agility: 55 (Tier-2, Mid / Roaring Hearth) Spirit: 5 (Tier-1, Mortal Shell) Anomaly: 10 (System Override Tier) [SYSTEM DIRECTIVES & TRAITS] Daoless Vessel: Ambient Qi absorption disabled. Immune to baseline spiritual pressure.

Vessel Leak Suppressed: Metabolic containment active at baseline.

Combat Sieve Effect: Stamina drains at 400% during active Arts.

[TECHNIQUE ARSENAL] Phantom-Ash Veil (Lv 2 - Masterhood): Physiological toggle. Can project a fake aura ranging from blank void up to Peak Tier-2.

Black-Iron Body Art (Lv 2 - Masterhood): Kinetic Multiplier. Doubles physical output (Effective Force: 110) for 180 seconds.

Blood-Ignition Flash Step (Lv 1 - Novice): Supersonic physical dash. 30-second cooldown. Heavy recoil.

At first glance, it was a terrifyingly optimized loadout—the kind of arsenal that would make veteran mercenaries weep with envy. It was decent enough that the majority of cultivators he had encountered so far, hovering in the Tier-1 or early Tier-2 ranges—those pompous disciples with their silk robes and jade pendants—were nothing more than walking targets. Soft meat wrapped in expensive cloth.

Unless I foolishly march past the heavy arrays into the Inner Wards. For now, he was virtually untouchable in the Outer Wards, where the mud ran ankle-deep and the stench of night-soil carts mingled with desperation. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Not to mention the trump card of his [Black-Iron Body Art]. When activated, it violently doubled his physical kinetic output, a sensation like liquid fire surging through muscle fiber and bone marrow, bringing his effective strength to a staggering 110. His calloused fingers flexed unconsciously against his knee at the phantom memory of that power—the way stone crumbled like clay, the way bones snapped like kindling.

And from the look of it, that seemed equivalent to the early or even mid stages of the famous Tier-3 experts—the so-called Shattered-Halo Realm. Perhaps…

Of course, that was strictly raw physical force.

I mean, I'm basically no different than a Body cultivator right now. Just meat and momentum.

But those Qi Cultivators at that tier possessed domains that could freeze the air itself, spatial locks that turned escape routes into cages, and terrifying magical artifacts—talismans that screamed with captured lightning, blades that drank souls. They rarely relied on bare fists.

Still, it was more than enough to crush a senior sect disciple into bloody paste. He'd seen the results firsthand—the way ribs caved inward, the wet crunch of a sternum collapsing.

But so what? It's not like he would often encounter them. The powerful stayed in their mountain pavilions and Inner Ward courtyards, drinking spirit wine and meditating on profound truths. They didn't wade through mud.

Yet there was an invisible, suffocating ceiling pressing down on him, as oppressive as the thick incense smoke coiling between him and Su Yin.

His lips twitched in a rare expression of sheer frustration—a microscopic downward curl at the corners, gone almost before it formed—as he stared at the supposedly "abundant" resource of his 35, 275 Dao Embers. The numbers glowed in his mind's eye like a taunt.

My growth… is completely stuck, Shi Yan sighed inwardly, the sound swallowed by the relentless patter of rain against the windows.

The Sieve Effect—the terrifying 400% stamina drain he suffered during combat, like trying to run a marathon while hemorrhaging from every pore—meant he had to constantly cage his own power. Three minutes of peak performance, and then his body would betray him, muscles seizing, lungs burning, vision tunneling.

To survive stronger enemies, he couldn't just rely on a three-minute burst window. He needed to raise his baseline stats into the Tier-3 realm, needed raw endurance that could outlast his opponents' techniques. He needed a foundation capable of ignoring magical oppression entirely—the kind of bone-deep resilience that let you shrug off spiritual pressure like winter wind.

But that did not answer the question of why he did not immediately refuse Su Yin's offer. Why he hadn't already pushed back from this mahogany table, tipped his bamboo hat in mock courtesy, and walked out into the rain-soaked darkness.

It was because— System, once again, run a simulation. How much will it cost to raise [Physique], [Agility], and [Might] from exactly 55 to 71?

He already knew the answer—had run the calculation once before and felt his stomach drop like he'd stepped off a cliff—but to convince himself before responding to the offer, he told the system to run it once more. Sometimes you had to see the nightmare twice to believe it was real.

The blue interface flickered, pale characters swimming across his vision like phosphorescence in dark water.

