Quote of the Day: "A good manager turns liabilities into assets. A great one turns enemies into subsidiaries."
---
The grim determination lasted precisely as long as it took for Lin Feng to take his first unassisted step. His new body protested with a symphony of aches and a profound lack of stamina. It was like piloting a rusted, broken-down mech. Elder Bai moved to help him, but a sharp glance from Lin Feng froze the old man in his tracks. Accepting help was a sign of weakness, and weakness was a data point he refused to provide, even to a supposed ally.
"Show me everything," Lin Feng commanded, his voice still rough but laced with undeniable authority. "The storage. The brewing area. The... formation core."
Elder Bai, looking utterly bewildered, led him on a brief, depressing tour. The "Serene Heart Teahouse" was even smaller than he'd thought. The main room was the shopfront. A tiny, cluttered kitchen served as the "brewing area," containing a single, low-grade spirit kettle. A door behind the counter led to a single, spartan bedroom—presumably his—and a small storage closet that held a few sacks of what looked like common tea leaves and the seven wilted spiritual herbs.
It was the barest of operations. A lemonade stand would have had more robust infrastructure.
His eyes, however, were drawn to the center of the main room. Faint, almost invisible lines were etched into the wooden floorboards, converging on a small, dull grey crystal the size of his thumb. The [Basic Qi-Gathering Formation (Efficiency: 3%)].
It was an abomination.
His mind, trained to optimize multi-billion-dollar supply chains, recoiled at the inefficiency. The lines were misaligned by a fraction of a millimeter in several places. The flow of that faint, energetic current—the Qi—was bottlenecked at three separate nodes. The core crystal itself was clouded with impurities, like a dirty battery.
"This is it?" Lin Feng asked, his voice flat.
Elder Bai sighed, a sound of long-held defeat. "It is all we can afford. It gathers enough ambient Qi to mildly enhance the tea. It used to be better, but the crystal is old..."
Lin Feng wasn't listening. He was cross-referencing. The System's ledger listed the formation's efficiency at 3%. His own intuitive assessment, born from a lifetime of analyzing complex systems, placed it at maybe 2.5%. The waste was criminal.
This was his first target. An operation couldn't function without power. In this world, Qi was power.
"Where are the formation schematics?" Lin Feng asked.
"Schematics? Feng'er, such things are closely guarded secrets of formation masters. We have only the basic maintenance ritual, passed down through our family." Elder Bai looked at him as if he'd asked for the moon.
No data. No blueprints. Fantastic. He would have to work from first principles.
"Leave me," Lin Feng said, his gaze fixed on the formation. "I need to... assess our primary asset."
After a moment's hesitation, Elder Bai retreated to the kitchen, the weight of his worry a palpable force in the thin air.
Alone, Lin Feng knelt, ignoring the protest of his weak muscles. He focused on the formation, trying to feel the Qi flow the way the memories of the previous owner suggested. It was like trying to read a foreign language with a splitting headache. Faint traces of energy, cool and gossamer-thin, trickled through the lines, but the sensation was maddeningly elusive.
He reached out, his finger hovering over a particularly egregious misalignment where two etched lines failed to meet perfectly. The Qi stuttered there, like water hitting a dam. His instinct, the same one that told him which division to axe or which stock to short, screamed that this was a critical failure point.
[New Skill Unlocked: Meridian Sight (Basic).]
The world shifted. The faint lines on the floor suddenly glowed with a soft, ethereal light. He could see the Qi now—a thin, sluggish stream of pale blue energy, meandering through the channels. At the misalignment, it pooled and churned, losing coherence before leaking uselessly into the floorboards. The entire formation was a leaky bucket.
A savage satisfaction bloomed in his chest. Data. Now he had data.
He didn't have the tools or the energy to re-etch the lines. But he could clean the filter. The core crystal.
Following the hazy maintenance ritual from the previous Lin Feng's memories, he placed his hands on the dull grey crystal. The process was simple: channel a trickle of his own Qi into it to dislodge the spiritual grime. It was supposed to be a gentle, careful process.
Lin Feng didn't do gentle. He saw a clogged pipe and applied pressure.
He pushed.
A spike of agony lanced from his dantian, the center of his cultivation base. It felt like trying to start a fire by rubbing two wet sticks together. His Qi Condensation Level 1 reserves were a pathetic puddle. He gritted his teeth, forcing the meager energy out. The crystal resisted, its impurities clinging stubbornly.
[Warning: Host Qi reserves at 15%. Risk of depletion.]
He ignored it. Depletion was a temporary state. Inefficiency was a permanent loss. He pushed harder, his vision spotting at the edges. The crystal began to warm, then grow hot. A faint, black smoke began to seep from its surface.
With a final, mental shove, he felt something give. The black smoke dissipated. The crystal, now clear and faintly luminous, pulsed once. The blue streams of Qi in the formation lines brightened, their flow smoothing out, becoming stronger and more direct.
