NOVEL WEB Chapter 173: soon
A sudden crystalline ding whispered inside his skull.
[System: Join request approved – Immortal Chat Group. Temporary name: "Newcomer‑143."]
Kent very nearly spilled hot coffee onto his toes. "They let me in!" he breathed, clutching the mug to his chest as if it were a trophy.
From the open window of Nima's room, Auri stuck out a ruffled blue‑gray head, eyes still glazed with sleep. "Cheep?" he chirped, more yawn than question.
"Big news," Kent whispered back, tapping frantically at the empty air only he could see. "Time to make some immortal friends."
The system stretched a pale window across his vision, its border shimmering like moonlight on water. Down the left edge marched dozens of small pearl‑shaped avatars, each labeled with an impossibly grand Dao title—Sword‑Turns‑Autumn, Thousand‑Petal Fairy, Nine‑Freeze Scholar, Gold‑Core Carpenter, and a dozen more equally lofty names. Beside the word Temporary Name blinked a lonely cursor.
Kent rubbed the back of his neck. Need a stylish Dao name, he thought. Something that earns respect but doesn't make them suspect I'm just a Level‑C rookie. He typed Sword Immortal.
[Error: Already taken.]
He tried Gentle Sword Immortal.
[Error: Taken.]
Then Phoenix Immortal.
[Error: Taken.]
From the kitchen drifted Nima's singsong call. "Big Bro, sweet‑potato pancakes are ready!"
"Later!" Kent shouted without looking up and kept typing. Billion‑Dollar Immortal? Too showy. Investing Immortal? Boring. A grin tugged at his mouth. Money Immortal—simple, greedy, and easy to remember. He hit Confirm.
[Name set: Money Immortal has joined the chat.]
"Perfect," he murmured, pumping a quiet fist.
Lines of text immediately scrolled into existence:
Sword‑Turns‑Autumn: Welcome, new Dao friend.
Thousand‑Petal Fairy: Ah, a fresh soul. Have tea, please. 🌸
Iron‑Ox Hermit: Hope you brought good stories.
Heart hammering, Kent typed with exaggerated care:
Money Immortal: Greetings, seniors. I wander the lower realms gathering… ahem… fortune energy. Happy to learn at your feet. 🙏
More messages popped like firecrackers:
Nine‑Freeze Scholar: Fortune energy? Interesting pursuit.
Copper‑Silk Daoist: Another merchant? We have a few.
Gold‑Core Carpenter: If you run into rare timber, ping me. Always buying.
Kent chuckled under his breath. They think I'm a traveling tycoon—not bad. He scrolled upward, skimming earlier discussions. To his surprise, the topics bounced wildly: someone traded recipes for three‑step Void Pills; another argued which grade of heavenly crane feathers made the best calligraphy brushes; two elders debated the optimal worlds for raising "seed civilizations" to harvest insight points.
That last phrase struck like a struck match. They cultivate tiny worlds for feelings… just like my SP system harvests emotion. A plan flickered to life at once: bacteria—easy to breed, countless, capable of quick emotional shifts if engineered right.
Before he could ask questions, Nima poked her head around the porch door, a pancake balanced on a spatula like a golden shield. "Field duty, Money Immortal!" she teased, dimples flashing.
Kent laughed, logged out, and wolfed the pancake in three bites. The morning blurred into chores: he and Nima forked compost under Xian Yu's watchful eye while Auri dozed on the fence post, feathers puffed like a sleepy judge. By noon a fresh strip of earth showed green buds, and Kent's mind whirred the whole time, sketching micro‑world schematics behind his eyes.
Need a container. Need a way to provoke tiny creatures into feeling things. Need to convert those feelings into SP, he recited silently, punctuating each shovel of soil.
At lunch they packed into Auntie Zhou's steamy noodle shack, the window glass fogged by chili broth. Kent slurped a mouthful, then ventured carefully, "Grandpa Xian Yu, did old cultivators ever grow spirit herbs inside glass jars—tiny gardens you could hold in one hand?"
The old man's eyebrows rose. "Certainly. Some eccentrics even kept ant colonies in palm‑sized realms to test alchemy flames."
Kent's chopsticks paused mid‑air. "Could a jar hold… creatures even smaller than ants?"
"Bacteria?" Xian Yu laughed, beard twitching. "In theory, yes—if the walls are delicate and you feed them qi‑water. Why?"
Kent shrugged, trying to look casual. "Just a fertilizer experiment." Nima snorted and flicked a bean sprout at his forehead. "Nerd."
