The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

I sat in my room, writing letters after letters, and going through a heap of documents. Somehow, even after the auction had ended, my work had only continued to grow. Even superhuman strength, speed, reflexes and a general lack of need to sleep and eat no longer felt enough. I felt like I needed two more arms at the very least. Had I still had my twin around, we’d likely be working together on this.

Still, even though the work was never ending, the task was done. The auction had gone… better than I’d expected, was all I could say. I still didn’t have the final tally, lots of contracts and agreements and payment methods that had all been arriving over the last week, but the number was substantial. The five families had replied quickly too, and not a single one had held back from my offer. Huo and Yue had not so subtly tried to outbid the others, and the Zhao had used their authority to try and get more than one of the books for themselves, but the other families had protested as I’d anticipated and I’d managed to regulate things so that each family ended up with one of the books, in the end. I did not want to skew the power balance of things this early on and those books were ticking time bombs in many ways. Each passing day strengthened their influence in the world and whatever spirit would come to exist within them, I was happy to have it off my hands and someone else’s problem now.

I sighed, though the good kind of sigh, if such a thing even existed, as I felt the weight on my back starting to slowly melt away. I almost wanted to melt in a puddle, and if I could, I would, but I settled for just leaning on my desk with my head down and feeling the relief of getting this giant burden off my back.

Still, my job was not yet complete, one last step still needed to be done before I could finally breathe freely.

Before my thoughts could get wrapped up in the upcoming last hurdle, I heard a knock on the door. “Come in,” I said, sitting back up straight. Yu Lan strutted forth into the room, hair swaying behind her as she walked up to me and bowed.

“Master Lu Jie, the final preparations are complete and we have the tallies ready,” Yu Lan said. For some reason she called me master now, but I didn’t question it.

“Oh, it’s done?” I asked, glancing back at the woman. In a rare display, she looked up, a bright smile on her face. “Yes.”

“What about the contracts?” I asked.

“We’ve gotten all the contracts readied and filed for official permits, the noble lords have all agreed to the terms, and the agreement will be enforced and backed by the five families,” Yu Lan said.

“Good,” I replied. It had taken a lot of work to settle out the exact terms. Outside of the items sold, the information had to be sold on terms, and the merchants that possessed it had agreed to different terms based on how much they paid and what the item was. The term only extended to a maximum of fifteen years for exclusive rights, with the general right of usage being a hundred years. I didn’t mind that, I definitely needed to give them something for the amount being paid, and others will be able to reverse engineer things over time on their own. It was partly why I made sure a single person couldn’t just grab it all and establish a monopoly with ease and had distributed different key elements required for the overall network to flourish across different groups.

“What about the agreement with the five families?” I asked.

“For the five families, they will possess the divine texts and will not freely share them with anyone outside of their inner clan members. They have also agreed to solely work through you, for implementation of said information, and have all collectively agreed to enforce this. The Jade Court has given its mark on the contract as well, implementing it under the emperor’s name,” Yu Lan said.

Alright, that was the best case scenario that I could’ve hoped for. Having them check each other and the Jade Court settling disputes would make matters a lot easier for me. Having the families utilize me to make good use of the texts also allowed me to have some control and make sure they couldn’t just abuse the information and gave opportunities to my sect to grow via this trade.

With all of that done, only one more thing remained to be seen.

“So, how much is it?” I asked. At my words, I almost felt like I could see gold coins flashing in her eyes. She shivered a little, and I couldn’t tell why.

“Master- I think… I think it’s better if you see it for yourself. We’ve brought it to the manor,” she said.

I raised my eyebrow, wondering if there was something wrong. “Alright, show me,” I said, standing up as I followed behind Yu Lan. Walking outside I made my way out and saw flustered servants running around everywhere. Even Guoren looked nervous and sweaty. “Lord Jie, this… this is a bit much. I know you’d told us to expect the sum but to have this…” he trailed off. I noticed a dozen armed men moving around, keeping their eyes out as they moved large chests around into an inner chamber.

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“What’s… happening here?” I asked, glancing at Yu Lan.

The woman’s face was flushed, an… excited look on her face. There was another way to describe her expression as well, but I chose to remain polite, even in my thoughts. She looked at me and bowed her head.

“Those are the chests with the proceedings that belong to your share,” she replied.

“Huh,” I said, glancing at the chests. “Did a lot of them pay in gold or something?”

