Chapter 531: Eight Trigrams

How much money is ever enough?

Li Cheng rubbed his hands furiously, his mouth curling upward as if he'd just heard Karyu Sanae had become prime minister.

Twenty items had varying discounts—some at 85%, others slashed straight to 50%, half price.

Perfect-quality items were roughly the same; at Li Cheng's current level, he either didn't care or couldn't use them. The remaining four Epic items each had their own quirks.

【Child of Weather ID】, consumes lifespan to control surrounding weather, capable of generating rain, hurricanes, thunderstorms, clear skies, hail, and other meteorological phenomena.

Useful for large guilds with national-scale operations—can turn typhoons capable of causing hundreds of billions or trillions in real-world damage into clear skies.

Or use it long-term in deserts to turn them into inland seas.

Some transcendents requiring terrain advantages might find it useful too.

【Infernal Torch Rock Band Guitar】, a guitar wreathed in flames that inflicts soul burns on the user.

Playing a complete song can summon a specified demon; given the "rock band" prefix, there's probably a drum kit, bass, and keyboard too.

【Eternal Pursuit Snail】, literally an ordinary gray-tipped garden snail—once released, it remains unaffected by any external forces (including its summoner) and continuously crawls toward its target.

The snail possesses quantum tunneling effects, able to pass through any sealed space, and is immortal. The target can remotely see the snail's position; upon contact, it inflicts massive damage, even direct death effects.

The cost is that until activation, the summoner's Qi capacity cap is locked at 100 points lower.

A classic, brutally restrictive Rule-level annoyance item—might be useful for certain transcendents in large guilds with highly specialized power systems. Probably.

The final item was a skill scroll: 【Sacred Body Transformation】, temporarily changing one's race to a Water Sprite, during which time the six attributes—Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Constitution, Perception, and Charisma—are redistributed.

At first glance, the skill seems humorous—16 Strength and 12 Agility becomes 16 Agility and 12 Strength with no essential difference.

But upon closer thought, it's incredibly powerful for specialized builds, especially Charm-focused players.

Because when ordinary people become Chosen Ones, they inherently carry average 5 points in Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Constitution, Perception, and Charisma; those with better talent might have 6 or 7.

If one masters 【Sacred Body Transformation】 and redistributes attributes, one can temporarily stack a character with Strength, Agility, Constitution, and Perception all at 1 point, Intelligence at 4 (just enough to avoid being an idiot), and Charisma soaring to 30 or even 40—a Super Charm Demon ProPlusUltra.

Every gesture and movement could charm hearts; even Da Ji herself couldn't match it.

"This is like a Guangzhou person trying Chongqing hotpot for the first time—way too spicy."

Li Cheng couldn't help but marvel—Charm-focused players are severely disadvantaged in pure puzzle or pure combat missions, but if they can develop long-term and lure in two or three, even seven or eight script bosses, it's a whole different story.

Unfortunately, although 【Sacred Body Transformation】 was unique, it didn't suit Li Cheng's power system.

The Water Sprite race cannot coexist with his Insect Transformation state, and he had no equipment or skills requiring one attribute to be maximized for maximum potency.

"None of the four Epics suit me. Even if probability theory explains it, I still feel cheated."

He muttered to himself, turning to the final Legendary item.

【Item Name: Bagua Alchemical Cannon】

【Type: Weapon】

【Attack Power: Unknown】

【Quality: Legendary】

【Effect: Heaven and Earth Throw. Can load any transcendental material, item, or skill scroll; based on its mystery essence, fires projectiles of different properties. Projectiles manifest as skills.】【Cost: Depends on the mystery of the loaded item, minimum not less than 20 points】

【Cooldown: 3 seconds】

【Usage Requirement: Level ≥ 25, Intelligence ≥ 20】

【Note: All loaded items must belong to the user; only one item can be loaded per shot. After loading, the projectile's properties are visibly displayed. Loaded items can be fully retrieved; retrieval is limited to 8 times per day.】

【Note: This is an ancient, weathered bronze furnace, engraved on its front with a verse—Form refined like a crane, beneath a thousand pines two scrolls of scripture. I came to ask the Dao, no words remain—clouds in the blue sky, water in the bottle.】

"Puh."

Li Cheng nearly spat out his soda—aside from everything else, that final note's verse was utterly ridiculous.

Probably the system plucked it from some script world where a real Daoist from the Jiajing era had actually cultivated to enlightenment.

As a Legendary item, 【Bagua Alchemical Cannon】's price was worthy of its quality—even after a 65% discount, it still cost 207,000 game coins.

"So the original price was 310,000 game coins? No way."

Li Cheng stared in shock, glancing at the 【Merciful Soul-Chanting Gloves】 again, gaining new insight into the value of Legendary items.

310,000 game coins couldn't be directly equated to 3.1 billion in the real world—not even considering the black-market exchange rate was usually inflated.

The number 310,000 was simply too huge; even a mid-sized guild would struggle immensely to raise that much cash. Even large guilds would need top-level meetings.

And game coins in Lujie circulated only among players; handing them to the system meant they were truly reclaimed by the Arena—possibly even alerting the Lujie Neighborhood Committee.

"The VIP Experience Card's personal Shangcheng slot remains permanently unless the player actively refreshes it. 【Bagua Alchemical Cannon】—I'm getting it. As for the money—"

Li Cheng glanced at his currency bar; thanks to his long-term contract with the Special Affairs Bureau, Zhu Xing Zhen Tai's quarterly revenue had grown 7.5% quarter-over-quarter.

The shop's account had 60,000 game coins remaining; he personally had 25,000, plus the 8,000 reward from this haul—totaling 91,000.

He immediately told Huiyu, logged into Lujie, and listed 【Child of Weather ID】 and 【Sacred Body Transformation】 skill scroll on the auction house.

The shop's 60,000 game coins were mostly customer prepayments and payments for procuring artifacts from outside. Using them privately counted as embezzlement and carried penalties. But the shop had only two living people: Chairman Li Cheng and General Manager Huiyu—no one would report him.

Even if someone outside reported him, the Lujie SEC had a Truth-side elder brother inside.

Young man, you've got connections. I've got nobody. jpg

As expected, the moment the four Epic items were listed, they attracted scalpers and large guild's quantitative trading AIs like blood to sharks.

Within 60 seconds, auction prices skyrocketed.

The 【Reset to Zero】 quest lasted two days; many players had already returned to the real world. News of the four Epics instantly trended, exploding across forums.

Everywhere he looked, threads read: 【Which reclusive logistics powerhouse suddenly dumped stock?】

【Eternal Pursuit Snail? This event feels less like a game and more like choosing between IQ 200 or $30 billion】

【Don't believe in four Epics—it's definitely a large guild dumping stock to boost market confidence. Economic conditions are bad, jobs are hard to find, this kind of thing will only get more common. Everyone should study alien languages. I'm done—I'm going to get my Mars green card.】

Ugh. Li Cheng's expression twisted as he glanced at the forum—high-level users could pay for membership to hide past posts, so absurd satirical comments were common.