Night spread a velvet net across the rooftops. Kent crept to his room, lifted a loose floor plank, and peered into the secret hollow where ten Forsaken disciples knelt like carved shadows. "Same job as last night," he whispered. "Frighten thieves, scare bullies, earn me energy. Remember—no killing." They nodded as one. A single note from his bone whistle sent them slipping into the dark.
He stretched on his cot, opened the system map, and watched colored sparks ripple across the district:
Disciple 04 frightened a loan shark – +130 SP (Terror)
Disciple 06 slapped a corrupt parking officer – +85 SP (Pain)
Disciple 10 exposed a fake charity scam – +140 SP (Shame)
Fuel, glorious fuel. He felt richer than any banker.
Just past midnight he reopened the Immortal Chat. A rapid‑fire auction for stardust pearls raged, bid emojis flying. When the scroll finally slowed, he slipped in a question:
Money Immortal: Esteemed seniors, does anyone sell realm‑glass spheres the size of a fist—strong enough to shelter microscopic life yet porous to qi?
Responses came instantly:
Gold‑Core Carpenter: Realm‑glass spheres? Crafted and blessed. Ten spirit jades each.
Moss‑Roof Granny: Too pricey! I'll part with mine for eight.
Cloud‑Thread Alchemist: Use teardrop gourds—cheaper and compostable.
Kent's brows knit. Spirit jade? He typed:
Money Immortal: I trade in mortal notes. Dollar equivalent?
Gold‑Core Carpenter: 🤔 Call it five thousand dollars each.
Kent whistled softly. After selling loot last week he had fourteen grand tucked in a grease‑stained envelope. Enough for two spheres and cab fare.
Money Immortal: Deal—two spheres. Method of delivery?
Gold‑Core Carpenter: Mark a spatial beacon; I'll drop them through a fog gate in three nights. Payment on arrival. Coordinates attached.
The location plotted itself as a lonely watch‑tower outside town, half‑ruined and long abandoned by any guard. Perfect. Kent agreed, fingers tingling with anticipation.
The chat rolled onward into heavier theory. Heaven‑Mirror Monk lectured on emotional conversion ratios: fear prayers yielded rapid merit but corroded one's aura; joy hymns were slower yet purer. Kent toggled a private notebook window and scribbled:
1. Buy two realm‑glass spheres.
2. Fill with nutrient gel + qi‑water.
3. Introduce engineered bacteria.
4. Alternate heat/cold to swing between hunger and feast.
5. Let system siphon SP from each emotional swing.
If a single microbe's frustration equals even a fraction of an SP, he reasoned, a million microbes per cycle could flood my bar like a busted dam.
But one doubt remained: could unconscious organisms truly feel? He posed it in the chat.
Money Immortal: Seniors, if a being cannot think, can it still emit emotional waves?
Thousand‑Petal Fairy: A sprout basks in sun and shivers at frost. All life feels, however simply. 🌸
Iron‑Ox Hermit: Give them a single urge—hunger, warmth, light—and their response will echo through the void.
Kent's smile spread until his cheeks hurt. Hunger meant frustration; sudden feast meant joy. Two emotions, flip‑flopping forever. An engine.
Near dawn the disciples returned, breathless, robes flecked with city dust. The SP tally blinked a satisfying total: 2,480—nearly double last night's haul. "Excellent," Kent murmured. "Rest." They dissolved like smoke.
Outside, the sky cracked open in a blaze of rose and tangerine. Kent joined Nima at the garden beds, each of them hefting a dented watering can. Dew clustered on the seedling leaves like beads of silver mercy; every droplet caught the sunrise and flared, momentarily brighter than gemstones. Nima rattled on about her newest obsession—almond biscuits stuffed with melon jam—and the stray gray kitten she'd seen by the canal. Kent answered in half‑phrases, content to let her chatter fill the air while a larger melody hummed in his chest: the whistle warm against his palm, the SP counter ticking upward, the promise of realm‑glass spheres drifting through fog in three days' time.
He tipped his can, sending a gentle shower over the emerald shoots. Water struck leaf, rolled, fell, and disappeared into dark soil rich with promise. Each tiny splash gleamed like a coin tossed into a wishing fountain, and Kent, alias Money Immortal, felt certain those coins were only the first layer of fortune waiting to be unearthed.
He lingered a moment longer, watching the water soak into the earth, imagining the roots below twitching in response—just like his microbes would, once the spheres arrived. The morning buzzed with life: sparrows darting from the rooftops, the low hum of distant wagons, Nima giggling as Auri tried to chase his own shadow.
Kent turned slightly, eyes drifting toward the horizon. In three days, the first piece of his new empire would arrive. Not gold, not weapons, but glass—the vessel of a future only he could see.
He whispered, "Let's grow a world no one ever dreamed of."