Li Luo, a Windfall

From the three thousand-odd Spirit Crystals in hand, Lu Yuan set five hundred aside for tempering his Gene Chain and fed the remaining two thousand-plus entirely into the Evolution Cube.

The cube stirred to life with a deep blue glow — richer and deeper than the first time he'd seen it, yet still short of what he'd need to evolve Black Iron Body.

He wasn't in any rush.

Navigating inside the dungeon was no easy thing. Fortunately, the forum post he'd read alongside the dungeon map had covered exactly this problem. Within the dungeon, air quality was surprisingly decent throughout, but airflow only picked up noticeably in one direction — toward the exit. And there was a plant down here with a powerful wind-seeking instinct, always growing in whichever direction the air moved fastest.

Find the plant. Follow its growth. Find your way out.

Lu Yuan searched the nearby tunnels and quickly found what he was looking for: a small purple plant in a corner, pressed flat against the wall, creeping steadily in one direction.

He smiled and followed it.

As he made his way toward the exit, scanning for more wind-seeking grass along the route, he noticed the beasts thinning out. Occasionally he glimpsed other Gene Warrior teams in the distance. Not everyone in the dungeon was there to hunt — trading materials was a perfectly viable way to earn Spirit Crystals and work on Gene Chain tempering. Business had its own kind of appeal.

When groups from different races clashed, backing your own kind was the unwritten rule of the dungeon — an understood courtesy that held for humans, cat-kin, elves, and gnolls alike. Out here, racial bonds ran that much tighter than they did on the surface. Every team of Gene Warriors he passed eyed the lone figure coming down the tunnel with immediate wariness, only relaxing once he'd moved on.

After a while, Lu Yuan finally found the exit.

The moment he stepped outside, a cutting wind slammed into him. He shivered.

Night. A deep darkness spread across the desert, the wind sharp as a blade. But above, the sky blazed with stars, silver light pouring down over the sand — enough to keep the world from feeling wholly black.

Even at this hour, the small open-air market clustered around the dungeon exit was buzzing. Gene Warriors who'd finished their day's work were hawking their hauls before heading home.

*"Buying materials! Common grade, elite grade, all welcome! Bulk preferred! Satisfaction guaranteed!"*

*"Gene Armaments for sale! Prices negotiable!"*

*"Late-night stall right here! Roasted scorpion, roasted ant legs, stir-fried spider — come get it while it's hot!"*

Lu Yuan noticed that every single vendor was human. Not one gnoll, cat-kin, or elf among them. He turned it over in his mind. Cat-kin seemed to operate through their own internal distribution channels, distinct from the other three races. Elves were too proud to man a roadside stall. And plenty of Gene Warriors had signed contracts with corporations — some of these vendors might simply be fulfilling assigned duties rather than freelancing.

Whatever the reason, he wasn't here to linger. He made his way toward the loudest stall he could hear.

The vendor was a young human man. The moment he spotted Lu Yuan approaching, his eyes brightened and a broad, easy smile spread across his face.

"Sir, looking to sell materials?"

"Of course." Lu Yuan dumped a heap of items onto the stall.

The young man's eyes swept the pile. "Quite a haul. Looks like a good run."

"Check the prices."

He began sorting through the materials methodically. "Stone Man's Heart, two Spirit Crystals each. Scorpion tail stinger, three each. Spider silk bundles, three and a half each…" He tallied the numbers. "Comes out to 1,139.5 altogether. I'll round up to an even 1,140 — how does that sound?"

Before coming here, Lu Yuan had looked up current market prices in the Land of Origin. This young man was being completely square — highest prices going.

"Works for me."

"My name's Li Luo. May I ask your name, sir?"

"Lu."

"Mr. Lu — could I ask you to wait a moment?"

Lu Yuan glanced over with mild curiosity. "Something wrong?"

"I can see you're flying solo," Li Luo said, leaning in slightly. "Haul this size, your strength must be considerable. Here's the thing — I'm a materials dealer under Linglong Trading Company. Monthly quotas, you understand how it is. What I'm proposing is this: if you come to me every time you have materials to sell, I'll guarantee you the highest market rate, every single time. You won't find a better deal anywhere else."

Lu Yuan turned it over. Selling to whoever he found was fine either way, but having a familiar dealer to go straight to — no shopping around, no haggling from scratch — had its own appeal.

Then it clicked: *that's* why this young man had offered such fair prices right off the bat. He'd been trying to land a regular client from the start.

"Fine," Lu Yuan said, after a moment's thought. "As long as I'm in this dungeon, I'll bring my materials to you."

Li Luo's smile went even brighter.

"Mr. Lu, I hope we can keep working together! Oh — do you have a communication crystal? We should exchange contact info."

"I haven't gotten around to buying one yet."

"Then just come straight here whenever you want to sell. I'm basically always at this stall."

He slid the Spirit Crystals across with a grin.

Lu Yuan was pocketing them and about to leave when Li Luo called after him. "Thanks to you, Mr. Lu — I think my sales figures are really going to improve."