[System Calculation Request: Confirmed.] [Physique: 55 → 60 (5 pts × 300) = 1, 500 Dao Embers] [Physique: 60 → 70 (10 pts × 5, 000) = 50, 000 Dao Embers] [Physique: 70 → 71 (1 pt × 50, 000) = 50, 000 Dao Embers] [Might: 55 → 60 (5 pts × 300) = 1, 500 Dao Embers] [Might: 60 → 70 (10 pts × 5, 000) = 50, 000 Dao Embers] [Might: 70 → 71 (1 pt × 50, 000) = 50, 000 Dao Embers] [Agility: 55 → 60 (5 pts × 300) = 1, 500 Dao Embers] [Agility: 60 → 70 (10 pts × 5, 000) = 50, 000 Dao Embers] [Agility: 70 → 71 (1 pt × 50, 000) = 50, 000 Dao Embers] [Total Deduction: 304, 500 Dao Embers. Remaining Reserve: INSUFFICIENT (-269, 225)] [Recommendation: Seek higher-density prey.] Shi Yan closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, the only outward sign of the nausea churning in his gut. The darkness behind his eyelids offered no comfort—only the afterimage of those numbers, burning like brands. If anyone had been able to see his face beneath the bamboo hat, they would have seen a man who looked like he had just been handed a terminal diagnosis.

The kind of expression soldiers wore when the medic shook his head and stepped back.

The cold in his expression had long since shattered and drained away, leaving only pallor as he gritted his teeth. The muscle in his jaw jumped once, twice, a tiny spasm of rage and helplessness.

Yes. That still doesn't make any sense.

He was numb; this was the second time he had seen it, and the shock had calcified into something harder, colder—resignation mixed with fury.

Astronomical. That is pure bullshit, he cursed inwardly, the profanity sharp and satisfying even if only he could hear it.

The first time he had discovered his current balance of 35K+—after gutting the Cloud-Mirror Elder in that blood-soaked chamber, after watching the man's life force convert into glowing embers—he had genuinely believed he was wealthy. Rich beyond measure. A king among beggars.

He had wanted to see how many stat points he could rapidly acquire to simply outscale his enemies, to become the kind of overwhelming force that crushed opposition through sheer numerical superiority. But the result of this simulation didn't just give him a migraine; it violently shattered his entire long-term plan. Smashed it into fragments as surely as a hammer through porcelain.

The whole reason he ran the simulation a second time was because he had hoped the previous calculation was just pure bullshit—a glitch, an error, some cosmic joke at his expense—but now?

It completely broke the immersion! I'm not even familiar with the city yet, and I only took one commission, and now you're telling me this is the cost to upgrade my stats? He was stressed; his veins throbbed beneath his temples, a dull ache building behind his eyes that matched the rhythm of the rain. The bone-deep chill from his soaked clothing suddenly felt heavier, more oppressive.

To accommodate this? He would need to go all out, hunt like a starving wolf, take risks that made the Cloud-Mirror job look like a training exercise—but…

I can't just take ten regular bounty commissions from the Pavilion, tsk. The exponential cost from 70 to 71 alone is staggering. Fifty thousand embers for a single point—it was obscene, grotesque in its greed. It makes no mathematical sense to stay in the shallows.

As far as he knew, executing the Cloud-Mirror Inner Elder—a man who had spent who knew how long reaching that realm, decades of bitter cultivation and spiritual refinement—had only yielded +25, 000 [Dao Embers]. One life, one powerful soul, converted into currency.

And now the system was telling him to hunt men like that Elder? Two of them just to increase one stat point? The arithmetic was brutal: twelve high-tier kills minimum to reach his goal. Twelve men who commanded disciples, who wore authority like armor, who could reduce ordinary cultivators to ash with a gesture.

Where the hell am I going to find fifteen isolated, high-tier Elders in the Outer Wards? Shi Yan's brow furrowed beneath the shadow of his hat, the skin crinkling in frustration.

He can't.

It was practically, logically impossible. The powerful didn't wander alone through muddy streets like lost sheep waiting for slaughter.

Unless I try to farm 300, 000 [Dao Embers] by killing thousands of street-tier thugs and Iron-Blood guards, I'll trigger city-wide martial law within three days. Bodies piling up in alleys, blood running in the gutters, whispers of a demon stalking the night. The City Lord himself would come down to execute me for disrupting the economy—not for justice, but because corpses were bad for business.

Not to mention that that only covered upgrading his attributes. He also needed to save for emergency situations like healing—severed tendons, shattered bones, spiritual contamination—for who knew how much it would cost depending on the type of injury he suffered. The system's prices were capricious, arbitrary, cruel.

Let's not talk about it. High-yield, viable targets like Physician Li were incredibly rare—anomalies in the ecosystem, powerful enough to be worth the risk but isolated enough to kill without immediate consequences.

And now… which brought him right back to the woman sitting quietly across from him. Su Yin's obsidian eyes caught the lamplight, twin points of reflected amber that watched him with predatory patience. She hadn't moved during his long silence, hadn't fidgeted or pressed—just waited, like a hunter who knew the trap was already sprung.

This was the solitary reason Shi Yan hadn't simply stood up, taken his silver, and walked out the door halfway through Su Yin's political speech. Not loyalty, not righteousness, not even curiosity—just cold, brutal mathematics. The calculus of survival in a world that demanded impossible prices.

And also, she had mentioned a 'Shattered Realm.'

Basically a secret realm, like in xianxia novels?