Chapter 551: Eight Trigrams

How much money is ever enough?

Li Cheng rubbed his hands frantically, his mouth curling upward as if he’d just heard Karyu Sana 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 peculiarities.

【Child of Weather ID】: Consumes lifespan to control surrounding weather, generating phenomena such as rain, hurricanes, thunderstorms, clear skies, and hail.

For large guilds operating on a national scale, this is highly useful—turning typhoons that would cause losses of tens or hundreds of billions in the real world into clear skies.

Or use it long-term in a desert to turn it into an inland sea.

Some transcendentals who rely on terrain advantages might find it useful too.

【Inferno Torch Rock Band Guitar】: A guitar wreathed in flames that inflicts soul burns on the user.

Playing a complete song summons a specified demon; given the “rock band” prefix, there’s probably also a drum kit, bass, and keyboard.

【Eternal Pursuit Snail】: Literally an ordinary gray-tipped garden snail. Once released, it is 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 see the snail’s location at all times; upon contact, it inflicts massive damage, even direct death.

The cost: until activation, it locks the summoner’s mana cap at 100 points lower.

A classic, brutally restrictive Rule-level annoyance item—probably useful for certain transcendentals in large guilds with highly specialized power systems. Maybe.

The final item was a skill scroll: 【Sacred Body Transformation】—temporarily changes the user’s race to a Water Sprite, allowing redistribution of the six core attributes: Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Constitution, Perception, and Charisma.

At first glance, the skill seems absurd—switching from 16 Strength and 12 Agility to 16 Agility and 12 Strength makes no real difference.

But think deeper: for specialists, especially Charm-build players, this is incredibly powerful.

When ordinary people become Chosen Ones, they naturally have an average of 5 points in Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Constitution, Perception, and Charisma; those with better innate talent may have 6 or 7.

With 【Sacred Body Transformation】, you could temporarily stack one character to have 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 Succubus ProPlusUltra.

Every gesture, every movement could charm hearts—Daji herself couldn’t match it.

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

Li Cheng couldn’t help but marvel. Charm-build players are at a severe disadvantage 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, that’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 couldn’t coexist with his Insect Transformation state, and he had no gear or skills that required maxing out one attribute to unleash maximum power.

“None of the four Epics suit me. Sure, probability-wise it makes sense, but I still feel cheated.”

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

【Item Name: Bagua Alchemical Cannon】

【Type: Weapon】

【Attack Power: Unknown】

【Quality: Legendary】

【Effect: Heaven and Earth Throw. Can be loaded with any transcendent material, item, or skill scroll; fires projectiles of varying properties based on the item’s mystery essence. Projectiles manifest as skills.】【Cost: Depends on the mystery of the loaded item, minimum 20 points】

【Cooldown: 3 seconds】

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

【Note: All loaded items must belong to the user. Only one item per loading. After loading, the projectile’s properties are visibly displayed. Loaded items can be fully removed; removal is limited to 8 times per day.】

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

“Pfft.”

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

Probably ripped straight from some cultivation world where some Jiajing Daoist actually achieved true enlightenment.

As a Legendary item, the 【Bagua Alchemical Cannon】’s price was worthy of its quality—even at a 35% discount, it still cost 207,000 game coins.

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

Li Cheng stared, wide-eyed, glancing again at the 【Merciful Soul-Chanting Gloves】—finally gaining new insight into the true 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 being inflated.

The number was simply too huge; even a mid-sized guild would struggle immensely to raise that much cash. Only a large guild’s top leadership could authorize it.

And game coins in Lujie circulate only among players. Hand them over to the system, and they’re truly reclaimed by the Arena—possibly even alerting the Lujie Neighborhood Committee.

“The VIP Experience Card’s personal shop slot remains indefinitely unless the player manually refreshes it. I’m getting the 【Bagua Alchemical Cannon】—as for the money—”

Li Cheng checked his currency bar. Thanks to his long-term contract with the Special Affairs Bureau, the Casting Star Anvil’s quarterly revenue had increased by 7.5% quarter-over-quarter.

The shop’s account balance was 60,000 game coins; he had 25,000 on him, plus 8,000 from this haul—totaling 91,000.

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

The shop’s 60,000 game coins were mostly customer prepayments and payments for external artifact purchases. Using them privately was embezzlement, punishable by law. But the shop had only two living people: Chairman Li Cheng and General Manager Huiyu—no one would report him.

Even if someone did report him, the Lujie SEC had a Truth-side elder brother on the 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: “Who’s this hidden logistics master suddenly dumping stock?”

“Eternal Pursuit Snail? This event is less appealing than choosing between IQ 200 or $30 billion.”

“Don’t believe in the four Epics—it’s definitely a large guild dumping to boost market confidence. Economic conditions are bad, jobs are hard to find, this kind of thing will only get more common. Everyone, learn alien languages. I’m off 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 satire and trolling were common.