"If you want to thank me," Lu Yuan said, "give me more Spirit Crystals."

"Ahaha — Mr. Lu, you're too funny. I've already given you the absolute ceiling of what I'm authorized to offer. Any higher and I'd be out of a job."

"…"

Lu Yuan smiled to himself and said nothing more.

Having a familiar dealer really was more convenient than hunting for a buyer every time.

He added the 1,140 Spirit Crystals from the sale to the remainder he'd kept on hand, and his total came to 1,387. He was satisfied with that.

He should probably get a communication crystal at some point. Without one, he had no way to reach anyone if he needed to.

As for evolving Black Iron Body — the Evolution Cube still didn't have enough stored energy, but he wasn't worried. He'd already decided not to rush it.

He'd thought it through carefully. His current Black Iron Body had been witnessed by quite a few people by now. If he evolved it while still at the probationer stage — before he'd even engraved a second gene — and his combat technique suddenly changed, it would look wrong. A probationer with no second gene on record, yet an entirely different technique? That would draw precisely the kind of attention he didn't want.

Better to wait until first-rank. Evolve then, and publicly claim it as the Transcendent Gene obtained at second engraving. The change would seem perfectly natural — someone who'd just inscribed a boss-tier Transcendent Gene at first-rank was exceptional, yes, but not unheard of. Hardly anything to raise an alarm over.

Meanwhile, he could quietly engrave a second gene in secret, and no one would be the wiser.

He'd also noticed the pattern: every gene evolution necessarily changed the Gene Battle Technique.

*With a dual boss-tier Transcendent Gene behind it — how powerful would that make him?*

The thought bordered on terrifying.

But one thing was absolute. No one could ever find out about his gene evolution ability. Being recognized as a prodigy was one thing. But gene evolution was something else entirely — too extraordinary, too dangerous. If word got out, he'd have a target on his back.

The shadow was still out there, somewhere. It had gone quiet since their encounter, but the silence wasn't reassuring — it sat in the back of his mind like a splinter he couldn't reach. The only real answer was to get stronger. Strong enough that the unknown stopped feeling like a threat.

With less than two months until the college entrance exam, his cultivation level was still nowhere near where it needed to be.

He had to push harder.

So he kept at it.

Day after day in the dungeon — hunting, collecting, tempering. After absorbing Spirit Crystals until his body hit its limit, he'd rest, eat something, and go right back in. His efficiency climbed steadily as his strength grew. The beasts in the dungeon's outer zones no longer posed any real challenge; he moved through them freely, every encounter ending in his favor with barely any cost.

His powerful defense and his inexhaustible spirit power — the twin pillars of his Guardian type — meant he could simply steamroll everything in his path. Five, six hundred kills a day, every day.

He was selective about what he picked up. He killed roughly twice as many beasts as he actually collected from, prioritizing high-value items that were easy to carry. Even so, his battle-mark space filled up fast enough that he had to surface and sell every single day.

The numbers were remarkable even to him. Spirit Crystals alone: over 1,500 per day. With materials factored in, his effective daily haul translated to more than 2,600 Spirit Crystals' worth.

This cultivation speed — if anyone else knew, it would probably stop their heart.

The second day he came out to sell, Li Luo blinked when he saw him.

"Mr. Lu? What can I do for you?"

"Selling materials, obviously."

Lu Yuan set down his pile. Li Luo stared at it, then at him.

"Your haul today is *also* this much?! Your strength is really something. Let me count it up… 1,120 Spirit Crystals total."

Lu Yuan nodded, pocketed them, and headed back into the dungeon.

On the third day, Li Luo's eyes went wide the moment the pile landed on his stall.

"Are all of these… from a single day's kills?"

He gave Lu Yuan a long, searching look, then got to work counting.

"1,100 Spirit Crystals."

"…"

Three days. Lu Yuan's total Spirit Crystal count had climbed to 6,643.

Spirit Crystals were technically convertible to cash — the going market rate outside ran between 150 and 200 yuan per crystal. At the floor price of 150, three days of work translated to just under a million: 997,000-something yuan.

Not that he'd ever consider selling. For any Gene Warrior worth the title, Spirit Crystals were far more valuable than money. You'd have to be truly desperate to make that trade.

The Evolution Cube pulsed with its deep blue glow, richer than ever — the thousands of crystals he'd poured into it showing in the depth of the light. His Gene Chain tempering had pushed through to 14%. From the latest haul, he'd set 500 aside for continued tempering and funneled the remaining two thousand-plus into the cube. The couple hundred left over he kept as a spirit power buffer.

He really did need to look into a communication crystal one of these days.

Since the ant nest battle, the full weight of the Guardian type had stopped being theoretical. He felt it now, from the inside — the impenetrable defense, the spirit power that simply didn't run dry. In the dungeon, he was an unstoppable force. The outer zones were his to roam freely.

The shadow was still out there, silent. Still a splinter. There was only one answer to that — keep getting stronger.

He would.