[Basic Qi-Gathering Formation efficiency increased from 3% to 11%.]
[Capital Score Insight: Asset value increased.]
[Karma Score Insight: None. Action driven by utilitarian necessity.]
A notification, but no Karma reward. The System was a harsh grader. He hadn't done it to be a good grandson or to uphold the family legacy; he'd done it because a broken machine was a waste of resources. The System saw right through him.
Just then, the front door chime tinkled—a weak, pathetic sound.
A young woman stepped inside. She wore a simple disciple's robe, her face pale and etched with a nervous anxiety. In her arms, she carried a small basket containing a few freshly picked, low-grade spirit herbs. Her eyes, wide and earnest, darted around the room before landing on him.
"Y-Young Master Lin?" she stammered. "I... I heard you were unwell. I brought the weekly herb delivery. I know it's not much, but..." She trailed off, her gaze dropping to the floor. "My name is Su Ling. I... I work with the herbs."
The memories supplied her context. Su Ling. An orphan with a minor talent for herbology who supplied their shop with whatever meager finds she could scavenge from the safer parts of the nearby woods. She was paid a pittance, often in leftover tea or food. A liability. A drain on their already crippled resources.
Lin Feng looked at her, then at the paltry herbs in her basket. His initial, instinctive analysis was brutal. Her output was negligible. Her cost, while low, was still a cost. The most efficient action would be to terminate the arrangement. Free up the capital.
He opened his mouth to do just that, to cut this dead weight. The words were on his tongue—a cold, logical dismissal.
A searing, white-hot pain exploded behind his eyes. The System interface flashed a violent, urgent red.
[CRITICAL WARNING!]
[Host intended action: Sever mutually beneficial relationship with low-tier supplier.]
[Dao Heart Analysis: Action demonstrates 'Contempt for the Weak,' 'Callousness,' and 'Utilitarian View of Life.']
[Predicted Karma Loss: Catastrophic.]
[Predicted Outcome: Dao Heart instability will trigger Qi Deviation within 24 hours.]
[SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE ACTION: Acknowledge contribution. Re-negotiate terms for mutual, sustainable benefit.]
Qi Deviation. The very thing that had killed the previous owner. The System wasn't just suggesting; it was threatening him with immediate, physical consequences.
Lin Feng clenched his jaw, the muscles ticking. This was insane. This "Karma" wasn't a spiritual concept; it was a straightjacket. It was forcing him to make bad business decisions.
He took a sharp, controlled breath, forcing the cold dismissal down. It was like swallowing broken glass. He looked at Su Ling, who was shrinking under his intense, silent stare.
"Su Ling," he said, his voice tight. He gestured to the herbs. "Your... contribution is noted."
The words felt alien. She blinked, surprised he even remembered her name.
"The current arrangement is inefficient," he continued, his mind racing, trying to find a loophole, a way to satisfy the System's absurd morality while still advancing his own position. "You risk your safety for a return that does not match the value you could provide."
Her face fell, expecting the dismissal after all.
"Therefore," Lin Feng said, the idea forming like a cold, hard diamond. "We will re-negotiate. From now on, you will be paid one Spirit Stone for every ten units of usable herb you deliver. Not these scraps. I need quality. Silverleaf Grass, Sun-Kissed Roots. Do you understand?"
It was still a brutal deal. Ten high-quality herbs for a single Spirit Stone was exploitation. But it was a structured exploitation. It gave her a clear, if difficult, path to profitability. And more importantly, it wasn't a flat-out termination.
Su Ling's eyes widened. A Spirit Stone? Actual currency? It was more than she had ever been promised. A flicker of hope, fragile but real, ignited in her eyes.
"Y-Yes, Young Master Lin! I understand! I will find better herbs!" she bowed deeply, her previous anxiety replaced by a frantic, determined energy.
[Karma Score Increased!]
[Trait 'Calculated Generosity' has been acknowledged.]
[Trait 'Exploitative Mindset' has been balanced.]
[Dao Heart Stability: 10/100.]
[Reward: Minor Qi replenishment. Host cultivation base stabilized.]
A warm, gentle energy flowed into his dantian, soothing the ache from earlier and solidifying the tenuous grip he had on the Qi Condensation Level 1. The reward was tangible, immediate. The System was bribing him to be a better person.
As Su Ling hurried out, a new fire in her step, Lin Feng stood silently. He had increased an asset's efficiency and secured a more productive, if still grossly unfair, supplier contract. His Capital potential had risen.
And he had been rewarded for not acting like a complete monster.
He looked around the quiet, still-dilapidated teahouse. The battlefield was no longer a boardroom. It was this room, his own psyche, and the bizarre, double-entry ledger of the System. The profit was power. The cost was his very soul.
The audit was complete. The turnaround had begun. And Lin Feng had never felt more constrained, or more intrigued, in his entire life.