“Actually, we got payments in a lot of different forms. Some families even tried to sell us some artifacts to make up for some differences, but for your convenience and after some management, I sorted it all into a uniform setup, keeping only gold and spirit jade,” Yu Lan said, as we walked up to the room with the chests sorted together. Powerful wards hummed, and two armed mens stood guard, even within the estate, at the entrance of the gate.

“Well, you’ve got me intrigued now. And I can tell that you’re trying to string me along. You got me, I’m curious. How much is it?”

Yu Lan bit her lips, looking at me, and then spoke with a quiver in her voice. “We got… forty seven thousand, six hundred and ninety two spirit jade as the final sum.”

I frowned, the number not parsing immediately. Silently, I converted it to gold, and I almost stumbled back. 4.76 million gold pieces. I’d once done some calculations to equate the worth of a gold piece in this world to money back home, and had roughly settled on a conversion of one gold being equal to about ten grand. And if that conversion remained accurate then… I had just earned forty billion over night.

I looked at Yu Lan, and the woman truly seemed lost in thought. I turned towards the chests and could feel the powerful aura of Qi emanating from all the spirit jade, like a torrential storm. No wonder there were guards standing everywhere. This much money was enough to tempt the emperor.

“Is… is that accurate?” I asked, looking at Yu Lan.

“We redid the tally thrice. It’s entirely correct. What you see here is forty thousand spirit jade, and fifty three thousand eight hundred twenty gold coins,” the woman said.

“Jesus christ,” I cursed, forgetting myself for a moment.

“I thank you for bringing this opportunity to us, Master Lu Jie. If ever you need to do anything, merely speak my name and I will be here at your service,” Yu Lan said, bowing her head deeply.

I nodded to the woman, simply taking in everything for the moment as I looked at the amount of money.

“I will, thanks,” I said, and Yu Lan bowed, taking her leave. The doors to the chamber closed behind me, and I stood in front of the chests, still taking everything in. I’d had plans, and I’d had the vision for things, but it still felt strange to see it actualized like this in front of me. It almost felt unreal, like I was dreaming or something. Yet I knew that this was real, that this really was happening.

I walked up to the chests, putting my hand on it. What would past me think, if he could see me right now? The answer… depended on which “me” I was talking about. The me before I remembered my life on earth would simply faint from the shock, and the me who did remember the life and had arrived here… might also just faint from the shock, after I told him exactly how much this money was worth.

The thought brought a smile to my face. In many ways, I felt like I’d only truly arrived in this world about a year ago. But at the same time, it felt like this was something I’d been working towards for almost twenty years now. Maybe, in some ways, even longer. Yet, somehow, in just one year, I’d gone from a no name waste in a provincial sect to… all this. Time didn’t feel like it made sense anymore. It felt like it had been so much longer, and yet also, simultaneously a blink of the eye.

This was the culmination of all my efforts.

As I stood here, simply thinking, I couldn’t help but want to do just one thing. A desire I think everyone had of doing at least once in their lifetimes.

I walked around, opening each chest one by one and being blinded by the shimmering spirit jade and gold counts inside. As I did, I began to dump their contents out, a smile plastered on my face that began to extend into a wide shit eating grin as I finished my money mountain.

I looked upon it with the pride, joy and emotional connection of an artist gazing upon his masterpiece and without further ado, I ran into the pile, leaping into the mountain. I laughed, and swam through the midst, though it was rather suffocating and the spirit jade hurt my skin, so I wouldn’t really recommend doing this. After pulling myself out, I simply sat on top of my pile of money, as I watched over the room.

Even with all the will power in the world, I couldn’t stop the cackling laughter that burst forth from inside of me. I laughed and laughed forgetting that the guards outside could probably hear me as I sat atop the money mountain, feeling on top of the very world. I almost felt bad, like I was some evil villain plotting the end of the world and empire.

I guess in some ways I was certainly working hard to put the current empire into the grave. And right now, if I wanted, I felt like I could take over the empire.

But as the exhilaration faded and the laughter died, the weight of the money slowly began to sink in. This wasn’t just for fun, this wasn’t for me to spend on luxuries and I didn’t care for those things either.

This was to prepare for war, a grim one, that could spell the end of this empire if we were not careful. This money was the bonfire I had worked really hard to create, which I would light on fire to herald a new age into existence. It wasn’t mine to spend, in many ways, this money’s worth, I owed it to the people who’d all helped me come this far.

Sliding down my money mountain, I dusted myself off. I had my fun, and my plan worked. Now only one thing remained.

Going to the Alchemy Halls.

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