The doors of the Golden Lotus Auction House slammed shut as four heavily armored medics dragged the unconscious body of Quinn Cartier out of the main hall.The silence left in the wake of the Cartier heir’s collapse was deafening. The capital’s elite, the dukes, guild masters, and aristocratic prodigies stared at the tinted glass of VIP Box Seven with absolute, unadulterated dread. They had just witnessed a financial execution.Up in the VIP box, Yuchen casually popped another imported grape into his mouth."You are a menace to society," Taion muttered, floating above Yuchen’s shoulder. The chibi administrator shook his head, staring at the system interface. "You just triggered a big shift in the capital's economic balance. The Cartier family's stock in the mana-crystal trade is going to plummet by morning.""The market naturally corrects itself, Taion," Yuchen replied smoothly, wiping his fingers on a silk napkin. "They were overvalued. I simply provided the reality check. Now, let’s

It was scorching hot.It had been a full month since the alleyway attack in the capital. Yuchen had barely survived the Syndicate’s assassins, but he had dragged himself out of the hospital bed with a new goal. He needed a fresh market, a place where his wealth could grow without the old noble families breathing down his neck. Vanguard City was a booming frontier hub, built directly on top of the largest unmapped territory in the kingdom.Today was the Annual Expedition Run. Thousands of adventurers, mercenaries, and merchants were gathered in the massive dirt courtyard outside the city gates, waiting for the horns to blow.Yuchen stood near the back of the crowd. He wore a brand-new set of dark, lightweight leather armor. His left arm was completely healed, and his golden eyes were sharp."I still think this is a terrible idea," Taion said. The chibi administrator sat on Yuchen’s shoulder, eating a spectral piece of toast. "You just recovered. And now you are willingly walking into a

Yuchen stood at the edge of the shattered path, watching the Ironclad Guild members scramble into the hidden escape route he had provided. He did not waste time watching them leave. Every second spent in this crumbling tier was money ticking away from his operational budget. He turned his attention back to the solid stone ground beneath his feet. The tremors from his initial harvest were still causing small pebbles to dance across the dirt, but the true prize lay much deeper."Merchant Gaze," Yuchen commanded softly.His eyes flared with that familiar, intense golden light. The thick layers of solid bedrock beneath him seemed to dissolve, turning into sheets of translucent gray glass. His gaze pierced down through the deep strata of the ruins, passing the standard hunting zones entirely. There, buried in the raw, unmapped lower tiers, he saw it. A massive, densely packed cluster of premium Spirit Iron cores was throbbing with a rich purple light. It was twice as large as the vein he h

Yuchen closed his ledger with a sharp click. He reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a small glass vial filled with a simple red liquid. He held it out to Seraphina, who was still sitting against the damp stone wall, rubbing her bruised wrists where the anti-magic chains had just been removed."A standard low-tier health potion," Yuchen said, his voice flat. "It will heal the skin irritation from those shackles and restore fifty points of stamina. The market price in the city is twenty silver coins. However, given the extreme delivery hazard of this deep tier, I am adding a fifty percent convenience markup. That will be thirty silver coins added to your active invoice."Seraphina stared at the red bottle in his hand, her jaw dropping. Her pale face flushed with deep indignation. She looked from the vial up to Yuchen’s calm, unblinking golden eyes behind his dark glasses."Are you serious right now?" she asked, her voice shaking with disbelief. "I just signed away half of my pe

Yuchen and Seraphina burst out of the narrow side-tunnel and entered the upper staging area of the ruins. The air here was white with thick limestone dust. This large stone hall was the final room before the surface gate, but the path to safety was completely blocked. The shifting stone walls of the mountain had squeezed the frame of the exit. The massive iron portcullis, a gate built from thick, reinforced black iron, was jammed solid halfway down its tracks. It hung like a row of broken teeth, blocking the light of the sun."Let us out! Open the gate!" a mercenary screamed, throwing his entire body against the immovable iron bars.Hundreds of panicked adventurers were packed tightly into the small hall. The crowd was a chaotic mess of iron armor, torn cloaks, and waving weapons. Men and women were screaming, pushing, and trampling each other against the base of the gate as the floor beneath them rolled like water. The deep, thunderous roar of the collapsing lower tiers was growing l